Greetings! Alpha 3′s main focus will be making nights exciting again! To do so, we had to make some big changes to other mechanics.

Consequences of death

Dying in normal mode means losing some of your skills, your currently held mutated items, and damaging all of the other items in your inventory. This sucks, as the mutated plants which you use to level up don’t grow back, which can be quite frustrating when you lose a few perks and can’t really regain them after some time. We could of course make them grow back after some time, but that would encourage boring grind. So, in Alpha 3, dying means: dropping your inventory at the place you have been killed, and waking up somewhere in the wilderness at the beginning of the next day. You lose your belongings, but can regain them if you get back to the spot where you have died. Sound too easy? Not quite, as the time skip ties to the other mechanics:

Extracting essence

Mushrooms in the woods are more plentiful, but only certain rare kinds can be cooked for essence. This allows for bigger “trap” areas with a reward for successfully navigating them. Things that can be cooked will rot after a certain amount of time after they have been picked up. Where do you find essence, you ask? Well…

The night

Currently, nights can be very intense at the beginning, but the excitement fades as you figure out how to defend yourself with no risks (like hiding in a corner behind a wardrobe). We have been experimenting quite a lot on how to overcome this, and came up with a solution that we think is pretty cool, and lets you play your way. From now on, mutated flora and fauna will start appearing in the night, in different form. You will need to be on the lookout for them if you want to harvest their essence. You can still hide behind that wardrobe if you’re scared, but you will be missing out on some precious essence! [img=http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/572273303586647547/1479D7ED3CB5E46FD370821BA0A1E6D8AF898395/] Image by Sir Smide II Light now plays a bigger role, as staying in the shadows for too long will be a bad idea, so better fill up your generator before it gets dark! We have also did some adjustments for the nights to be more fair, making them less random and based more on your actions, which leads us to…

Sound

You will need to pay much more attention to the sound you generate from now on. This means interacting with doors, moving objects, barricading etc. will bring attention to your location. This will be very important during the night, as you do not want to alert anyone to your presence.

AI changes

Stealth is harder and easier at the same time. If you are reckless, you will easily get spotted. But if you keep a low profile, you will be able to sneak through areas. Enemies will also be more forgiving in letting you know if they are alerted to your presence. We will be entering the testing phase as soon as we balance out some of the new features, which should be this week. This update will probably be one of the last major alphas to bring big changes to mechanics, after which we will finally be able to move on to adding more content!