As you may have noticed a little while ago, it’s patch time! This new patch ties a bunch of loose strings together, and is the first of a few such updates. If you haven’t done so yet, go ahead and go try out the new content and new quests!

A short summary from the patch notes:

* There’s now a quest to bring (back) butterflies to Evergrind City!

* Marino’s Mansion is now accessible, with a couple of quests inside

* Red Slimes can now be found in Story Mode, and have been given a card

* Added a new Two Handed Weapon obtainable after Flying Fortress: Red Slime Hammer

* Two more wobbly sprouts have been added, and all four can now be grown using Super Fertilizer, unlocking new locations

* Some minor quests/secrets have been added to give the player said fertilizer

* The Alchemist storyline can now be concluded with a final quest

This week, it’s been all about making new faces for new people! Starting off with a balloon seller that will make an appearance during the Evergrind City festival:

Next up, the portrait of a waitress! There used to be an older version of this portrait, but because of some decisions we made regarding an old character, we’re remaking the backstory behind this person, and as such, decided to change her portrait up a bit:

Remember Lin Mei the ninja? Well, as it happens, she’s one of those characters whose backstory we decided to change up a bit and give a proper ending, since she’s a pretty random character otherwise to show up during the trials! As such, one of her new roles will be as a waitress, but she’ll also still show up as a ninja:

Now, as is our custom after a bigger patch, it’s time for some time off to recharge our batteries for the next stretch! The next blog post will be available on November 9th, after we’ve been back at work for a full week! Stay tuned for that :)

This week it’s back to doing some background stuff, starting with a cave in Seasonne which has been long forgotten! This is the home of a guy obsessed with math and specifically the number 3. Let’s have a peek at his old home:

Following the northern exit from the previous cave, you reach a small math puzzle, and, if you manage to solve it (good luck!) it’ll lead you to yet another cave containing a small reward:

Now, there’s some more collectors that need faces, so let’s take a look at one such guy:

But also, of course, the math genius obsessed with the number 3 himself. Unfortunately, he’s no longer of this world, but what does that matter when you can have a peek into the spirit world and talk to him there?

Continuing work on the patch, these are the last bunch of additions before it goes live (as I type this out, it might even have gone live already!)

Some more stuff we’ve been talking about recently is tying up a couple of the “semi-started” quests we’ve been foreshadowing around the world. One such thing is the Scarecrow quest – remember the scarecrow that talks about the purple garland in Pumpkin Woods? While we’re going to rewrite her(!) line a little bit, we will end up with a quest dealing with the curse of the pumpkin, while also solving another question mark of the world – the house on the little island in Evergrind City. We’ve decided to let there be a bridge there from the beginning, rather than you having to fix one, and inside will be a worried father talking about his missing daughter, who is a collector. At some point in the story, once you’ve progressed far enough or you’re strong enough, he will appear in the Collectors’ HQ asking for your assistance in finding his daughter; who, it turns out, has been cursed into a scarecrow!

Another thing you might have forgotten about (but we surely haven’t) is the grave up in Seasonne! The grave will be reached through a cave which we’re about to make as well, and which will give clues about the owner of the grave – a math genius who is depressed about his attempts at math caves not being as popular as his rival in Port Monnaie. There will be a different kind of math puzzle here as well, but the quest itself will be given after speaking to the ghost inhabiting the grave outside the little cave system.

We’re also going to (finally!) add the option to turn a couple rooms in the Temple of Seasons into spring, revealing a hidden room in one such room where you’ll get a trinket that has been in the game since pretty much forever, but which you haven’t been able to get yet because we never actually got around to making it possible to turn the room in question into its spring version… Oops!

More to come as well, but there isn’t that much left on our list for Story Mode now! :)

Now, before we dive into more upcoming stuff here’s one more thing that’ll go into the patch we’ll release soon(tm)! This guy could be seen in a blog post last week in the shape of a spooky sprite made by Fred, a strange creature found in the bonus Pumpkin Woods map!

The girl cursed into a scarecrow is a collector as well, so here’s her portrait since we’re doing collectors now anyway:

And here we have her beloved father, who at some point in the near future will seek your help in saving his daughter:

Meanwhile, Fred keeps polishing up the last remaining effects and things happening for this patch, as well as sending off a video with instructions to our sound designer! Here’s another sneak peek of that upcoming strange demon creature in the bonus Pumpkin Woods map:

So, we’re drawing ever closer to releasing these bunch of quests, and so last week we had a meeting where we discussed where to head now. There are still some things we’d like to add to story mode to make it feel a bit more fleshed out before we start working on the final dungeon, in fact there’s a massive list of things that we tend to go through every once in a while and decide on what to keep and what to skip. Ideally we would have loved to do everything, but as we’ve been developing this game for a really long time now and there are some things that really don’t need as much improvement as we initially thought, we’ve ended up skipping more things recently. Hopefully we’ll soon be done with the list and will be able to actually finish up the game!

Anyway, during the meeting last week we decided we’re going to add a respawn area for Bloomos to make them a bit easier to farm. This will be either in Evergrind South or in Evergrind West (not yet decided). This is a minor thing which will just make it a bit easier to get those items.

Next, we’re going to add more books to various book cases around the world. Previously we wanted to include rare books that one could read only once you handed it in to the librarian, but we’ve decided against this and will now focus on putting more books in book cases around the world instead, to make the world feel a bit more alive and give it more depth, something we feel is better done if you can read the books at any time as you find them rather than having to hand them in first.

Next, the arena. We will add a bunch of mini games in there that you can challenge your friends in. We’ve discussed PvP, and unfortunately we’ve decided against adding it, as it would take a lot of time to get right, and even longer to make it balanced. We think there’s a bigger risk people end up disliking it if it’s there rather than feel it’s missing from the game if it’s not.

We’ll also add the tutorial shield training to Master Ji’s Dojo in Story Mode, however the challenges will remain Arcade Mode only, to give you a bit more value for unlocking it in Arcadia.

We’ll also add a quest in which you’ll clean up Evergrind City from all the trash that was left around the place after the festival. Once you trigger the quest, each trash item lying around will turn into a regular item that will automatically be added to your loot like enemy drops, so you’re able to run around and collect them all.

We’ll also add seed drops to each of the plant enemies, and special housing jars in the Tree shop in Seasonne in which you can plant them, so you can have your own collection of home grown enemy plants!

Finally for this week’s update, we decided to add a talking anvil, since we feel we need one more sentient artefact around town. As you may have guessed, it’ll be the anvil Smith uses to make his sword, so prepare to say hello to this new friend soon :)

And now that we’ve decided on the next bunch of things to add to the game, here’s the first of them; the talking anvil:

A little mixed bag featuring some last minute fixes for the patch, namely some new expressions/portrait edits, some background details for the barn, a hat for the Guard’s mother and some new drops:

Another cameo we’ve wanted to add for quite some time now is that of our brilliant sounddesigner Hallvard or Fark as he’s better known! He’ll be jamming it out with Riley on the stage in Port Monnaie :3

Meanwhile Fred has been busy making NPCs that will inhabit the bonus Pumpkin Woods area north of the first map. Here you’ll be able to meet Mama Guard (we’re aware her portrait doesn’t match the sprite at the moment but haven’t decided on which one to keep), her dog, and a very strange shadow creature: