Update: Tutorial
June 30, 2018
If you bounced off the game in the past because it was too hard to figure out, this is a great time to give it another shot.
This week's update brings a brand new tutorial.
This has always been a game that just throws you right in there, and that will remain the case, so don't worry. The tutorial mostly explains the nuances of the controls and systems. There are a lot of little things that just aren't explained anywhere else. Some of these things are lost on veteran players.
Also added, and explained in the tutorial, is the new crafting-hint filter feature. If you want to make a hatchet, for example, you can cull down the hint list to show only steps that are relevant along the way to the hatchet. This greatly reduces the "sharp stone does 46 things" problem, and should allow pretty much everyone to be able to figure out the final crafting challenge at the tail end of the tutorial.
You have to get through the tutorial, and solve that last crafting challenge, to actually play the game, so I'm really betting the farm on this one. At least you'll know that if a baby is born to you in-game, that player is not totally clueless.
This new filter system also just might make wikis and other external crafting guides unnecessary, but we'll see how it goes.
A bunch of little content issues have been fixed. Committing murder now "counts" as living a full time block in a family line, just like being a victim of murder does. Griefers can no longer kill and then suicide before 30 minutes elapse to come back at the same family again. The lineage ban has been upped to 1.5 hours of life lived in other lines before returning to a given family line.
| Update: Emergency Medicine
June 23, 2018
This week's update ushers in a major change to the core of the game: wounds are no longer guaranteed to be fatal.
But hold on a second, don't equip that health pack just yet. Performing emergency surgery on yourself is harder than it sounds. Better done with the help of a friend.
And this is why wound recovery does not immediately aid a lone griefer. There is safety in numbers.
If you're dreaming of armor and a backpack full of medical syringes as a means of solo self defense, you might want to consider what happens when a griefer gets their hands on the same load-out.
On a completely unrelated note: there are now pigs.
Next week, I'll be working on a much-needed tutorial to explain some of the more subtle features to new players.
And before I hear any grumbling about war crimes and my use of a red cross, this is an artistic work of fiction. The Geneva Conventions were never intended to apply.
| Update: Good Eating
June 15, 2018
There's now a good reason to eat all sorts of delicious foods, instead of just mono-gorging the most efficient and convenient food. Omelettes and tacos and kraut and stew. And even more reason to share food and meals than there ever was before, and hopefully a good reason to have a village chef that might coordinate all of this for you. Tuesday is taco night.
This update adds a YUM mechanic, which gives you a bonus for feasting with a long chain of food variety. The more variety you eat, the better you feel. So let's eat beans for every meal! Er... yeah, so plain bean tacos do get a little boring. Future updates will add some toppings to spice things up, and maybe even some slow-cooked carnitas. Get your limed corn ready, people.
Some of the more fiddly and plentiful seeds can now be stored in bowls, and a new domesticated animal sneaked in there too.
| Update: Big Farm
June 9, 2018
With most of the post-launch growing pains behind us, I was freed up this week to spend all most all of my time on content. There's a lot of new stuff in there, mostly concerning expanded gardening and things you can make with the products of that gardening.
A few of the end-products are personally meaningful to me---things that my family has been making every year for many years, with all most all of the real-life steps in place. In fact, I just ate some of our red-cabbage sauerkraut during my lunch break today.
Oh, and if you've ever tried to cut up a hubbard squash, you know that a kitchen knife isn't going to do the job. The first time I saw one of these monsters in person, many years ago, I felt like I was looking at something straight out of Star Wars. One of the strangest looking edible fruits around.
If you're paying close attention, you will also notice that the days of berry farm utopia are coming to an end, with berries now requiring soil, just like every other crop. However, soil has become both more plentiful and easier to move around. I'm still trying to design new foods in the game so that everything has its niche, but that approach will only take us so far. I envision 100s of unique foods in this game eventually, and I'm currently tinkering with new mechanics that will motivate a varied diet in a simple, straight-forward way (no, it's not a tedious nutrition system, don't worry).
| Update: Small Farm
June 1, 2018
This week's update lays the groundwork for the Big Farm update that is coming next week.
The biggest content additions this week are corn farming, a straw hat, and a high-capacity source of sewing thread from wool.
But the underlying resource systems have been given a complete overhaul.
Water sources now have a fixed, low refill rate, and emptying any source to the bottom is inconsequential, but higher and higher tech water sources have larger and larger capacity. With a deep well and a bucket, water can now be moved 10 units at a time. Moving large quantities of water around is way more efficient, if you reach that level of technology. Wells must be built on top of natural water sources, making cisterns much more useful for on-site water storage far away from a well site. Wells now have a visual indication of how full they are, so you know when you need to start building a new one.
Soil is now a necessary, consumed ingredient for all farming activities, which means it's easier to balance the value of various foods now and in the future (carrots no longer have a huge leg up, because they consume soil too). This has been balanced by making natural soil much more plentiful, and compost much more productive. Tilling is now needed to work soil into the ground instead of to re-work a hardened carrot row.
These changes pave the way for even more advanced water sources and soil fertility technology in the distant future, but also for farming of other, balanced food types in the immediate future.
As promised, blue roses are in there too.
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