The time has come! Whilst I've still got plenty more in the tank, the time feels right to leave early access. The recent feedback has been really encouraging, and I'm extremely grateful for everyone who has played a helping hand on the journey. I'll save the long thank you for the end of this post, but first here's the release content!
Achievements
I've been asked for them a lot, and as an ex-achievement hunter myself I've been keen to add these since day one! The only reason I haven't added them before is because then I wouldn't be able to take them away. So, with the release I've added over 40 achievements. They range from obtaining specific species, through to completing various collections, and a handful of secret ones for some special interactions. For those of you who have already sunk a fair bit of time into your save, don't worry - I've added a 'Check my achievements' option to the systems tab of the menu. I'll leave it there for a couple of months, but clicking this should run through your save file and unlock achievements for you.
Fae shrine
Once you expand your ranch to the field, you'll notice an old shrine to the south. Once you gain access to this, you can make essence offerings to the fae, who in turn will cause different circumstances for the next game day. In example, you might want to ensure the next day is a rainy day, or you might want to boost your chances of mining rarer gems. Most essences have a unique effect, and Henry can help decipher them for you.
New festival: Jackoball
What greater way to spend a summer's day could there be, than to play football with jackalopes! Join the town and play for a new trophy.
New festival: Winters close
See out the year with the rest of the town atop a cliff, and make a wish for the coming year.
New festival: Aurochs crossing
As spring starts, animals migrate towards the sun. Join your fellow Autumnsfolk as they watch the Aurochs migrate past the forest.
New festival: Pets day
House pets need some recognition too! All the different pets of Autumn will head into town for a contest!
Everything else
Since the seasonal music update I've also added a whole load of smaller items, most of which have been released for a while, here's the highlights.
- New key art, hope you like it!
- A few more music tracks.
- A new scene and way of understanding the player reviews
- New weathers: Light and Heavy snow
- Another Sphinx maze
- Over a hundred new dialogue additions
- Quality of life additions
-- Different tutorial types now share the same inputs
-- Barn and coop feed stores now give you 'change' when you fill them using the bulk items
-- The Brynja races now gives an item prize instead of karma
-- You now gain the first level of Animal knowledge when first encountering a new species
Issues fixed
And of course, I've closed off a whole host of issues over the months too. Far too many to list, but two that unfortunately affected a lot of players:
- Crashes when reading certain library books for new animal knowledge
- Beehives weren't working on the field, they are now!
And with that, I'll wrap this post up. For anyone who didn't catch the early posts, I'm a solo dev who works on this before and after work. It's changed a lot through development, but the core ideas of Tales of Autumn were in my head for years, and I finally got it started as a project to do with my daughter. She quickly left me to start designing her own games, but has been my primary QA since! I've been overwhelmed with positivity from players since launching - whether its your patience whilst I've been fixing bugs, or your willingness to share ideas on what is or isn't working, I'm just so grateful. Thank you.
Life's been pretty hectic this year, so I wanted to set myself some goals for putting the game to full release. This does not mark Tales of Autumn as complete. I still have a lot of content ideas, all to be added as free updates, and as long as someone's playing then I'll keep the content coming.
Scott