Hey everyone!
First off would like to thank everyone for wishlisting and playing the alpha build! It was great to hear all the positive feedback, I'm so glad ACRES is being well received.
With feedback and suggestions noted, I have been hard at work this week implementing feature requests and quality of life improvements. Changes in the upcoming patch include:
Upgradable Seed Bins
Seed bins are now upgradable after they have been built. This allows players to increase their seed storage capacities without having to build multiple bins of the same type. The bins are fully upgradeable to their max level of 8; With the same costs as building new bins. Multiple bins of the same type are also still supported for those interested.
The current cost and acres worth of seeds for each level are as follows:
- $369 : 4
- $580 : 8
- $1200 : 16
- $1800 : 32
- $3100 : 64
- $4200 : 128
- $5000 : 256
- $6900 : 512
Gamemode playstyle selection
To accommodate all kinds of players, ACRES now has selectable game mode or difficulty options on the start of a new game. In addition to the original Normal and Endless modes, now available are Calm and Challenge modes. The main difference between Normal, Calm and Challenge are the amount of crops requested in each order and the amount of time given to complete the order. For a full breakdown, be sure to watch the latest ACRES devlog.
Gamemodes
- Calm For hobby farmers and those looking to unwind. Simplified order quantities with minimized time constraints.
- Normal For market growers looking for success. Standard order quantities with a gradual increase in time pressure.
- Challenge For the seasoned farm manager looking to be tested. Market demand exceeds availability, escalating time pressure.
- Endless Farm without pressure and sell crops directly out of storage. No orders, no time requirements.
Crop Ready Indicators
When crops a ready for a harvesting, along with crop animations, Indicators now show to help with night / weather visibility and spotting while zoomed out. The indicators are also helpful for smaller crops that are easy to miss when the acres start to grow.
Double column seed menu
To reduce the amount of scrolling, the seed selection menu is now 2 columns wide. Full controller navigation is still supported. Thanks to those who made this suggestion, the menu is now much more manageable in a hurry with all the seed types.
Additional updates
- Increase in fertilizer N-P-K values
- Increased water gained during rain events
- Backup and support to load previous autosave files
- World UI widgets for tractor control device and seed bins
- Seed bins and tractor barns are now destroyable
- Bugfix for order progress bars not updating after fast harvesting
- Support to save custom key bindings
- Default speed keyboard bindings changed to F1, F2, F3
- Option to escape build mode and have no active tool selected. Exit current tool is mapped to the pause input action with default keybinding ESC. Pressing ESC a second time with pause the game. This behavior does not affect controller/gamepad input. Option can be turned on/off in the game settings menu.
Thanks again for the support and interest in ACRES! We're are very excited about the progress and can't wait for launch.