Blog time! Remember this image?



We are finally ready and excited to announce something we've worked on for a while - the hero of Pine, Hue has gotten a big update!


*Click to enlarge



We've revamped everything from his physique to his outfits. This is an important piece of work, because it defines who you'll be roleplaying as in the game. There were a few key reasons as to why we wanted to update Hue:

• We wanted the anatomy and physique of the Humans to be much more unique and Pine-worthy. What would have happened to their bodies if they indeed lived in seclusion for this long, not hunting at all?


• We wanted Hue to look more memorable. We looked for defining silhouettes and ended up on the unique wooden plaques in the hair of Pine's humans, as well as Hue's distinct ponytail.


• We wanted the humans to have an outfit that makes sense in Pine's world and in the context of their habitat.


• Hue's technical quality lagged behind on all other models and later characters, so this needed an update anyway.

*Click to enlarge

The new Hue fits with all outfits, and we even have a few new ones. You can mix and match all the parts of any outfit set too!



We've gone through many iterations on Hue, as we were also setting the base for all other humans. We asked ourselves evolutionary questions and wanted a unique but canny appearance for Pine's humans. As we all come from apes, we wanted to look there for inspiration, but we had to settle somewhere on the spectrum to make sure Hue was still recognizable as a human.



Other members of Hue's tribe have a similar build and a similar outfit.





So far we've been playing with this new Hue for a while and we wouldn't want him any other way anymore. He looks a bit older than before, which fits the story better, and the overall quality has gotten a huge boost. What are your thoughts?

Until next time!

Blog time! It's been a while since we did a smaller update, but the time is approaching where it's easier for us to share some new exciting things.

We've been working on a certain area, one of the Vaults, which takes the shape of some stables; a lot of wood work and natural materials. A place where critters are studied... check out the work-in-progress textures for it!





One thing we haven't shown anything about is the story - here's a short sneak peak at one of the characters talking. Who could it be?



One very big tool we've been working on is Pine's very own combat editor! With this, we can work on the combat in great detail.

We import combat animations and are now able to set timings, translations, hitboxes and more, all inside the engine without compiling or loading. This allows for super fast tweaking!

The entire editor is module-based: we can add modules such as translation, effects and hitboxes wherever we like. We built it so that it basically allows to add modules to any state machine, so it's very versatile. On to tweaking now!

Until next time!

Right at the end of the year, time for a short recap about some of the work we did in the last two months. We’ve been diving so deep into the island and its content that we didn’t share a lot recently, but still there are some exciting things to talk about. Again, without spoiling too much!

We’ve aligned species movements for equal chances

As part of an ongoing effort to improve movement for both species and player, we’ve took steps to align species run and walk speeds better, so that we have a better shot at balancing chances they have against each other, critters and the player. Because if there is no balance, the simulation will always turn out the same.

An example can be found in the Krocker, who was extremely slow before we edited their movement speed. Now it looks like this, a lot faster and more aggressive!

New outfits!

We’re working on a lot of content in the shape of collectibles, secrets, outfits and tools. Here’s a work-in-progress look at one of the new outfits, the Hunter Set!

Hiding spots

Last time we talked about hiding spots – an important addition to the spectrum of actions by critters and species. We’ve worked more to visualize the actual spots with hiding grass and we’ve worked on scared hiding animations for critters.

Work on the Vaults

Although this is an area we don’t want to spoil much of, the Vaults have been getting a lot of love lately. Check out these two shots, hopefully not too telling but indicative of what they might be:

More village work

As always, we’ve continued to work on villages, to give each a ‘cornerstone’ idea and make them memorable. This one is one we’re very happy with, worked on by our new intern Daan!

Indie of the Year Awards

Last year we won ‘Most Anticipated Indie of the Year’ on indie website IndieDB – and this year, thanks to you, we were in the top 10 AGAIN! We ended up on 7th place this time. Thanks so much!

Happy new year!

We did plenty more and can’t wait to share everything with you soon. Next year is going to be very special, with of course the release of Pine on the planning – we hope you’re as excited as we are! For now, happy new year and talk to you soon.

A bit late this month, but to keep you in the loop, here’s another short update on some of the content we’ve been working on in the world of Pine. We’re making a lot of exciting tweaks and advancements on the simulation, as well as on world design, user experience and combat. Have a look!

More nuance in behaviors and reactions

As we’re expanding our matrix of reactions and behaviors to give players a nice, rich context of how they can interact with species, we’re developing a few more nuanced reactions and poses for when they are in certain roles. Some of them are:

Shooing: when they see something they don’t like and they’re confident, they’ll try to shoo the target away.


Guarding: for when the guard role has been assumed, they do a guard pose.


Greeting: we have a few different greetings, one of which is a full-body one for when they want to say hi.


Hiding: when seeing something they don’t like, species will try to hide in tall grass, hoping it will go away.


Cheering: when something really great happens, species will cheer.

New Villages

We kept working on villages, each with their own unique idea. Here are two cool new ones, located around Mount Telkin!

An updated HUD

While not implemented yet, we’re working on a small revamp of the main HUD. The player can equip a melee set and ranged set, so we figured we should optimize the HUD for that too. The energy system, which we are still testing, has been formalized in a much more readable format now too. What do you think?

Some screenshots

Now that the world design is progressing well, sometimes we take a minute to walk or fly around and take some shots of what’s happening around the island. Here are some of those!







And here are two gifs of the same area around a village called Bohr's Pond, where once a mysteriously large creature had its fishing shop - one at night time with a Fexel tribe installed, one at day time where the Krockers have taken over!

A release window

Lastly, some important news! As we’ve mentioned, our very early estimate of finishing Pine at the end of this year was not going to happen. We are happy to say that we are now aiming for a release mid 2019 – a bit later than expected, but we promise it will be definitely worth it! A more specific date and details will follow at a later moment.

That’s it for now – we’ll keep working on more content. Talk to you soon!

As always, all feedback, questions and comments are welcome. Feel free to reach out through pine[at]twirlbound.com, on IndieDB, on Reddit, on our Discord server, Facebook or Twitter.