​Howdy Scientists!

• There was a bug in the quest about plant effects, the quest objective text was mixed up making it very confusing. For example, "insect repellent" was shown as "weed control". Sorry about that!
  
• I added a random tip to explain that cows and goats need to have babies before producing milk.
  
• Various minor bug fixes and optimizations were made in the past two weeks, without being announced.
  
• I also recently added Steam cards, badges, smileys and backgrounds.

Howdy Scientists,

I fixed a few bugs and made minor improvements:

- The quest objectives shown on the main screen are now sorted so that the uncompleted ones appear first.
- Fixed : sometimes when moving an item in the inventory using a GamePad, the item icon would disappear.
- Fixed : Money was not received during Jonas Salk friendship event
- Fixed : "PlayerName" placeholder was not replaced by the player's name in Montessori's friendship dialogue
- Fixed : Plant effects animations sometimes did not show or got stuck for a second
- Fixed : Points will now stay on top when viewing the skill tree
- I made the FPS and version number less visible, those are useful for me debugging when someone sends me a screen capture, but have little interest for players and were often confusing.

Howdy Scientists!

Here is the second part of improvements for gamepad users:

• Moving the hoe tile selector over plants will show their tooltips
  
• Better gamepad navigation in UI

Non-Gamepad changes :

• Better management of plant effects
  
• Pesticide use now cancels pollinator bonus, as intended
  
• Fallow now works properly
  
• Minor bug fixes

Howdy Scientists,

I added right joystick support for gamepad users. It makes selecting the tile while using the hoe much easier, placing furniture too. There are still a few things I want to improve with the gamepad (UI navigation, tooltips, ...), so there will be another update next week.

I also updated the game's guide (Troubleshooting, friendship, minigames)

Ben

- Shift-click on an item in the toolbar will send the stack of items in the inventory, and vice-versa
- Dialogue animation and sound can now be disabled from options menu
- The position of the player on the map is now animated for better clarity
- Added a new cheat code to add an amount of money
- fixed a bug that could prevent exiting a dialog
- key mapping options now have more space to show the text (especially useful for German language)
- fixed some typos and a few UI bugs

Howdy Scientists,

I just published an official guide for the game, with content for new players but also more experienced ones (easter eggs, cheat codes).

Let me know if there is something I can improve.

Ben

Howdy Scientists!

I just made an update to fix some issues :

- better support of various resolutions : the game should now be playable even if your screen doesn't support 1920x1080 resolution or similar screen ratio. That includes low res like 800x600 and 1024x768 but also extra-large screens (i.e. 2560x1080). These are things that I can only simulate on my setup, so please let me know if there is anything that doesn't work as it should.
- There were issues with walking speed on some configurations, this should be fixed now.
- The "too far" cursor is now red to show that you can't interact with something. The previous one was not different enough, which led to confusion about click sometimes not working.
- Random seeds with genetic mutations will drop less often when you cut grass, but you will receive more of them. This should help with inventory management.
- There were some issues with fences not connecting properly.
- Manure dropped by animals will not spontaneously reappear after being cleaned
- The crafting recipes scroll box has been slowed down so it doesn't skip recipes when you use the mouse wheel
- The sound volume of the waterfall and the fountain is now changed properly

Alpha 0.8 is now available. You will have to start a new game, because the world changed a lot. If you prefer continuing your old game, you can disable steam updates or go back to version 0.7 from the "Beta" panel in the "properties" screen.

Achievements : I added 55 steam achievements covering many aspects of the game (farming, quests, friendship, crafting, minigames ...)

New intro and tutorial quests : I updated the game first cutscene and added some early quests to guide the player a little better in the early stages of the game. It's still a work in progress, I'll use your feedback to make it better.

You can now unlock 3 festivals :

• The Drone Race festival happens on day 7 of every season, with a different map each time.
  
• The hackathon festival happens on day 15 of Winter. It unlocks the hacking minigame, a special quiz game, and 5 more levels (with lasers!) in the BotArena minigame.
  
• The Animal Market happens on day 30 of Spring and Fall. You can buy adult animals of any color. There is also a special quiz game.

Animals now have various colors that are transmitted genetically. Some colors are more common than others, and some genes are recessive (only show if both parents transmit the gene). Some colors are the result of two genes. So, if for example you let a couple of white and black rabbits live together, you could have a mix of white, black and grey babies. For now, the animal market is the only place where you can chose your animal colors, when buying them from the farm it will be randomized.



The plant bonuses have been simplified. Each bonus (fertilized, herb control, pollinators, climbing support) is shown on the plant tooltip, and accounts for 25% more productivity. Pollinators now affect plants that produce pollinated fruits (tomatoes, soy, etc). Currently pollinators are not cancelled by pesticide use, but I will soon fix that too.



Plants use the nutrients available in the soil in order to grow. With each harvest, the soil is impoverished. Poor soil will result in reduced harvests. Nutrients can be returned to the soil via chemical fertilizers, but their effect is temporary (1 harvest). Some plants such as soy provide bacteria that fix nitrogen from the air, which fertilizes the surrounding soil (2 harvests). Finally, compost is composed of organic matter rich in nitrogen and carbon, as well as bacteria and fungi which will allow continuous fertilization for a long period (3 harvests).

It is also possible to leave an area fallow, after ten days the soil recovers half its nutrients (1 harvest) and after 15 days in full (2 harvests).


During the next weeks I will concentrate on fixing bugs, and adding a few quality of life improvements I had to postpone. I'm also writing a guide to explain all the aspects of the game. After that, I'm considering leaving early access.

Leaving EA doesn't mean I won't continue to add features (there are still a lot of things I want to add or improve), but I've been working on this project for 4 years and I'm at the end of my budget. Currently the sales are very low (less than 10 sales per week), I can't be sure if it is because the game's not good enough, or if it is because I was targeted by people who don't like pronouns or diversity, and don't mind buying a game just to leave a bad review.

When I started this project, being inclusive seemed like a no-brainer, it costs nothing and harms no-one, so why not ? I was very naive. It ended up being a nightmare, because in the US it was perceived as political, and even more in the recent year. But I don't regret it, on the contrary, it makes me feel that inclusivity is even more important than I thought.

Hopefully, the lack of sales and visibility on Steam is the result of all the (massively upvoted) bad reviews I got because the game is inclusive, trans-friendly and neurodivergent-friendly, and once I release the game for real it will be alright. I'd love to continue working on this project for many years to come.

Howdy Scientists,

This one is a mix between Wordle and the Fallout hacking mini-game. The hackathon festival will also unlock new levels in Bot Arena and a special Quiz game.

You may notice some references to Kali Linux, the 1994 game System Shock, the 1983 "Wargames" movie, the hunter2 IRC password meme, the blue MS-DOS editor, hex editors in general, and the easy to remember 0xBADCAFE hexadecimal address.

Howdy Scientists!

Here's a little preview of the mini-game I'm currently working on. It will be part of the seasonal drone festival that you will be able to unlock from the city screen in the next update.



Currently there are 2 bonuses (flags that give you more time, geysers that give a speed boost) and in the mine level there are obstacles that stop you. I plan for two more levels with also some wind zones that will push you in the wrong direction.

What makes the game challenging is that you need to look at both the whole map and the mini-map at the same time. I'm going for something relatively easy to win but hard to master. The more time left at the end, the more points you get.