#deearly

We have a few exciting things to tell you to set 2025 off with a bang!

We have a new coder, Lorien Darenya! Volk's unfortunate and sudden passing left a huge hole in our team and slowed development to a halt. But we were able to find someone just as incredible to get things back up and on track! She's currently working on the breeding system we had from Volk's original files, which will take a while but is the entire backbone of the game and is very exciting. A word from the master herself: "Welcome to the mind of a blind mother, coder, and all-around geek. This is my tagline and describes exactly who and what I am in one nice little sentence. I am thrilled to bring my skills to the table, especially, as mentioned, the breeding system. I am also very eager to answer questions you all might have, no matter the topic. So let's move forward together, in all ways!"

We have another artist, crazycat! Cat has been suggesting pelts left and right and we loved all of them. They will be working alongside Head Artist Percy to create and perfect pelts for our elaborate breeding system.

We have a little decor snippet to share: Fat Skunk! Drawn by our Junior Artist crazycat, this little fella will be available to equip to your deer. His head may or may not be slightly larger in-game.

Just to give a little update, so you know we’re all still here!

A Contribution shop!

The team is in the process of creating an on-site shop where you can pick and choose various Contribution Perks at your convenience! We will be including all of the perks that were available on the original campaign, and hopefully we’ll be able to introduce a few more perks for everyone to enjoy.

This option will hopefully be fairly streamlined so you’ll be able to grab multiple perks and put them into a cart, and then will be able to pay for them with any card or even with Paypal! Paypal was something that was requested a lot during the campaign, so we’re really excited to bring it for you all!

As with the campaign, each contributor will be added to the database and will be rewarded with Beta access.

A Creativity Contest!

There will be a section added to the Coming Soon page where you’ll be able to submit a design to this contest. The specifics of the contest will be a secret for the time being, but the prizes will include beta access, permanent credit on the website, site currency, and more! Only the designs that win will be used in any way on the site, so extra entries will remain in the full ownership of their original designers. The winners will be included on site and, while will be owned by the company, the creator will be given credit and any use off of the main website (such as in advertising) will require the original creator’s consent.

This is indeed an update, but it is not one that we are excited to bring to you.

Volk, one of the most important members of Deearly’s staff, is no longer with us. She passed away in her sleep on February 17th. We only found out a few days ago.

A note from our head Admin Pippin:

“Volk was more than just an admin, more than just our coder. She was patient and kind. She was always doing what she could to help me and others. Our hearts are broken losing her like this. I know we've always asked for your patience, since we as a staff have a lot of health problems, but I honestly never expected this outcome. All I can ask now is that you please understand that this will be a hard time for Deearly and the Staff. There's a lot to consider for the future of the site that we're just not ready to start dealing with at the moment.”

We know it’s been frustrating seeing no updates from us for such a long time, but fear not - we have some new art AND a tiny bit of development news for you!

These are the Cobalt and Calamity pelts, respectively. You’ve seen Cobalt before, but not on our lovely Eldeer. We wanted to showcase the Eldeer in more of our beautiful pelts for you guys. Calamity is actually one of our Head Admin's favourites - and will have special requirements to breed onto your own deer. Everything was drawn by our incredible artist Percy, who is hard at work whenever he can be to bring our artistic visions to life!

Developmentally, we’ve finish designing, naming, and genotyping all of our Red pelts! This is a very exciting step for us; since our genetic system is very complicated and we put a lot of effort into coming up with pretty pelts, it takes a while to complete an entire color category. We can't wait for you to discover all the Red pelts through breeding!

As stated in our FAQ and in several other answers, the majority of the creative staff have to prioritise severe and chronic health issues over Deearly's production. Since this project is primarily self-funded, we are unable to hire other creatives to speed up the process - all funding we receive goes to paying for things like yearly renewals and domains.

If so, would those markings be inheritable?

Hey everyone! We’re here with some exciting news. It’s not exactly an ‘update’ update (although we are willing to share that we have made some excellent progress with the breeding system) but it’s exciting news nonetheless. <3

We’re going to be selling a new Runestone in our >>Contribution Shop<<! It’s a very special deal - three EXCLUSIVE deer pelts for the price of one! In-game, the Runestone will create three deer at the same time, each with a unique, firework-inspired pelt. In order to activate this Runestone, you will need to have 3 available spaces in your herd. These pelts will, of course, be breedable, but there may be some surprises along the way. You will be able to choose one species for all three deer to be, and they will mostly be all female. Additionally, for our breeding enthusiasts, there will be a nice surprise with these pelts, even if they don’t pass 👀

These pelts are inspired by Fourth of July celebration fireworks and come in red, blue, and white. They are very appropriately named Red Finale, Blue Finale, and White Finale. They will normally be available during a week-long sale around the 4th of July, but for this time only they will be available during the New Years period, from December 31st to January 31st (CST). They’ll be $30 each, and as with all perks, you can buy as many as your deer-loving heart desires. You will receive all of them once the game is launched!