Game Development: Polar Crocus

We've been developing, and here's what's new.

New Implementations
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• Added "Ice Bear"s. These are what you and I would know as Polar Bears, but Hearthlings have no conception of poles. "Ice Bear"s appear only during Winter, as the colder season extends their range from out of the farthest, uncharted, North, angrier and deadlier than ordinary "Bear"s. (I realize that ingame Winter just having ended makes this slightly anti-climactic, but maybe something to look forward to for the next?). They come complete with teeth, meat, hides and a cape.
• Added "Crocus", springtime flower. Can be planted. Very common on snowy tiles while they last during spring, but generally present on several grassy terrains.
• Added "Chewing Straw", curiosity. Equippable in the mouth slot for mild bonus.
• Added "Silk Suture Kit", medicine. Suggested here. Treats a variety of open wound types.

Key Fixes
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• Fixed stacking of items inside container items (e.g. "Creel", "Poacher's Pouch", "Seedbag"s). Some caveats apply, as auto-stacking will not (yet) be able to detect existing stacks/items inside container items, but it seemed like a significant improvement that they are able to hold stacks at all that we decided to push it in a slightly unfinished state. There is a plan for the fuller fix.
• Destroying "Thing Challenge"s or "War Flag"s now requires "Rage". Both builds now also have "Rage" as an unlock prerequisite.
• Reverted the mechanic introduced in Game Development: Grammophne Crane by which going up Mineholes conferred the visitor debuff where applicable, as announced in Game Development: Narwhal Study.
• Nerfed Narwhal Tusk from base damage 90 to base damage 45.
• The final tier unlock of the "Wandering Sage" credo has been replaced with "+15% bonus to quest rewards", to replace the no longer desired bonus to local quality increases.
• Significantly reduced the bounding footprint of "Soil" stockpile. It now fits neatly on a tile.

Small Fixes
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• Added variable wood materials to "Coffer"s, which now take color and texture from the wood types from which they were made.
• Land Surveys now indicate their area with the same li'l construction-site ropes used for buildings under construction. Do note that they may/will pop a bit when you approach them if larger than client render distance. Will hopefully fix later.
• Object Stashes with inventory style GUIs, (e.g. "Knarr", "Wagon") should now properly display tooltips for held objects.
• Building input slots should now display their tooltip pages properly when hovered over.
• The Construction Object sign should now be properly hidden when inspecting building previews, so as to not obscure the preview. Reported somewhere around here.
• Hotkeyed items should no longer be put into stockpiles when shift-(ctrl)-placed. Looking at you, "Rope"!
• Brains now stack in inverse order of size (i.e. tiny stacks 4 high, small stacks 3 high, "normal" stacks 2 high, and big does not stack). They can be put in "Poacher's Pouch".
• "Pelican's Pouch"es and "Magpie's Thieving Claw"s can now be hung on walls.
• "Badger"s now have some chance to drop "Scent Gland"s. "Scent Gland"s also now allowed in "Poacher's Pouches".
• Character now plays the lighting animation when lighting "Kiln"s and "Tar Kiln"s. "Tar Kiln"s will tell you how full they are if inspected.
• "Tidepool"s should now appear visually on the lowest point under them where they are standing. Noticed a couple of mildly floating ones. Hope they don't bleed too badly into the ground in places, and that it looks better. Report your mileage, and other objects with same problem.
• "Butcher's Cleaver" now requires "Fine Butchery" to make.
• Removed redundant "Primitive Tools" unlock requirement from several metalworked weapons/tools.
• Bark can now be used as fuel, and can, thus, be burnt much like branches. Both Bark and branches can now also be turned to ash in various heaters, e.g. "Fireplace" or "Kiln".
• "Mound Bed" tooltip now explains that you can plant in it.
• Morels should now properly display their alchemical properties in tooltips. Reported here.
• Increased capacity of "Snow" stockpile from 40 to 250, corresponding to the "Soil" stockpile.
• "Blade Kiss", "Nasty Laceration" and "Cruel Incision" wounds can now all become infected.
• Hopefully improved the readability of the default client's quality overlay for items, by adding a black, semi-transparent, background, and using a more saturated color.
• "Smithy's Hammer"s can now be hung on "Anvil"s, by simply holding the hammer, and right-clicking the anvil. They will not be automagically equipped when using the anvil (yet?), but being able to leave them on the anvil is perhaps an improvement? Suggested various places.

As always, if you liked what we did here: Support the patch.

Today's Patch Item, for the fair price of $7, in a gentle nod of the hat to the upcoming Valentine's Day, is the "Summer of Love Hat".

$7

This hat went to San Francisco, and was sure to wear some flowers in its hair.

All Gold subscribers have been awarded the "Summer of Love Hat", free of charge.

In the Pipe
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• Our primary development direction is toward object-controlled-objects.
• Time to... like us on Facebook?
• Time to... follow us on Twitter?

UPDATE YOUR CLIENTS

... for the new tooltips on construction objects and object stashes to work.

Enjoy!