Howdy stranger!

It’s me, Syd the Community Manager, writing my second blog post! If you want to know more about me, peep the previous blog post for an introduction.

Now, I don’t mean to alarm you, but it’s quite literally my favourite month of the year. Why? Because it’s Halloween and I love spooky things, pumpkins (both in lattes and on porches), costumes and of course, candy! However, I will say, the energy over at Clever Endeavour studio isn’t very haunted, it’s quite the opposite. Here's a summary of some not-scary things I’ll be catching you up on:

Goodbye Gamesparks, hello Xbox!
Did someone say Steamdeck verified!?
Trivia Night, babyyyy!
Mentorships + Charities we’ve been donating to
Vibes were had with Vibe Avenue
Things we’re looking forward to…

Gute Nacht, Gamesparks!

For those who still don’t know, Gamesparks (our old server) is kaput, so we’ve had to move over to a new one, Braincloud. You may be asking a few questions about this like:

What the heck is a server?

In simple terms, It’s what allows you to play UCH with folks who have different devices than you and live in different locations than yourself.

Is this an update?

Sadly, it is not. It is a patch, which like the name suggests, is fixing holes that may exist in our beautiful game.

So, what does changing the server actually mean then?

It means a lot of things, most quite good! It means the game’s online element isn’t stopping, which means the game has been future-proofed as much as possible. It also means…XBOX CROSSPLAY which I know has been something that’s been asked for for a very long time from our players. Our new server allows you to do this! Wooooooo! Lastly, we added a few small things for our community (updated credits, a “tournament” preset, and a bunch of other tiny little bug fixes that we could fit in).

Thanks, Syd.

No problem.

Full Steam Ahead!

This one is a little less complicated: Valve has given us the good ‘ol Verified/green check mark for Steamdeck! Have fun playing our game on Steamdeck (which you may have already been doing), but uh…VERIFIED this time.

Winner Winner Ultimate Chicken Dinner

One of my favourite things about being a Community Manager is forcing my love of trivia upon my community! Recently, our Discord players embarked on the noble quest of Ultimate Chicken Trivia; which was essentially 25 questions about UCH and Clever Endeavour, ranging in difficulty. The top 3 scores were awarded fancy Discord roles, too. Funny enough, despite me worrying it may be too easy, NO ONE got a perfect score, not even our co-founder Rich. Here are some of the questions (and answers, since I’m feeling nice):

The Code Least Travelled

During the summer, our co-founder Rich participated as a mentor in an accelerator program for game developers run by Code Coven. They're an organization that creates and runs programs for developers coming from underrepresented groups in the industry. Rich acted as a team mentor for Team Gramps, a diverse group spread across the globe, who came together to make a mobile game demo called A Week at Belisamas Lake. The game explores the connection between a grandmother and grandchild who work on fishing objects out of a lake in a post-climate change (in the positive sense, i.e. we didn't destroy the planet) society.

Rich’s mentoring included checking in on development as well as being a sounding board for ideas and problems. Overall, Rich had an amazing experience meeting these talented developers, "it's always so inspiring to see what people can do in such a short period—these people didn't know each other and had never worked together before, and managed to make a super compelling demo while working together for only 8 weeks. Crazy!" You can check out the Code Coven website if you're interested in applying for one of their programs.

Charitable Donations

In the past few months we’ve donated to two local causes that are dear to our company’s heart; The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, which is intended to be a healing space for Indigenous women to rebuild their lives, as well as Women Aware, which provides free services to those who have experienced conjugal violence. Please check out the attached links to look further into these incredible causes.

Just Straight Vibin’

Recently, our team had the pleasure of catching up with the musical geniuses behind the Ultimate Chicken Horse Soundtrack: Vibe Avenue. Their (relatively) new studio blew us away, and look, they even gave us a chance to play their cool instruments. Thanks for having us, VA!

Things We’re Excited About…

Aside from Halloween itself, we’re also super excited about the upcoming Halloween Level Feature event that we’re hosting. We’re currently asking folks to submit their spooky creations! The creativity and challenges that come out of our level events are one of the things our team looks most forward to seeing. So, please, make our October and check out this Steam post for more details on how to submit!

Lastly, we had the pleasure of catching up with our friends over at Weird Ghosts! Weird Ghosts helps support game studios of underrepresented makers through grants, “catalytic investments”, and community. Their day-to-day, as a small team (just two people! That’s one less than we started with when making our game), involves working with the co-op Gamma Space to provide mentorship in areas like studio development, storytelling, documentation, and project management. So far, they’ve assisted 11 studios since 2020!

When I poked co-founder Eileen about what they were most excited about regarding their work so far, she mentioned how she’s currently very proud of this blog, which focuses on funding barriers in Canada. The blog in question gives you a strong sense of what Weird Ghosts stands for–not only does it strip apart Canada’s current funding issues, but it also shows how WG actively challenges these issues when seeking studios to support. “We’re really interested in making our resources accessible”, Eileen shared with me, before noting that the next step for the company will be sharing its values and pitching information. We can’t wait to see what comes next from Weird Ghosts and the studios they’re supporting.

And with that, may your spooky season be ghastly!

- The Clever Endeavour Team