"I need a full length Atlantic Salmon for science.

❝

Reach of the River has been recognized as a work of outstanding artistic merit and awarded a $12,000 creation grant by the New Brunswick Arts Board (ArtsNB).

$12,000 might be small to some projects, but this is the piece of funding I was missing - no more stretching our budget to cover animations, no more compromising on quantity. It's all here now, in one lump sum.

For transparency, here's the finalized budget agreed upon by artsNB:

~CAD $7,000 (after -$1,000 tax) for animation, with prices estimated down to the individual asset. Combined with our existing saved funds, this covers not just necessary animations but a generous set of emotes and actions per family.

~CAD $500 in equipment for a prototype gallery installation version of RotR (come say hi when it happens?).

- Remainder covers two months of living expenses for myself.

Some of our existing savings, donations, and ongoing monthly revenue - originally budgeted toward animations anyway - will, after covering monthly server and web costs, go either into our animation spending pool or toward wishlist assets, with the remainder continuing to be saved. Thank you to everyone's generous support over the years. Because of you, I do not have to pay RotR's operating costs out of pocket, nor do I dig into this money for subsistence or personal costs.

Our estimated delivery date for updated and new playable families has been brought forward dramatically, I'm incredibly excited. This means more to me than words can express.

❞

Reach of the River is a solo-developer passion project created by a friend of mine, and which I play every time I turn on my computer. It is an indie social online multiplayer animal survival and roleplaying game currently in active development for Windows PCs. You can learn more about the game here:

If you're interested in playing a game as an animal—currently as deer and wolves, in the future as big cats and bears, and in the far future as an owl, and perhaps more—I cannot recommend Reach of the River more highly. It is in pre-alpha, meaning it is not complete and is being actively developed while presently featuring bugs, latency, and other work-in-progress quirks. Our playtesting and passion helps guide the game development. This is a community I truly believe in and dedicate myself to, and I encourage anyone interested to give it a try.

There are free play weekends across the first weekend of every month (upcoming from July 3 - July 5, 2026!); many players have invite tokens which grant an account free, permanent game access; and donating to the game even once on Patreon (which starts at $3.50 USD) grants an account permanent access regardless of active Patron status, as well as additional rewards such as invite codes and more while Patron status is active!