Another quick news update before the end of the year. Also, congratulations, you survived 2020! So, to start things off, I have to mention a few things regarding working on this game. Normally, I wouldnt dive into this stuff because you probably want to know about the game and not my life, but this affects development pretty heavily. In short, making Verdant Village has been my full-time job for some time now. However, the scope of this game has increased beyond what I had originally intended a few times. Along with that I dont think I realized just how much money would go into production. Simply put, I need more money to finish the game, I.E. full time job. Ive been hired recently, so that part is now taken care of. I bring this up for two reasons. First, lack of funds is pretty wholly the reason why updates have dropped off. Theres a lot of stuff ready to go, but no art assets for it. Now that I have a source of income again that should end. The second reason is that, obviously, a job means less time to work on the game. Ill do what I can to keep updates coming quickly, or at least have news posts like this. Im no stranger to working full time and then also doing game dev in the evenings/weekends. Alright, now that all that is out of the way, what actually happened this month? Well, probably a bit less than Id have liked honestly. Between holidays and job searching things went a little slowly. Still, some stuff got done. First and foremost, perks have been expanded on. At present in the game there are 11, after the new additions there are now 44 perks in total. I think around 5 of them relate to combat, which means they will be unavailable until that is added, but the rest are ready to go and can be attained. Perks took up a large amount of time, but aside from that alchemy got a few changes. When breaking down items, some give more of a resource than others, meaning there are more efficient plants and things to use for alchemy. Hopefully that adds a bit of decision making to the system. Along with this, there were several changes and bug fixes to various systems around the game. Three more things. First another NPC has been added, along with two quests. Next, and this has been a long time coming, the shovel now actually has a reason to be upgraded. An upgraded shovel will yield more of whatever you are digging, clay, sand, even artifact shards. Last, Ive made an entire system for what Im calling exchange shops. These are special shops that will be around the game world, most will probably be in more secluded areas. These special merchants dont deal in gold like normal shops. Instead, you have to exchange items you find for special currency. You can then use this currency to purchase things from their shop. The items they sell are unique to their shop and youll be unable to find them anywhere else in the game. There is only 1 shop that has been implemented at the moment, but I have ideas for a few others. Thats everything that has been added in December. Currently, Im working on a puzzle system for secrets in the game. I think Ive mentioned it before, but secret areas will be hidden around the world, a lot of them. This will hopefully push exploration a bit as the world is pretty big. These areas will be locked behind small puzzles youll have to complete. The system is in its early stages at the moment but I think it is shaping up well enough. I think thats it for now. Apologies again for the delays. With any luck youll start seeing some movement and actual patches for the game soon. Whenever the next patch drops it stands to be pretty huge so hopefully it will be worth the wait. And finally, happy new year! Heres hoping 2021 is better than 2020.