Thank you for all the feedback from the first few weeks of the playtest. This is a big one 😅 and a lot bigger than I would like for a patch but it was needed. A lot of it came straight from watching you play, reading feedback (❤️ 🙏), and the rest came from finding out what winter was missing.
The big ones
- Winter now bites ❄️. Grass grows with the seasons, so a winter field barely grows at all and you will need feed to get through it. Across the whole year there is the same amount of grass as before; it just arrives at different times.
- Your father hands over the feed trough when Winter arrives. That opens Farm Supplies, where you buy feed by the sack (25 kg, £40) or the pallet (100 kg, £140).
- Every fleece has a best moment. Shear too early or too late and you bank less. Leave wool on far too long, or keep sheep shut in the shed for weeks, and it spoils; spoiled wool is worth half. A small marker floats up (⬆️/⬇️) above a sheep when shearing boundaries are crossed.
- The Flock Roster. Your head count now sits in the top bar. Click it for a table of every sheep that you can sort and filter, so you can find the one that is struggling. Mark a sheep and it is easy to pick out again.
- Your flock comes with you when you buy the next farm: the same sheep, with the same ages, fleeces and pregnancies.
- The clippers cut from the blade, not from the middle of the tool (sorry about that 😔), and they cut a clean swathe instead of a round blob.
Shearing
- The brush ring is easy to see on both wool and bare skin, and nicks only happen where you actually cut.
- A sheep tells you once when its fleece is at its best. The overdue warning now comes sooner.
- A new fleece bar, in the roster and on a sheep's info card, shows where each fleece sits and how much shearing it now would pay. Out in the field, a small marker floats up from a sheep when its fleece moves into its best, or starts going past it.
- "Prime Fleece" on the result card when you shear at the right time; otherwise it shows how much you lost.
- Shearing assistants are rebalanced. Before, they kept about half your wool ⚖️. Now you keep 65-73% of it, and every tier up the ladder is both better and faster.
The shed
- Sheep in the shed now eat, drink and lamb in there. Boarding charges are gone. A housed flock eats your stored feed instead, and a short shearing visit costs nothing.
- The sheep card is replaced by the Shed Roster so it's consistent with the Flock Roster. Tick rows and sell several at once from the top of the sheet, filter them, and check each sheep's Status as the round goes on.
- When the last sheep is shorn, one card shows your wool, the crew's cut and what you take home, and the Cash out button shows the amount. Leave before the crew has finished and the same card is there on your way out, so you never miss the sale.
- A running wool total sits in the top right while you shear, well away from your feed.
- The shed exit is now just Release or Leave; it was too confusing before. Release with the yard gate shut and the flock waits in the yard, then walks out when you open it.
Water, grass and warnings
- Rain fills the water troughs, and winter can bring a wet day instead of only snow. The Home Farm's water troughs are bigger.
- New warnings appear when a trough in a grazed field runs dry (click it to jump there) and when a field is going bare.
- Pour at an empty feed trough and Farm Supplies opens.
- Sheep you buy arrive with fleeces like the rest of your flock, not already ready to shear. This should help coordinate rounding up and shearing.
Pacing and farms
- The Livestock Market and Shearing Shop open as you complete rounds of shearing and selling, once you have your first dog; the Breed Guide opens on rounds alone. The Farmhouse opens after your first year. Anything locked stays on screen and says why when you hover over it.
- Your first sheepdog costs £75, down from £130, so one round of shearing buys her even while you're still getting the hang of the clippers.
- Struggling to afford that first dog? From your second round, your father puts in the difference.
- A farm now needs a minimum flock as well as its deed price: 10 sheep for the Home Farm, 20 for the Hill Farm. The deed on the map shows it.
- Your father's lines have been rewritten, there are new tips for the moments that catch people out, and key words are highlighted in colour.
Controls and UI
- Hold the left mouse button and the farmer, or a dog you are directing, keeps walking to the cursor. This suggestion came from two players independently (thank you Hieduf and RosaPixieStar ❤️). Clicking to move works as before.
- Buying a dog, a shearing upgrade or another shearing stand now asks you to confirm first, to catch stray clicks.
- Ultra-wide screens no longer cut off menus and tables.
- Escape in the shed now always leaves, the same as the Leave button: your flock stays inside until you come back and release them.
- The shearing screen now tells you how to shear when you look stuck: hold the left mouse button to cut, and ease off before the clippers get hot. After a rough shave, a tip suggests what to try next. A "Left click or hold to move" reminder shows during your first round-up, and Settings > Controls has a new Shearing column. More assistance is on the way in v0.3.5 👍
- The barrels, hay and log piles are sharp again, the first farmyard has more around it, and the game's own cursor now shows on the title screen too.
Fixes
- Your v0.3.3 save carries over. Anything you had unlocked stays unlocked, and the winter feed trough is where it should be.
- Finishing the demo keeps your farm. Reaching the end no longer costs you the hill farm's price, your farm saves as normal, and a new Keep farming button takes you straight back to it. Before, Continue could drop you into an older save.
- The kennel tip calls your sheepdog "her", to match the shepherd's "Good girl".
- Selling your whole flock early no longer leaves you stuck with nothing unlocked.
- The deed price on the map is readable, and prices show a £ sign.
- Holding the tap at a full trough no longer flickers.
- The Controls list no longer shows a select key that does nothing (no use for "3" ... for now 👀).
Thank you again for playing and for telling me what you found. Keep it coming through the feedback form in the game, or come and chat on the new Discord: discord.gg/Qxuf8MrH6X
More from Sheepscape