Witherspring Wilds
The wilds are dangerous, but also bountiful. Only a few humans arrived in this new world, but you’re all ready to make it your home and start a new village. Taming these lands is not for you alone, but for those that come after as well. There’s far too much to do in one lifetime.
Witherspring Wilds is an open world life sim that goes beyond any you have seen before. With boundless options - farming, mining, crafting, building, combat, exploration, alchemy, creature taming and more - how will you shape the world?
There’s no right or wrong way to play - if you want to experience Witherspring Wilds as a cozy farming game, you can. If you want to play it as an action packed exploration open world, you can. And if you want to focus on making connections, there are NPCs to befriend, handle jobs for you, fight alongside you and even romance.
Have suggestions? Or want to chat?
Features
- Build - Build and customize your home and village. You can even create your own store to sell to NPCs (and visit stores NPCs have built).
- Befriend - You can befriend and trade with NPCs, but also give them jobs like watering your crops or building your house. You can adventure together and deepen your bonds, become best friends or even get married and have kids.
- Explore - Different biomes have vastly different plants, animals and materials. Some regions even have higher star levels for higher quality materials but also more dangerous enemies.
- Craft - Create delicious meals, improved tools, clothes, armor, potions, magic wands and more!
- Fight - Use swords, bows and magic wands to defend yourself from dangerous creatures and hunt powerful bosses.
- Tame - Any natural creature can be tamed and will have various benefits as a pet - from riding Goxen to having a Cattern defend you in battle.
- Farm - Cultivate wild plants and trees to stockpile food and materials.
- Mine - Mine inside mountains to find ores, caves and mushrooms.
And so much more!
Who are We?
We’re Fancy Fish Games - a small indie team that has released 16 games, 8 commercially on Steam, since 2012. We follow our passion, making games that catch our fancy - our games tend to be quirky, surprising or thought-provoking.
Download
Development log
- Bugfix Update 0.2.910 days ago
- Tutorial & QoL Update 0.2.814 days ago
Comments
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Finally finished year one! Been busy with school stuff. This game is so amazing!
Quick questions--- are obsidian tools supposed to be weaker than copper? How often do 'greater' creatures spawn? And is it alright to use older version saves with the new update?
Apologies for the rapid-fire questions >.<. May everyone have a great day!
I'm glad you're enjoying the game!
Obsidian tools are weaker than bronze, but they never expire (so it's kind of a tradeoff). Obsidian is also much more common than copper (once you have a pick strong enough to mine it), so that's part of the reason it's weaker.
Greater creatures have a 5% chance to spawn in no-star biomes (which is all that exists in the demo), but there's a guaranteed one of each type in arenas.
Old saves will be compatible with future versions. Areas you've explored won't re-generate, so any changes to those areas won't transfer over to old saves (for example, the goxen arena wont spawn in saves from before I added it), but the majority of the world will spawn around the demo area, so you won't miss out on much.
Oof-- I may need to restart then. I explored all of the available area before the update </3. I'll try to get all achievements first!
Thank you for the speedy reply and amazing game ^^. Ah- will you be adding generations to the demo or will it only be available in the full game?
I'm hoping not to add too many changes to the demo area, instead adding more to the inaccessible areas around the demo so that it's not a big deal if you import an old save - but if you want everything like the Goxen Arena (it's like the cattern and afowl ones), you can restart.
Generations and having kids will not be available in the demo, as it requires meeting the goddess of fertility.
Ah, figures! Gotta save up soon ^^ I'm trying to reach past the current age limit--- love the game! Thank you for your time and crafts, can't wait for the next updates.
I am absolutely addicted. This game is great!
I have to ask…can you make cheese in the demo?
I'm glad you're enjoying the game! You cannot make cheese yet - but you will eventually be able to make it in the demo, I just need to add a cask structure you can put milk in.
OK! I’m glad I’m just not missing something. I think the only thing left is the 2 star spellcasting , but I’m scared there are no rubies in my randomizer seed…I’m on like year 4 winter and I haven’t seen one yet. Have any hints on how to get those?
Rubies can only be found in obsidian, and will require a perfect-quality bronze pickaxe to mine (since you can't make steel in the demo). It'd probably be easier to get the sapphire in the chest guarded by the swampjaws in the southern river.
Yep got the sapphire from the south. Got the perfect quality pick. I’ve even got two emeralds…just can’t get that ruby. I’ve got an Obsidian farm that would make a dwarf jealous…I tried planting obsidian seeds near lava, in different biomes. Heck I’ve even used a combination of the bridges and the freeze wand to explore the deep waters to the east. Sounds like my number just hasn’t come up yet. Is there a set % of a gemstone appearing or is that based on the random seed? EDIT: Apparently All I had to do was complain: I just got a Ruby today, a little bit of arson later and I’m 100%
Rubies have the same spawn chance as emeralds - both are rare, but it sounds like the RNG gods just weren't favoring you until now. Since you have an emerald wand too, try using it to blow on fires made with the ruby wand...
Fairly fun game and lots of potential, but I agree with the others that early game is kinda miserable. I’ve not tried the new update with tutorials, so maybe that helps, and I’ve only had one “play through” but the whole time it felt like it would get really interesting any minute, but never did. I realize we’re very early in development, so I hope you don’t take this as too strong of a criticism.
I had no idea how necessary endurance would be when building my character and didn’t put any points into it, when I should have put every point into it. The entire first season I spent going and cutting down one or two trees or mining a couple pieces of stone until I was out of stamina, sleeping again before 8am, then repeating and adding any points I might earn into endurance. By the time I was able to reliably keep myself fed and build a small shelter, the NPCs almost all had their houses built already and there wasn’t anything left for me to do. I don’t know what the solution to this would be, maybe increasing base stamina or adding an early game food source that gives you a decent amount. If I’d built my character better this wouldn’t have been an issue, but I don’t think you should be able to build what looks like a reasonable character to someone new to the game but it be completely useless.
Another complaint is I feel like the time of things doesn’t fit really well. Level-ups come really fast, crops grow really fast, seasons change really fast, skills can be leveled really fast, but then research takes 30 days. Even though I could barely get anything done for the first season and I still would be asleep by noon on most days after then, I was able to complete the majority of the content available in the demo before the end of the first year and was just sleeping away the days to unlock my first research. I think the rest of the gameplay needs slowed down, or research needs sped up.
Only bug I’ve encountered is that goxen frequently seem to become immune to attacks from my sword and I have to hit them with my beam attack, which can also be a bit finicky at times. Don’t know if I could hit them with a bow in that state, never tried it
The latest update was meant to address a lot of those comments - it explains the stats and suggests a build with 5-6 endurance for new players, and adds a lot of tutorial and qol stuff to make the early game less difficult. I also reduced the amount of time to research things - as I want things to move relatively quickly (this game is meant to take place over multiple generations, so years have to fly by haha).
Goxen are never immune to attacks, but I might want to Increase the hitbox - as the axe has to be pretty close right now to hit it.
Goxen would certainly become immune to my attacks somewhat frequently. I could hit them one or two times and then further attacks wouldn’t register at all. I could walk up to the point I took damage from touching them, but still nothing happened when I attacked, and I could go to another goxen in the area and kill it no problem. It would happen to maybe 1/4 of them
Have you had any issues in the latest update (0.2.9)? It should be fixed (goxen have a larger hitbox, and the axe can hit enemies at any point during the swing animation, not just one frame of it).
I love. LOVE the game. I can't wait for the next demo update!
Quick question. How much will the full game be? Also, Adrian was noted to love chili, but in the downloaded version, he hates it... I suppose it's just a bug for the downloaded one? Since he loves it when I play it on Chrome.
That's awesome! The next update should be tomorrow - it has a lot of QoL and tutorial stuff!
I haven't decided how much the full game will be yet. And yes, the chili bug is only in the downloadable version - it was not handling a null value properly, that'll be fixed in the next update.
Oh! That's so neat. I can't wait |^ ^)/
I'll have to save up then--- USD is pretty high in my country rn.
Okay, a particularly weird bug; I had finished surviving the year and continued to play the game, and a couple or so days into spring, I tried cooking multiple chickens using the generic "cook any meat" option, but what I got was.. weird. Some of the returns were cooked chicken, but I also got "Cooked Meat" a couple of times out of I think 4 chickens, which had no data for what it did, and it had the steak sprite, but one was silver quality while the other was gold.
My pets would not eat it, I dared not try and cook it or eat it, thinking it was an error item that may mess things up if I did.
I promise I did not take any transmutation lessons in the game XD.
This is a known bug caused by batch cooking with some items having higher quality than others. I have a fix ready, and it'll be live in the next update.
Awesome!
I will try and let the game remove them by dumping them out into the world and letting them disappear, if they can.
Since they are a fake item, that won't let them disappear - but it will once I post the update (so you can get rid of them).
I've noticed some oddities if you place crops next to doors. They won't be watered by rain and can only be harvested while standing in the door. Also if there was a way to mark tiles within a farm area as not to be planted and/or for a specific crop when getting an NPC to tend your farm that would be useful. (Eg. The corners of the area around blueberry bushes)
Ah, if you plant a crop right in front of a door, that actually counts as indoors (hence why the roof disappears when you stand there). I'm not sure how important this is tho - as why would you plant a crop right in front of your door?
You can mark multiple areas you want (the minimum cost is based on the size of the region, so it's more or less the same cost for a few small areas vs one big one if you want an irregular shape). It'd be complicated to exclude individual tiles, but I could just add a rule for no planting crops in the corners around trees/blueberry bushes.
Forgot I meant to reply. The indoors thing makes sense. I've got my farms in a fenced in area wrapped around the side of my main house accessed through a back and side door. Also at some point after my initial post the NPC who was maintaining my farms stopped accepting quests until I tried to directly give the job at which point she immediately teleported to my farm and started working again.
Huh, I wonder why? Maybe she was busy with something else? If she'll accept the quest if you give it to her directly, then she'll take the quest when she checks the questboard, but it's possible she never got a chance before it got too late.
Hi, this is in regards to my mystery about Iris being missing; I started a game file I loaded, and it was morning so I ran fast to Iris's house, she was there, seemed fine, but then she was hurt, Sally was obscured by a tree but she was hurting Iris!
I have a theory that Sally's taming collar was broken by Iris by accident because of the enemies I had dragged to her home in a fight, because I was not there as I stated as I had ran off.
Would you like me to send you the save file so you can see it for yourself?
Sure - send me the save file, and any steps needed after loading to see it happening (you can e-mail it to david.m@fancyfishgames.com)
Sent!
Hello, bug report. I had played a game for several days, one morning I tried saving but this time it crashed to this error report:
com/fancyfish/faeng/ModHandler.hx:400: Enable Mod: Core
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
world/Object.hx:206: Warning: 'event:/sfx/ambience/ambience_biome' is not 3D!
QuotaExceededError: Failed to execute 'setItem' on 'Storage': Setting the value of 'Witherspring Wilds_save_slot2' exceeded the quota.
Called from module QuotaExceededError: Failed to execute 'setItem' on 'Storage': Setting the value of 'Witherspring Wilds_save_slot2' exceeded the quota.
Called from kha_LocalStorageFile.write (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 59114 column 11)
Called from com_fancyfish_faeng_adv_AdvApp.setSave (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 20089 column 40)
Called from Main.saveGame (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 24025 column 34)
Called from MyEventHandler.onComplete (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 91567 column 70)
Called from MyEventHandler.handleNext (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 5030 column 9)
Called from MyEventHandler.start (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 4416 column 8)
Called from com_fancyfish_faeng_adv_AdvApp.runEvent (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 20397 column 5)
Called from world_GameState.runEvent (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 110895 column 34)
Called from .save (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 91566 column 9)
Called from com_fancyfish_faeng_ui_Prompt.doClose (https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/17453848/kha.js line 1894 column 4)
It looks like your save file (slot 2) is larger than your browser is willing to store - it varies per browser, but there's nothing I can really do on my end. You can export the save and re-import it by dragging it into the browser window, or try to increase the quota (even large saves I've seen are less than 100kb, and quotas are supposed to be 5+ mb, but maybe your browser is more restrictive?
Thank you, I will see what I can do.
I just tried exporting both the auto-save and the manual save for that particular game.
Peculiarly, the auto-save and manual save were both 57kb for the auto and 55kb for the manual.
When I exported the manual secondly after the auto, an odd thing was the file downloaded to the bottom of my download folder list, which was set to listing by date modified, but both have the proper date on them, not sure if that would help any.
I am going to check on my quota setting, and also stick to the first save game world/save and see if it does it again.
That sounds like a pretty normal save file size, and should be well within the default quota for most browsers. Worst case, you can always try the downloadable version.
Thank you.
Something I realize is I should note I had youtube on another tab (I was using Edge) and watching videos, would that possible cause a problem?
On another note, I have an interesting "Murder Mystery" for you; I had continued the first game file and went around, eventually going to a big nest of chicken monsters and getting eggs then running away from them towards Iris's house. I got away far enough but I thought perhaps they started a fight near her home, but I was unsure.
Next day I eventually go to Iris to give her a gift, and I find a slew of wood on the ground near the house as if a tree was chopped, or they were dumped, along with a single tooth, and Iris was gone.
Sally was around but angry and I was forced to flee.
I almost thought Another villager south of my home was gone too but after sleeping, he was there the next day, but Iris was not to be found, subsequent days gone by and she was never home.
Can villagers be killed permanently by such a monster incursion? Or might this be an odd bug?
Villagers can be killed, but not permanently (death revives them the next day). I need to make this clearer by adding a gravestone where the NPC dies and you can ask Death about it there. Iris should re-appear the next day, unless she dies again (if a lot of afowl make nests in her territory and attack her as soon as she awakens, it's possible). I'd watch her location (in the relationships tab), and if you go to her location and there's nothing there, she died that day.
The error has to do with your save file quota, not memory, so it can't have anything to do with other tabs being open. But, I did realize that the quota is set per domain - in this case itch.io. So I don't get 5-10mb for Witherspring Wilds, itch.io gets 5-10 mb for all browser games and site cookies total - if you play a lot of games on itch.io, that could easily fill up! A simple solution would be to play on a site other than itch.io (like our homepage), or to clear cookies on itch.io to reset your quota (but beware, this will delete ALL your save files across all games on itch.io, so make sure to back saves up before you clear cookies).
How do I study at the reaserch desk? Rly confused? Is there an action I need to do
You just need to select the research item you want to research - then it will progress every day. Unless it says no research selected, you're all set, just go to sleep haha.
Found the game really fun, played until summer 9, would have kept playing if i found out how to import my saves, there is a button to export, but nowhere to import
things that happened:
Sally the crocodile pet disappeared (both it and it's nest are no longer there, would have send a print if i could import my save)
There is a way to push the planted seeds by dropping things from the inventory, i accidentally pushed a plant to the boundary of 2 blocks, and it ended up planted on the other square on the next day
You can import saves by dragging the .gensav file into the game window - I'll add a note about this in the next update.
I'll change it so seeds aren't movable, that does seem like a problem! I wonder what happened to sally, are you sure she's not hiding in the pond? It's possible she died - but if so, Iris should probably say something! Mind sending me your save (e-mail it to david.m@fancyfishgames.com)?
Thanks for telling how to import the save
(gonna send the save, but here a screenshot, that is the only dialog that mentions sally, and I remember she saying it wile sally was still there)
I loaded your save, and as expected, she died of old age as she randomly spawned really old. I'm gonna change it so she always starts young in new saves - that should fix it!
I... Hate how much I like this game...
some suggestions, although do keep in mind that I'm only at my first winter and I progress somwhat slow, so maybe its already in the game or planned and i haven't encountered it.
1: The ability to rotate furniture items.
2: Stairs and the ability to build up a level for your house or buildings.
perhaps more active NPC's? it does feel wierd that I have a stone house and most workbenches, and multiple farms while some of them do nothing but sit in their wooden house all day. seeing how much progress Hughes made, for example, I was half expecting all of the NPC's to progress like him within their interested fields. but once the NPC's get a house, they mostly just stay inside all day. Riley and the Tamer (Iris?) being the exception. although maybe I have to help them at the start in order for them to do more on their own. or maybe because I'm playing on a bad laptop, the code will only have a few NPC's do things so there is less running in the background? I don't know...
fun game though, I dislike how much I like it.
There's no need to hate liking a game! That just means it's fun (yay)!
1. Which furniture specifically would you like to be able to rotate? It'd be a little tricky to rotate crafting stations with the crafting animation, but I could certainly see rotating bookshelves.
2. This is a planned feature, although probably not soon.
I'm still working on the NPC logic (and relationship stuff) - the reason you see Riley out and about is because the farming logic is one of the few that is done. You do have to complete quests with them to help them unlock higher levels in their skills, but they should be able to do basic tasks, and barring that, wander around instead of staying home all day!
When I made the comment, I was thinking everything, but yeah, I can see how it would be difficult, I'd assume you would have to redraw all of the sprites and animations, but tables, beds, bookshelves, and all of the purely decorative furniture items would be nice. (I know beds aren't decorative.) Id also like to see a dedicated pause button at some point.
Iris, (the Tamer) and Riley, (the farmer) are the only ones I see ever actually leave their house and do something. but could they die randomly? I remember I was looking for Iris at one point and couldn't find her at all, or her pet, I assumed she died, only for her to be there the next morning. I only mention this because maybe its a bug? characters disappearing randomly for a whole day?
Yeah, the sprites would need to be redrawn (and the player would need sleeping directions to rotate beds). But I think beds, tables, and bookshelves are worth rotating - maybe a few more.
NPCs can die, and they revive the next day same way you do - I'm thinking of adding a gravestone where you can ask death about it to make it clearer.
I'm almost to the first winter and so far it's good. Also the browser version runs fine on mobile but it requires you to connect a keyboard to your device to actually play effectively. (I've been using an old Bluetooth one)
I'm glad you're enjoying the game! Yeah, I haven't added touchscreen support, so you need a keyboard or gamepad (or on screen gamepad) to play on mobile.
I'm playing the demo and the game is so much fun. I'm a little confused though on how to get across the rivers. I saw in the screenshots you can build a bridge or something?
You can build a bridge once you have 2 construction stars and researched engineering 1, but there's an easier way: the river freezes in the winter and you can just cross the ice.
Find the cairn up there during the winter, and you'll be able to teleport back there even after the ice melts.
Thank you so much! I also used the rope on both sides of the mountain and was able to get down lol. I'm really enjoying this game more than i thought i would. I love the art style of the sprites and the animations. Really looking forward to more content updates and the release.
That was smart to use two ropes - as usually the mountain top overhangs the river (intentionally so there's a nice river cave). I'm glad you're enjoying the game, let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions as we move forward!
got stuck in the change controls tab trying to change the tool, then every time I tried to press something else it would just change the tool button to whatever I pressed and not do anything, couldn't leave the menu or anything
To change a control, select what you want to change, then hit the key you want to change it to (it sounds like you already did this as it changed the tool button). Afterwards, you MUST hit okay - if you hit cancel it will undo any changes you made while the control window was open, and if you hit reset, it will reset all controls to defaults.
Really awesome game!
Initially it was hard to start but I liked the progression after 4 hours. I'm on Fall 10 and have Level 2 in over half the skills. Favorite moment was taming the Goxen!
I'm glad you're enjoying it! I'm definitely blind to how the game plays as a new player since I've tested it so much - it seemed fine to me, but a lot of players had issues with the controls at first, but I'm glad you figured it out. I know what my next update is going to be.
The goxen are indeed a lot of fun - especially being able to fight while riding them!
Wow I didn't expect a reply. I wanted to say it's really enjoyable to figure out the hidden mechanics. Like the temperature meter, and wearing trapper hat to prevent cold damage. Also, it took me a while to figure out certain items spoil (didn't realize what the hourglass meant), I kept suspecting the afowls were stealing my food leading to multiple exterminations lol
Some questions on my mind:
Is there a way to mine the ore inside obsidian rocks right now?
Is riding swampjaw to explore water maps a planned feature?
Some observations:
1. After taming the Greater Cattern, its nest was still near the chest. The next day I went to look for the pet and noticed I couldn't open the chest even after moving my tamed pet outside the area. After I moved the nest, the next day there was no issue.
2. 2 hats named Trapper Hat
3. It's possible to hit over 1sq of wall with sword to cheese enemies.
Looking forward to the next update or early release on Steam to try out more stuff like magic/alchemy. Currently the mobs are too easy so not a lot of incentive to do the research grind.
I do like when players discover things for themselves and too much tutorial can be annoying and feel like handholding, but I do think being clearer about some things (like the hourglass icon) is a good idea.
You can mine ore inside obsidian rocks with a higher quality bronze pickaxe (see the crafting section of the encyclopedia for tips to increase quality). When you unlock refining and smithing 2, you can attempt to upgrade the quality of your bronze pick too. This is definitely late-stage for the demo tho.
Riding a swampjaw is not going to be a thing - I thought about it, but decided you could tame them too early to be a water mount and made them too small to support the player. There will be a water mount later game tho!
Strange - as soon as you tame the cattern, the chest should unlock, but maybe there's a bug? I'll look into it.
Yes - the two hats look different and unlock for two different skills, but they are functionally the same. There's also two hard hats (with 14 skills, it's hard to come up with unique hats for each one haha).
I should probably have the sword check if there's a wall in the way - although I have to be careful as otherwise people will get frustrated if they feel like they should hit, but it fails as it clips a wall.
I'm glad you're looking forward to the game, and there will definitely be much more dangerous enemies as you get farther away from the demo area.
Woah, thanks for the guide!! I'll look into upgrading my pickaxe next.
For the greater cattern, the chest did immediately unlock. I left the area, then came back the next day, and there was my tamed cattern plus an egg. I picked up the egg and couldn't unlock the chest. I moved the nest and next day I was able to open it again.
Really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the game, keep up the good work!
Hmm, I just followed your steps:
I tamed the cattern, the chest lock disappeared. I confirmed I could open the chest, but also reloaded and tried not touching the chest at first, same result.
I went to bed, when I woke up the next morning, there was an egg, I collected it. The lock still didin't appear.
I opened the chest with no issues.
Was the lock visible on the chest? And what did it say when you tried to open it?
Seems like a pretty cool game, gonna give it a try
This game is actually amazing. Really. I can't help but keep playing it all the time when i have my pc close
Its really the best
WE GOT ISEKAID
Very cool game, many possibilities, I like it.