I wanted to be reactive to feedback and bugs, so i did a series of small updates during the playtest. Here's a list most of the recent changes from version 0.03.01 to 0.03.35:
New Content
-3 New humans (1 new and 2 reskin):
New Construction Worker: can hit the ground to damage things around him, without a charge.
Soldier Human re-skinned to police
Brute Human re-skinned (Look like a boxer instead of gladiator)
-Added Cooler Box to store food and prevent spoilage
-Added new tasks in the rebel camp
-Added lynx wild animals, and cats wild animals.
-New wild bird skin (cardinal) and wild squirrel skin (chipmunk)
-Added a new event and character (the bird crow treasure hunter)
-Add one more small zone in the underground (The Titanium Mine)
Note: Our goal is to show a contrast between humans and animals in the way they look. For this reason we went with a more modern look for humans, and a more ancient / rustic / medieval look for animals. The soldier and brute didn't really fit this theme, so we reworked them to make them more consistent with other humans.
Gameplay Changes
-Reworked intro quests
-Any plant you sowed can now get infested and will start spawning bugs instead of fruits
-The old generic bug bush that would spawn was removed for the mechanic above.
-Scout quests now are more clear and have better help dialogues
-Added a new scout quest for rabbit / ducks (fur retrieval)
-Reworked the rancher quests
-Improved the tree sowing quest so it doesn't auto complete from having trees nearby
-Made the bees less aggressive
-Added starting torches in all town
-Reduced the stun time on Enemies when hitting them
-Removed the stun on mini-boss
-Bushes have less berries per bush, but berries spoil slower
-Most plants and trees now grow a bit slower
-Tree can now grow fruits/nuts in spring, but growth rate is slower
-Plants can now appear fully grown out of season at start of the game
-Simplified most cooking and potions recipes to require easier to find ingredients
-Poisonous mushroom effect last less long
-Slingshots / bow deals more damage
-Shield now use less energy to block ranged attack
-Reduced amount of ghosts in the dark forest (a bug was over-spawning them)
-Added much more items to the list of items villagers can help you search for.
-All villagers roles can now help to show you things or help with simple tasks
-Made the world generate more entrances to reach the underground and more portals
-There's now less enemies spawning right at the entrance in caves
-Villager have less wanted items when not friendly yet
-Gave fish attack evasion chance
-Made it harder to hit allied villagers (you can only do it by clicking directly on them now)
-Heavy Armors don't reduce move speed anymore, instead they reduce ranged attack damage.
-Renamed the hidden cache quest to Tale of the Ape Slayer, and changed how you can start the quest.
-Made it easier to target with F, will start attacking farther from the enemy to avoid getting hit.
-Can now roast nuts at the firepit
-Bears attack faster
-Made some items more biome specific, for example now: Herb are only found in forest, and clover only in meadows
-Allowed wanderers to join special town (knight, bard, druid..) when asking them to follow you to join a town.
-Enemies now prioritize targets that don't run away to attack
-Ghost don't destroy houses anymore
-Priest can now heal itself
-Balanced some stats
-Added some dialogues, fixed some text
Villager Behaviors
-Followers react faster in battle, and follow the player much closer when escaping
-Follower try to not jump in water while you fish
-You can now tell follower to prioritize a weapon (melee, ranged, or torch)
-Duck farmer will now sow plants in water
-Fisher will be less likely to try to fish unreachable fish
-Farmer will be less likely to try to harvest or water unreachable plants
-All villager roles can now harvest plants in the wild.
-Guard can use healing items
-Wanderers and outlaws now pick everything in their path
-Wanderers and outlaws will be attracted to areas with a lot of food
-Better behavior vs ghosts, villagers will run from ghosts when no torch
-Seek food and Seek warmth behavior improved
-Villagers now avoid fire better when walking
-Forager/Fisher/ Hunter / Farmers - Drop items in chest before going back to sleep
QoL & UI
-Items should now go in bag if no space in inventory (when receiving from quest and when taking milk/water)
-Added to chest: Take all and Store All
-Added auto sort on inventory
-Allowed to open chest while holding an item selected
-Reduce priority for interacting with followers
-Prevented saving while in spirit form to avoid issues
-Allowed to grill meat on the cooking crafting stations (was just on firepit before)
-Option to Pin on map when villagers dialogue shows coordinates
-Added Double click to craft
-Prevented attacking tree with torch with space bar
-Added cracks on rocks to show damage
-Allowed to destroy more building without a hammer, such as crafting stations
-Added more lines to the UI of skills/crafting list, so it shows all of them
-Right Click can now inspect categories (Like Any Meat, or Any Fish), showing you example of items in that category.
-Added a warning when trying to destroy something without proper tool
-Added a warning when trying to cook poisonous mushrooms
-Made the pinned quest UI smaller
-Ctrl-click to split stack, Alt-click to drop stack.
-Increased the range of aim with shovel/hoe/watering can
-Made it easier to click on some things such as reviving an ally with items
-Hold space to take multiple items
-Space to tie rope to hitch post
-Added a panel with a list of tutorials, allowing you to rewatch them, and added more tutorials
-Pins have different Color for important quests and the tracked pin on map
-Changed the town icons for the camps in town list
Bugs
-Fixed some issues for the duel with Sir loin
-Fixed a bug where villagers would keep crafting watering cans, then fill it, then craft more.
-Fixed villagers getting stuck trying to pick unreachable items in some cases
-Fixed building cancelling construction if you move after placing it
-Fixed fire not going away when in shallow water
-Fixed human count not showing properly in the Town List panel
-Fixed human camp not counting down when one camp is destroyed
-Fixed glitch when clicking too fast to cook on fire
-Fixed a bug with human behavior in the scenario final battle
-Fixed ALT showing hp bar of hidden characters (ghosts)
-Fixed the shell shield visuals
-Fixed a bug that allowed you to take control of the frog animal
-Fixed issue with forager not collecting some items
-Fixed performance issue with waterfall
-Fixed pressing M in pin title that would close the map
-Fixed fish not running away from player sometimes
-Fixed the Aim target hard to see in winter
-Fixed bug when dying while constructing
-Fixed issue with floor tiles not showing while in building mode
-Fixed bee box not displaying honey properly issues
About the game difficulty
Because of the sandbox nature of the game, everyone has a wildly different experience with the game, the feedback on difficulty ranges from extremely easy to extremely hard. I would encourage players to try the other difficulty levels in the menu, as most people played on Survival.
Also, this first demo scenario is meant to be slightly easier as an introduction, future scenarios will have greater challenges. But even the first scenario can still be quite challenging in some cases depending of the spawn and who you encounter. Recent updates have made the food a bit more rare, and targeting a bit better in combat, which should affect the difficulty for those things.
Thank you for playtesting!
Thank you so much to all the playtesters who helped give feedback to improve the game. There is still a lot more in my to-do list of improvements.
We will keep collecting feedback during the demo and keep improving the game.
What's Next?
The demo releases in just a few hours on August 20!
Then we will be part of the PvE Survival Fest on September 1st. We plan to release a small content update for the event! Stay Tuned!!