It hasn't been a week since the beta for A Valley Without Wind launched, and already we've released a whopping 12 patches for the game thanks in great part to all the community feedback we've received. It's been an amazing start!
Beta Updates 5.001-5.012 Released (What A Week!)
We've compiled some interesting stats and notes across those dozen updates. Here's what's been added to the game over the past seven days:
Total Words in Change Logs: 9,121
Total Changes: 176
Our programmers have summed up a few favorites:
* Fixed a bug where the large floating rocks were eating the stockpiled wheat while the other npcs weren't looking.
* Fixed a bug where the settlement npcs were being forced to keep working their assigned buildings even after they were _dead_.
* Responded to complaints that normal monsters dropped no shinys. They now drop shinys. In unrelated news, 90% of monster species are now on the endangered list.
* Discovered a player item duplication racket where they were repeatedly dropping their warp scrolls on the ground to trick the naive guardians into giving them more. Fixed by making guardians give non-droppable warp potions instead. We've been very concerned about subsequent reports of players reverting to college behavior. Apparently it doesn't matter what the stuff's made of, as long as when you drink it you wind up somewhere without knowing how.
* Decreased the cooldown on the double-jump spell because it was too long to use on every jump. Then increased it again when we realized players had taken a novel interpretation of "double": they were simply flying by repeated midair jumps.
* Taught the Giant Skelebot boss how to kick field goals. They always miss, but how the players fly.
* Put in some memory workarounds after psychological analysis confirmed that the garbage collector is prone to look at a lack of heap space and decide "why not just let it happen?".
Early Coverage
The game has received a good amount of attention during this past week, including several press previews and Let's Play videos. Special thanks to all those who have tried out and written/talked about the game! Here's what some of them are saying:
"I can imagine this game opening up under continued exploration to be one of those all-encompassing experiences that you can’t help sinking an unhealthy tract of time into." - Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"But really, at the heart of what A Valley Without Wind is about, at least for me, is exploration and it does it phenomenally." - DIYGamer
"The thing that struck me first about A Valley Without Wind is that it is absolutely vast. This is a game that you can sink hours and hours into, and still feel as though you’ve only started." - Brutal Gamer
Videos
Make sure to check out Quill18's and WelshPixie's excellent introductory LP videos for AVWW. They both do a fantastic job of showing off the game while teaching you the basics as well.
