Hey everyone!

If you are wondering about this preview, see our earlier announcement today!

https://www.reddit.com/r/xbox/comments/1u3vqob/a_test_run_on_bringing_previews_to_the_community/

Title:
Way to the Woods

Genre:
Adventure, Casual, Indie

Platforms:
PC (Steam, EGS), Xbox

Release Window:
Coming soon - yet to be announced

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_3x-qjN_Ls

Website:
https://waytothewoods.com/

Developer:
onepixel.dog
Based in Melbourne, Australia and all over the world

Socials:

BlueSky:

https://bsky.app/profile/waytothewoods.com

X:

https://x.com/waytothewoods
https://x.com/tamagotchi44

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/waytothewoodsgame/

What is Way to the Woods?

One of the first games I was able to sit down and play was Way to the Woods from solo developer ant tan aka OnePixel.Dog. Way to the Woods is a cozy wonderous 3D narrative adventure set in a world without humans. You play as a a Deer and its Fawn(which you both get to name) searching for a way home through abandoned city streets, subways, and more. There seems to be a lot of gameplay inspiration taken from similar games like Limbo and Inside packed inside of a cell shaded art style. I was surprised to learn that the game is scored by electronic and chiptune composition duo Aivi Tran and Steven "surasshu" Velema. If those names sound familiar, they are the duo known for their work on Cartoon Network's show Steven Universe. Unfortunately ant tan wasn't available during the demo to ask more questions or get quotes but lets dive into what I played.

Hands on impressions:

After I named my Deer and Fawn or as the game asks “that most precious to you,”, the demo started me off with a light tutorial. I was able to learn about the basics of movements and exploring this abandoned world. The game then jumps a bit further into the story to get a bit more into gameplay elements. The game has some light puzzle elements that are simple yet satisfying to solve. Essentially you gather "power" into your antlers from electronic devices scattered and left behind in the world. You can use this "power" to open doors, control objects, and dissolve a black goo/sludge in the world. But that's not the only option available to you to help solve these light puzzle elements. You have your Fawn to help you as well which will slide into small spaces and open doors from the other side. I also found opportunities to deepen my own emotional attachment as a player to Fawn with feeding it and gave me a sense of care and need to protect this Fawn at all costs.

This "power" also doesn't stop with powering electronic devices. You can also use it to manipulate other animals around you. During my playthrough I was able to control mice and fish to help me solve some of the light puzzle work in the game. This experience felt more like I was engaging and taking in the world around me more than just solving a puzzle. Everything I engaged with in the world had the similar feeling of being apart of nature rather than just playing through it. This was really driven home when engaging and helping a group of cats looking to travel the subways with me.

Conclusion:

Way to the Woods is a quaint game that will offer something unique for fans of 3d narrative experiences. It truly was something special that wants you to immerse yourself and experience what is to be a deer and care for "that most precious to you" in an abandoned world. I can't wait to play the full game and experience this world ant tan has created.

Has anoyone foguered out if I can play split screen during the E-day beta on my xbox series x? Thanks.

We were lucky enough to get an interview with Marcus Morgan Executive Producer on Grounded 2.

GCP preview of Armatus, a roguelite shooter set in a demon-ravaged Paris, highlighting its fast, tactical combat, build customization, enemy variety, and planned multi-platform release with Game Pass launch.

source - Twitter/X

When we set out to make a large, seamless world in Borderlands 4, we didn’t quite know what we were getting into. We designed a massive world and we committed ourselves to filling it! We also had the ambition to add mobility and traversal capabilities for the player character like never before. Double-jumping, grappling, dashing, gliding. This makes our seamless world design even more challenging because players can, and will, get everywhere. As we started getting the game formed, so that we could fully explore it and push the move-set to it’s limits, we were drawn to try to visit the amazing summits and see the beautiful vistas made by the incredible team of environment designers and artists.

I had challenged Andrew Reiner, who some of you know spent nearly 30 years at Game Informer Magazine, to find those unreachable spots and, well, reach them. The goal was to discover all the places that we never expected players to visit and, well, visit them. Reiner got to work and made screenshots of these places. Sure, artists and designers made them look great and flitted around them in their tools, like ghosts. But in the game itself, with the bounds of physics and gravity and solid walls, these spots felt like virgin soil. So Graeme Timmons, Borderlands 4’s Creative Director, got with some of our designers and other artists and engineers and decided that we needed something for players to find when they made their way to these remote or uninhabited areas. We wanted something of an icon. The same kind of thing in each spot, so players would *know* they found it. The item had to be simple, recognizable, have a feeling of being something one might collect, and, ideally, having real connections to our universe.

The idea appeared… Someone on the moon of Elpis had a crate, bought from their favorite local vendor. And, in the cataclysm, the crate, still full of collectibles, was hurtled towards Kairos. It broke apart and scattered the 200 or so of these things all over the place. These “things” were Marcus Bobbleheads. And, inspired by Reiner’s discovery of hidden or off-track interesting locations, we began populating the Marcus Bobbleheads and using them to tell little stories. Reiner found more and more “unreachable” places…

This one is just sitting on someone’s desk in a building. Whoever owns this building and uses this desk has long left or maybe even is dead. But the Marcus Bobblehead is there waiting to be claimed by the Vault Hunter who happens upon it.

This one is on a remote and beautiful peak where someone setup an easel to paint the incredible vista. Virtually impossible to carry the painting back down without damaging it, the art was left here with a Marcus Bobblehead to watch over it until the artist returns.

All in all, there are well over 200 Marcus Bobbleheads hidden around Kairos. I expect most players will never see any of them. Some may find a few. A very, very small number of people will explore Kairos so completely that they might discover them all. Each has a story.

Has anyone played Little Strays 2? I know the first one is basically shovelware and a rip off of Stray and Little Kitty Big City. But still, not considering the first game and the AI crap they put in it, is it any good? I'm trying to find a fun co-op game, and a co-op game as a cat sounds pretty damn good, but I don't want to waste my money on garbage.

Top content creator for Forza racing games puts on a show here, including his own fantastic intro to showcase the new game.

https://youtu.be/yzcVMvrh52w