Game update

Update v0.1.20260402

Digger Playtest · published 2 Apr 2026, 19:07 UTC

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Update v0.1.20260402

New Features

- Deep Risers — vertical tunnels now connect each inter-chunk gap down through the lava zone, reachable after breaking the chunk bottom with Overheat Vent
- Veilstone — a new high-value hidden ore seeded exclusively in deep risers; completely invisible and unmineable without a Prospector's Eye ping
- Branching Mk3 Ability Upgrades — Mk3 tiers now fork into mutually exclusive upgrade choices
- Shop Tree UI — new pannable node-graph view showing the full ability upgrade web
- Faction System — Corp vs Planet Engine affinity tracking with daily quotas, mission tracks, faction-specific shop items, branching endings, and a new victory panel
- Volumetric Lava Simulation — lava now fills cells with partial volume; flow priority (down → sideways → up) prevents unrealistic horizontal chaining
- Marching Squares Terrain — cave walls rendered as a smooth mesh surface instead of individual tiles

Improvements

- Underground lighting responds dynamically to the environment
- Fog of war updated with unified underground classification and fixed visual artifacts
- Dig sound loop stops immediately when digging stops (removed 1-second grace delay)
- Terrain tiles switched to square sprites for cleaner marching-squares geometry
- Crust terrain rendering unified across chunk tops and lava-facing edges
- Underground background repaired: rock backdrop clips to the actual surface line; lava backdrop clips at the lava line; gas pocket visuals use a smoothed field with stripe/haze instead of a raw tint
- World generation performance: eliminated full-grid scans during chunk building
- Lava backdrop visuals and shader tiling improved

Other announcements

All news

Game update3 Sep 2026Update v0.1.20260902New Features · Modular ship loadout — your ship is now a hull grid you fit parts into. Cutting heads mount in the nose; tanks, radiators and modules fill the body. Every part costs cells you could have carried ore in. · Service depot rig screen — pull up to the fuel pad and rebuild the ship: drag parts from stores onto the hull, rotate them, pull them back off. Mouse or controller. · The hold i…Game update31 Aug 2026Update v0.1.20260831New Features Added a Pixel Upscale graphics option, available from both the title screen and in-game settings. Improvements Greatly reduced GPU shader work underground. Fully opaque fog now prevents hidden world layers from rendering. Precomputed fog lighting and wall bleed replace expensive per-pixel searches. Empty lava-ocean regions skip unnecessary terrain and background calculations. Reduc…Game update30 Aug 2026# Update 0.1.20260830b## Improvements - On first launch the game now detects your hardware and picks graphics settings to match, instead of starting everything at maximum. Older machines get a lower render scale, simpler effects and a frame cap. Anything you choose yourself is kept permanently. - The frame rate is no longer uncapped by default — it bought nothing when the graphics card was the limit and kept it runn…