Read all about the brand new Snapshot 8, see some videos and learn about future updates.
Here we are: a new snapshot. A new snapshot has been long overdue and this one is Snapshot 8, while 6 and 7 were not released to the public.
For first time downloaders please make sure to read our tutorial "Installation & Configuration Instructions". There you will find basic installation instruction, configuration options description and a few basic troubleshooting tips. The file is a little out of date so expect it to be updated soon.
This new snapshot brings (among the improvements of the two private versions) a separation of creation mode and normal mode. Creation mode is basically a live map editor, while normal mode is the way the game is meant to be played. There is a large button in the upper-left corner that allows you to witch between the two modes.
Future snapshots will strive to bring feature equality between creation mode and normal mode, but for now normal mode is underdeveloped.
Creation mode also allows you to create stockpiles:
Since this video has been recorded food stockpiles were also added.
March marks a month were a lot of experimenting will be done to investigate several possible final designs for the game. Among the goals a big role will be played by accessibility and ease of learning and interacting with the world. Here is a conceptual video of a more natural first person world interaction scheme:
Snapshot 8 is also a true snapshot: it is WIP so you will find plenty of bugs and oversights.
So on to controls:
- You can use numeric keys to select something from the main toolbar and functional key to select from the subbar. Or you can use the mouse.
- Use W/A/S/D or cursor keys to scroll around the map in either top down or first person mode. In first person mode you look around using the mouse like in a first person shooter.
- Press F11 to activate top down mode.
- Press F12 to activate first person mode. For ease of navigation snapshot 8 has no collision detection so you can pass though anything.
- In top down mode you can use the "+"/"-" to zoom in or out or use the mouse wheel.
- In top down mode you can use PageUp/PageDown to tilt the camera. Using the mouse wheel while having Shift pressed does the same thing. You can also try to zoom in very close and tilt the camera to get an interesting viewpoint, similar to first person, but flying above the action.
- You can press 'T' to toggle tree canopy rendering.
- Quick navigation keys: press "]" to go to the highest level of the current map, thus rendering the entire map. Press "[" to go to the lowest level of the map, thus rendering only that level and the one bellow.
- Clicking on the map brings up a little status panel informing you about the object under the mouse.
- Ctrl-clicking somewhere on the map causes you current tool to do its default action. You can achieve this also by middle clicking when you have no active selection. This action is different based on what tool you have selected. In next versions tools will have both icons and generous tool tips with short instructions, but for now you'll just have to make due with their name written next to the shortcut.
- Right clicking and dragging causes you to create a selection. You must let go of the right mouse button at the desired location to finalize the selection. Selections are cumulative so you can do more than one. Starting a selection on a selected square will instead drag a selection clearing box.
- Pressing F or middle mouse clicking will perform the default action of you current tool on the entire selected area and then clear the selection zone so you can define a new one.
- Press X to delete all items in your current selection.
- Press Space to pause and unpause the game. It will start paused by default. Unpausing causes time to flow and grass will start to grow, but under Snapshot 8 grass growth is broken.
- Press "," or"." to change the current level. You can remember these keys by their shift charters, "<" and ">".
- By default only the current level and the one bellow is rendered. Pressing "L" makes the game render the current level, the one bellow and the one above. Press "L" again to switch back to default. Future snapshots will allow you to tweak the number of levels that are rendered even further.
