Windreach 0.3.0: Islands and gliders

The second test build. The world is an archipelago now, a new world opens in the sky on a glider, and a lot of what you do with your hands feels better. Worlds started in 0.2.0 get new ground, so start a fresh world for this one.

New

• The world is islands now, big and small, with straits of sea between them. Every sea joins up, so a boat can reach anywhere. The ground rolls in low hummocks and reefs lie under the warm shallows.
  
• A new world starts high in the air on a leaf glider. The landing tears it, and your first task leads you to a Stone Axe, a Stone Pickaxe and then mending the glider.
  
• Gliding now needs a glider in its own slot. There are four of them, from the leaf glider up to the Featherwing, each one faster and steadier in the air.
  
• First Steps, a short controls tutorial the first time you come down in a world. Skip it from the pause menu or turn it off in Settings.
  
• Deer. Stags, does and fawns live in the forests and on the plains. They are the wariest animals in the Reach, so stay low and downwind.
  
• Rivers carry what is in them. Swimmers, empty boats, felled logs and flotsam all drift downstream, and the water heaps up and parts around posts, legs and hulls.
  
• Special catches. Any fish can come up Uncommon to Legendary, bigger and gleaming in its colour. Eat a Legendary one for a boon that lasts half an hour.
  
• Auto-pickup. Walk over something you already carry and it goes in your pack. Every pickup sounds like what it is made of. Switch it off in the backpack.
  
• A rebuilt map. It fills the screen and zooms toward the cursor, with one set of icons for every marker, a legend that filters, and your boats, carts and horses on it.
  
• Every axe bite leaves a notch in the wood, and chips and sawdust fly off it.
  
• A tree dug out from under its roots falls toward the hole, roots and all. A felled tree comes to rest on its big limbs.
  
• A new title screen. The menu sits over a quiet stretch of coast with its own changing weather.
  

Improved

• Crafting lives in the Tab screen again. Tab opens it beside your pack and C opens it wide, with a tab for each kind of making, a search box, Type and Tier filters and batches.
• Axe and pick swings go where the crosshair is, so a log at your feet gets hit. Chopping is quicker too.
• The pickaxe is swung in both hands with a full overhead blow.
• A faster run-up jumps farther, and you can steer a jump in the air.
• Food heals while it lasts. More meals heal faster and raise your max health further. The food bar shows the time each meal has left.
• Escape closes whatever is open, one layer at a time, and only pauses when nothing is.
• Quickslot keys always equip, and gear or food you pick up goes on a free key.
• Research in the tech tree no longer asks for a skill level.
• Trunks sway with their crowns, the slender ones most.
• Climbing keeps your hands and feet on the real rock, on every body build.
• A smaller, cleaner crosshair and look-at card.
• The handcart leaves wheel tracks in snow, sand and dirt, and you pull it with straight arms.
• A dropped item presses down the grass and snow around it, so you can still see it.

Fixed

• Tall grass no longer grows back up through building floors.
• A torch held while crouching no longer sinks into the body.
• A carried hen no longer sinks into the body.
• The pickaxe's strike no longer stops halfway through the swing.
• No stepped band of water beside waterfalls after a long trip.
• Leaves on willows no longer reach into the ground.

Known issues

• Worlds started in 0.2.0 get new ground 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.