This release is a pretty major one for Aiyana but most of its content is unlikely to be reached within the time limit for the demo. It includes: [list] [*] The first additional world layer for The Lost Civilisation [*] Protection beacons [*] A foundation for multiplayer (Disabled) [*] Significant performance improvements [*] Main Menu rework [/list] [h3]The Lost Civilisation[/h3] This is the first world layer within Aiyana. Once your Protection Beacon reaches a high enough level it will reward you with a portal that will take you there to give you a new world to explore, similar to how the Nether works in Minecraft. This layer is still a work in progress and has a long way to go but enough of a foundation is there to let you explore. By exploring this layer you have easier access to ores that are rare in the Overworld as well as some new ones. There are also 2 new enemies, with more to come later, and a placeholder boss to defeat. [h3]Protection Beacons[/h3] Protection Beacons can now be crafted and act as the heart of your base. They will prevent nearby enemies from spawning or attacking you whilst inside its boundaries. Beacons can be upgraded by crafting/placing various blocks within its borders as well as investing resources. [h3]Main Menu Rework[/h3] The main menu has always been a bit problematic to maintain because it was a static scene, which means its visuals needed their own meshes and shaders to render properly and these would frequently break. To fix this, the menu scene is now a world that generates on the fly so it uses all the same content. The advantage of this is that new menu scenes can now be made very easily and as such now you should see a variety of different scenes in the main menu. This took significantly more time than expected but has also helped fix a lot of bugs around world layers, using portals or reloading worlds. What I’ve done is remove the concept of there being a menu and main ‘scene’. Scenes are a concept within Unity to help manage things easily. However switching scenes can be extremely slow so by us now not using scenes when you load a world it can take less than a second on mid spec machines. The tradeoff is that there is now a loading screen before you see the first menu scene as data is prepared to load a world. [h3]Multiplayer[/h3] Significant progress has been made to lay a foundation for multiplayer in the future and should everything go well multiplayer within Aiyana will be completely free since there would be no need for a dedicated server. Instead servers would be hosted as lobbies via Steam. However, there is still a significant amount of work/testing to do and currently I’m aiming for Aiyana to be released in April. I’m not confident I can get multiplayer into a state I will be happy with for that time. In fact I highly doubt multiplayer will be a day 1 release which is a real shame but after 9 years I have to pull the trigger eventually. [h3]Lighting[/h3] [list] [*] Improved light spreading from torches [*] Fixed an issue where you could see light leaking through the world at sun rise/set [*] There are still a lot of issues with lighting that will be addressed in a future update [*] Lighting has been remade to distinguish between natural and emissive light. Still heavily WIP but this improves lighting in some scenarios [/list] [h3]Performance[/h3] This update has some significant performance gains in many ways. Hopefully things will be running smoother now and allow higher FPS for all machines. [h3]World Shape Improvements[/h3] A long-standing bug in Aiyana to do with missing faces has Finally been fixed. In doing so, the world should be a bit smoother and biomes should no longer leak their height slightly into their neighbours. Alongside this, biome generation has been completely reworked. You should now see a much wider variety of biomes more consistently however this does come with the tradeoff of animals looking more out of place as they wander around. [h3]Bugs[/h3] [list] [*] Running down steps should feel better and no longer cause you to take fall damage [*] Various sources of inventory corruption have been fixed [/list] [h3]Improvements[/h3] [list] [*] Dust should be appearing much more consistently now [*] Rain will spawn more particles and be more obvious its raining [*] Music has been reworked so that tracks will never be interrupted for new ones [*] Rain has been remade and should look much nicer [*] Structure builder animations have been reworked to feel more satisfying [*] Crops and bushes have been reworked to be more stable [/list] [h3]Spells[/h3] [list] [*] Hover spell has been reworked to be more intuitive and eventually let you fly [*] Drain life has been rebalanced to make it feel a bit more satisfying [*] Fixed not being able to see the visuals for the Find Death Urns spell [*] Casting spells now consumes hunger [*] Dash can no longer be used to ‘fly’ [/list] [h3]Animals[/h3] [list] [*] Levitating animals should navigate the world better [*] Reduced the chances of encountering a night rabbit [*] Improved how animals swim/attack in water (especially the Corrupted Native) [*] Reduced how often animals flinch [*] Corrupted Natives run a bit quicker [*] Animals should avoid trees again [*] Added audio to a few animals/enemies that were missing it [*] Chickens will now randomly drop eggs [*] Most animals now have a rare chance of dropping a cooking recipe [/list] [h3]Balancing/Changes[/h3] [list] [*] The starting island no longer has the broken portal and no longer protects you from enemies spawning at night [*] Sap should spawn more often [*] Green crystals now also reward a significant amount of mining exp [*] Fixed sword swings not rewarding exp for the attack speed stat [*] Fixed the attack speed stat not working [*] Combat tree has been rebalanced to need less kills before you can unlock later perks [*] Archery damage has been significantly reduced [*] Hunger has been rebalanced to be more challenging/meaningful [*] Overall a lot of changes have been made to balancing, especially around how experience is earned for spells [*] Buckets have been added again, allowing you to move water in a primitive way [*] Alchemy has a new feature where you can invest Magical Essence to reveal ingredient properties [*] Fancy beds are now craftable [/list] [h3]Achievements & Perks[/h3] [list] [*] Added a new perk to be able to see fishing spears on the map, making it easier to find them again [*] Added a new perk to speed up the time it takes to eat things [*] Some of the in game achievements have been hooked up to Steam to be Steam Achievements as well [/list] [h3]UI and Wording Changes[/h3] [list] [*] Pressing ‘P’ now opens the perks screen instead of the spellbook [*] Clicking on icons like torch fuels will now act as though you pressed the +1 button instead [*] Added new UI to help show when a spell is still on cooldown [*] Various small improvements to UI have been made to make things clearer [*] Damage text will now appear when hitting blocks and trees [/list]