Windreach 0.4.0: Storm and fire

The third test build. The weather can turn on you now: whirlwinds, sandstorms, lightning and gales that bring trees down. Firefells wake on the islands, powder opens the rock, three new kinds of magic come out of their stones, and the Wealds have a summoned fight.

New

• Firefells. Lone fells with molten rock in their craters stand on the islands, and now and then one wakes. The ground shakes, ash and cinders fly, and lava runs down its side and cools into rock you can walk on.
  
• Whirlwinds in the strongest winds. They mow a track through the grass, tear up trees and throw creatures and you into the air. Open a glider inside one and it carries you up.
  
• Lightning comes down in a storm. It can set a tree alight, or split it and bring it down charred.
  
• In a gale the tall trees rock and creak until one goes over, torn out roots and all or snapped at the stump.
  
• Sandstorms in the Dry and the Redlands. A wall of dust rolls in, you can barely see, and the creatures can barely see you. Tumbleweeds blow across the sand in any wind.
  
• Powder. Dig Saltpetre and Brimstone, grind them with charcoal, and make Clay Bombs, Blasting Charges and Powder Kegs that open the ground. Five guns follow, from the Hand Cannon to the Long Rifle.
  
• Frostcalling. Hold a Froststone to throw shards and hail, breathe frost that slows a creature until it freezes solid, and ring yourself with hoarfrost.
  
• Stonecalling. An Earthstone throws stone and boulders, raises a wall of real ground in front of you and shakes the earth around you.
  
• Greencalling, magic that tends a field. A Seedstone waters your crops, makes them grow faster and puts fires out.
• The Sandmaw, a great worm under the Dry's sand. It feels your footsteps, so walk softly or keep off the sand, and when the ground trembles in a ring around you, get out of it.
• Coyotes hunt the Redlands in packs. By day they keep their distance. After dark they circle you and send one in at a time.
  
• Old Rootfast, the Wealds' summoned fight. Pour a Wassail Bowl at the roots of a Wassail Tree after dark and it stands up. An axe bites it hard, and fire tears it loose when it roots to drink.
  
• Steel. Set the Cairnwing's Rime Core into an anvil and you can forge steel there: tools, a sword, a shield, arrows and armour.
• Hard wood and hard ore. Oak, beech, maple and ash want a Bronze Axe, acacia and mesquite an iron one, and the better ores want a better pickaxe. The hard trees give Hardwood and Ironwood for the best hafts, boats and bows.
• Real clouds. Glide up into the cloud deck and through it, and your path leaves a wake in the fog. Their shadows drift over the ground, and a new world now starts above them.
  
• Weather on the body. Rain and swimming soak you, and the cold, the midday heat and the dust wear you down. Clothes, a fire, a roof and a hot meal help, and the Weathering skill makes you hardier.
• Weapons, tools, shields and armour wear with use. Mend them cheaply from the crafting menu's Repair tab. Broken gear is never lost.
• Roads. Tread a dirt path with the shovel, then lay a Stone Road on it. Walking and riding on stone is a quarter quicker.
• Tracking. Every creature leaves its own prints, and the scan (middle mouse) lights up the trails around you, which way they went and how fresh they are.
  
• The desert grows its own plants, cacti, century plants and brush. Pick prickly pears and barrel fruit and cook them into jam and candy.
  
• Music that follows where you are. Every biome has its own by day and by night, and the caves, the Underhalls, the sea and every fight have theirs.
• Keep several characters and pick which one you play.
• Kept animals have a sex, a tally of their work and a name you give them. Hens can be kept too.

Improved

• Your screens share one tab bar. Tab opens them, and the bar switches between the pack, Technology, Magic, Skills, the map, the Wingbook and the Fieldbook.
• Magic has a tree of its own (P), every school under its element.
• Equipping takes an item out of your pack, and taking it off puts it back where it was.
• Every buff and debuff on you is listed under the backpack, with a card saying what it does and how it ends.
• An ingredient's tooltip in the crafting menu says where to get it, and the Bench tab lists the hand recipes too.
• A harder wood stands in for a softer one in anything you make.
• Swing trails follow the blade smoothly and keep their arc on a running cut.
• Creatures go round what stands between them and you.
• Birds keep clear of trees, buildings and the ground.
• Every tree sheds its own leaves, in the wind and when it comes down.
• Seaweed grows in lawns and tall stands, corals in colonies, and the reefs show from the air.
• Longer strides at speed, and quieter footsteps.
• Swimming puts away what's in your hands and puts out a torch.
• An uprooted stump lies in its torn root plate.
• An animated health bar that turns green while you're poisoned.
• Smoother frames when you move fast, glide or sprint, and less work for the graphics card in grass and on the ground.
• The quickbar sits in the top-left corner. Bottom centre is a choice in Settings.
• The loading screen says which step it's on.

Fixed

• An Underhall below the sea's level is dry inside, with no sea showing through it.
• Dry caves under the sea stay dry, and rain stops at a roof.
• A new world no longer drops you through the ground while it loads.
• The wyvern's frost on the screen no longer breaks into blocks.
• Wind streaks and leaves no longer blow inside caves and Underhalls.
• A caught squid is its real size.

Known issues

• Worlds started before 0.4.0 can get a firefell where nothing was dug or built. Start a new world for the best experience.
• The download is large, about 11 GB. Trimming the assets the game doesn't use is planned.
• Starting a new world can take about a minute.
• Busy places like big fights, storms and thick forest can drop the frame rate on the High preset. Medium or Low helps on older machines.
• Some of the newest text is still in English when the game is set to another language.
• Achievements and Steam Cloud saves only work when you start the game through Steam.
• If something goes wrong, the log is in %APPDATA%\Windreach\logs. Please send it along with what you were doing at the time.