[h1]It's finally here, the update you've all been waiting for![/h1] It's been quite a while since the last update, sorry about that! I've been busy making the game at least a little bit better. In this post i'll go over what's changed, where i've been, and what the future of Alnico holds! [h2]What's new?[/h2] Quite a lot! So much in-fact that my changelog is entirely too long for any kind of public post, but i'll give you the main points right now. [list] [*] Crafting has undergone a complete overhaul! The Machine TM is gone, in its place is an anvil and some tools, complete with a new crafting minigame. [*] Crafts are rehauled too! New crafts, old crafts, and some are in the garbage. There's now 40 planned items to craft, all with unique sprites (planned) and properties. [*] The merchant is here, and he's selling stuff! Your workshop might look a little more empty on start now, you'll have to buy those tools you took for granted from the merchant at the right of the smithery. [*] Fossils! What do they do? They're fuel of course! Use them to power your mining equipment automatically! [*] Upgrades are gone! In their place are special order scrolls that improve the look and ability of your ore processor and furnace. Speaking of the furnace... [*] New textures all around! Almost everything from the furnace to the levers to the very walls have been re-textured. It all look very nice if I do say so myself. [/list] And a ton of other minor changes you'll have to find by yourself! There's new spiders, molten metal heats stuff up, etc etc. [h2]Where have I been?[/h2] Working! Both on Alnico and on my real life job that pays my bills. It's been busy the past year, but i'm finally in a place where I can happily and healthily work on my game again. I never stopped working on Alnico entirely, but there certainly were long periods where I barely coded at all. I've been chipping away at it the whole time, though. Lots of the code was old, poorly written, and most of it needed rewriting. It's a lot of work making a game when you barely know how to code! But for the forseeable future, I am back working on the game in full force! Thank you everyone for your constant support over the past many months. [h2]So, what now? Release date?[/h2] The number one question I keep getting asked is when Alnico is going to release to the public, and the real and truthful answer is: I don't know! Every time I think I have a good grasp on the timeline and make an release date estimate, it ends up taking way longer than I think! So I won't be giving any ETAs! I will say, however, that we're most certainly closer than ever before, and I'm itching to let everyone play. Right now I am letting existing testers test some more, and I plan of giving out some more closed beta testing keys soon. The game is steadily getting finished, I thank you for your patience! [h2]Want to keep up with the game's development?[/h2] While I'm not very active here on Steam, I post regular updates in the official Ganske Danske discord server, and I often stream as I add heaps of code and art to Alnico. If you wanna keep your finger on the game's pulse, I highly recommend joining the community on Discord and/or following me on Twitch! Those links are right below this text blob. [url=https://discord.gg/B8hypkaxgh]Discord[/url] [url=https://www.twitch.tv/pinaplll]Twitch[/url] [h2]That's about it from me for now![/h2] In the future you can expect to see regular updates on the game, and slowly but surely we will get closer to release, and maybe even a public beta build? We'll see. Until next update, bye bye!