UPDATE 1.5-1 (13 May 2021)

Hi!

This updates includes several small fixes, with some more important gameplay bug fixes in the mix.

One change I wanted to point out especially is the "Pet Charming Multiplier" bug. As it turns out, the pet mini-game has been far more difficult than we intended, because the timed-hit and interest multipliers were broken! With this update, the interest level and timed-hits will make a significant difference in how quickly animals can be befriended!

The patch also addresses a few important UI usability issues, some camera adjustments, a few issues that could cause a puzzle to become stuck and unfinished, and some minor performance improvements.

Release Notes

FIXES

• Fixed pet charming timed-hit multipliers not always displaying
• Fixed pet charming timed-hit multipliers not taking full effect
• Fixed lit fuses getting stuck mid-animation after it has been reactivated while the end animation was still playing
• Fixed rare cases where the warp wells in Vigil Pines could cause the character to slip out of the dungeon and under the main map
• Fixed one of the ladders in the Forest trials where the character could fall behind it and get become trapped [final ladder at the end of the water room puzzle]
• Fixed a ladder bug where the player characters could become stuck permanently in a ladder pose (Gloia could exit this pose with her hammer, but Horbir was trapped forever)
• Fixed UI Scale settings not properly being restored
• Fixed Artifact description popup to work with UI Scales > 1.0

CHANGES AND BALANCING

• Reduced how jumpy the camera can be in tight spaces
• Increased the Sprint Stamina heal rate
• Slightly increased the Jackalope befriending difficulty (to counter pet charming timed-hit fixes)
• Reduced timed-hit multipliers (to counter pet charming timed-hit fixes)
• Added something to the Alternate Climb puzzle to reduce confusion when finding it - before having the tools to complete it

SMALL THINGS

• Reduced the game launch time before the title menu for some systems
• Memory optimizations
• Reduced the frequency of Steam queries for achievements

Update 1.4 - Pets (14 September 2020)

Hey everyone!

We have an exciting update for you all with some fun changes and new features! The main theme of this update: PETS!

NEW PET TRAINING MINI-GAME

As the many tutorial videos and guides have made clear, the original Pet Training game was tricky to explain and didn't quite achieve its purpose in the game, so we've completely overhauled it! This mini-game makeover follows the same principles of gaining the animal's Trust, but with a shiny new look and feel that's easier to learn and fun to play.

NEW PETS & BADGES

How is it even legal to have shipped this game without DOGS?! That's right, Dwarrows now has dogs and puppies, several breeds to choose from! We didn't want the dogs getting bored, so we thought we'd give them something to chase: Squirrels of course! These new pets carry with them the secret to keeping the interest of animals and gaining their trust.

PETS ACCESSORIES

Lastly in the realm of pets we have added pet accessories. Gone are the tragic days of not-being-able-to-put-a-monocle-on-a-bird. That sad era is over. Hats, glasses, moustaches! Lots of silly aesthetic items to give your pets personality and throw your crowns at. Find these items at your General Merchant in town.

IMPROVED CONTROLLER SUPPORT

This may not be for everyone, but it's an important part of the fun for those who prefer to use gamepads. We have done a reworking of our controller support and I think controller users will be pleased! A majority of our UI has been changed to treat gamepads as a first-class control scheme wherever possible, meaning it will no longer be treated like a mouse on menus that could support this change.

ENJOY!

We have also made a ton of little quality of life and bug fixes which, there is a lot of, so I'll leave you to the patch notes below if you want to read about it! Thank you as always for being our amazing supporters and players. We hope you like the new update and features.

Cheers, The Lithic Team

Release Notes

NEW

• NEW PET: Dogs and Puppies! Several varieties of dogs and puppies can now be found throughout the land :D
• NEW PET: Squirrels! Find and befriend a variety of these adorable little rodents to help you in your travels!
• New Badges: Intriguing and Trustworthy. These badges increase your starting interest and trust when charming new pets.
• New: Pet Accessories! Hats, glasses, and facial hair for your animals! Fashion Accessories for pets are now sold at the Merchant in the Dusken Keep. Merchant inventory is refreshed daily (as in: real-life time).
• New: Pet Charming mini-game. We've reworked the whole mini-game to be a lot more intuitive and, hopefully, fun! (*more details below).
• New: PROPER GAMEPAD SUPPORT in menus! Gamepad navigation no longer behaves as a mouse and instead snaps to buttons and important UI elements.

NEW PET TAMING MINI-GAME

• Overhauled the Pet Taming mini-game. The game has been reworked to be simpler to learn and balanced to be faster paced.
• Changed Timed Hits during pet taming minigame into a separate stage of the minigame. You'll now be able to take your time and time your 'hits' more accurately.
• Pet taming Timed Hits are now affected by the game speed option.
• Fixed 'Give Item' during pet taming to properly work with timed hits.
• Added a new celebration/information screen when a pet has been charmed.

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS

• Smashable pots will now respawn when loading a game. Breaking things is fun, why not keep them around? (Bonus: Saves memory and slightly improves save/load speeds).
• Improved smashable pots to better handle explosions - and by better handle I mean they break more reliably and satisfyingly.
• Added hotkeys for Structure design table slots. Designing should require less back-and-forth mouse movement.
• Reduced the number of recycled auto-save games from 20 to 10 (this will not delete existing auto-save games).
• New look to the Compass - easier to read with cleaner font

PERFORMANCE

• Fixed a bug that would cause severe slowdowns when the exit confirmation prompt was visible.
• Reduced amount of data being saved, reducing how long it takes to save and how much harddrive space is needed.
• Significantly improved performance for some older hardware. In testing, a computer with an average of 15fps now averages 32fps. Note: This is not likely to be a noticeable improvement for modern hardware.

FIXES

• Fixed an issue where clicking 'yes' on a confirmation prompt could complete the action more than once (eg. Agreeing to Discard an item, could accidentally discard 3 of that same item).
• Fixed memory leak caused by orphaned pet badges when equipping pets.
• Disabled Gravity on smashable pots. This fixes an issue where Smashable urns in dungeons would sometimes be thrown around when entering the level.
• Fixed the mini-boss music sometimes not going away after leaving the scarecrow's hilltop near Breezy River Farm

SMALL THINGS

• Fixed all bird pets from unlocking the Bluebird only achievement.
• Fixed typo in wood axe upgrade ('tress' instead of 'trees').
• Renamed some actions in Pet Taming.
• Fixed several gamepad issues that would cause the game and UI to suddenly revert to the mouse and keyboard mode.
• Fixed the "Back" button on the map to be above the border.
• Added outline to some fonts to make them easier to read.
• Fixed several badge icons looking far too bright.

Performance and Resource Update v1.3 (1 April 2020)

PERFORMANCE

• Fixed a framerate stutter/hitch that happened every second or so in towns with many townsfolk and town structures
• Fixed an where excessive wildlife would remain active. This should improve performance in later games.
• Improved tile search when placing structures to be less wasteful. This helps with performance when placing large structures, and it helps reduce the load time of save games.
• Simplified townsfolk and traveller path following logic when at a distance from the cameras. This should help with performance in games with more populated towns.
• Reduced game loading times with advanced towns
• Improved performance on the moving block dust particles in the Trials by the River of Fire

NEW

• Blake Smith now has new tool durability upgrades for the Wood Axe and Pick Axe! Increases how long the tool can stay sharpened.

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS

• Reduced the Producer achievement to 300,000 resources picked up, from 1,000,000. This is more within a realistic range for picking up resources, and maybe even more reasonable now with the fixes to higher level resource areas.
• Foliage in town now responds more quickly to structures being placed or removed
• Drops from resources in Mushroom Grove have been increased by 1 level, and Muktock Swamp by 2 levels. This means they have more resources and will take more strikes to fully extract.
• Moved several mineral veins that were lost inside of the terrain or stuck in trees
• Changed Spice Bag status effect to stack duration instead of stacking the bonus
• Spice is now a bit more rare than before, and more expensive at the merchant
• Increased the chance of a mining spawn to be a gold vein

FIXES

• Fixed happiness modifier time remaining display in the townsfolk list UI.
• Fixed a bug in Archy's quest where the controls were never returned to the player after the conversation.
• Fixed Resources not correctly respawning in Vigil Pines, Mushroom Grove, and Muktock Swamp.
• Fixed tile positioning on the edge of the town grid. This should help fix structures and path tiles on the north edge of tier 3 and 4, which would fail to properly re-apply to the town on load game.
• Fixed long grass in town growing over structures and paths
• Fixed a bug in older save games where puzzle tracking would never reach 42/42.

Update v1.2 (21 March 2020)

NEW

• Added new accessibility/preference options for Puzzle Difficulty controls in Options -> Game (Normal | Easier [1/2 speed] | Easiest [1/4 speed]).
• Added checkered flags near Race Attendants, so they can easily be spotted

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS

• The number of required stars in The Archives has been reduced by 1, making the, difficult to find, final star optional.
• Faavi Kingdom Leaves can scale size with the puzzle difficulty modifier
• Increased Dwilben's base charge from 10% to 30%
• Added an upper limit to interest rates at 50% every interest period
• Simplified a puzzle in the first Trials
• Improved performance in the Fire and Forest Trials

FIXES

• Fixed a bug where a teleport Fountain could place the characters under the map
• Fixed missing/broken beanstalks in the Faavi kingdom. The puzzle should now be completable in existing and new save games.
• Fixed (I think) Spirit Sprites loading in a different position than they should (sometimes too high to reach).
• Fixed Mayor Schtick going missing after loading a game. She should be back in the Dusken Keep now.

SMALL THINGS

• Achievement "There's No Fall Damage" should now be working
• Removed broken Achievement "Going The Distance"
• Blocked off some areas where characters could get stuck
• Vigor Potion icon is now a different colour than the stamina potion
• Fixed a typo in Mac's dialogue