Missing Covens, bring it back online please. Missing my witchery friends in the world 😢

Hello! We have officially announced the release of Covens on March 20 while we are at the annual Game developers Conference in San Francisco! Thank you all for being patient with our small studio and helping test out our game! We appreciate all of you for your support and we hope you are excited! :) Go check out our Press Release!

When this game first popped up on my early access I was excited to play. My finger hit that download button faster than lightning. I played non stop for days then all of a sudden the experience got sour. Server errors started appearing and the promise of a fix came In the form of "an hour or so" downtime. That was three months ago... I probably got more game time In in those first few days than I have been able to since, random notifications pop up on my phone telling me that I have been blessed or my creatures have been banished.. so I check the game... Server errors. As routine as life itself. The game has become nothing more than a symbol of hope in my phone. Of course I'm not going to delete it! I'm excited for this game. I know it's going to be great. I just know it.

My concern however, is that once the servers are sorted, and the game is stable in its current state, that it will come out of beta and into full release without any full beta period. Its hard not to believe that the Devs are working for free on this to make it work and loans have been taken out to make ends meet and the temptation to release before maturity will be too great. In app purchases will be unlocked and the game loses its chance to succeed

Witches, here's where we are. Covens and Vampire Tribunals are big visions, and we must design to accommodate a significant volume of players from all corners of the world. We Crows are a small team competing with giants (we relish the challenge), so we recently built a back end with some experimental tech in the hope to gain some advantage. Not our best idea 😊We've been busy and making a lot of progress installing more proven solutions to handle a large multiplayer game. This means some friction now, but the aim is long term stability. Your support and feedback continues to inspire us.

Hello witches! Below are our Top 20 Players and Top 20 Covens in the Winter Tournament of Witchcraft!

The top 5 players in the Winter Tournament will also receive covens inspired tshirts! Email us at [email protected] for more information to claim your tshirt!

Top Players

1. Jacqueline - Hedge Witch style, 25 gold, 100 ingredients, +1 Power

2. negamus - Hedge Style, 20 gold, 100 ingredients, +1 Power

3. Markus - Hedge Style, 15 gold, 100 ingredients, +1 Power

4. Cillandra - Hedge witch style, 10 gold

5. Hexenbann - Hedge witch style, 5 gold

6. no one - 5 gold

7. Likhoradka - 5 gold

8. Damani - 5 gold

9. Eloren - 5 gold

10. FieryPhoenix - 5 gold

11. Blair Moon - 3 gold

12. Emerald Haze - 3 gold

13. Alshain - 3 gold

14. Krazie - 3 gold

15. Avari - 3 gold

16. Velvet Blackwel - 3 gold

17. Tequillalady - 3 gold

18. Moon Raven Love - 3 gold

19. Nessy Butterfly - 3 gold

20. Raonaid - 3 gold

Top Covens

1. Wicches of Olde - Bird of Prey Censor, 2000 silver, +1 Resilience

2. Blue Dragon coven - Bird of Prey Censor, 1800 silver, +1 Resilience

3. BloodMoon - Bird of Prey Censor, 1500 silver, +1 Resilience

4. The Zodiacs - Bird of Prey Censor, 1200 silver

5. House of Maya - Bird of Prey Censor, 850 silver

6. Silver Nightshade - 600 silver

7. Dark Wolves Den - 600 silver

8. Coven of Cedar Grove - 600 silver

9. NyxDemon - 600 silver

10. Phoenix Rising - 600 silver

11. Night Slaves - 300 silver

12. Rise and Revolution - 300 silver

13. Darks Rising - 300 silver

14. HedgeWitches - 300 silver

15. Seventh Church - 300 silver

16. Hermandad sangre de dragon - 300 silver

17. Grey House - 300 silver

18. Zirkel des stillen Raben - 300 silver

19. Something Wicca This Way Comes - 300 silver

20. Hispanos LMV - 300 silver

Congratulations to all of the witches and covens that made it this far in the Winter Tournament and good luck to all witches in the Spring Tournament! Make sure to send us pictures of your avatar wearing your new cosmetics!

Hi, I want to increase my alignment. What are the best spells to cast to increase white/black alignment?

Come on over to the official Covens wiki at https://covens.gamepedia.com/Covens_Wiki. It's a little bare right now, thanks to rushing to get it started before the holidays. Surely some of you want to help out your coven by expanding it and sharing what you know?

Dear Raincrow Studios,

After what seems like forever you've finally put out your server rewrite.

Now yes, it was long and arduous waiting. It was irritating. But we all know servers don't get written overnight. The point is, it happened.

And yet, even with all your "rewriting" Covens, the game we've all been hyped up for.... IS STILL BROKE AF!

Even your "updates" aren't really "updates" more like. "We rewrote everything sorta and hope you won't notice how we screwed things up even more!"

Now I'm aware that everyone here is wondering how, and why, I say this. I'll be happy to explain.

Let's begin with what you said in your update here on reddit:

- Rewritten Server- The server is rewritten but very little has changed. The spirits still rarely show up, there are way too many errors to count with the various mess-ups with summoning spirits and such that people are posting here. A "rewritten" server should fix these issues, not cause more.

- New and improved spellbook Is the Spellbook New? Yes. Do I like the fact you can add two spells to make "hot keys" out of? Yes. Is it improved beyond that? No. What spells are white, grey, shadow? And there's the misinformed text about what spells can be cast at what level. Oh, and now that spells that resurrect witches are now required to be a high level you can no longer expect help when you die. Why? Because a majority of witches who haven't been able to play in recent time cannot help each other...

Way to kill the player base.

- Blank map issue fixed This is one of my biggest quips with this "update" Blank maps fixed... Really? Yea, I pick up herbs, tools, and gems fine and all... But where are the witches(Players), where are the NPC fodder? And why should I be forced to zoom out and go back in to find spirits when they are literally next to me?

Now I know sometimes I gotta go hunting, this game isn't meant to be easy. I get that. But if a spirit is just a nudge left in physical form why can't I see it without zooming in and out?

- Optimized game - should now run smoother than before

If this is the case then why does the game force "Sync with server" almost like clockwork every five hours or so?

- With each new level, you will unlock new spells

Now, this is one of the few things I have issues with. New spells. People seem to enjoy them and it's about time we got them.

Now for some things, you all haven't mentioned that I've slightly mentioned above and will properly place here:

NPC Fodder (non-player witches put in-game for us to attack because hey, we're only so many players.) are no longer viewed.

Now I will give a minor quip to this: I know Places of Power aren't up yet so for all my steam I could just be realizing that I'm impatient, and if so. I'm sorry about that. I can totally get behind a "Hey, NPC witches and such are part of the POP stuff that you're being forced to wait a little longer." Totally get that.

Ember days: A promised tourney that is never going to come:

I've saved my largest issue for last.

The witches school talks about ember days. The last several days of a season (By the way, at this time we are 8 days away from the end of summer beginning of fall -at least in my time zone- which still quantifies as ember days) in which we might find demons that we have to squash and need to go all out to strike after only getting one final boost from Savannah Grey for the remainder until the first day of the next season.

Now, Rose, you might say, they likely cut this one off because of the rewrite. And, if this was the first offense, I would totally get behind you on that. I can understand things take precedent and a tourney might have to wait another season.

But this is far from the first offense.

You've done a grand total of three seasons without Ember days including this one. And. Not. ONE. Ember.Days. Event.

Am I saying that we need one giant demon lord thing that you mentioned on the tutorial to happen every time? No. But what we do need is you to be upfront and either give us the tournament like you say we should get. Or say, "Oops, sorry, we wanted to do that but it's not happening"

Stop toying with us as we ask about ember days. It's not fun, and it kills your games.

I understand this is a vent. I won't say it's not, but at the same time, it's a cry to you, the programmers and developers, to save your game while you still have a player base who is willing to take the time and bugs to make it awesome. We're all pulling for an awesome game, this is why we've been reporting bugs left and right after every update. We WANT this.

So, please. From a player to a developer, take our wants seriously and make your game awesome, or at least, tell us that you can't deliver on the promises. Will we be bummed? Yes. but we'd prefer the honesty over hidden lies.

Best wishes for a game that will knock our socks off,

Blood stained rose.

An updated version of Covens has been uploaded to the Google Play store, making it possible to continue with beta testing before the game officially releases! When updating, you will need to uninstall the old version of Covens from your phone and install the new version available in the play store. The minimum Android build available is version 7.0 so any phone older than that may not be supported at the moment. Feel free to continue reporting bugs and giving us feedback on our game! We appreciate how long you have all waited for our game to launch and are happy you have chosen to stay with us as long as you have. The wait is almost over! :)

Update for The servers are functioning from our local office in Harrisonburg, VA, but do not appear to be working for most of our users.

We've hired some new developers who are currently being brought up to speed on the issue. They should begin working on the servers today or tomorrow. To those asking when the servers will be back up - hopefully by the end of the week, though I can update this with a more accurate estimate once the new developers have assessed the situation in full.

If the servers are working for you, let us know - otherwise, sit tight, we'll keep you updated. Thanks for your patience, your support and feedback have been exceptional and we appreciate it!

EDIT (1:40PM EST): The servers appear to be working - however, they are processing commands intermittently. So some players can play fine, some players can play for a couple of minutes before the game stops working, and other players cannot get into the game at all.

Trying to defeat even one common drains me of nearly all my energy. Let alone defeating 3 to take over a point of power! The spells take too much energy and do too little damage, spirits have way too much energy, and their curses are wayyy too powerful. It should at least be a turn-based battle so they can't hit me with 50+ hexes while I'm struggling to find the ingredients I want for one Sun Eater.

And as for my second suggestion, I think that Covens really needs a way to encourage people to go outside. As in ARG, going out to find points of power, ingredients, and all that is part of the experience. Granted, I LOVE the flying mechanic. It's fun and makes it way more accessible to people without much time or people with disabilities. However, I think giving a few more ingredients or higher ingredient refresh rate for people who're out and about won't go amiss. Or perhaps random events that take place such as finding a buttload of ingredients, or a special battle, or something that you can increase chances of getting by walking.

Hello Witches!

We have excited news! We will be reworking the current Places of Power in covens. This does mean, however, that with the next update, PoPs will become under maintenance and will have a "Coming soon!" message pop up when the PoP location manager or a PoP banner is clicked on. This is necessary maintenance since PoPs are essentially broken and glitch almost every time a witch enters one. In order to avoid more witches becoming frustrated with these broken battles, we will have to make them unavailable to witches for some time. We apologize to players who are continuing to use PoPs even when they are in this state but this is necessary in order to fix them. We appreciate all of the patience and support you have had for us in the journey that is making our game, Covens. The new Places of Power will have a different flow than the current model, a change that will help alleviate strain placed on the server that is causing the current issues of players becoming stuck, an inability to attack witches/spirits or be attacked by witches/spirits, the graphics glitching and forcing the player to restart the game to escape or make the arena appear correctly (although restarting does not always work).

Thank you to all of our players for your continued support and patience, we will announce to players when the new version of PoPs will be available. Feel free to reach out to us here, in our discord, or via [email protected] with any questions on this matter or the game in general. :)

Happy Holidays, witches!

Raincrow Studios is excited to announce the start of the Winter Tournament of Witchcraft on December 21st as well as cosmetic releases and in-game events for Covens: Tournament of Witchcraft! These new features come with many rewards for active players that celebrate and reward them for their accomplishments as well as encourage them to become even more active in the game.

Features

• Winter cosmetics will be released December 21st

• Free Winter Cosmetic bundle

• Winter themed user interface

• World Boss integration in Covens

• Rewards for Autumn Tournament of Witchcraft

Winter Cosmetics - Release Date December 21st

• Knit hat

• LumberJack/LumberJane hat

• Witch’s hat

• Cardigan

• Cozy Sweater

• Bomber Jacket

• Yule Style - inspired by the Yule festival

• Nevermore Style - inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”

• Plague Doctor Style

• Party hat

• New Years hat

• Frosty Sweater

• Reindeer Sweater

Free Winter Cosmetic Bundle - Release Date December 21st

• LumberJack/LumberJane hat

• New Years hat

• Reindeer Sweater

• Elixir of Experience

• Elixir of Alignment

World Boss - Start Date December 22st

• Krampus, the horned beast who punishes misbehaving children at Christmas, is the World Boss!

  • A World Boss is a spirit unlike any other in the game. He cannot be discovered by a witch in order to summon but he can eventually be defeated after fighting witches in multiple locations on the map. As he is weakened in each battle, he will eventually disappear, leaving a small reward for players and a clue leading witches to his next location. Krampus will present witches with a challenge they can chase across the world.

• As Krampus leaves each location, he will leave a small chest to reward all players who dealt 100+ damage in each stage

  • Small Chest Rewards

    • Silver, Ingredients, Experience

• Rewards for defeating Krampus

  • Player Rewards
    1st Place - Witch hat, Gold, Experience, Ingredients, and witch name left behind on banner
    2nd Place - Cardigan, Gold, Ingredients, and Experience
    3rd Place - Cozy Sweater, Gold, Ingredients, experience
    Top 10 % of Participants outside of first 3 winners - Gold, Ingredients, Experience
    Top 20% of Participants outside of first 3 winners - Silver, Ingredients, Experience
    Participation - Final Small Chest - Gold, Ingredients, and Experience

  • Coven Rewards
    1st Place - Witch hat cosmetic, Gold, Experience, Ingredients, and witch name left behind on banner
    2nd Place - Cardigan cosmetic, Gold, Ingredients, and Experience
    3rd Place - Cozy Sweater cosmetic, Gold, Ingredients, Experience

Rewards for the Autumn Tournament of Witchcraft - Released December 21st

• The Tournament of Witchcraft depends on the cycles of nature, restarting with the end of each season; Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Although the top 5 places on the leaderboard receive more prizes, players and covens will still receive rewards if they are within the top 20 players or the top 20 covens. To gain rank on the leaderboard, a player must raise their overall score by leveling up, winning Place of Power battles, defeating wild spirits and gaining the knowledge to summon them, and increasing their witch school alignment. The Autumn Tournament of Witchcraft concludes on December 21st with the start of the Winter Tournament of Witchcraft.

• Player Rewards

  • 1st Place

    • Witch name on Brokken Mountain Monument, Nevermore style, Gold, Exotic ingredients, +1 Power

  • 2nd Place

    • Nevermore style, Gold, Rare ingredients, +1 Power

  • 3rd Place

    • Nevermore style, Gold, Common and Less Common ingredients, +1 Power

  • 4th Place

    • Nevermore style, Gold

  • 5th Place

    • Nevermore style, Gold

  • 6th - 10th Place

    • Gold

  • 11th - 20th Place

    • Gold

• Coven Rewards

  • 1st Place

    • Coven Name on Brocken Mountain Monument, Phantom censor, silver, +1 Resilience

  • 2nd Place

    • Phantom Censor, Silver, +1 Resilience

  • 3rd Place

    • Phantom Censor, Silver, +1 Resilience

  • 4th Place

    • Phantom Censor, Silver

  • 5th place

    • Phantom Censor, Silver

  • 6th - 10th Place

    • Silver

  • 11th - 20th Place

    • Silver

We are excited to share these new features with players old and new alike. Covens is available for both Android and iOS, we hope you’ll join us for the Winter Tournament of Witchcraft!

Witch on and Happy Holidays!