The time has come for the Beta build of Stonehearth to make its way to the Stable branch. This release includes a number of major features that have been in development since early 2018, as well as a large number of performance optimizations and bug fixes. Below is a non-exhaustive list of major new features.
The Northern Alliance is our third playable faction, distinct in their reliance on hunting as their main food source, and masonry as their primary crafting path. With the Northern Alliance comes their home, the Glacier Biome, featuring vast expanses of snow fields and tundra, large crystal-clear lakes, new critters, flora, fauna, and weather. For a quick introduction, watch the Northern Alliance Desktop Tuesday video.
When embarking in any of the default biomes, you may find a number of new landmarks and points of interests, ranging from curious rock formations and mountain geysers, to giant animal fossils, and ruins of past civilizations. If you are interested in learning how these are made, or would like to create a mod to add your own landmarks, you can watch this stream recording of Malley explaining the tools used to build them.
Clan Amberstone are a faction of sentient Rabbits, who have only recently started to come out of hiding. The campaign to befriend these industrious subterranean rabbitfolk focuses on collaboration, resource sharing, and minimal combat. Rewards include unique decorations, new recipes, golems, Rabbit citizens, and access to the Geomancer class. The quests that start this campaign will begin automatically after your town reaches tier 2 (upgraded hearth). For more background, watch the Clan Amberstone Desktop Tuesday video.
If you are successful in befriending the Rabbits, you will gain access to the Geomancer, a new class which allows you to place terrain patches, water springs, ore veins, and landmarks, as well as craft golems to take some of the burden of repetitive tasks off your hearthlings' shoulders. To see it all in action, watch the Geomancer Desktop Tuesday video.
When starting a new game, you will now be able to select the starting season. Seasons determine weather distribution, as well as terrain and foliage appearance. Expect golden autumns on temperate maps, blooming cacti in the desert during spring, and a brief respite from the ever-present snow during arctic summers. Additionally, seasons affect farming, as each crop has its own preferred seasons, during which its growth rate is doubled. Seasons last a different amount of time in different biomes, but in all of them, a full year will take 84 game days.
This optional end boss is a multi-day event that will challenge both your town's military and its workforce. It comes with its own weather phenomena, new enemies, new music, building destruction, and more. The titan encounter can be started by finished either the Orc or the Amberstone campaigns. If you don't mind spoilers, you can watch the Desktop Tuesday video on the topic, or ride along with Angelo and Stephanie as they try to take on the mighty titan in this stream recording.
For those of you curious about save compatibility, saves from A24 can still be loaded into the Beta version of the game, but we encourage you to start a new game to benefit from all the new features and campaigns.
For a detailed list of changes since the previous stable release, you can read the changelog for each unstable release since the last stable version: r862, r864, r866, r868, r869, r870, r874, r875, and r876.
Have fun!
Team Stonehearth