Hey Neighbours!
Hope you're having a good month! It's finally getting colder here in Melbourne and I'm excited for winter!
This update marks a huge behind the scenes milestone in terms of development as almost all the content on the original early access roadmap is complete. It's hard to reflect this accurately in the changelog but I've rebuilt almost all of the systems stuff to a manageable state now. So instead of chasing my tail redoing my previous work, from here I can focus on new content, fixing bugs and polishing the gameplay so it's . That means adding more of your requests, pets, furniture, collectables, jobs, donatables and more mini games.
Festivals:
There are 6 new festivals in Garland to celebrate throughout the seasons including a special event to ring in the new year by watching the midnight fireworks from your rooftop with your friends.
The rest of the festivals are like fun traveling markets with exclusive furniture and food to enjoy but as the Garland City Council expands it's budget I'll be adding more mini games and relationship events to them all as well.
Herbs:
You'll now find wild herbs sprouting all over Garland, use your cutters to snip them and you can collect all kinds of useful plants. These will be used for cooking and brewing herbal teas so start building a collection now. Don't forget to check out the beach for shells and the farm/mountains for mushrooms in autumn.
Speaking of foraging, the beach and university areas are now open to explore, though the Council is being slow at approving permits for new buildings there...
Save files:
This update is a big update to the format of save files which will allow better compatibility as well as straight up text editing of files. I've tried super hard to make everything as compatible as possible but I always recommend backing up your save file before upgrading and, as always, if you have any problems with the upgrade: just reach out in the discord and I'm happy to help!
We're holding a community movie night in the Garland discord community in early June, I'll be sharing behind the scenes stuff so make sure you drop by!
Thank you as always for sticking around with me this long, it's been a hell of a year so far and I'm excited for what's coming to Garland next!
<3 Violet
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Early Access 1.3.6Y - Patch (PC and Mac) (Full and Demo) - 29/05/25
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This is a big update and includes multiple changes to the format of save files going forward to make them easier to edit and more robust. After we switch to 1.3.7.etc files I will no longer be supporting as many super old files so please make sure to upgrade. Specific information is available by category below.
Make a back up of your save file before updating and message in discord if you run into problems!
General:
- Cutscenes - Fixed issues exiting from cutscene by forcing wait for pink bars on/off, this may cause a little timing weirdness in some events but I’m working through editing them.
- Intro - Fixed double fade down during hotel overnight.
- Intro - Prevented bunnies spawning in hotel if loading in on second day.
- Intro - Adjusted Hotel cutscene dialogue.
- Mail - Fixed mail not marking letters as read right away.
- Noticeboard, mail, PD icons - Fixed issues with triggering or not going away when read.
- Timing - Fixed timing of npc repeating emotes.
- Bank - Added max transactions to display to prevent crash on large files (the app will be redesigned soon).
- Bank - Added weekly interest to savings account and letter with a summary.
- Settings - Added option to turn off textbox slide in effect.
- Moving apartment - Turned off windows and other interactions during cutscene.
- Moving apartment - Fixed incorrect spawn location in Birch Tower 1 Bed apt move in.
- Sfx - Adjusted seasonal walking sounds so they only play in outdoor locations (don’t wanna track snow on Leon’s clean lobby floor!)
- PD Stake Out/Man Hunt - Now finish up in front of the PD office not inside.
- Player interactions - adjusted interaction logic to be more intuitive and prioritise better interactions especially around furniture and placement interactions.
- Rooftops - Fixed various issues with saving and loading furniture/items on rooftops.
- Items - Fixed issue with trash spawning incorrect depth.
- Various typos and text fixes (Intervision > StarSong).
Foraging:
- Added shells and beach items to spawn on beach locations.
- Added mushrooms to spawn in Autumn in Farm/Mountains.
- Added Herbs that spawn randomly in grassy areas, use your cutters to harvest them and get a random herb which will be used later in a tea brewing mini game.
Furniture placement:
- Fixed issue when exiting a room holding furniture would occasionally leave a piece of furniture in the doorway.
- Added option to snap placement to grid (this is a real WIP).
- Added functionality for rugs.
- Adjusted placement logic.
- Fixed issue not being able to place pet furniture.
- BE - CC 3 - can see where furniture is being placed during minigame now.
- PE - Sophie 1 - can see where boxes are being placed during minigame now.
Player Hair Customisation:
Note: your hair and clothing colour may appear incorrect in the load screen on old saves but should appear normally once loaded in.
- Player hair/beard/fringe and colours are now set after the initial customisation like clothing.
- New hair styles/hair colours can be purchased at the hair salon in Garland North. Once used, they are added to your customisation options at the vanity/mirror.
- Vanity/Mirror - fixed randomise option to only be available options.
- Opened hair stylist shop with daily styles/colours.
- Added hair stylist intro cutscene.
- Added Sage’s special budget random style cutscene.
- New colours for hair/fringe/beard: Yellow, Dk Yellow, Lt Orange, Orange, Red, Lt Pink, Pink, Dk Pink, Lt Purple, Dk Purple, Dk Blue, Lt Blue, Lt Green, Dk Green, Hazel, Lt Brown, Brown, Dk Brown, Lt Grey, Grey, Black, White.
Shops:
- Added energy drinks to vending machines.
- Fixed NPCs occasionally sliding away while shopkeeping (looking at you Tobias >_>).
- Fixed issue with same-obj-items buying the first available one in the shop rather than the one you click on.
Locations:
Note: new locations will not appear on mini map yet, map update is in the works.
- Added beach area south of Garland Central (WIP).
- Added university area (WIP).
- Updated farm area layout.
- Updated mountain area layout.
- Moved some lighting in Garland West/CBD and added new lamps.
- Removed dirt patches in Garland Central park.
- Adjusted grass colour.
- Removed construction blocks from Garland West > Uni and Garland Central >Beach.
- Updated Boat shed exterior.
- Boats now bob in the water.
Festivals:
- Added new festival days: Fortune and Luck Brunch, Beach BBQ, Moonflower Festival, Twilight Equinox, MidWinter, New Years.
- Each festival has an info booth, furniture shop and snack shop with new special items only available at the festivals.
- Added NPC dialogue for all festivals.
- Added reminder mail for all festivals.
- Schedule - All NPCs will be at the festival locations all day. Might change this in the future when more complicated schedules are added.
- Added various decor, weather, lighting etc. during festival days.
- New Years - Added fireworks event at your building rooftop.
- Fixed swan boat ride with partner giving wrong notification emotes.
- Petal Events - Added check so that petal events can run during festival days as long as they aren’t in the festival location.
Weather:
- Added butterfly weather for Moonflower Festival.
- Added fireworks weather for New Years.
Save files:
- Save files and persistence have been completely reformatted to allow easy text file editing and future adjustments for better cross platform compatibility.
- On load of an old save file, various upgrades to new systems will take place.
- I’ve tried really hard to keep everything compatible with old files but if you have any issues with your save please let me know in the discord community and I’ll get your file sorted.
- Daily Tasks - Any open tasks will reset during upgrade.
- Load screen - Hair/Clothes may appear the wrong colour on the load screen but once in game it should be fine.
- Rooftops - Plants, decor and items loaded from very old save files which were on rooftops or tables may revert to being on the ground during upgrade.
- Shops - Items currently for sale will reset during upgrade.
Player storage:
- Changes to player storage in back end, functionally there are no differences but on load your previous storage will be converted to the new format.
- Any items in storage outside your apartment will be moved back to your apartment storage during this upgrade - sorry!
- Any copies of items that were backed up for safe keeping or in old version apartments will be transferred to your apartment storage too so you might end up with a nice windfall!
Backend/Optimisations:
- Moved dictionary and info storage from ds_grid format to struct arrays and overhauled all scripts for: festivals, calendar, mail, shops, inventory, player inventory, player_info, tasks, daily tasks, photo data, countdowns, transactions, loans, relationships, rock tumbler, player apps, stored music, private detective, building info, apartments, news, help, stock market etc.
- Shops - Total rework of how shops are handled to allow for future customisations including changing item info to be global access rather than in room persistence.
- Dev mode - Added dev mode only screenshot export for future postcard feature.
- Time - Full refactor for time related functions. obj_daycycle > obj_game.
- Transitions - Full refactor for transitions and lift functionality.
- Player storage - Converted to be global access rather than stored in apartment persistence.
- Mail - Full refactor and added nightly mail queue system.
- Tasks - Added listener functions for future optimisations (this will help with a lot of slow down issues next update).
- Rock Tumbler - Refactored rock tumbler into basic shop functions to allow other shop storage.
- Daily dialogue - Moved to be stored in relationship struct for ease of access.
- Removed unused logs
- Updated spawning, detection and general player logic.