🌀 BLOOM & BLIGHT CHANGELOG - 0.3.4.23

**⚠️ This update requires a new character and world. Your older saves are still accessible on the 0.3.3.22 Legacy Branch, available through Steam’s Beta branches. For detailed instructions, check out this post. **

NEW CONTENT + REWORKED SYSTEMS

---

New Save System & World Generation

• New save system + save validation flow

  • The entire backend of the save system has been rewritten for stability and greater flexibility when generating maps

  • The game now validates that a save file is compatible before overwriting it

  • Players can now abandon islands, this unclaims the island but leaves it permanently in the world

  • Old saves are no longer compatible with this version

• New dedicated server options to align with new world generation system

  • The new parameters for the update are as follow - they only affect the create game, not the load (load is same as before):

    • islandcount: 0, 1, 2 or normal, big, huge (case-insensitive)

    • corruptioncount: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or none, little, normal, lots, shrooms (case-insensitive)

    • creative: 0, 1 or false, true

    • Ex: "-batchmode -nographics -server create#MAPNAME# islandcount#normal# corruptioncount#normal# creative#false# log#ERROR#"

• World layout has been reworked

  • Flipped the wind direction

  • Rearranged un-sailable zones and shaders

  • Adjusted the Jetstreams to better match the transition biomes

• Added hidden clusters (Lost Shipwrecks)

  • Their location can be revealed by using the Lost Atlas at the Table-Map

• Added world settings

  • You can now choose the amount of regular and corrupted islands in the world creation settings

Progression

• New Tech Trees

  • Knowledge Tree: Knowledge Stones now grant 1 knowledge point that can be used on the Tech Tree to learn basic machinery and home-steading technology

  • Sailing Tree: Lost Anchors now grant 1 sailing point that can be used on the Sailing Tree to learn sailing & navigation equipment

  • Research Tree: Research Lab experiments now grant Breakthroughs that can be used on the Research Tech Tree to learn cure-related technologies

  • All 3 trees have certain thresholds that require Insight (earned at the Life Tree’s underground basin) to continue learning further technologies

• New quest system

Ecosystem Restoration

• Life Saplings

  • Only Life Sapling islands (Wastelands) start out unhealthy

  • Islands only track the quantity of three core requirements: funga, flora, and fauna.

    • Funga: Amount of mushrooms found on inoculation logs and tree stumps

    • Flora: Amount of trees, plants, and crops on an island

    • Fauna: Amount of critters

  • Remove the hindrances

    • Sick flora, abandoned structures, as well as corruption waste & cores, inflammable webs, and leechers

  • Inoculation Log

    • New farming construction to grow reishi

  • Seed Mound

    • New farming construction for planting flora (crops, plants, and trees)

  • Mulch

    • New crafting recipe required for seed mounds and farming plots

  • Meditation Circle + Life Wind Mini Game

    • Interact with the Meditation Circle to control the Life Wind

    • Collide with Seed Mounds to grow flora

    • Complete the ecosystem restoration by colliding with the Life Sapling

    • Gather new resource: Life Fruit (no current use, placeholder for future purpose)

  • Wind Lanes

    • Unlocked by healing a Life Sapling

    • Allows the player to sail quickly between island clusters

• Life Trees

  • Can only be healed once all three Life Saplings in their sector are restored

  • Interact with the Meditation Circle to channel the Life Wind from the healed Life Saplings to the Life Tree to restore it

  • Descend into its underground chamber to discover the Insight Basin

  • Interact with the Orb to earn Insight and continue advancing your tech tree progression

Combat & Corruption

• New resource: Corruption Anomalies (used for research)

• New Sportox and Flogade corruption strains, nodes, environmental assets

• New Sportox and Flogade enemy tiers (Guardians, Cowards, Shriekers)

  • Sportox enemies special effect: Spore Clouds

    • Any player caught within it suffers the Asphyxiated condition, taking steady damage as toxic spores choke the air around them.

  • Flogade enemies special effect: Scorching Ground

    • Players who step into it suffer the Scorched condition, taking an initial burst of damage followed by ongoing burn damage over time.

• Reworked combat gameplay

  • Nodes no longer attack players

  • Weak points are no longer chained to the node, instead they are scattered around the island as corruption cores

  • Players must explore the island to destroy all the cores before the node itself becomes vulnerable to attack

• New crafting recipes

  • Windstone tools: increased attack speed, deals more damage than their regular stone counterparts, and has a larger combo zone

  • Serrated Bone tools: strongest of all the tool tiers, increased combo finale damage multiplier

    • Made with a new rare resource: Serrated Bone

• Balancing

  • Increased player base health from 40 to 50

  • Updated attack speed for all tool tiers

  • Updated damage for all tool tiers

  • Updated combo length for all tool tiers

  • Updated damage multipliers:

    • Sharpen effect

    • Mykter fungicide & cure coatings

    • Sportox fungicide & cure coatings

    • Flogade fungicide & cure coatings

  • Updated damage for arrows of all tiers

  • Updated damage and HP for enemies of all tiers

  • Updated HP for nodes and weakpoints of all tiers

  • Reduced the number of nodes destroyed required to unlock a new combat ability

Research

• New Research Tech Tree 

  • Earn Breakthroughs at the Research Lab to unlock cure-related technologies on the Research Tech Tree

• New biome & strain-specific Brewing Labs

  • Learn Brewing Labs and upgrades for each strain from the Research Tech Tree to craft fungicides and cures

• New biome & strain specific Mycosis Terrariums

  • Farm strain-specific samples

LEVEL DESIGN & WORLD ART

---

• Many reworks of existing islands, puzzles, points of interest, and the leviathan

• 34 Life Sapling Wastelands

  • 10 in Emerald Isles

  • 12 in Fallen Heights

  • 12 in Red Cliffs

• 12 Life Tree islands

  • 4 per biome

• 17 new regular islands

• 36 new Point of Interest platforms

• 12 Lost Shipwrecks

  • 4 per biome

• New broken resonator frescoes on puzzle Wonder Islands

• New flora in Fallen Heights

• New 3D models + updated textures for many assets in the Island Creator & world

VISUAL EFFECTS

---

• New

  • Wind Lanes

  • Seed mounds

  • Life Sapling + Life Trees

  • Life Winds

  • Life Tree Insight Basin, pond water, water curtains, orb

  • Life Fruit

  • Sportox + Flogade enemy death

  • Sportox Spore Cloud + Flogade Scorching Ground

  • Corruption Core fumes

  • Corruption Anomaly

  • Stone debris, corruption waste, inflammable web, sick trees, leecher

• Removed blue water ripple when in caves

• Simplified the Corruption-post processing

  • Removed the hue change

  • Removed the lens distortion

• Updated and polished various existing VFX

USER INTERFACE

---

• New text animation for Knowledge Stone lore

• New Tech Trees (Knowledge, Sailing, Research)

• New 2D art in inventory and crafting menus

• New farming menu

• New icons for wild seeds & tree seeds

• Updated the quick time event bar

• Modified the gliding control icons

  • Added instructions collapser widget

• Modified the Research Lab menu & animations

• Modified the Upgrade Station menu & animations

• Modified the Table-Map

  • Added filters options

  • Added filters tooltips

  • Added island stats descriptions

  • Life Trees show the required Life Saplings

  • Wind Lanes appear on the Table-Map

  • The icon for the main player has changed

  • Players can now zoom in more

• Modified the Field Guide

  • The layout of the Field Guide is updated to match the new restoration system

  • A new template is visible when the player is standing on a Life Sapling Wasteland

ANIMATIONS

---

• Player meditation circle 

• Life Tree root 

• Leecher

AUDIO

---

• Seed mound SFX 

• Hindrances SFX 

• Leecher SFX

• Life Wind mini-game music + SFX for all biomes

• Life Sapling cutscene music

• Life Tree island music unhealthy vs healthy

• Life Tree, Insight basin, Orb ambient music + SFX

• Life Tree cutscene music

• Resonator fresco cutscenes music

• Anomaly ambience + SFX

• Danger music ambience for all 3 corruption strains

• New Mykter + Sportox Guardian VOX

MISC. CHANGES

---

• Changed Unity versions to fix the vulnerability warning issued by Unity (now on 2021.3.45f2)

• Added the island names/POI names to Player Reports

• Added a light source on undiscovered frescoes

• Added a toggle in the controls menu to turn on/off Camera Re-centering (while gliding)

  • Removed the cheat that served the same purpose

• Added compression to reduce save file size

• Added a critter category in the player inventory

• Added Wisteria Tea as a cooking option

• Added Camera Shake profiles

  • When destroying a beam

  • When near an exploding mushroom

• Removed shadows casted by the hurricane

• Replaced the ‘very low’ with ‘off’ for anti-aliasing setting in the Options menu

• Optimised the cloud settings

• Updated some Island Creator icons

• Reduced the amount of asteroids in the Jetstream

• Added 4 types of Fallen Heights plants in the farming menu

• Blur pass on volumetric fog to reduce dithering

• Players now lose positive effects (aka food, water) when respawning

• Physics settings have been changed to be less performance intensive

  • This shouldn’t have any impact on the game feel and just lead to more performance while sailing

• Critter Habitats now behave like Vivariums

• Insects can now spawn at the base of trees

• Storm cool-down rate has been increased

• Crops that used to only spawn on unhealthy island now spawn on corrupted island

• Corrupted islands will now have better random rewards

• Removed unhealthy and fresco island tracking from the Stormchaser

• Reishi mushroom now takes 10 minutes to grow

• Modified the chest loot tables 

• Modified the construction cost of Wax Hexes decorations

BUG FIXES

---

General

• Fixed several issues where some objects disappear forever when players move too far away from them 

• Fixed several issues where objects are no longer present if on a home island that is spawned on another world

• Fixed several broken puzzles that could not be completed 

• Fixed collision issues for several objects 

• Fixed several art assets that had missing or incorrect textures 

• Fixed several issues where some UI assets and icons would appear blurry

• Fixed several issues where players could not pick up and/or reach important resources/items required to solve puzzles 

• Fixed several issues where players could walk through solid walls or become stuck between objects 

• Fixed several issues where teleporting to an island would place the player inside its terrain 

• Fixed an issue where Creative Mode would reset the Knowledge Stone data

• Fixed an issue that allowed the player to ‘fuel the fire’ infinitely

• Fixed an issue that caused a soft-lock when changing Inventory keybind to Menu button on controller

• There is now a smoother transition between 1st and 3rd person views

• Removed all leftover garlic icons from menus 

Building

• Many building objects no longer clip through the floor when placed on terrain 

• Fixed issue where some building parts would always appear misaligned when placed with snap mode 

• Pyrologic connections built in single player should remain connected if the island where they are located is spawned in a multiplayer world 

Combat

• Fixed several issues that made Blocking ineffective 

Graphics / UI

• Removed several placeholder art assets

• UI notifications overlap less often when triggered 

• Fixed several quest-related issues

• Fixed several localisation issues and missing strings

• Fixed issues where bats would not appear correctly in their habitats 

• Fixed several controller-related menu display and navigation issues

• Fixed several issues where some menus would show incorrect or misleading information 

• Fixed issues with Z-fighting on several assets and islands 

• Fixed an issue where the corruption nodes would visually disappear at certain angles

• Fixed an issue where two hair colour icons were incorrectly swapped in the character creator

• Fixed a collision issue that caused the camera to clip through frescoes

• Fixed a visual bug with shadows caused by the change in Unity versions

  • Major shaders have been recompiled but some assets might still cause artifacting

Stability

• Fixed several issues where players could crash in single player and multiplayer when letting the game idle for long periods of time 

• Fixed several specific scenarios that could lead to a crash

• Fixed a rare circumstance where a save could fail and bring the user back to the main menu

• Fixed an issue that caused servers to rewrite the log in duplicate

Resources

• Fixed issue where sometimes beehives would not produce honey 

• Fixed issue where several critters and animals did not spawn as intended 

• Fixed an issue where cutting down the Orange Twined Oak tree did not drop the correct seed