• 4 min read

Psst… You’re the First to Playtest The Rabbit Haul 🐰

The Rabbit Haul game screenshot with text reading "Playtest The Rabbit Haul February 9 to 11, 2024"

Playtests are here! And you’re the first to know.

We have been working hard behind the scenes creating our latest game, The Rabbit Haul. If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ve seen many sneak peeks at our furry protagonist and the crops and towers available for you to plant during the day to ward off the Trash Panda Posse at night.

Well, today we have a BIG announcement: The Rabbit Haul is officially ready for pre-alpha testing!

jumping smiling rabbit GIF

This is our first big opportunity to have our game publicly tested, and we wanted our loyal newsletter subscribers to be the first to do so. The first playtest will be conducted:

FEBRUARY 9 @ 10:00 A.M. MST to FEBRUARY 11 @ 10:00 P.M. MST

This will be happening in our new-and-improved public Discord, available here: https://discord.gg/SbDnUZsdJj

Since this is our first pre-alpha test of the game, you can expect the following:

  • We are hoping to give steam keys to each person who signs up, but if we run out of keys, you’ll still be able to playtest at a later date.
  • You will know if you are selected to playtest by February 8, 2024 (information provided via Discord)
  • You will receive a steam key on February 9 through your Discord DMs.
  • The playthrough will likely run you 40- to 90-minutes.
  • There is an area in the Discord where you can give us all of your thoughts, input any bugs you encountered, and help us decide on what to focus on putting in the game next.
  • You will have access to the game between the dates and times above, at which point we get back to work making the next iteration of The Rabbit Haul even better!
  • There will be a feedback form in the Discord for you to fill out, so even if you’re not comfortable with giving feedback publicly, you can still let us know what you think.

We are so excited to have you try The Rabbit Haul before anyone else! Make sure to go to our Discord linked above so that you have access to the playtest when it comes time.

And now… for updates!

New Team Member Joins!

Perhaps our biggest update from this month: we added a new team member! Courtney Nickerson has come to join us as our social media manager for the early stages of production of The Rabbit Haul.

She originally started her social media journey as the community engagement manager at AESA, alongside creating and running her own Twitch channel. Her passion has always been in video games, and she can’t wait to show you all how incredible The Rabbit Haul is through our social media channels and through this newsletter!

image of Courtney Nickerson with the following text beside her "Hello! I’m Courtney, and I am so excited to be joining Caldera Interactive as their Social Media Coordinator! So far, my favourite part about this studio is just how kind and welcoming the team is. You can really tell that they love what they do, and are passionate about making The Rabbit Haul a success. I’m hoping that you’ll come to love this game as much as we do! Not to brag or anything, but I’ve playtested an earlier prototype, and this game is fun. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for The Rabbit Haul & Caldera!"

Pause Menu

Our biggest addition to the game in January has been the pause menu. Now you can stop, start, and retry whenever you want! This addition allows you to pause the game at any moment to attend to real-life responsibilities or take a breather without missing a beat. You will also be able to access a variety of in-game options, settings, and controls right from the Pause Menu, giving you more control over your gaming experience.

Screenshot in-game of The Rabbit Haul, featuring a basic pause menu overlay on top of a green and brown forest floor

Quality of Life Updates

This month was spent largely preparing for the upcoming playtests, and we wanted to ensure that the game played well, even with it being in its earliest stages. So this month, asides from numerous small bug fixes, we made the following adjustments:

  • Balancing: We wanted to make sure that the player is getting what they need, when they need it. It is important that the player feels somewhat challenged, but not overwhelmed. We’ve played around with drop percentages, enemy numbers, and overall ability to complete the game using various strategies.
  • UI Updates: We have information panels available for all towers now, including information about their powers and their next stages. You also have information panels for the crops and items by hovering their icon. These can be easily accessed by right-clicking on the tower or crop you want to inspect.
Screenshot of The Rabbit Haul, showing the rabbit watering a Power Flower, with the information about the flowers growth on the right-hand side

Conclusion

It's been a busy month, and we are so excited to finally have you all be able to try The Rabbit Haul. Thank you again for joining us on this wonderful journey! We can’t wait to hear what your thoughts are on the early prototype of the game.

Till next time,
Courtney

Topics: Announcement • Rabbit Haul • Playtesting