The time has come for yet another UnReal World version to go live as version 3.85 beta is hereby now released. Being in beta phase it's available as a beta branch you need to opt-into at your Steam Library. This will be explained below. In few weeks time, if no showstoppers are found, we can expect a stable release.

With this version we've now accomplished featuring the vast majority of crafting as pausable tasks. Now only a few item categories still remain to be done on our way to comprehensive pausable crafting.
The other most notable additions in version 3.85 are also linked to crafting. One to mention is the shingles - a new type of light source with its unique usage mechanics. Secondly, there's now tree species property for big trunks and assorted timber products which affects to what type of wood is needed/preferred for crafting this or that.
You can find full changelog at the end of this post, and a closer look at the few mentioned features with screenshots here.


Upon felling big trees the tree species now gets derived into the produced tree trunk. The basic timber products made of big trunks eg. blocks and boards will now start to inherit the tree species resulting in eg. "pine boards" or "block of birch wood". And so the tree type will now start to affect to what type of wood is needed/preferred for crafting this or that.

Here our character has felled big spruce, pine and birch trees and they appear on the ground like this.To give a few examples birch tree is preferred for making wooden shovels, cups and bowls. For wood slats pine is preferred, and shingles need to be made exclusively from blocks of pine. For crafting a paddle spruce is required. And the bows are best made out of pine or birch.

The tree species preference is indicated within the material and tool selection dialog the same way as all the other preferences. Here's how it goes when longbow crafting is initiated - pine or birch board is the preferred raw material.
Shingles are thin and flat oblong pieces of pine wood which were burnt to produce light - especially for lighting up houses during the dark time of the year.
Shingles are lit by using [a]pply command. Once a shingle is burning you can drop and set it wherever the light is needed, or carry it with you.
One shingle burns for about 30 minutes in the game so for continuous lighting a new one needs to be lit before the previous one fades out. This sort of shingle replacement is done automatically if your character, or companion, is located beside the burning shingle and there's a stack of new shingles nearby on the ground. The character then automatically replaces and lights a new shingle when necessary, and you don't need to worry about maintaining the lighting even if the task you were doing would take a long time.

There are two shingles being burnt to light up a cottage in this Koivulais settlement. Stack of reserve shingles lays on the floor and a close by player character, their companion or the villagers might automatically set a new shingle burning if need be.

• First, quit the game if you were playing it.
  
• Right-click UnReal World in your Steam Library, and select Properties from the drop-down menu.
  
• Click BETAS and you'll see a dialog where to enter beta access code.
  
  
• The access code for this release is urwversion385beta
  Type in the access code and press Check Code button.
  
• Selection to Opt into 3.85 (beta) appears. Click it, the update starts, and you've got it!

Should you encounter showstopping problems with this beta version just go back to BETAS selection and choose None from Select the beta you would like to opt-into drop-down menu.
This returns your game back to the previous stable version 3.84.2.



Version 3.85 (beta) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

BETA NOTICE:

This is a beta release. There are likely bugs, things are still somewhat under construction, and some of the listed improvements will be tweaked and polished further in patches to follow.

- added: tree species property for big trunks and some assorted timber products

Upon felling big trees the tree species now gets derived into the produced tree trunk. As a result the tree trunks are now called as pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk or spruce tree tunk - depending on what species of a tree was felled. Felling small trees still produces the generic slender tree trunks, but in the future tree species property will be added for slender trunks as well.
There are also different tree trunk tile graphics for pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk and spruce tree trunk. These have been added as separate columns within truetile/trunk.png tile graphics file.
When making blocks of wood or boards out of the big trunks these products now also inherit the original tree species property. As a result these basic timber products will be now called for example as "block of spruce wood" or "pine board", etc.

- added: some crafts now require wood material of specific tree species

Some crafts now require specific species of wood as raw material. This is indicated within the material and tool selection dialog the same way as all the other preferences. For example, you may be given a messages such as "You need a board, preferably of pine or birch." or "You need a spruce trunk."
In cases where certain tree species is preferred it's still possible to use material of any tree species, but if it differs from the preferred types the produced item will be of lesser quality. In that case the generic "...can't make good out of bad." message will be shown upon obtaining the finished craft.
A specific wood species is now preferred when crafting the following items. And this feature will likely get more widely utilized in the future updates.

* Longbow, pine or birch is preferred
* Shortbow, pine or birch is preferred
* Wooden shovel, birch is preferred
* Wooden cup and bowl, birch is preferred
* Wood slat, pine is preferred
* Shingle, pine is required
* Paddle, spruce is preferred

- modding add: preferred tree species requirement

Where applicable you can specify preferred tree species as a required material within <> tag. For example:

{Tree trunk} <Spruce, Birch> [remove]
{Block of wood} <Birch> [remove]

On the first line a big tree trunk is required, and it should be preferably of either spruce or birch. On the second line block of wood is required, and it should be preferably of birch. In these cases it's still possible to use material of any tree species, but if it differs from the preferred types the quality of the produced item will be lower.
If only a certain type of tree species is accepted you should specify it directly by its full item name including the species. For example:

{Pine tree trunk}
or
{Spruce board}

- added: shingles - a traditional light source

Shingles are thin and flat oblong pieces of pine wood which were burnt to produce light - especially for lighting up houses during the dark time of the year. In addition, shingles are also used as handicraft raw material in the making of shingle baskets - which is a new item featured in this verison.
Shingles are timber type items, and they are lit by using [a]pply command. Once a shingle is burning you can drop and set it wherever the light is needed, or carry it with you. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a specific stand that kept them in a good angle for proper burning, but in the game the dropped burning shingles are imagined to be inserted between the wall logs or set firmly in place by some other means.
One shingle burns for about 30 minutes in the game so for continuous lighting a new one needs to be lit before the previous one fades out. This sort of shingle replacement is done automatically if your character is located beside the burning shingle and there's a stack of new shingles nearby on the ground. You character then automatically replaces and lights a new shingle when neccary, and you don't need to worry about maintaining the lighting even if the task you were doing would take a long time. Your companions will also automatically set a new shingle burning if they happen to be beside the fainting one.
Villagers now also stock shingles and can utilize them to light up their cottage houses. Villagers set shingles burning only when necessary so this kind of lighting in the villages is mostly seen only during the dark autumn and winter periods.

- added: SHINGLE game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- added: crafting shingles

You can find the option for crafting shingles at [M]ake menu under [L]umber category.
Shingles are split from a block of pine wood. The process requires an axe, knife and hammering tool such as club. First the block is split into smaller pieces and then the shingles are split and pulled apart one by one by using a knife and hands. One block of wood yields hundreds and hundreds of shingles, but it is time consuming process that can take a full working day. The exact amount of shingles produced from one block of wood is based on the success of your TIMBERCRAFT skill.

- added: shingle basket, a new container item

Shingle basket is a rather large container made out of shingles. You can craft shingle baskets from [M]ake menu under tility articles.

- changed: Staff item type and role

Staves are now classified as timber type items rather than weapons, and considered mostly as raw material for crafting and construction purposes.
There are no changes to staff making. They are made from slender tree trunks by delimbing and debarking the trunk and cutting it to suitable lengths. A common staff is thought of being about two meters in length with a diameter that fits nicely in one's hand.

MIGRATION NOTICE: Weapon type staves obtained in previous versions do work in crafting the same way as the current version staves.

- updated: STAFF game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- changed: Flail item type and role

Grainflail is now classified as a tool type item, rather than being a weapon. For a long time flails were considered weapons but that approach was foremostly generic medieval weaponry relic from the past and quite inappropriate for the game world. Naturally the FLAIL combat skill no longer exists either.
In addition, the small flail item has been removed completely so there's only one flail item in the game world now - the grainflail.

MIGRATION NOTICE: FLAIL skill gets removed from the migrated characters upon their first load in this version. The old flails continue to appear as weapon type items, but their usage as weapons is now unpredictable.

- updated: GRAINFLAIL game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- added: pausable arrowhead making

Crafting of the arrowheads are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.

- changed: bone and stone arrowhead crafting batch size increased from 5 to 10

- changed: blunt arrow crafting

Blunt arrow crafting batch size is now increased to a dozen (12). As one slender trunk now yields 3 blunt arrows this is more reasonable batch number considering the sparing material usage.
An axe or carving knife is now also required in making of blunt arrows - for efficient rough cutting. You can still craft a blunt arrow with any knife alone, but using an axe or sturdy knife makes things easier.

- added: pausable fishing equipment

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Fishing" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Wooden fishhook

It now takes 30 minutes on average to make.

* Lippo

It now takes 6 hours on average to make.

* Netting needle

A wooden stake is now required as a raw material to carve the netting needle from.

- added: pausable tying equipment

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Tying equipment" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused tying equipment crafting use any similar type of crafting again - ie. any cord, rope or withe - standing beside the partially finished item. So, even if you had for example a leather rope in the making, trying to craft birch-bark rope beside it still continues the original paused craft. So with tying equipment we hereby have an exception to pausable crafting continuing rules. If you choose to craft any type of cord, rope or withe the existing paused cord, rope or withe at the location will be finished first.

- added: pausable textilecraft

Spinning yarn and crafting of the spindle in [M]ake -> "Textilecraft" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Spindle

It now takes 2 hours on average to make. Moreover, in addition using a knife alone, an axe or carving knife is preferred for rough cutting of the initial spindle shape.

- added: pausable utility articles

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Utility articles" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Grainflail

It's now made of two staves instead of a slender tree trunk. The staves are carved smooth and the impact stave is joined to the handle with a piece of cord.
It now takes 3 hours on average to make.

* Wooden cup

They can be now made in batches of up to 5 at a time, and one block of wood yields five cups. Production time of one cup has been increased to 90 minutes. Previously it was 1 hour.

* Wooden bowl

They can be now made in batches of up to 4 at a time, and one block of wood yields two bowls. Production time of one bowl has been increased to 3 hours. Previously it was 2 hours.

* Torch

They can be now made in batches of up to 10 at a time. Some tying equipment is now also required to keep the bundle of branches tight and convenient to handle. The tying equipment can be anything from withes to cords.

* Bandage

To make one bandage 0.5 lbs of cloth is required, instead of previous 1 lb.

- removed: skin (ie. waterskin) item

This item was actually a remnant from the very early years of the game where wilderness exploration and abundance of water wasn't so obvious. Moreover, water containers made out of leather are also somewhat anachronistic for the game world.

- modding add: [sucmodqty] tag to specificy success modified quantity of obtained items

Using [sucmodqty] tag at the item header modifies the number of items to produce, specified as (num), based on how the crafting attempt succeeded. Very succesfull crafting produces close to or exactly the specified number of items, and failures produce that much less.
For example, if we had an item header like this:
.Club. (10) /5h/ *COMMON* [sucmodqty]

This would always produce 10 clubs if there wasn't [sucmodqty] in use. But now as there's [sucmodqty] tag it can produce something like 7-10 clubs based on how the crafting attempt succeeds.

- changed: wood slat production amount is now prone to success modified quantity

The number of wood slats you get from one board is modified by how the crafting attempt succeeded.

- added: yield information of raw materials, where applicable, is now indicated upon starting to craft something

For example, when starting to craft staves there will be a message telling that "You can make 3 staves from one slender tree trunk." This way crafting can be planned sparingly in cases where certain raw material yield has been set.

- adjusted: availability of small garments such as socks and mittens in the villages has been increased

The chances to find small garments such as socks and mittens from the villages has been increased. You still may have to visit several prosperous villages to find a spare pair of precious woollen socks or mittens, but there's noticeable increase to the previous.

- added: proper stocking of skis and ski sticks in the villages

Skis and ski sticks are now properly stocked in the villages and the equipment quality can vary depending on the culture. Ski equipment restocking, if needed, is based on the village population and season.

- fixed: start-up scenarios generated too close to the villages

Sometimes a new character's location and start-up scenario were generated too close to the existing villages which caused scenario effects to spread into the villages. This was noticed for example with scenarios like "Unfortunate hunting trip" and "Not all who wander are lost."

- fixed: two animals getting caught in the same trap

- fixed: holes in the ice refreezing in slightly above zero degrees celsius temperatures

- fixed: glitches with using village trade credit for blacksmith orders

If you had enough village trade credit to cover the whole blacksmith order, asking the blacksmith's opinion about preferred items to trade only used up your credit but didn't proceed with the order.

- fixed: crawling while skiing

These two movement modes were erroneously simultaneously allowed. Now the crawling character with skis keeps only crawling, with the crawling speed.

- fixed: running while skiing

These two movement modes were erroneously simultaneously allowed. Now running is not possible when skiing.

- fixed: felled saplings in darkness displayed incorrectly

- fixed: rare shovel disappearance potential when digging a pit was paused

- fixed: NPCs occasionally setting fires at unsuitable and random locations

- fixed: being able to shoot broken arrows with a bow

- fixed: shoreline waters at the village area converted into spring water for migrated characters created before the spring addition


Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Some of you are aware of this already, and for the rest it's time for a little cross-promotion...

Ancient Savo, another game by Enormous Elk was recently on Steam.

Created by Erkka Lehmus (UnReal World co-designer) this open-ended survival and resource management game is focused on raising a family. The game takes place in 1200 CE Eastern Finland, in the pristine woodlands of a region called Savo. If you have played UnReal World you may notice some familiar elements there, drawn from the same pool of inspiration, but Ancient Savo is an independent game its own. Maybe you'd better go see yourself, the introductory sale is on until 30th of September:

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/2872000/Ancient_Savo/

Ancient Savo is being developed independently and aside from the UnReal World, and the route the Enormous Elk's flagship is sailing remains the same - as does the crew.

Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Steam Summer sale lasts for a few days more, so we encourage all the new adventurers to take this advantage of entering into UnReal World with a discounted price. Feel warmly welcomed!

The summer and nightless nights in real world do continue for good while longer and although it's been less attractive to sweat inside the development chambers we'll hereby bring you a little summary summary about the ongoing development stuff. And hey, let's add a few real world summer photos at the end of this post as well, shall we?

So, a brief summery summary from the development chambers goes as follows:


A new light source is coming up as we'll be adding shingles to the game. A shingle, or päre (in finnish), is a thin oblong piece of pine wood which were burnt to produce light - especially for lighting up houses during the dark time of the year.
Shingles are lit by using [a]pply command. Once a shingle is burning you can drop and set it wherever the light is needed, or carry it with you. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a specific stand that kept them in a good angle for proper burning, but in the game dropped burning shingles are imagined to be inserted between the wall logs or set firmly in place by some other means.

Here's a shingle in a traditional shingle stand. In the game a stand isn't needed, but here you'll get a picture of the item in question.

One shingle burns for about 30 minutes in the game so for continuous lighting a new one needs to be lit before the previous one fades out. This sort of shingle replacement is done automatically if your character is located beside the burning shingle and there's a stack of new shingles nearby on the ground. You character then automatically replaces and lights a new shingle when necessary, and you don't need to worry about maintaining the lighting even if the task you were doing would take a long time.

Here a cabin is lighted up by two shingles burning in place. There's also a stack of shingles on the ground and if the character remains beside it a new shingle is automatically lit when the previous one fades out.Shingles can be crafted by the player character, and they may be needed in quite amounts during the dark season. An axe and a knife and suitable block of wood are needed for splitting the shingles. The preferred tree species is pine so our shingle splitting requirements will look like this.

[/imgA block of pine wood is required for splitting the shingles.
Currently the felled trunks in the game are all of the same generic wood type, and tree species don't have much difference in crafting. But now that is going to chance as we'll be adding tree species property for big trunks and assorted timber products. At the first stage this addition only covers big trunks and slender tree trunks will remain generic, but in the future also the slender tree trunks will get the tree species property.
So, upon felling big trees the tree species now gets derived into the produced tree trunk. As a result the tree trunks are now called as pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk or spruce tree tunk - depending on what species of tree was felled. There are also different tree trunk tile graphics for pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk and spruce tree trunk. The basic timber products made of big trunks eg. blocks and boards will now start to inherit the tree species resulting in eg. "pine boards" or "block of birch wood". And so the tree type will now start to affect to what type of wood is needed/preferred for crafting this or that. Some tree type preference adjustments based on this addition will be made to craftable items in the next version and it will continue to grow more detailed in the versions to follow.

Here our character has felled big spruce, pine and birch trees and they appear on the ground like this.
The pausable crafting transition naturally continues and is considered and prioritized as the main sector of work until all the crafts are prone to pausable mechanics. It won't be yet completed with the next release, but we'll be closer to the goal with every patch. When going through all the item definitions the bigger and lesser chances to some crafting recipes will follow. For example, as we're now getting shingles the concept and crafting of torches is being re-considered. All the crafts and their requirements are prone to grow a little more complex and comprehensive as we advance.


And then, a brief summery photo summary of the past weeks from outside the development chambers goes as follows.

Cheers! Stay tuned! ːurw_sageː

Steam Open World Survival Crafting Fest 2024 is here ...
... and we welcome you into the far north with a discounted price!
In case of UnReal World it's hard to imagine more suitable Steam Fest to participate in.
First released in 1992 the game sports more than 30 years of active development with still no end in sight and has got Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition (2019) recognizition for being the first open-world survival game. Yes, these titles are always debatable but the content and eligibility is not.

UnReal World is a unique low-fantasy roguelike game set in the far north during the late-iron age.
The world of the game is highly realistic, rich with historical atmosphere and emphasized on survival in the harsh ancient wilderness.

For newcomers we'll highlight a curiosity that the game is created by devs who tend to practice what they code also in their real life. The ways of their ancestors, primitive and wilderness skills, traditional builds and crafts of many sorts.

From left to right, Erkka (co-designer) and Sami (creator) of UnReal World building something else than a computer game.Steam Open World Survival Crafting Fest is about games where you start with nothing or very little, and eventually end up with... well, maybe still nothing. If you survive long enough though, you might find yourself with a nicely decorated base. But the threat of all of that coming down around you is ever-present.

UnReal World is completely open-ended and it's up to you how you decide or manage to live off the land. If you wish to, you can pick one of the varying start-up scenarios to send you into the far north with different conditions and rough plot to follow. Here's a brief introduction about what you would start with in these scenarios, and where they may lead you. But in the end, everything is up to you, and in the procedurally generated world not even the start-up equipment is always the same.

The Village
Starting at the village provides a safe way to start playing. You may equip your character carefully before going out to the wilderness and have a safe place to return to if you face setbacks or dangers on your journeys. Villages are also sources of quests which may lead you into looking for water spirits, encountering forest maidens, returning lost village animals from the wild, assisting with village chores, and so on.

Runaway slave
Having been slave to Njerpezit for years you finally take a step to escape from your captors.
You are lightly dressed, carrying only few weapons. If you manage to escape, surviving in the wilderness like this, without supplies, may get very hard. On the other hand fighting against superior enemy may be more foolish - even though they are carrying equipment you too could use.

Unfortunate hunting trip
Your father lies dead on the ground and the beast who killed him is still present.
If you manage to down the beast or even escape from it you are on your own in the middle of the wide, unfamiliar environment. The equipment of your late father may become very useful to you if you manage to pick them up - and that way even though you are alone in the world now, your family will be with you.

Lonely settler
You find yourself alone on a foreign ground with two unfinished cottages.
You may want to finish the cottages on your own and settle here - whatever you do there's much to learn about life and making your livelihood. However, the area where your father brought you feels like home to you now more than the unfamiliar wilderness around.

Hurt, helpless, and afraid
Wounded and left for dead, you struggle to survive in the wilderness.
This is a difficult scenario, as you have suffered rather severe injuries, making you incapable of walking. You also lack anything but your knife and a few pieces of clothing. It is very possible to die from the injuries you have suffered.

Traps and trapping
Your character is equipped with various traps and tools to make traps including wooden stakes for building fences and a shovel. Even if you can't make your livelihood immediately learning to use traps can be very interesting.

I want to be a fisherman
One night you sneaked into the fishing shed and took all the equipment you could carry. "I know
enough to make my living by fishing alone", you mumbled as you left your home for good. The days
after that weren't easy but little by little you began to learn to use you your fishing tackle better - and the further you travelled the more friendly the waters seemed to be.

Abandoned trap-fence
You find an old trap-fence in the wilderness.
This scenario gives you an idea of what kind of trap-fences you should build yourself and encourages you to learn by using this starting trap-fence. It will only need repairing and improvement rather than construction from scratch by yourself.

Abandoned camp
You find an old camp with a shelter, firewood and useful items.
What brought you here and what kind of your past is like is a matter of your imagination. You are at a camp where to ponder about the path to take. You can take items lying around as a hint, or you can make a fire and throw them into it one by one... as always everything is up to you.

Agriculture
You posses some valuable seeds and are ready to try out your agricultural skills.
At the age of sixteen you left your home not only with some clothes, weapons and necessary equipment but also with some valuable seeds. When you find a nice place to settle down you can start growing your own crops.

There be robbers!
You encounter a band of ruffians in the wilderness.
This scenario puts you face to face with possible danger. Will you take the offensive or try to escape with your skin intact? The next step is up to you. Keeping your starting equipment means risking your life and fighting the bandits off.

Not all who wander are lost
You set out into the unforgiving wilderness with a four-legged companion.
Left alone with only the supplies and tools you carry and your four-legged companion you set out into the unforgiving wilderness, just another wanderer looking for their place in the UnReal World.


Congratulations for reading this far!
If this all sounded like a lot to digest now bear in mind that this just scratching the surface.
Feel free to go discover - the fest and discount is on.

Cheers! ːurw_sageː

A small patch has been released to fix a few issues as follows:

Version 3.84.2

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- fixed: pausable crafting item duplication

In some conditions when you finished crafting an item the work in progress item still remained on the ground.

- fixed: using TEXTILECRAFT skill displaying corrupt "Command:" prompt, eg. TEXTILECRAFTNETMAKING

- changed: Staff item type and role

Staves are now classified as timber type items rather than weapons, and considered mostly as raw material for crafting and construction purposes.
There are no changes to staff making. They are made from slender tree trunks by delimbing and debarking the trunk and cutting it to suitable lengths. A common staff is thought of being about two meters in length with a diameter that fits nicely in one's hand.

MIGRATION NOTICE: Weapon type staves obtained in previous versions do work in crafting the same way as the current version staves.

- updated: STAFF game encyclopedia (F1) entry

------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers! ːurw_sageː

A small patch has been released to fix the following issues, which probably occurred only for a subset of adventurers.

Version 3.84.1

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- fixed: continuing pausable crafting with inferior tools caused erroneous production times

If inferior tools were used to start and continue pausable crafting tasks the remaining production times were not always set correctly. This glitch occasionally initiated conditions where continued pausable crafting required seemingly endless production times.

- fixed: wrong javelin item tile

------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Version 3.84 (stable) is now released and live for all the supported operating systems.

Version 3.84 continues the ongoing transition to make all the crafting tasks pausable, features a good deal of related crafting requirement changes, adds BOWYER skill, introduces springs as a new water source and naturally offers a fistful of bugfixes too.

In the midst of big changes in regards to pausable crafting we hope for the bugs to be scarcer than average adventurer's nutrition levels. ;) And whatever is encountered we do our best to maintain a swift update cycle to overcome the issues as early on as possible.

Here's the changelog:

Version 3.84 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: BOWYER skill

The bowyer skill is the ability and knowledge to make bows. Success in the skill determines the quality of the bows crafted. For migrated characters this skill is created upon the first load in this version.
Needless to say, the available craftable bows now call for BOWYER skill in their crafting.

- added: craftable Longbow

You can craft a longbow from [M]ake menu under "Weapons" category.

- added: pausable weapon crafting

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Weapons" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. These weapons are stone-axe, stone knife, club, javelin, spruce quick-bow, shortbow, longbow and bowstring.
To continue paused weapon crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item. Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: crafting times and requirements of certain weapons

Now that the weapon crafting is pausable the production times of certain weapons have been increased to more reasonable levels. There are also minor changes in some material or tool requirements.
The changes are as follows, but bear in mind that these are the average set values and poor tools and/or skills may very well double the actual production times.

* Stone-axe

Stone-axe gets the greatest time increase in the production time as on average it now takes 50 hours to make one. That's a lot, but it really is a slow process to get the stone blade knapped and grinded out to shape that is efficient for felling trees.
Thus, stone-axe now becomes a survival option which you won't take up too lightly, but only in extreme need. Crafting a stone-axe now also needs another stone for final sharpening and polishing. Also, the previous requirement for rope has been replaced with strong cordage requirement. This means you can also use for example spruce withes for securing the head in place in the handle.

* Stone knife

It now takes 5 hours on average to make and also requires a stone for final sharpening.

* Javelin

It now takes 2 hour on average to make.

* Shortbow

It now takes 12 hours on average to make. The time increase is signficant compared to the earlier, and only a skilled bowyer with quality tools may manage to craft a shortbow in one day. With mediocre skills and tools it's a process of several work days.

* Longbow

It takes 18 hours on average to make. Thus, crafting a longbow is a process of several work days even for a skilled bowyer.

* Bowstring

It now takes 2 hours on average to make a bowstring from strands of yarn, and 30 minutes on average from a ready-made cord. When using a ready-made cord it often needs to be thinned down to suitable thickness so it's not just tying of the knots.

- added: BOWSTRING game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- updated: SHORTBOW and LONGBOW game encyclopedia (F1) entries

- added: pausable haft crafting

Crafting of the spear, axe and shovel hafts are now pausable tasks.

- added: pausable item trap crafting and loop snare batch production

Crafting of the paw-board fox trap and loop snare are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Paw-board

Crafting time has been increased to three hours.

* Loop snare

Loop snares can be made in batches of up to ten at a time, and it takes 20 minutes on average to craft one.

- added: pausable lumber items crafting

Crafting of the wooden stakes, staves and wood slats are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wood slat

Crafting time for a batch of 20 slats has been increased to 200 minutes.

* Wooden stake

Wooden stakes are made in sets of 5 pieces from one slender tree trunk. Previously it was 8 pieces from one trunk.

* Staff

When crafting staves one slender tree trunk can yield 3 proper straight staves. Previously it was one trunk for one staff.

- added: pausable utility article crafting for some items in the category

Crafting of the wooden shovel, birch-bark box and birch-bark basket are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wooden shovel

It is now made from a board instead of a wooden block. The crafting time has been incresed to 8 hours.

- added: springs

Springs are water sources bringing groundwater to the surface. They can be found in the terrain on zoomed-in maps at varying environments in size of one to three map tiles.
Springs do remain unfrozen even in the winter which makes them very useful water sources. A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live in the forest further away from the lakes or rivers.
From now on the village water supply ponds are also springs. As they don't freeze they are easier to maintain and spot even in the winter.
MIGRATION NOTICE: Water supply ponds in the villages you have visited in the previous version will automatically turn into springs in this version.

- added: "behind your back" reference to asking for NPC whereabouts

When asking the whereabouts of an NPC who is close by but not seen by the player character, the people will now point out that the target NPC is "...over there, just behind your back.".

- changed: pushing allowed to locations not visible to the player character

You can now

ush items around regardless of the location being visible or not. This helps to maintain character's daily life also in the pitch dark low visibility conditions.

- fixed: pausable crafts in process occasionally disappearing when finishing crafting something else beside them

- fixed: possibility to remove hafts from sickles

This was mistakenly allowed. Sickles are a special case and not yet included in the hafting mechanics.

- fixed: skin item duplication if tanning got cancelled at the requirements dialog

- fixed: villagers occasionally wandering impractically far from the village area

- fixed: low quality hafts not degrading the finished hafted weapon quality correctly

You pretty much always got fine hafted weapons even with the inferior hafts.

- fixed: "Of wolf and woman" quest related NPCs selection mess

There was a rare occurrence where the said quest dialogues didn't unfold properly due to the game engine picking the related NPCs incorrectly.

- fixed: paused craft remaining time checks

There was a rare condition where the remaining time to continue paused crafting was calculated incorrectly resulting in too fast completion of items at the end of the process.

- fixed: title song playback interruptions and cracks upon the game starting

The issue was with .ogg file loading. The troublesome audio is now loaded before the title song starts, and some .ogg audio has been replaced with .wav files.

- fixed: occasional white screen flash when player character goes to sleep

- fixed: attempt to haft an invalid target item made the item to disappear

- fixed: sickles weighted too much

Sickle item weight was mistakenly set to 3 lbs. This is fixed now, and sickles weigh 1 lbs as intended.


Cheers! ːurw_sageː

A new version is at hand and for starters the Windows build goes live - now.
Linux and OS X builds will be released later this week if the workflow goes as expected.

Version 3.84 continues the ongoing transition to make all the crafting tasks pausable, features a good deal of related crafting requirement changes, adds BOWYER skill, introduces springs as a new water source and naturally offers a fistful of bugfixes too.

Here's the changelog:

Version 3.84 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: BOWYER skill

The bowyer skill is the ability and knowledge to make bows. Success in the skill determines the quality of the bows crafted. For migrated characters this skill is created upon the first load in this version.
Needless to say, the available craftable bows now call for BOWYER skill in their crafting.

- added: craftable Longbow

You can craft a longbow from [M]ake menu under "Weapons" category.

- added: pausable weapon crafting

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Weapons" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. These weapons are stone-axe, stone knife, club, javelin, spruce quick-bow, shortbow, longbow and bowstring.
To continue paused weapon crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item. Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: crafting times and requirements of certain weapons

Now that the weapon crafting is pausable the production times of certain weapons have been increased to more reasonable levels. There are also minor changes in some material or tool requirements.
The changes are as follows, but bear in mind that these are the average set values and poor tools and/or skills may very well double the actual production times.

* Stone-axe

Stone-axe gets the greatest time increase in the production time as on average it now takes 50 hours to make one. That's a lot, but it really is a slow process to get the stone blade knapped and grinded out to shape that is efficient for felling trees.
Thus, stone-axe now becomes a survival option which you won't take up too lightly, but only in extreme need. Crafting a stone-axe now also needs another stone for final sharpening and polishing. Also, the previous requirement for rope has been replaced with strong cordage requirement. This means you can also use for example spruce withes for securing the head in place in the handle.

* Stone knife

It now takes 5 hours on average to make and also requires a stone for final sharpening.

* Javelin

It now takes 2 hour on average to make.

* Shortbow

It now takes 12 hours on average to make. The time increase is signficant compared to the earlier, and only a skilled bowyer with quality tools may manage to craft a shortbow in one day. With mediocre skills and tools it's a process of several work days.

* Longbow

It takes 18 hours on average to make. Thus, crafting a longbow is a process of several work days even for a skilled bowyer.

* Bowstring

It now takes 2 hours on average to make a bowstring from strands of yarn, and 30 minutes on average from a ready-made cord. When using a ready-made cord it often needs to be thinned down to suitable thickness so it's not just tying of the knots.

- added: BOWSTRING game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- updated: SHORTBOW and LONGBOW game encyclopedia (F1) entries

- added: pausable haft crafting

Crafting of the spear, axe and shovel hafts are now pausable tasks.

- added: pausable item trap crafting and loop snare batch production

Crafting of the paw-board fox trap and loop snare are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Paw-board

Crafting time has been increased to three hours.

* Loop snare

Loop snares can be made in batches of up to ten at a time, and it takes 20 minutes on average to craft one.

- added: pausable lumber items crafting

Crafting of the wooden stakes, staves and wood slats are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wood slat

Crafting time for a batch of 20 slats has been increased to 200 minutes.

* Wooden stake

Wooden stakes are made in sets of 5 pieces from one slender tree trunk. Previously it was 8 pieces from one trunk.

* Staff

When crafting staves one slender tree trunk can yield 3 proper straight staves. Previously it was one trunk for one staff.

- added: pausable utility article crafting for some items in the category

Crafting of the wooden shovel, birch-bark box and birch-bark basket are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wooden shovel

It is now made from a board instead of a wooden block. The crafting time has been incresed to 8 hours.

- added: springs

Springs are water sources bringing groundwater to the surface. They can be found in the terrain on zoomed-in maps at varying environments in size of one to three map tiles.
Springs do remain unfrozen even in the winter which makes them very useful water sources. A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live in the forest further away from the lakes or rivers.
From now on the village water supply ponds are also springs. As they don't freeze they are easier to maintain and spot even in the winter.
MIGRATION NOTICE: Water supply ponds in the villages you have visited in the previous version will automatically turn into springs in this version.

- added: "behind your back" reference to asking for NPC whereabouts

When asking the whereabouts of an NPC who is close by but not seen by the player character, the people will now point out that the target NPC is "...over there, just behind your back.".

- changed: pushing allowed to locations not visible to the player character

You can now

ush items around regardless of the location being visible or not. This helps to maintain character's daily life also in the pitch dark low visibility conditions.

- fixed: pausable crafts in process occasionally disappearing when finishing crafting something else beside them

- fixed: possibility to remove hafts from sickles

This was mistakenly allowed. Sickles are a special case and not yet included in the hafting mechanics.

- fixed: skin item duplication if tanning got cancelled at the requirements dialog

- fixed: villagers occasionally wandering impractically far from the village area

- fixed: low quality hafts not degrading the finished hafted weapon quality correctly

You pretty much always got fine hafted weapons even with the inferior hafts.

- fixed: "Of wolf and woman" quest related NPCs selection mess

There was a rare occurrence where the said quest dialogues didn't unfold properly due to the game engine picking the related NPCs incorrectly.

- fixed: paused craft remaining time checks

There was a rare condition where the remaining time to continue paused crafting was calculated incorrectly resulting in too fast completion of items at the end of the process.

- fixed: title song playback interruptions and cracks upon the game starting

The issue was with .ogg file loading. The troublesome audio is now loaded before the title song starts, and some .ogg audio has been replaced with .wav files.

- fixed: occasional white screen flash when player character goes to sleep

- fixed: attempt to haft an invalid target item made the item to disappear

- fixed: sickles weighted too much

Sickle item weight was mistakenly set to 3 lbs. This is fixed now, and sickles weigh 1 lbs as intended.


Cheers! ːurw_sageː

Springtime is busy time - both out in the nature and inside the development chambers. See, we're preparing for a new version release still this month, so let's have a sneak peek at upcoming features.

Quite a batch of craftable items will be using the recently featured pausable crafting mechanics allowing player character to have breaks and continue the crafting at will later on.
At this point the pausable crafting mechanics will cover all the weapons, lumber items, hafts and item traps such as paw-board fox trap and loop snare - and some more are likely to be added. So, with the upcoming version more than half of the craftable items will become pausable tasks. And in the version after that we'll likely manage to have all the crafts pausable as a default - and that's really something.

A new skill, bowyer, will be added. It's quite self-explanatory that this is the ability and knowledge to make bows and the craftable bows now call for bowyer skills in their crafting.
And longbow will be made available as a new craftable bow type for the player character.

With pausable crafting mechanics the production times of certain items can be now increased to more reasonable levels. With some items, eg. a longbow or stone-axe , the changes are quite significant and crafting them is a process of several workdays rather than several hours. Little tweaks to crafting requirements here and there can be also expected.

Continuing to craft a longbow in the making. For this character it will still take a few days with not the most suitable tools and mediocre bowyer skills.It's springtime for real! We'll be adding springs, water sources bringing groundwater to the surface, in the terrain generation. Springs can be found at varying environments on zoomed-in maps.
A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live further away from the lakes or rivers. And moreover, springs remain unfrozen even in the winter.

A spring has been found in the wilderness! The water is cold and fresh.So, for the next few versions we'll be working mostly on item related additions, and hope to have these released in decent pace. After that, when all the crafting is pausable and likely some other marvelous things have been accomplished as well, we'll move into adding new quests. Some of these will be small and casual, but some will be most exciting for the players who'd enjoy the presence of marriage or permanent companions. Let that be a sneak peek in advance further into this year's plans.

Cheers! Stay tuned. ːurw_sageː