Book of Hours News

This is on the beta branch now! I've had some life admin this week, so it might make it to the main branch by Friday if it's stable, but no guarantees.

BETA 2023.9.a.9

- FEATURE: Crafting helper panel for workstations
- FEATURE: Mouseover to show unlock requirements on rooms
- FEATURE: Save-independent endings. You can now unlock a History with one save, and access it from the Histories screen even when playing another save. (When you open the game, it'll log any new Histories from your current AUTOSAVE and store them permanently.)
- To minimise beach-madness, some UI elements only appear once you're out of the first phase of the game
- Added an 'Unlock All Resolutions' checkbox option for people who really don't want to play in 16:10
- Aspect-finder pulse now keeps going if you leave your mouse over the aspect display
- Little bit of camera easing
- Fixed some incorrect crafting hints
- Expanded hints on Determinations and ending-related info
- Fixed Curse of the Flying Scroll/Phonograph bug
- Rev Tim no longer pretends like he's going to give you two Memories on first introduction
- Roots Origin Determination no longer claims to affect Grail
- Tree of Wisdoms auto-closes when you hit Backspace
- Clarified some Moth and Lantern History text
- Added some clarifying information about Numa frequency
- Dog is no longer confusingly found in staff-room if already found elsewhere (in new games, anyway)
- Candles, and some llies, are no longer Fuel
- Fatigued Soul cards now properly affected by theoplasmic contamination
- Deeplight Corals didn't allow crafting.
- Deep Mandaic no longer alphabetised under M
- Fludd Gallery glassware is a little less greedy for clicks
- Some experimental perf optimisations
- Added a hotkey to hide the HUD/UI, for screenshot enthusiasts
- UI Scale is now a slider
- Fixed annoying mouseover flicker bug on aspect preview
- Rags are now Fabric
- Some more gof the higher-level Memories are Persistent
- HOTFIX: no black border around books
- HOTFIX: silly bug fixed where books were taking up too much space
- HOTFIX: reverted accidental ordering changes in trays

Teeny patchlet, most importantly addressing what one bug reporter described as 'Mr Crab's Bad Day'

- Chimeric Larva now develops into, not produces, Perilous Imago
- Franklin speaks Latin
- Added a missing requirement to the hidden ending (it was less hidden than it should have been)
- Circumstances now disappear in Numa; numina make it clear that they will only disappear in Numa.
- 'Multitudinous' books are identified.
- Once an attuned Skill has been used to evolve Soul, it gets an Attunement Fulfilled marker so you don't need to keep futzing around with it.
- Fixed that disturbing crab glitch. You know the one. Count yourself lucky if you don't. Poor Carkifer.
- Smoothed out zoom step movement, added a little easing

That makes it five major patches and, good crikey, twelve minor patches since launch on 17th August. We're going to slow down a bit now, although by 'slow down a bit' I only mean 'take a coupla days off and not work this weekend'. Expect more quality-of-life updates soon.

'Forerunner?' 29th August is traditionally celebrated as the day of the Decollation of the Forerunner, which is to say, the day that Herod had John the Baptist shortened. I hadn't run across 'decollation' before. The etymology suggests cutting the neck, rather than the head. You know the story about Loki losing the bet with the dwarf Brok where his stake is his head? And he says, okay, my head is yours, but you better not touch my neck? So Brok sews Loki's lips shut, although at least in the Crossley-Holland version he has to use his brother's awl because Loki's lips are needle-proof. I can't imagine there's any relationship at all between John the Baptist and Loki, I just always liked the story, lots of fab swag.

Patch notes.

- Added a Completed Recipe button + count
- Added a fourth zoom level
- Added a config slider for zoom speed with scroll wheel / keys
- When you change zoom level, mouse moves towards cursor - WIP, currently optional in settings
- When using BACKSPACE to cycle to a recent workstation, zoom is not horribly close on external workstations
- [b[Another optimisation pass - memory requirements and frame rate should be better on lower end machines
- Daybreak and nightfall sounds are now (again) different!
- Boathouse and Crane now allow you to release beasts, and no longer have currently-extraneous ability slot (run an item through to refresh and update in existing saves)
- Save and Quit disabled as well as Load and Save in ToW
- Fixed bug where you sometimes had to ESC not [x] out of windows (when you dropped a card on a stack instead of in a tray)
- 'NOPE' marker when you can't put something in a slot (and hotfixed NOPES getting sticky when you dropped a card on a stack)
- Some card autosorting options
- A genealogical chart is no longer fixed in place
- Lengthened some workstation timer displays
- Snow displays on top of beehive in winter
- SFX play on workstation close as well
- Optimisation pass on textures! which means the game can just about run on 2GB VRAM now, but we're still working on it.
- Kanishk's book has a more suitable cover
- Windlit Gallery shrouded image updated
- Clearer hint about brewing tea
- 'NO RAIN BEHIND STAR'
- Marked fixed wall art so it didn't confuse people
- Disallowing invalid save characters again
- Cats may now be placed in niches in the Grand Ascent (also any other tame beasts, though some may look odd)
- Enabled mouseover highlight for accessible card text
- Ending text is visible again! (it was broken briefly on beta)
- Lower pump room now clickable rather than entirely hidden behind pump
- Sea now lines up better with rocks
- Soft Amber Pumpkin is no longer an infinite source of honey
- All rest beds now have a certain hidden interaction that was limited to one particular rest bed
- Thing slots in Windlit gallery now appear no longer appear in front of... other things they're not in front of
- Fixed optimisation bug: rooms offscreen when unlocked are now visible without a reload
- Fixed optimisation bug: very large rooms no longer flicker in and out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: objects should no longer glitch in/out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: scrolls and books should no longer show black instead of transparency
- Sacrament Calicite is now Grail, not Heart BUT to avoid inconveniencing people who were planning to use it, existing S.C. retains Heart
- Fixed misleading Scholar-level clue when making moth-gold paint
- 'Deep Mandaic', not just 'Mandaic'
- Glinting Cranial Tchotchke displays again
- Middle display in Duelling Hall has more wiggle room

- Added a Completed Recipe button + count
- Added a fourth zoom level
- Added a config slider for zoom speed with scroll wheel / keys
- When you change zoom level, mouse moves towards cursor - WIP, currently optional in settings
- When using BACKSPACE to cycle to a recent workstation, zoom is not horribly close on external workstations
- Another optimisation pass - memory requirements and frame rate should be better on lower end machines
- Daybreak and nightfall sounds are now (again) different!
- Boathouse and Crane now allow you to release beasts, and no longer have currently-extraneous ability slot (run an item through to refresh and update in existing saves)
- Save and Quit disabled as well as Load and Save in ToW
- Fixed bug where you sometimes had to ESC not [x] out of windows (when you dropped a card on a stack instead of in a tray)
- 'NOPE' marker when you can't put something in a slot (and hotfixed them getting sticky when you dropped a card on a stack)
- Some card autosorting options
- A genealogical chart is no longer fixed in place
- Lengthened some workstation timer displays
- Snow displays on top of beehive in winter
- SFX play on workstation close as well
- Optimisation pass on textures! which means the game can just about run on 2GB VRAM now, but we're still working on it.
- Kanishk's book has a more suitable cover
- Windlit Gallery shrouded image updated
- Clearer hint about brewing tea
- 'NO RAIN BEHIND STAR'
- Marked fixed wall art so it didn't confuse people
- Disallowing invalid save characters again
- Cats may now be placed in niches in the Grand Ascent (also any other tame beasts, though some may look odd)
- Enabled mouseover highlight for accessible card text
- Ending text is visible again!
- Lower pump room now clickable rather than entirely hidden behind pump
- Sea now lines up better with rocks
- Soft Amber Pumpkin is no longer an infinite source of honey
- All rest beds now have a certain hidden interaction that was limited to one particular rest bed
- Thing slots in Windlit gallery now appear no longer appear in front of... other things they're not in front of
- Fixed optimisation bug: rooms offscreen when unlocked are now visible without a reload
- Fixed optimisation bug: very large rooms no longer flicker in and out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: objects should no longer glitch in/out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: scrolls and books should no longer show black instead of transparency

To switch to the beta branch (usually fairly stable, occasionally contains dragons):

right-click on game in library->properties->betas->dropdown 'beta'

- When you change zoom level, mouse moves towards cursor
- Added a fourth zoom level
- Added a config slider for zoom speed with scroll wheel / keys
- When using BACKSPACE to cycle to a recent workstation, zoom is not horribly close on external workstations
- Another optimisation pass - memory requirements and frame rate should be better on lower end machines
- Daybreak and nightfall sounds are now (again) different!
- Boathouse and Crane now allow you to release beasts, and no longer have currently-extraneous ability slot (run an item through to refresh and update in existing saves)
- Save and Quit disabled as well as Load and Save in ToW
- Fixed bug where you sometimes had to ESC not [x] out of windows (when you dropped a card on a stack instead of in a tray)
- 'NOPE' marker when you can't put something in a slot (and hotfixed them getting sticky when you dropped a card on a stack)
- Some card autosorting options
- A genealogical chart is no longer fixed in place
- Lengthened some workstation timer displays
- Snow displays on top of beehive in winter
- SFX play on workstation close as well
- Optimisation pass on textures! which means the game can just about run on 2GB VRAM now, but we're still working on it.
- Kanishk's book has a more suitable cover
- Windlit Gallery shrouded image updated
- Clearer hint about brewing tea
- 'NO RAIN BEHIND STAR'
- Marked fixed wall art so it didn't confuse people
- Disallowing invalid save characters again
- Cats may now be placed in niches in the Grand Ascent (also any other tame beasts, though some may look odd)