New character sprites

The human character sprites have received a major facelift, improving them in many ways as well as fixing some jank with the animations. The downside to this is the removal of diagonally facing sprites, as those ended up becoming very time consuming to animate and draw graphics for. The disappearing faces when attacking is also gone as part of this update.

Along with the new character sprites, there's also improved clothing sprites and a new hair style, a mohawk. More will come in later patches. Beards can also be put on your character separately of hairstyle now, which opens up new possibilities of creating a unique looking character. Here's a small preview from the character creator

Improved Combat Effects

There's also a new system in place now for what I call combat effects. This new system allows for NPCs and the player to apply various effects to each other, such as rooting (stuck in one place), dazing (slower movement) and poisoning as of now. The new enemies in this version (snakes and spiders) will be using these effects in combat. Depending on your Dexterity or Endurance statistics your chances of being affected are reduced.

Improved loading times

The loading times have been cut almost in half, going from over a minute down to 38 seconds. I will continue to try to reduce this further in the future.

Known Issues

• The buttons to sort the item list have been temporarily disabled due to them crashing the game under certain circumstances. Functionality will be restored once I figure out how to fix it.
• There can be some tiles in the Uspya region that are half black and/or broken.
• Some sprites may be misaligned or have broken animations.

Added

World

• New interiors and shops to Upper Nagana.
• A house can now be purchased in Lower Nagana.
• Ship Weapons can now be purchased in Lower Nagana.
• Spider enemies in some locations. Their graphics are still kinda rudimentary, but it's a start towards more varied enemies than only humans and deer.
• Snakes are now back in the wild. Beware their poisonous bite.
• Local map of Stonehaven. If you visit and find a big map, you can copy it and see your current position. Press and hold the Map button (default M or D-pad Down) to show it. More cities are coming in future patches.
• New port east of Kugrom where you can land your ship.
• New port south of Nagana which can also do ship repairs.

Systems

• Ability to pay to learn new spells from some wizards in wizard towers throughout the game world. Currently only works in the Uspya and Cafror wizard towers.
• Archery, Blunt and Sword skills can now be trained by attacking Training Dummies. You get more Archery XP the further away from the target you are. This form of training only works up to a certain level threshold, after which you can't learn anything from attacking them.

Gameplay Stats

• Spells learned
• Arena Skirmishers defeated
• Lodestones found

Misc

• Caf and other teas can now be made through alchemy.

Changed

Graphics

• Updated some terrain tiles around Uspya region.
• Updated Wrecolt Island to use new water terraforming tiles.
• New tiles and changed layout for the Lodestone Tower.
• New level up particle effect.
• Improved visuals for wind while sailing.
• Improved chimney particle effects.
• Enhanced a lot of item icons.

World

• Moved some of the Lodestones and added a few new ones.
• Some tweaking of fog thickness and color.

Interface

• If you own a ship, its current port location is now displayed on the world map.
• If you're poisoned, the health bar now turns green to signal this clearer.
• Made it clearer that you can click different buttons in the character creator.

Misc

• Arena Skirmish opponents now have randomized hair and hair color.
• Updated text in "Travelers Guide to Stonehaven" book and added similar books for Fiks, Blackrock, Kugrom, Nagana and Querden.

Fixed

World

• Several locations where the Shockwave spell would push things over the walls inside dungeons or houses.
• The two houses outside the Blackrock gate not being enterable.
• Walking up the stairs in The Full Cup leading to the player being stuck.
• The Lodestone Tower is now completable.
• Estate Agents telling you the wrong price if you ask about what you can do with a house.
• Some jail doors that could not be opened after finishing serving jail time.
• Swamp Shrine altar always telling you to enter a proper value.
• Updated the mailbox outside the players house in Nagana to use the new template. It should now show a notification if there's unread mail.
• Wrong positioning of ship when landing in Clearwater.
• Missing or misaligned collision volumes.

Graphics

• Double weapon sprite appearing when attacking while looking north while wearing a shirt without buttons.
• Misc Items inventory tab icon now has a proper graphic.

Interface

• Typo in Character screen, where health would be displayed instead of your current and the required XP to level up. HP would also be displayed instead of the current and maximum Mana. That's one hell of an oversight!
• Lodestone Teleportation map should now work as intended.
• Controls interface now shows the correct keys and is actually readable. Gamepad controls can also be shown by clicking a button in the interface.
• Book reading is functional again.
• Opening maps from the inventory now works as intended.
• Rounding errors for some numbers.
• Close button not closing the Alchemy interface properly.
• Food items should now show up in the Consumable inventory tab. Ingredients also won't show up in this tab any more.

Magic

• Indecisive Position now works as intended, teleporting you to a random location within your current region.

Crashes

• One choice when talking with Innkeeper in Blackrock.
• Game is less likely to crash while starting up during the loading now.

Audio

• Arena music not stopping after leaving or dying in the arena.

Misc

• Checking if the player knows a spell now works as intended.
• Cursor not always working after landing with a ship.
• It should no longer be possible to move and/or turn the ship while another interface is shown, such as the landing message.
• Inconsistent zooming distance when leaving port on a player ship. It should now always be the same.
• Varius tipos.
• Fixed/altered various item prices and descriptions.