A bit of a shorter log this week. Contrary to what that sounds like something very important got done. It is however just one thing. I spent this week remaking the patching system. If you read the log from last week, I believe I mentioned it there.

Without going into horrible amounts of detail, because I don’t really want to relive my programming nightmares, the game will now record relevant data each time it saves to a separate file. When you download a newer version of the game and load your old save the game will reference this file and recreate or alter any necessary data to get you back to where you were. There are one or two exceptions to this which I’ll explain, but they shouldn’t be terribly important. Also, you will have to start a new save on this version in order to take advantage of the system, hopefully for the last time, fingers crossed. The first loophole is that no matter where you end the day once you patch you will be placed outside of your house. I know that might be a little annoying if you had trekked far away, but the idea is this. The map will be updating with some amount of frequency, at least I hope it will, once I am done fixing bugs and adding QoL features.

Because the map could change on any patch there is the very real possibility that you would start in a position that, post-patch, becomes cut off from the world. Or you might spawn in a cliff, or a river, etc. The only place I can really guarantee won’t change is the area right in front of your house so that’s where you will end up. If you happen to have a horse the same rule applies, it will be put in your stable after a patch. The second loophole is somewhat the same. If you are sleeping when the game saves and then the game patches you will be placed at the front of your house as well. You are given full stamina post-patch however so it probably won’t be too disruptive.

The last loophole might seem a bit odd, but is probably not too problematic. Any trees, forage bushes, plants, rocks, mushrooms, seashells, or basically anything that spawns randomly on the ground will be reset on a patch. This does not include trees planted on your farm. In fact, your farm in general should remember everything you’ve done. I think you’ll only really notice this if you’ve let these things build up in the world. Just don’t expect a plant you saw pre-patch to still be there post patch.

That’s it for the patching system. However, a word of warning. I’m not so overconfident as to think there aren’t any problems with this system. I’ve tested each part of it many times over and haven’t run into issues. If there is one thing I know though, it’s that players often find ways to break things. Of course, that isn’t meant as any sort of slight, this is what an alpha is all about and I appreciate any feedback greatly. Just bear in mind that there is the possibility of something going haywire. If you see anything odd let me know and I’ll look into it, hopefully without you losing any data.

Aside from all that I did manage to squash a few of the more egregious bugs I’ve heard about. They are listed below. As a last note, I’ll put this below as well, but I felt I should mention it. Animal movement has been disabled temporarily due to their tendency to…phase through solid objects. So, for the moment animals won’t move anywhere. I hope to have a fix for that by the next patch, but outside of aesthetics it shouldn’t affect anything.

Verdant Village Patch 0.14 Full Change Log

-Added a patching system to the game. You can now keep your saves through different versions of the game. You will need to start a fresh save on version 0.14 in order to use this.

-Fixed a bug with holes you dug on the beach turning into dirt

-Altered a forage spawn location to not be under a tree trunk in the mountains

-Fixed a collision error with boxes in the front of Sven’s shop

-Fixed a bug that caused it to rain indoors

-Disabled animal movement temporarily due to their fantastic ability to phase through objects, fix coming soon