Weekly Changelog: v0.8.0

Weekly Changelog: v0.8.0

Hey everyone, I hope you had an amazing week!

We have many cool updates to talk about today.

First, the upcoming Early Access release:

-The Early Access launch date will be April 16! We're almost there, after 2 1/2 years of development!

-You will be able to explore depths of more than 2500 meters (8200 feet) on day 1 of the Early Access.

-There will be a lot to do, tons of biomes to explore, a lot of underwater equipment to craft/gather, a lot more shelter upgrades than what you can see in the trailer, etc.

-I also plan to add new content weekly after the Early Access launch, in the same style as the weekly updates I've been doing since making the demo public 4 months ago.

Game version numbers:

As we are in the final phase of pre–Early Access development, it's time to have a more robust game version system! haha

Here is how it will work going forward:

-0.8.x: The final phase of pre–Early Access updates ( --> We're here now <-- . So this week's update will be 0.8.0 and next week's update will be 0.8.1, and so on)

-0.9.x: Early Access updates (starting on April 16, 2026)

-1.0.x: Full Release

-1.1.x: Important Full Release milestones

-Etc.

Also, here are a few screenshots of areas I've been working on this week:

And here are this week's demo updates:

-Made the crafting station texture darker

-Turned off shadows for buildings while they are being moved around

-Improved the starting area level design

-Prevented the player from jumping as they step on land while holding the jump key after getting out of the water

-Blocked volumetric clouds from appearing for 1–2 frames when closing the pause menu

-Removed the save menu access from the campfire, as it was an older feature, and saving/loading is now handled through the pause menu

-Removed the in-game FAQ to make sure the latest information is always on the Steam page

-Hard-coded a rule so that schools of fish can't go out of the water, because they really tried to haha

-Fixed a lighting flickering issue

-Fixed a lighting intensity issue after coming back from the pause menu

-Fixed a lighting issue in the future era

Other updates:

-I finalised the level design upgrades for all the Early Access biomes. This is a huge development milestone.

-I upgraded the game trailer a bit again, with a better gathering sequence, more biome variety, etc.

For the next few weeks, I plan to work on upgrading the sea creatures. More on that soon!

Thanks again for your support!