Hey everyone,
It's been some long nights and long days and I'm very sleepy but very excited to bring the latest patch ahead of the Early Access launch, which is now only 2 weeks away.
A big thank you to everyone who tested, reported and talked things through over the last couple of days, especially SamV, NalathniDragon, Danek, knifee and Tres. Here's what's new:
- A new Comfort page in Settings, with a Sensory-friendly mode that turns everything down at once.
- Darker nights that follow the moon, with a slider if you like them brighter.
- Safer towns. Wild animals stay out, and fences and clutter stay off the paths.
- Swimming, plus pike and eels in the lakes near home.
- Spectre Blue and the other sensing cheeses work now.
- Rind Cultists cast spells and Ravenkin Slingers throw stones.
All of it comes to your existing saves.
Tim
Comfort and performance9
- There's a new Comfort page in Settings, with separate controls for flashes, on-screen weather, water, background motion, camera motion and interface motion. Each one goes all the way down to Still, where things stop moving but stay on screen.samv123
- Sensory-friendly mode turns every Comfort setting to its quietest in one go, and any setting it overrides is marked so you know why it changed.samv123
- Minimal visual effects now also softens flashes, lightens the weather, stills the water and slows background motion.samv123
- Bright flashes like lightning are capped at three a second or so, whatever your settings.
- When you start your first new save, the game asks whether you'd like the screen Full, Calm or Still. You can change it any time in Comfort.samv123
- Your first morning in a new game is always storm-free.
- Low-power mode in Display caps the game at 30 frames a second and draws less while you stand still. Handy on a Steam Deck or laptop.
- The game drops to about 10 frames a second behind menus and while it's in the background.
- You can cap the frame rate at 30 or 60 in Display, or leave it matching your screen.
Night and light3
- Nights are darker and follow the moon. A new moon is properly dark and a full moon lights the ground, and your light, lit windows, fires and torches still show the way.palpablebrush26
- If you liked the old nights, the new Night brightness slider in Display takes you back. At the top it matches how nights looked before.palpablebrush26danekjovaxutc5
- Rooms your Cave Bat maps are readable now. They were drawing almost black.danekjovaxutc5
Towns and the people in them11
- Wild animals stay out of towns and villages unless they're chasing you. Deer, wolves, boars and bandits don't spawn inside settlements any more, and anything that wanders to the edge turns back.danekjovaxutc5
- Village tutors run from wolves now, and go back to their posts once it's safe.
- Fences, hedges and stumps don't leave you squeezing diagonally through gaps to get around town.
- Yards still look lived in, but the clutter stays off streets, doors and gates.samv123
- Every townsperson has Ask the way on their first menu. It lists the services in that town, who runs each one and which way to go, and can walk you there or mark it on your map. Tutors answer it too.samv123.knifee
- Every town has a scholar who identifies anything for 25 gold. Smiths can look over arms and armour, village shopkeepers will have a go as a last resort, and the scholar in the Old Mouth identifies items too.danekjovaxutc5nalathnidragon
- Shipwrights are on the signposts, and general stores hang their sign where you'll see it.danekjovaxutc5samv123
- Villagers coming home in the evening actually walk home, instead of popping up a few tiles from you.danekjovaxutc5
- Auto-travel, click-to-walk and auto-explore go around people's homes, not through them. If your destination is inside one, you stop at the door..knifeesamv123
- Roofs keep their colour as you walk around a building, and doors on the far side of a house stay visible.nalathnidragonaj01657
- Roofs vary now. Farms are thatched or shingled, and guildhalls, shrines and inns are slate.danekjovaxutc5
Rest and travel3
- Rest and Recover by a campfire waits until your Manna is full as well as your health, and Shift+W recovers Manna in the tutorial.nalathnidragonsamv123
- If you're shut in, monsters walking past your window won't wake you any more. Anything that can actually reach you still will..knifeesamv123danekjovaxutc5
- Holding a movement key stops you the moment a new hostile appears. Press again to keep going.nalathnidragon
Swimming and the sea8
- You can swim in deep water at half speed. Swim out and Dive in are in the water menu, and you can jump off a ship or climb back aboard. There's no drowning.
- Each stroke has a 1 in 10 chance of an unlocked item floating out of your pack and drifting ashore, so lock anything you can't lose. Keys, books, recipes, maps and story items never float.
- Lakes near home have pike and river eels. Eels hide underwater, so watch for bubbles and a ring on the surface.
- You can swim through dungeon pools too.
- Galleons and bigger ships have about three times the hull they did (a galleon is 450 now), and hammerheads, serpents and eels leave them alone. Boats in existing saves get the extra hull too.danekjovaxutc5.knifee
- You can patch your own hull from the self or helm menu with planks and nails, up to three quarters of its strength.danekjovaxutc5
- Dying at sea or on a ship's deck wakes you on dry land now, not in the ocean..knifee
- In first person and 2.5D, your boat doesn't jump a tile under you with every step any more.
Combat and magic15
- Deep-Frozen counts as Frozen for every combo.nalathnidragon
- Brittle Rind's card shows its real +100%, and the stronger Aged it applies is called Aged+.nalathnidragon
- Combos are numbered in the Codex, so you can see which one wins when a status could feed two. The aiming preview only shows combos that will actually fire.nalathnidragon
- Hover over an enemy to see its statuses and how many turns each has left. Keyboard, controller and first-person players get the same card.nalathnidragon
- Braziers, burning ground, lava and lingering clouds hit your Rinded ward first, like any other attack.nalathnidragon
- Belt spells glow gold when they'd continue a sequence you know, and the card tells you which one. You can turn the glow and the log hints off in Gameplay.nalathnidragon
- Right-click a spell recipe in the cheese press, or press Inspect, to see the spell it makes.nalathnidragon
- Heart herbs on the Affineur's bench show their element.nalathnidragon
- Casting at rabbits and hens doesn't train your spells any more.nalathnidragon
- Roquelle always starts with the Smoked Gouda Fog recipe in the pack.samv123
- Upgrades that say "2 turns longer" now add exactly 2 turns. On Fine and better wheels that's slightly less than before.nalathnidragon
- Level-up offers never show two perks that do the same thing.nalathnidragon
- Rooted Bloom now heals 4 a turn out of combat, so the rarer perk finally beats Lattice Bloom.nalathnidragondanekjovaxutc5
- Rind Cultists are spellcasters now. They mark a red square under you that goes off two turns later, so keep moving..knifeearkhaven
- Ravenkin Slingers throw stones from range on the plains and in forests by day, away from the starting area..knifeearkhaven
Homestead5
- Workers don't pile onto one tile any more, and a stacked crew in an old save spreads out when you load it.nalathnidragon
- Right-click a tile with several workers on it and you can pick each one by name.nalathnidragon
- The Crew Roster shows where each worker is and what they're doing, with a Find button that walks you to them. Hungry workers tell you when there's no food in reach.nalathnidragon
- Saw Felled Trees Into Planks (Settings, Loot) turns logs into planks as you fell trees. It's off by default.nalathnidragon
- Harvest Area in the Tools menu lets you mark a rectangle, then works you through it felling trees, breaking rocks and picking bushes. It stops if you get hurt or a hostile shows up.nalathnidragon
Fortress6
- The view doesn't get stuck past the edge of the map any more, including after a go-to button.trespiratesqueaj01657
- The colony menu opens again, and fits on smaller windows.trespiratesque
- New colonists arrive even if nobody has a bed yet, and sleep rough like everyone else.trespiratesque
- Embarking somewhere short of trees or grazing warns you first and sends extra wood and food.trespiratesque
- Favor strengths now puts disliked jobs on Backup, as it says it does, and the labor screen shows what each settler likes and dislikes.trespiratesque
- Goat milk is called Goat milk in the stockpile lists.trespiratesque
Keyboard and controller3
- Shift+O, Shift+W and Shift+H hide and show the Seed Pouch, Wheel Belt and Tool Roll. On a controller it's in the item menu.samv123
- In the Spell Belt window, F and C open Affinage Arts and the Codex, and Page Up and Page Down work in the Codex straight away.samv123
- Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+8 open a belt spell's card, and the same key or Escape closes it.samv123
Interface10
- The Self-damage and Spare townsfolk boxes say what's currently set, so they're easier to read..knifeenalathnidragonsamv123
- "Moderate" water is now called Unclean, and Drink warns that it may make you sick.samv123
- The Evasion bar in character creation shows your real dodge chance.rubberychicken
- You can export any save from the Load Game screen without opening it.trespiratesquearkhaven
- You can release several stabled companions at once, and a new Gameplay setting lets freed cage animals go instead of joining you.danekjovaxutc5
- The empty corner of the inventory now shows your mount, pack animal and ships.danekjovaxutc5
- The Drillmaster's first lesson starts on the training dummies..knifee
- The cheese cave tells you when it's skipping a locked or retained wheel.nalathnidragon
- Taking a book off someone else's shelf asks you first, once per visit.danekjovaxutc5
- Riftstones say they're recharging once per visit, not on every step. Sleeping workers stay out of the detailed log, and worker backstories don't repeat themselves.danekjovaxutc5nalathnidragon
Known issues2
- Workers don't use Harvest Area yet. It's your tool for now.
- In co-op, the belt's sequence glow only shows for the host.
Credits1
- Reports, saves, suggestions and playtest feedback: .knifee, aj01657, arkhaven, danekjovaxutc5, nalathnidragon, palpablebrush26, rubberychicken, samv123 and trespiratesque.