Research Story News

- [Fixed] Crash on file startup if player's last save was the night after a festival.

Thank you for your report and patience!
- Miki

[h2]4 New Romanceables Added![/h2]
[h3]Get to know more about Eira, Luke, Ming, and Yan Yan![/h3]

• You can unlock the following content for each new romanceable:
  
  • 4 Heart Events (Purple 💜, Blue 💙, Green 💚, and Yellow 💛)
    
  • 3 Hangout Events (2 Friendly Hangouts and 1 Romantic Date)
    
  • Changes in daily dialogues based on relationship status.
    
  • Letters in your Mailbox.
    
• 800+ dialogue lines added.
  
• New character portraits (various emotions) added.
  
• 13 new letters players can receive.
  

All 10 romanceable townsfolk in v0.6!

[h3]New Features[/h3]
Most of these were added based on your feedback!

• You can now track NPC relationship progress in the Friendship Tab.
  
• You can now sell your items at the General Store while it's open! Get that bit of extra gold you need for your purchases without having to wait for the next day.
  
• Both an item's Sell Price and Energy can now be seen across the Inventory, Shipping Bin, and Chests.
  
  
• Improved Map! 📍
  
  • Hangout Events are now marked on the Map.
    
  • Added Legend for Hangout Events and Unexplored Locations.
    
  • Map tracking improved to record a more accurate player position when outdoors.
    
  • You can now track NPCs who have Green Hearts (or above) on the map!
    
    
• Table Decor 🌷: Some small decor items (e.g. flower arrangements and frog plushes) can now be placed on some furniture. These furniture can hold 1 small decor item:
  
  
  • Table
    
  • Bedside Table
    
  • Round Table
    
  • Dining Table
    
  • Comfortable Sofa
    
    

[h3]New Items[/h3]

• Mushroom Planter (Penny Bun)
  
• Decor - Unique Flower Arrangement
  
• Decor - Flower Arrangement (Pink, Orange, and Blue)
  
• Keepsake
  
  • Knitted Bookmark

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• NPC relationships have been balanced.
  
• Polished Dialogue Options UI.
  
• Polished NPC Shop Icons.
  
• Changed the term 'Date' to 'Hangout' for Hangout Events with NPCs who are just friends.
  
• Added a tracker for unlocked/total tutorials under the Knowledge Tab.
  
• Loading screen for loading save files have been updated.
  
• [Controller] Improved controller navigation for Friendship Menu.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• NPC following the wrong routes/walking into walls after the player doesn't show up for a Hangout Event.
  
• Fixed a bug causing players to get stuck in an animation after fainting from exhaustion while catching a new fish.
  
• Energy Value of an edible item no longer shows decimal points when hovering over it from the hotbar.
  
• Fixed the game camera zoom and camera placement for some cutscenes when playing in 1440x900 resolutions.
  
• Other small fixes.

[h3]Optimisation[/h3]

• Harvesting from laaaarge farms with lots of crops causes lag. This has been improved greatly! (Happy to see the large farms, thanks for the reports!)
  
• Reworked parts of dialogue logic.
  

[h2]Public beta branch[/h2]

• Public beta branch with Chinese (Simplified) Localisation for v0.6 will be available at a later date.
  

[h2]📝 What's next[/h2]
I'll be rolling up my sleeves for the final update for this year (v0.7)! The v0.7 'Creatures & Caves' update should drop around the year-end holidays. It'll be a pretty special and big update, with exciting new stuff that brings us another step closer to 1.0.

I plan to work on:

• Winter Festival ❄️⛄️ - the last festival, such that there's 1 festival per season! One of the ideas I have and hope to implement is a snowball fight mini-game :D If you have other ideas, we're always happy to hear them!
  
• Creature Variants 🐾✨ - many players have suggested this, and it's also something I've been wanting to add for a long time! What's a creature collector without some ✨variants✨? Tell us what you wish to see!!! (excited)
  
• New creatures, crops, and fish! 🌿🐟 There's more research to be done!
  
• More content for the Mines 💎🔨 I want add more variety when exploring the Mines, with things like hidden rooms and special levels.

Highly likely to be added by end 2023:

• Steam Achievements, finally! Since it's something I've never implemented before, I'm not sure how long it'll take but I hope to fit this in before the end of the year. I'll update you guys about whether it's possible when the time comes!
  

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoy the update! - Miki

[h3][✨Update v0.6 is in development. It'll be released in early November!][/h3]

[h2]Greetings Researchers![/h2]

I'm mostly done with the upcoming v0.6 update - lots of new NPC content (800+ new dialogue lines!!) and some QOL changes will be coming very soon! This update is slated for early November 2023, and I'm currently doing some final playtests.

Here are some of the new things to look forward to:

[h3]Selling to the General Store! 🛒[/h3]
Now and then, we'll receive feedback about players wishing that they can sell items during the day, to get more gold for something that they've been waiting to purchase! Players can now sell items to the General Store, which opens from 9am-9pm daily.



[h3]Tracking Close Friends on the map! 📌[/h3]
You can now track good friends (townsfolk with Green Hearts 💚 and above) on the Map! That's because closer friends share their schedules with you :) You can also choose to whether to track them (or not) from the Friendship Tab.



[h3]Eira's friendship and romance content 💛[/h3]
I've been spending most of the time writing and crafting the cutscenes and Hangout Events for NPCs, including for Eira! As usual, no spoilers here, just a small peek:



[h3]✨... As well as *drumroll* ... 2 additional romanceables! 💗✨[/h3]
Content for Ming and Yan Yan has also been added! Some of you have been waiting and I'm so happy they made it for this update :D This also means that with the v0.6 update, we'll have a total of 10 romanceable townsfolk you can choose from! I think this is a good number of romanceables for the game right now. If your favourite NPC is not yet in the list, they might still get a chance in the future~



Thanks for reading as usual! I'll be taking a break for 1.5 weeks to spend time with my family, and may not be able to respond quickly during that time. I will be back soon!
🎃🎃 Happy Halloween in advance! 🎃🎃

- Miki

- Fixed Incorrect/missing diet information and mechanic for some creatures.

Sorry about this! Creatures should have the most updated diet information after this hotfix.

Thanks for the report! :)
- Miki

[h3][✨Update v0.6 is in development. I'll give a release estimate when ready!][/h3]

[h2]Greetings, Researchers![/h2]

For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on more NPC content! Based on our Discord poll and general sentiments, Luke is definitely being added to the bachelor list in the next update 💗 Each romanceable candidate currently has the following content, as do the upcoming ones:

• 4 Heart Event Cutscenes (💜💙💚💛).
  
• 3 Hangout Events (2 Hangouts and 1 Date) with interactable activities.
  
• Special dialogue, mail, and character portraits.
  

Since I've mostly been working on characters' stories, I won't be able to share too much of them without spoiling~ Here's one of the Hangouts you can go on with Luke, though!

Hangout with Luke at the Violet Archive. Finally, Luke with a Blue Heart! 💙

I've also been working on QOL and other improvements, such as:

• Polishing visuals for dialogue options
  
• Overall optimisation
  
• A progress tracker for relationships
  
• Balancing for NPC relationships
  
• Minor fixes
  

Hearts Progress can now be seen in the Friendship Tab!

[h3]What's next 📝[/h3]
The next bachelorette to be added is... Eira! 💛 The poll results was tied between Eira and Yan Yan. I decided to start with Eira, because I wanted to add Yan Yan together with her brother, Ming, so that I can keep their stories more consistent. Thank you for your patience!

Have a great weekend! - Miki