Version 0.3 Update

Most changes in this update are on the technical side; we did an overhaul of our entire engine. The goal was to improve performance as the simulation runs longer and reduce the risk of bugs.

On the content side we worked on a bunch of things:

First, there’s more islands to explore and map generation has been changed to get a more balanced game start.

The next changes are to the weather and water systems. Now there are different types of rain and storm events depending on the season. We’ve added clouds during those events which act as a natural shade from the sun. The water simulation is also more detailed, making sea travel more challenging. Physical waves push and throw things around creating chaos when coupled with a storm event.

Besides changing seasons, the game now has lunar cycles. They mostly change how visible it is during night time but also a few other things.

We’ve added more creatures to the game. A few animals and one magical creature: mermaids. The treasure hunt mechanic is updated and now you can trade with mermaids, sell them your loot to get useful magical items.

There also a bunch of other changes:

Cooking is now possible with a cooking pot. At the moment there’s only a few recipes but most of them give you a lot of nutrition. Fishing is now more intuitive and easier to do than previously.

More tools have been added such as a saw, garden hoe and others. With the help of the new tools you can make more structures such as a chest for storing items, a water barrel for collecting rain water and farms to plant seeds.

Also there are traps and more shelter types to construct.

Combat is now more tactical and different weapons require different ways to defeat enemies and the enemy AI now blocks, dodges your attacks and some flee if too injured. Also now you get attacked by waves of enemies in every few days and need to prepare for that, because the waves increase in difficulty as time passes.

The UI also got a lot of changes with more progress bars and text describing in more detail what is happening. The minimap can now be zoomed in and out and is more visible.

All the afflictions have been balanced to make the flow of the game better.