Howdy Adventurers!
Is there anything better than tending to your own garden on a relaxing summer evening? Well, good news for you! You will be able to do exactly that in Above Snakes! Watch our latest devlog to see our farming system in action, the beauty of our new farmland biome, and our first ever interactive cutscene!
Watch the Devlog
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Farmland Biome
One of the latest biomes that we have designed is the farmlands. These are one of the warmer biomes that can be connected to prairies. Some of the farmland biomes are owned by a new character called Basil Biggs. Basil has his own cattle ranch that, unfortunately, has been invaded by lost souls. You can choose to help him fight back against these enemies, repair the ranch, and also get his beloved cows (Patsy and Betsy) back after they had escaped.
Crop Farming
You can have your own crop farm at home! If you found a crop on your journeys, you can sow it on a garden plot and allow it to grow. After planting, make sure to water and fertilize any crops regularly to increase growth speed. You can check the status of the garden at any time. Crops grow in four stages: from seeds to saplings to plants to plants ready for harvest.
Nighttime and Torches
We have vastly improved the night mechanic. When nighttime originally descended, it was very dark but you were still able to see the whole screen; this version of night went against our whole idea. Therefore, we added a light radius around Aiyana and made the rest of the screen completely dark. You can enhance your light radius by crafting torches. Torches can be placed to illuminate an area or carried if you plan to explore at nighttime.
Monocular
We have also added a new item which we think will come in handy: the monocular. Remember how, when you want to explore a new biome, you need to go back to your cartography table and research world pieces? Well, we think that you should also be able to do that mid-journey too. The new monocular item will grant you access to your cartography table from anywhere in the world for the cost of a couple pieces of glass and scrap parts.
Interactive Cutscenes
Parts of the story of Above Snakes will be told in interactive cutscenes that take place in a dream-like space. After finishing the cold biomes, the tribe elder will invite you to smoke a pipe with them that transfers your mind into some kind of trance or dream state. This is the first of the cutscenes where you will get some vague information about the source of the spreading plague. Watch our devlog if you want to see a sneak peek of our first interactive cutscene!
What's Next?
As you have probably noticed, we are pushing out content for Above Snakes non-stop. We are continuing our work on the game and remain focused on the end goal. In the past couple of months, we have consistently updated the Alpha (and before that, the Pre-Alpha). We have come to realize that updating the Alpha takes time away from our development of Above Snakes with usually 1-2 weeks of polishing and bug fixing. We think that it is in everyone's best interest if we put our focus more so on completing the game before everything else and, therefore, invest these weeks in new content instead of preparing a build.
With that said, we have decided to cease updates to the Alpha and, instead, are working on finishing the Beta. This decision will also see the addition of more content per devlog. We are currently on schedule with our progress and are aiming to enter the Beta phase this winter; we will see plenty of new people joining the fun who had backed with Beta access. We sincerely hope that everybody who backed the Alpha understands why we are now moving forward. The current version of the Alpha, of course, stays online and can be played until we launch the Beta.
We hope that you enjoyed our farming devlog and we can't wait to hear your feedback. In the video, we showed all of the different crops that are already in-game. What crop do you want to sow and harvest most? Let us know in the comments below!
Cheers,
Tobi
