Added a quick fix for a bug that was crashing when saving to Steam Cloud.

I just wanted to give a heads up that I'll be releasing in the next month or so and wanted to give early adopters one last chance at a sale price before leaving Early Access. I'll always have the demo available (even after full release) Try it out, and if you like it, grab it on sale and leave a review! Happy foresting! Nick

Hey everyone! I am putting out the most recent update! I've been working on some re-tooling in order to make more scenarios, but in the meantime I have added some customization options and other features:

Customization options:

• You can now change they keybinds for all of the actions.
• In addition to the biome selector, you can change things like map size and terrain height.

Gameplay updates:

• A new Fern plant type has been added! Ferns only grow in the shade and will die if left in the sun for too long.
• I have reworked how seeds and roots work. As plants level up, you can increase the number of roots they have (click on them to see the menu). More roots keep the plants from drying out, but will also compete for water with other plants!
• Seeds are more expensive to place, but you can now spawn them cheaply from an existing plant. (Use the wind to your advantage!)
• I have added a Walking camera (default "J" key) where you can walk around with your furry or feathered friends. Press "J" again to go back to the normal camera.

Hi folks, I have pushed out a fix a regression preventing new games from map images. I'll likely need to make a change to how those are done in the future, but they should be good now. Thanks, Nick

I've added a few more desert species, both flora and fauna:

• Mexican Goldpoppy
• Barrel Cactus
• Foxtail Agave

• Gila Monster
• Diamondback rattlensake

You'll now see the option to change your biome when creating a new game. This will be the desert biome, where the game will play a little differently. This is a bit of a beta test, as not all of the desert animals and plants I want are in yet, but they are coming! I also have hopefully fixed the bug that was causing crashes when creating new games. User maps should more reliably work when creating your own map. Thanks for everyone's feedback so far, it has really helped guide development. Now that the biome basics are done, I can hopefully turn out the new desert scenarios much more quickly. Let me know if you have any fun scenario ideas! Nick

The crash bug has hopefully been fixed! Thanks for your patience Nick

Hello everyone, I have temporarily rolled back the user map feature for a few days. There were issues causing crashes with most players that I need to figure out. I'll re-release it after I have validated the crashes are no longer occuring! Thanks for your patience Nick

I'm pleased to provide a small update that allows you to include your own custom heightmaps! You can now import a jpg/jpeg file to use in your games. I'm continuing to work on some new features that will fill out the game progression.

I hope everyone is having a relaxing time in Woodland Empire. After a break, I'm back at some regular updates that will be coming in the next few weeks as I work down the development roadmap. This update includes bears, which are a another top-tier predator. Let me know what you think and leave a review! Nick

Hi Woodlanders! I have a small update that allows you to control the speed of the seasons as well as the speed of the day/night cycle.

• Increasing the season speed will also increase the maturity rate of plants in your forest.
• Increasing the day/night cycle will provide better sunlight to undergrowth plants

• Fixed an animation issue with wolves
• Other minor UI tweaks
• Added achievement for Wildfire scenario

Fixed a bug where the squirrels refused to spread seeds in the animals tutorial.

I'll be releasing this coming Thursday for Early Access! You can check out the early access details in the store page, but ultimately I want to get Woodland Empire into as many hands as possible to gather feedback While I continue to improve the game. I encourage you to try the demo, and if you like it, buy in to Early access. Everyone is welcome in Discord and I keep an eye on the official Steam forums. This has been a great 2 years of development and I hope with community support and suggestions to make it even better! -Nick

The latest build should provide some much needed stability for both Windows and Linux users. I had to re-engineer some of how the simulation happens, so it's not all optimized yet but hopefully you should not see any more in-game crashes! Some of the minor things are:

• A new 4th tutorial about the cycle of life
• An expensive new tornado that kills trees level 3 and above (Rips 'em right out)
• A new fire simulation that should only burn down your forest - not your computer.
• The sunlight simulation draft is in - Plants grow faster when they have direct sunlight

• I need to re-visit some performance stuff that was re-engineered with the old, crashing code
• I'll be re-balancing some of the fire attributes to better simulate brush fires that would leave older, larger trees standing just fine.
• Getting to work on more plant and animal species

Fix a bug that would reliably crash the game after 15:34. Nerd details: I had a script that would play songs by genre in progression: Relaxing, upbeat, normal, relaxing, exciting, etc.... The progression index was not being updated properly, so when the 5th song (after the 4 songs that were between 2 and 3 minutes long) started to load, it hit an inescapable while loop, looking for the next song. so, I fixed that.

Hi all, The achievement for opening the demo should now be fixed, as well as an issue that was causing a crash after saving your game. Thanks! Nick

Due to a gameplay change a few weeks back, the achievements for placing grass and trees no longer worked, as well as the achievement for 100 trees. These have been fixed! Thanks for all of the feedback, Nick

Hi all, thanks so much for checking out Woodland Empire. I've noticed a few folks experiencing crashes. I think there is more than one place, but I was able to identify one and fix it: If you had an animal selected, then it died, then you clicked on another animal, the game would crash. This has been fixed. There is an outstanding issue where water stops flowing which I am addressing now. Thanks for all the awesome feedback so far! Nick

I'm super excited to celebrate upcoming games with so many talented developers. Check out Woodland Empire and complete the survey when exiting, or join me on discord (or both!)

A couple of starter tutorials are now available, with more to come. There are also a couple of new maps to try out. After a couple of weeks of overhauling the save-game system and some reorganization of the main menus. Other new things in this update:

• Redwood/Sequoia trees are now available
• Rain clouds are now limited by the amount of water evaporated from the surface and transpired from trees
• Rain will now auto-spawn when humidity reaches a high enough level.
• You can now manually place fertilizer zones, though they cost a great deal of harmony.
• Herbivore birds should be better at flocking now.
• Some buggy issues with ground animal movement have been fixed.
• The main menu has been updated to accommodate future scenario maps.

Hey everyone, Based on recent gameplay feedback, I've updated a few resource costs and simplified some mechanics:

• New games start with significantly more trees and grass, allowing you to jump into better gameplay more quickly.
• Seeds spawn automatically, but at a reduced rate
• All plant upgrades come with automatic root upgrades.
• Ground animals now are able to sleep
• Most animals are more likely to reproduce, allowing animal creation without spending currency.
• All animals can die of old age, but are cheaper to place. This should encourage the hunting and placing mechanics
• New Fire models to increase graphics performance. It should be more clear which plants are currently engulfed in flames.

I've added many of the new species, including flowers and some updated tree models New RCI dynamics: Ruderal (pioneer species): Typically considered weeds, these are fast growing grasses and perennials that are the foundation of your forest's income Intermediate species: These are shade-intolerant specs that provide cover for slow growing canopy species. Canopy Species: These are the bones of a mature forest. and provide habitat for more advanced animal species Give it a try and let me know what you think! https://discord.gg/4PyNeayg8V

Hi all, The update that allows you to save a game in progress has been implemented. You can find the save files in the savedgames folder in your Woodland Empire steam directory. It looks like steam saves are not available for demos. Steam saves will be a feature when the game releases. Happy hunting, Nick

I noticed in some streams that there were performance issues as well as a couple of crashes. I have investigated those and hopefully they are resolved.

Have fun with the demo and let me know what you think! A couple of other minor improvements:

• A tutorial system has been implemented with more helpful hints to come
• The follow-an-animal camera has been improved
• Water flow algorithm improved
• Added some better visual and audio effects
• New dramatic music during forest fires
• Some graphical performance optimizations

A small number of achievements are now available. I am planning for a lot more (and harder) achievements in the full game, but as a thank you for trying out the demo, you can get some demo-only achievements right now! Thanks for trying out the demo and drop by the discord if you have any issues or suggestions!

I'm pleased to announce the new alpha v15 version of Woodland Empire. I've been focusing on usability and clarity of game design. I hope that you really get sucked in to the unstable balance of harmony and resilience that keeps your forest ever-changing and ever-growing. As always, please reach out @obvlong if you'd like to discuss or provide any feedback.

There has been some great feedback on the demo so far. With many new drastic improvements coming, I want everyone to have the best possible experience in-game. I'll post here when a new demo build is up! Thanks, Nick

I'd like to thank everyone who has tried out Woodland Empire so far. As we further develop new features, we'll be adding a subset to this demo so stay tuned! Nick

Hi all, I wanted to let you know that the Linux demo is now available for download. If you have already added it to your library, you may need to uninstall and redownload. Thanks for trying out the demo! Let me know what you think!