Roguefort Demo - Update v0.8.3 - "The World Turns"
This is another big one, with several pretty massive branches now merged into the demo after several months of development work.
Four seasons
The overworld now runs a real climate model. An 8-month calendar (two named months per season, from Thawtide to Wolfmoon) sits on the top bar with an almanac tooltip counting down to the next month and season.
Winter brings snow cover that whitens the ground and caps tree crowns, boulders and rooftops in both 2.5D and first-person. Footprints track across fresh snow for you, NPCs and creatures alike, and deep snow slows movement.
Autumn turns the foliage, drops leaves, bares the trees and scatters litter.
Spring melts the blanket into damp ground and drifts blossom on the wind.
Climate is deterministic from position, season and world seed.
Overhauled visuals
Volumetric skies - raymarched dome clouds, true overcast and storm skies, and a dedicated night-sky pass.
Towering forests - depth-scaled Fangorn trees with organic canopy lobes and rim shading grow huge in the 3D modes (2.5D and first-person); in first-person the leaves close into a cathedral-like canopy vault overhead, with light shafts breaking through at clearings and chopping trees opening the roof back up. (These are a 3D-renderer feature - flat top-down 2D is unchanged.)
Traversable mountain ranges - domain-warped ridgelines with ramp corridors you can actually climb, and alpine stratification up the slopes.
Sahara desert overhaul - dunes, oases and sand driven by one shared field across worldgen and both renderers.
Very special and delightful weather effects across 2.5D and first-person.
Sailing overhaul
This is for the full game rather than the demo, but I wanted to update on it in as it's been a lot of work. In 2.5D and 3D mode, ships are now real 3D vessels with planked, walkable, open-air decks - day/night, sky, weather and storm seas all reach the deck. Wind-billowed sails, rigging, wake and bow spray included. You can fish over the side with a depth-correct in-world line, and wind trim now affects your speed (tailwind speeds you up, headwind slows you down) with a HUD wind indicator.
First-person mode
A full feel pass: in-world combat text, a compass, and reworked audio. New look-comfort settings and a complete gamepad overhaul with full controller and Steam Deck support. Look re-engages instantly after closing a menu - no more click-to-look.
Combat & animation
New per-weapon strike animations with a third-person held-weapon rig, swing trails and cast glow for spells.
Sneak and backstab reworked: crouching gates you to half speed, a fight breaks your crouch, and backstab damage rolls on your gear.
Full-game rebalance - danger-tier loot banding, ranged shove and bolts, perk caps, a hard cheese gate, and an arrow economy where kills are a net ammo drain rather than an endless supply.
A living world
NPCs now evolve off-screen - their wants, bonds and grudges drive real outcomes, and fulfilled wants can land directly on you.
The settlement simulation was rebuilt to stream NPCs across the whole world at scale, so far more of the population lives and moves believably. You can even follow an NPC through their day.
Every settlement now buries its dead in graveyards with carved inscriptions
Living Waters - fishing now responds to season, weather, solunar timing, hot-spots and fishing pressure.
Storage & crafting quality-of-life
Storage containers moved to their own Storage tab and show capacity on the build cards.
Tag and label containers, with the label floating as a "post-it" in 3D; drag to reorder items, with keyboard and gamepad navigation throughout.
Botany - a new use-leveled gathering skill that raises forage yield and wild-seed finds, plus a retuned seed economy so early farming can approach self-sustaining, and a new rain-gated plant (dewbloom).
Endgame & extras
Not related to the demo, but if you've gotten this far you might find it interesting. Every one of the game's endings is now reachable through an authored questline, not just emergent gates.
Wheels of War (the card minigame) gained mulligan and decoy mechanics and a full balance pass.
Full patch notes (v0.8.0 to v0.8.3)
New
NEW: Four-season climate system - deterministic climate field with per-cell coldness/winterness, an 8-month named calendar (Thawtide to Wolfmoon), a season-coloured date chip with almanac tooltip, and month/season change-over messages.
NEW: Winter - snow cover whitening ground, tree crowns, boulders and rooflines (2.5D + first-person); per-cell snow footprints for player, NPCs and creatures; deep snow slows movement.
NEW: Autumn - foliage colour turn, leaf drop, bare trees and ground litter.
NEW: Spring - snow-melt dampness and drifting blossom.
NEW: Volumetric sky - raymarched dome clouds, true overcast/storm skies and a night-sky pass.
NEW: Depth-scaled Fangorn forests in the 3D modes - towering, size-varied trees (with rare elder colossi) in 2.5D and first-person, plus a first-person leaf-canopy vault, under-canopy ambience, dappled light shafts and falling leaf motes.
NEW: Traversable mountain ranges - climbable ramp corridors through domain-warped ridgelines with alpine stratification.
NEW: AAA weather effects for both 2.5D and first-person.
NEW: Sailing overhaul - real 3D ships with walkable open-air decks (day/night, sky, weather, storm seas), wind-billowed sails, rigging, wake and bow spray.
NEW: Fish over the side of a ship, with a depth-correct in-world fishing line and bobber in 2.5D and first-person, plus a first-person fishing-rod viewmodel.
NEW: Wind trim affects sailing speed (tailwind/headwind) with a HUD wind indicator.
NEW: Per-weapon attack, harvest and spell animations - third-person held-weapon rig, swing trails and spell cast glow.
NEW: First-person compass and in-world floating combat text.
NEW: First-person look-comfort settings - sensitivity and invert-Y (Settings > Display).
NEW (well, vastly improved): Full gamepad / Steam Deck support in first-person.
NEW: Off-screen NPC evolution - wants, bonds and grudges drive real outcomes, and fulfilled wants can land directly on the player.
NEW: Follow an NPC through their day, with legible whereabouts/schedule narration.
NEW: Settlement graveyards - every settlement buries its dead with carved inscriptions.
NEW: Living Waters - fishing responds to season, weather, solunar timing, hot-spots and fishing pressure.
NEW: Botany skill - a use-leveled gathering skill that raises forage yield, widens the dawn-harvest window and improves wild-seed finds.
NEW: Dewbloom - a rain-gated plant that's only harvestable while it's raining.
NEW: Tag and label storage containers, shown as a floating "post-it" label in 3D (2.5D + first-person).
NEW: Drag-to-reorder items in storage containers, with keyboard and gamepad move-up/down.
NEW: Top-bar chips for pack fullness and ranged ammo.
NEW: Authored questlines for every ending - three new lines (The Warden's, The Soured's Road, The Long Night) complete the roster so all endings are reachable by quest.
NEW: Wheels of War - mulligan (swap up to 2) and Straw Decoy mechanics added to the card minigame.
NEW: Redrawn cobweb art - a real orb web replacing the old X-cross tile.
Changed
MOD: Settlement simulation rebuilt to stream NPCs across the whole world at scale, replacing the legacy per-settlement loop.
MOD: Full-game rebalance - danger-tier loot banding, ranged shove and bolts, perk caps and a hard cheese gate.
MOD: Arrow economy - kills are now a net ammo drain instead of an endless supply.
MOD: Sneak reworked - the half-speed gate moves to the walk-commit, and a fight breaks your crouch.
MOD: Backstab is now deterministic, with the damage multiplier rolling on your gear; in-game sneak help updated to describe the rules actually enforced.
MOD: Storage containers moved to their own Storage tab and now show capacity on the build cards.
MOD: Chest/container slots show a full item tooltip on dwell, with keyboard/gamepad navigation.
MOD: Bump and right-click interactions unified through one shared tile-action registry.
MOD: Notice board and quest-giver offers unified through one shared resolver, with a symbol legend so what's shown matches what you get.
MOD: Keybind hints use explicit modifier chips (e.g. [Shift]+[K]) instead of relying on letter case.
MOD: Inventory shows a "+X hp, +Y hunger" suffix on hunger-healing cheeses.
MOD: Dungeons now use the full canvas height - the permanent bottom hotkey bar is gone (bindings live in the Help overlay).
MOD: Retuned seed economy so early farming can approach self-sustaining, with clearer Germinator discoverability.
MOD: Living Waters hot-spot boil rate raised (14% to 20%) for a livelier cadence.
MOD: Volumetric round flora (trees, bushes, boulders, ore) now shade with smooth dome normals, organic canopy lobes and baked rim shading, reading as real 3D masses rather than extruded sprites.
MOD: Riftstone can be awakened from any flagstone of the circle, not just the centre.
MOD: Roguefort title logo centred at the top of the menu.
MOD: Demo ends with a soft capstone after the first boss.
Fixed
FIX: 3D-mode input lag - shader compilation moved off the keypress path (with a software-GL advisory).
FIX: 2D input lag - pre-paint save hitch moved off the keypress path, plus per-turn scan fixes.
FIX: World map "vanishing" terrain - detail now renders for all explored chunks with no player-proximity fade.
FIX: Trees reverting to their base sprite in 2D (chop wobble, fog-of-war and multi-tile cases).
FIX: Winter/bare trees shredding into floating voxel slabs in 3D.
FIX: Glitchy sky-dome clouds and jittery tree sway.
FIX: Tree scale now latches, and chopping actually shakes the tree.
FIX: Sunken building pads - foundations ride the local ground instead of the continental base.
FIX: Creatures no longer ignore un-hidden players (the passive sneak skill was wrongly suppressing aggro).
FIX: Spell-zone visuals persist - cast clouds no longer vanish after casting.
FIX: Harvested herbs (Thyme/Garlic) now look different from unharvested ones.
FIX: Quick slots are position-stable - hunger/thirst items no longer swap meters.
FIX: First-person look re-engages instantly after closing a menu (no click-to-look).
FIX: First-person compass strip no longer overprints the region-name header.
FIX: 2.5D - the held weapon no longer floats beside an armless torso.
FIX: 2.5D dungeon ceiling features (stalactites/vines/lava cracks) are first-person-only again instead of hanging in mid-air.
FIX: First-person chop no longer swings backward past the player's face (inverted pitch).
FIX: 3D floating text is sized like UI text rather than a world object.
FIX: Container label fields accept digits again, and tag chips are gamepad-reachable.
FIX: Character-sheet Terroir "Spend" button no longer lost to a modal handoff race.
FIX: Brochet now reaches his pond - authored on-feature work anchors are preserved.
FIX: Dungeon feedback - bossless-clear bug, lost-book masking, floor-clear XP and honest HUD completion %.
FIX: Demo Continue plaque no longer shows a stale full-game character name; hardened against loading a full-game save in the demo.
FIX: Demo title footer shows a clean base version (pre-release tag stripped).
Thanks for playing the demo, and for the feedback that drove a lot of these changes (shoutout to the Discord crew). As always, if you got this far, I salute you! I learned this week that a fair few people actually read the patch notes, so I went all out and essentially tracked through the 250 something commits since the last demo version.
Thanks and have fun playing this weekend.
Tim and the Roguefort development team