Hello everyone! Today I bring you a new update, version 0.5.1. Here's what's new:

World Changes

The beach was added back in the game, with a new layout, new graphics and a new location. There you can catch sea water fish and other exclusive items. You can access the beach through a new area that was added to the right of your farm, or by going down from the town in the passage near Gabriel's house. This new area between the town and the beach is mostly empty now, but in the future it'll be used for building a petting zoo, where you can keep all the wild animals you tame. There's also a new shortcut from your farm to the mountains, making the mines faster to reach.

New Mines

The layout of the mines has changed to be better manageable. Some areas may require an upgraded hammer to be accessed, while others are available from the start but can be accessed faster after you upgrade the hammer. Blue and White crystals are now more easily dropped, but limited in quantity. The game will also boost the crystal drop rate every day that you don't find any, so you can hit the mines every now and then with an increased drop rate instead of going there everyday to try your luck. There are also new kinds of rocks to be found on the mines and on the mountains, each one requiring a different hammer level to break.

Keyboard Mapping and Controller Profiles

The keyboard mapping screen was fixed to allow customization of the key controls. The gamepad mapping screen was replaced with the controller profiles screen, where the game will detect what kind of controller you are using and show what actions are mapped to it. I've also implemented support for the nintendo switch joy cons, with different mappings based on which joy cons you have connected and how many. Playing with a pair will behave the same way as any other controller, while playing with a single joycon will have adapted controls for the smaller number of buttons.

Diary screen

You can now check the list of items you've shipped, as well as checking the detailed progress of the game. There are also new keys to open the inventory screen directly.

Tool Upgrades

From now on, you'll need to acquire experience with each tool before you are able to upgrade them. If you have already upgraded a tool that you don't have enough experience on, the game will temporarily downgrade it until you reach the required exp. You won't need to redo the upgrades. This update also includes two Fishing Rod upgrades. The upgraded rod will attract fish that swim close to the bait, allowing you to catch fish that only swim far from you. The fish location, spawn rate and prices have all changes with this update as well.

Graphics

Some graphics have been improved, while others were added in this update:

• New Fences
• New Town roads.
• Five New Villager Portraits
• New Weather Effects and Weather Announcement TV Channels
• Festival Announcement TV Channels
• New emotes
• Small changes on the town layout
• New graphics for weeds, tree stumps, logs and stones

Other Changes

• You can now buy ores from the blacksmith after you ship a certain number of them
• You can buy lumber from the carpenter
• The game will show what kind of crop is sown on your farm when you approach it
• The game will show animal names when you approach them
• The hay maker now turns wheat into hay as well.
• New tasks.
• The bank and debt systems were removed from the game.
• The miner's guild was removed from Orange Town. You now get access to the gold mine by upgrading your hammer.
• The mushroom people were removed from the game.

Since the mushroom people were underdeveloped, with no personalities and nothing but the promised ability to open passages on caves, I've decided to replace them with new unique characters. I'm writing a few new villagers that will show up in the next few updates and are going to be much more interesting.

What's Next?

The dating system is finally being implemented. It'll most likely be released in an update two months from now.

[ 2019-09-01 04:49:11 CET ] [ Original post ]