After weeks of fixing bugs we decided to change tack for a little while and focus on something else. Going over the many feature requests posted to our discord server, we identified an opportunity to change the way the game deals with the death of a character.

First of all, we brought back the mechanism that made sure the items you carry when your character passes on, can be retrieved later on. They might still end up in the hoard of a monster, though!

Better yet, when you die you now get the option to restart at the entrance of location with one of the characters currently on your roster. In that case you can try to retrieve the lost gear immediately. If you dare...

Gameplay changes:
- Bring back the mechanism that stows your gear somewhere after you die.
- Adds the option to restart from the current location’s entrance after you die.
- When you change wayfarers in Haven, healing potions are no longer automatically transferred to the next character. So when they show up in a pinch, they have some protection.

We still have been mostly fixing bugs and this week’s patch fixes twenty of them.

On our discord server we have also started a discussion about the mid-game balance and ideas to make the end game more exciting. Come join us if you have any opinions about those!

Bug Fixes:
- Potential fix for sigils used to power machines that go missing from after switching levels.
- Repairs the smart camera setting.
- On PC you should be able to make a new save every 20 seconds.
- Small items that have multiple uses no longer stack in order to prevent incorrect consumption during journeys.
- Hides the number of spirit guide roots you have from the travel panel as this info is not needed anyway.
- If you have automatic face enemies switched off, you no longer keep facing inspirited thickets and similar enemies.
- All signets have correct assets when they show up in your hand.
- When the game spawns Earworm eggs, it no longer gives you a deed for harvesting them simply for being in the same area.
- Limits the number of creatures you can spawn to 32.
- You can no longer grab torches from sconces through walls.
- Accidental stairways to heaven or no longer generated.
- The interaction with ‘poorly hidden’ holes in the ground is more intuitive now.
- Adds a collider to the stairs down asset.
- Quest descriptions appear more consistently in the map dialog where you can commit to them.
- The button that allows you to continue after a quest ended, is disabled when the quest ended because you are dead.
- Haven no longer serves broken waybread.
- Raaf temples (and other locations) revealed by an inscription actually show up on your map.
- Valker is now a master of the falx so they don’t drop theirs so quickly.
- New potential fix for a blurry soft-lock.
- Your health is restored when you leave the tutorial area.

Just like previous week, our main effort has been fixing the bugs that were reported to our Discord Server. We have mostly caught up with the issues that were easily reproduced. We are especially happy to report that the newly introduced issue that prevented new players from leaving the temple in Haven has been fixed.

Our top priority bug right now is an issue that is causing the wrong quests to register as complete at the wrong location and time. Unfortunately this issue has so far proven to be quite elusive. If you encounter it please send in a report!

Bug Fixes:
- While still onboarding you can leave the temple after you committed to the first quest.
- Prevents underground rivers from spawning too high and creating accidental underwater tunnels (cool as they may be).
- Taking casts at a forge no longer counts as stealing.
- Adds the missing text for serpent gate quests.
- Activating and deactivating serpent gates has an effect on the sky magic level.
- When returning to the temple in haven travel gear is automatically repaired alongside weapons and armor.
- When creatures drop meat, skins, and furs more consistently when they are defeated.
- Quest items are correctly placed in dandelion deep cave levels.
- The generator can move ramps when they are generated in too tight spaces.
- The robbery encounter should no longer try to advertise itself in the HUD.
- Correctly filters out a few incorrect combinations of the spire ruin level template for new worlds.
- Defeating all enemies of a random encounter more consistently ends that encounter so that the level registers all threats have been dealt with.
- Solves a possible soft lock while traveling caused by a ‘machine event’.
- Unfortunately placed spawnpoints can no longer interfere with the orientation of a doorway.
- Clarified that to operate a specific abacus you first need to find a clue.
- Fixing some minor text issues.

This patch fixes roughly thirty bugs. Some minor, some fairly major. Among the major bugs fixed is one that caused many smaller quests not to resolve correctly. We haven’t had a chance to check all the instances in which this applies, but we hope that this should be largely something of the past now. Many thanks to all the players (special shout out to Crystal Clod!) that have been so diligent in making reports to our discord server.

Bug fixes:
- Outside the training area you cannot investigate beams of light.
- Dealing with a world machine or spirit tree only triggers a quest end when it was the active quest or when you didn’t have an active quest.
- Plants and mushrooms are no longer allowed to ‘repurpose’ an area in a settlement.
- You are not brandished as a thief for taking items from a monster hoard.
- Quests to achieve a diplomatic status with a clan are actively suppressed when that status is already reached.
- Correctly resolves ‘[AT HERE]’ in the HUD prompt for local quests.
- Adds lines for traveling healers when they cannot help you.
- Teleporters (hidden or otherwise) cannot accidentally be placed in too tight spaces.
- Fixes no less then 6 occurrences of texts that read ‘the the’ (where one the would have been enough).
- Exploring spirit realms closes the associated quests more consistently.
- Fixes an instance in which the secondary entrance into small caves was broken.
- Reduces the chance of wall decorations floating around after they are generated in the wrong place.
- Summoned creatures never gain the ability to talk (and thereby the power to make demands).
- If you complete the machine part quest, but fail to return to Haven, a little raven brings the missing part to Haven so that the world isn’t lost.
- Key items are never hidden in containers that are marked to disappear when a site is looted.
- Repairing and boosting scrying stone completes the associated quests more consistently.
- Dark stone rings no longer stack.
- Prevents a case where you could interact with objects through walls.
- When an inscription reveals a location, the location really appears on your map.
- Potential fix for soft locks while traveling on the map.
- You are only prompted with a local quest to uncover iron and similar resources when a clan sent you there for that purpose. (Might not work for existing worlds)
- Imperial loot should spawn correctly.
- Restores key features of the Unformed Labyrinth that went missing in some cases.
- When you cannot claim a keep because nobody asked you to, the flag pole in the keep makes this clear.
- Possible fix for blurred screen soft lock when inspecting other wayfarers.
- The exit of a serpent path should not go into a lake or to the top of dandelion highland sites.
- Picking up lost heirlooms completes the quests to find them.
- Fixes a case where the passage onto the lake with the flow elemental failed to generate.
- Heavy armor with 2 or 3 root sigils provide more than just root protection.

Our main efforts this week have been removing friction from the training area, but we also managed to get rid of a few bugs. Many thanks to all the players that reported them so diligently!

Gameplay changes:
- When creating a new world you are taken to the roster page instead of the gameplay settings page.
- Replaces traps in the training area with less lethal variations.
- Moves the turret in the training area from the room with the well to the armory.
- You cannot disable the turret if you haven’t learned about fortune tests first.
- Adds more sparks to the start of the training dungeon.
- You can investigate the automatons in the training area to get more information on how to deal with them.
- You can investigate the sky source in the training dungeon to learn more about its purpose.
- The floaters for parrying and blocking attacks are more prominent.
- The number of sparks you have are reset after the tutorial to what you had when you started the tutorial.

Bug fixes:
- Damage done to enemies by creatures you summoned counts as damage done by you.
- Prevents shallow water planes from spawning on top of stairs.
- Chests no longer trigger the smart camera.
- The smart camera is not triggered when an interactive is being framed up-close.
- When a dialog starts, any pop-up is automatically closed.
- The random that is used to determine how you recover from wounds and weariness uses a fixed, time-based seed so you cannot quit the game to force a reroll.
- Encounters that need a ‘traveler’ spot to spawn, spawn more consistently at cave locations.

This patch contains a dozen bug fixes and a few improvements to the training area in Haven. No more, no less.

Gameplay Changes:
- Adds special idols to the training area that can be used to repeat automatic instructions.
- The cave in the training area no longer is completely dark.
- The blinking sources in the tutorial area are more obvious.
- Adds an alternative, dark way to cross the chasm in the training dungeon.
- Replaced the ‘staff of stars’ in the training area with the ‘orb of moonlight’ to distinguish it better from the ‘staff of missiles’.

Bug Fixes:
- Haven’s supreme trainer explains the inspector mode differently if you are playing with a controller.
- Makes the basic fighting instructions less confusion for controllers.
- Clarifies the magic training room instructions.
- Clarifies ‘the dark cave’ training dungeon instructions.
- Potential fix for a null-reference preventing you from destroying skider eggs.
- Equipping a pickaxe through an event unequips double handed items held in the other hand.
- Potential fix: local quests to repair or boost scrying stone should resolve correctly.
- Fixes a faulty teleporter in the dandelion pit level.
- Prevents serpent gate dials from generating next to stairs.
- If you are sent to a keep to claim it for a clan you can claim it even if the clan is angry with you.
- Honorable Vigor works as advertised.
- Healing is a valid reward for offering a tribute at certain shrines.

This patch further embellishes the training area in Haven. You can now fight shades in the combat area, and you will need to use magic to make it through the training dungeon.

These additions wrap up the construction of the new training area. Although we are still improving and adding extra polish where needed. If you have any feedback we would very much like to hear about it on our Discord server!

Gameplay Changes
- Adds extra inscriptions and explanations about the Staff to the temple and training area in Haven.
- Adds an extra room to the combat training area where you can fight shades.
- Adds an extra section to the training dungeon with more traps and magic.
- The tutorial button has been removed from the main menu.

Bug Fixes
- The Treasure Seeker trait does not give you sparks in Haven.
- The training area in Haven doesn’t use a random seed (as the old tutorial did).

We’ve further expanded the training area this week. It is now very close to being finished. So close that we are starting to phase out the old tutorial. New players are now recommended to use the training area over the tutorial available from the menu.

On top of that, we also addressed some balance issues. The rate at which Haven restocks supplies has been diminished a little, and there are new gameplay difficulty settings that allow you fine-tune the available stocks even further. Knowledge points are collected a little slower, and the number of points needed to buy a rumor now depends on the distance of the site to Haven. To compensate you should be able to find more fragmented notes while traveling.

Gameplay Changes
- Adds messages to explain the auto camera and camera presets when you start a run in the tutorial.
- The sparring master directs your attention to the camera.
- Expands the combat section of the training area to include dagger throwing and camera presets.
- The training area in Haven is now the preferred way of learning the game. New players are alerted to this by a message popping up when they want to play the tutorial. Soon the old tutorial will be phased out entirely.
- Adds a warning when you try to leave the temple if you never interacted with the tutorial material.
- Trainers in Haven acknowledge when you have completed your training.
- Adds and improves tutorial messages when you are camping for the first time in the prologue.
- Haven starts with less gear and trinkets in stock. But a new gameplay option allows you to start a world with the previous amount of stocks.
- Reduces the rate at which Haven restocks its supplies. Adds a gameplay option to reduce that rate even further.
- The costs of buying leads with knowledge points varies based on the distance of the site and the distance of the region. With nearby rumors being cheaper than they were before.
- Reduces the knowledge value of commonly found books, maps, and scrolls.
- Increases the chance you can find some fragmented notes in abandoned camps.

Bug Fixes
- When you leave the training area with a tutorial item visibly equipped they stay floating about in the level.
- If you check the box not to repeat a specific gameplay warning, it doesn’t stay checked for other warnings.

This week we have been working on the training area and onboarding experience. We’ve added, but not quite finished, a new room where you can learn about magic. Outside the Haven’s temple a new Travel Master npc can teach you about traveling. They will also provide you with the necessary travel gear if you are about to set out on the prologue mission.

Gameplay Changes
- When you enter the game the first time the prompt explaining movement appears.
- Adds a travel master outside the temple in Haven. In the first run of the prologue they approach you and give you travel gear.
- Adds a warning when you try to journey with unequipped travel gear that could have been equipped.
- Starts a new room in Haven’s training area to learn about magic.

Bug Fixes
- Standing on or behind a teleporter doesn’t trigger the automatic camera change.

Here is the first patch of the new year! We are getting back into the groove of weekly updates. This week there are only a handful of bug fixes. For next week we plan to keep improving the tutorial area in the Haven.

Bug Fixes
- Save games automatically recover if the game crashes in the game over screen after you died.
- Ropes cannot be duplicated on spots where you can climb down, but cannot climb back up again.
- Repairs a missing rumor text (“tiding.triava.kaban”).
- The quest to claim a keep is no longer offered when you arrive at a keep. You must commit to such a quest with a clan leader.
- When a game is restored lingering quest data is removed more effectively.
- The map reflects the possibility of picking up quests at adventure sites more accurately.

We wish you all a wonderful and adventure-filled 2025!