So I haven’t really been paying attention as I haven’t touched The Forest in a while. Part of this is because as the game is in early access, I’ve been waiting for it to be more fleshed out before I really dove in, and I was really looking forward to the multiplayer patch that came in a while back. Unfortunately I don’t know many people with the game, so I haven’t really been able to try out the multiplayer yet, so now I’m just kind of waiting for it to get closer to, or actually release to really dig deep. I figure at some point there will be matchmaking or perhaps lobbies so that you can join up with other people to play. Plus there is supposed to be a story of sorts added as well, so I might as well wait for that. I still want to keep up the habit of chronicling the changes though, and perhaps I’ll get another round in sometime soon. For now, I have patch notes to share, the last one that I missed, and the one that just recently came out. Plenty of changes here.

Alpha Version 0.10

• Platforms! Place the log cabin on a slope and procedural platform will be constructed underneath to give it support. No more cabins on side of hills.
• New buildable item: Tree platforms!
• Building height system added Look up to place structures higher (using procedural foundation system) or downwards to place on ground (as in old system)
• Climbing system! Player can now climb rope
• Removed steps from tree houses! Replaced with climbable hanging ropes.
• Added clamp to tonemapper to stop it sometimes turning screen completely black if seeing a very bright pixel. Fixed related issue where bloom would sometimes cause screen to turn black if it found overbright pixels.
• Fixed issue with plastic torch spamming errors, causing a performance drain when using torch light source
• Tweaks to world lighting and fog/ambient colors. Lighter and plastic torch now cast shadows.
• Tweaked enemy density in caves
• Added option to turn off all hud elements in options menu (not recommended!)
• Increased size of rabbit on fire to match world scale
• Small performance optimization on cpu by removing OnGui calls
• Meds will now be auto consumed if health below 20 when picked up
• (single player only bug)Fix for pine tree top heavy not being cuttable
• Fixed missing marigold and chicory plants
• Improved ambient audio zones and fixed outside sounds continuing to play when inside a cave
• Improved cave audio ambience
• Lizards can now be caught in cages along with rabbits (and raccoons)
• Fire Arrows! Press L with bow equipped and at least 1 piece of cloth in inventory
• New falling leaf particles (3x) added and improved look of leaf burst (less bright/unlit)
• New fluff particles added and using a new dust shader (bright in light, dark in shadow particle shader)
• Improved look of torch light – now two tone
• Fixed overbright lights on mutant creepy’s fires and all bombs/held bombs and better balance on bomb explosion particles
• Balance pass on all mutant textures, improved look of skin and put all into same texture value space
• New improved blood particles!
• Fixed issues with sticky bombs
• Fixed enemy skin and player arms sometimes losing ability to receive shadow and appearing overbright
• Fixed molotovs not exploding on impacting enemies
• Improved transition from cannibal village hole to caves using new generic rock chunks
• Log holder is now pushable using push and hold animations
• Fixed audio issue where some sounds would fade out instantly/abruptly
• New suitcase art (6 textures variations, 2 model variations) added!
• Fixed missing mesh renderer at front of plane crash(animated forward hull)
• Animated passengers added to plane crash! – Don’t skip crash!
• Fixed dead lizard normals flipped causing ragdoll to look different than regular model
• Improved look of small shelter (better rocks, better log renders etc)
• Lighter will always light after a limited amount of attempts (was previously possible to attempt to light 20 plus times if unlucky)
• Fixed lighter animation playing continuously when stashing lighter quickly after getting it out
• Improved held item switching sequence (better use of existing animations)
• Pale enemies no longer attack each other or the distorted creatures
• Removed cave beach entrances -replaced with rope climb out areas in lower caves fixing issues with entering caves near ocean
• New molotov weapon art
• Fixed lighter flame being too small visually
• Fixed flare gun making shooting sound when fired without flares (will now make an empty click sound)
• Improved tree falling sound settings
• Swimming sound effects added!
• Tuned/balanced pick up sound effects, eating sound effects etc
• Enemies will now always prioritize visible players over other enemies in combat
• Improved instances of small items pushing player and added max velocity to attempt to stop player flying up into sky
• (multiplayer) fixed bug where some shadows would break/change after respawning
• Improved some environment art, started implementing better cliffs in some areas and higher detail rocks. Added new lake zone.
• New art for (some) cave stalagmites and stalactites
  (hopeful fix) for players sometimes swimming even when not in water area
• Player will now stash weapon when swimming!
• New creature added! – Check the caves.
• Delay added to combat music so it won’t continuously trigger when entering in/out of combat
• (multiplayer)Walkie talkies added! Press Q to communicate in multiplayer games.
• (multiplayer) Fixed issue where items needed would sometimes stay on screen depending on if client/server destroyed a blueprint
• (multiplayer) Fixed issue where returning to start menu would break game and turned back option in menu
• (multiplayer) Fixed Enemies not showing blood particle fx on clients when they are hit.
• (multiplayer) default player cap increased to 8 along with option to go up to 128 players (for adventurous players only! not recommended)
• (multiplayer)Fixed Suitcases not being replicated over the network and existing only locally for each player
• (multiplayer) Fixed Mutant ragdolls not replicated properly on client
• (multiplayer) Fixed Wall built in MP vanishing instead of turning into logs when destroyed
• (multiplayer) Fixed issue where remote players would not alert enemies via sound detection
• (multiplayer) Lizard skin player armor now visible by both client/host
• (multiplayer)Fix for overlapping chat text
• (multiplayer)Fixed some Log duplication bugs
• (multiplayer)Fixed Logs invisible for client in certain spots on the map
• (multiplayer) Fixed issue where only newly built effigies would only be seen by host
• (multiplayer) Fixed client/host sometimes having differently positioned yacht location
• New art added for some of the cave entrances
• Re-worked save game system so future updates will (likely) not erase save games to work!
• Fixed issue with weapon upgrades have no or very little effect
• Improved animal spawning in world- less chance of dead zones where no animals ever show up.

It looks like besides some general quality of life fixes, this patch added in the ability to build in the trees and climb rope, both things that add some extra dynamics to what you can build and tricks/traps you can pull on the cannibals. This patch looks to have added some cool stuff for sure. I’ll definitely have to get in game and check some of this stuff out. On to the most recent patch:

Alpha Version 0.11

• New buildable item: Experimental walls! (single player)
• New buildable item: Custom foundations!(single player)
• Multiplayer save/load added Note: Currently limited to server being able to load the savegame, clients will start game fresh each time but still be able to enter a previously saved hosts game. Server/host will be able to save state of game world/structures.
• Steamworks saving to cloud added – Regular save/load still works however it will now try and load from cloud first and pick most recent file (We’ve just hit the checkbox to enable this, it should be available soon)
• Improved bridge snapping to be more responsive and less chance of it snapping to wrong position and improved visual feedback
• Fixed wooden path blueprint not saving
• You can now use the walkman as a distraction device. Stick it to a tree, confuse your enemies! Attach to a trap and lure them to it.
• Re-worked title screen and cleaned up button animations
• New options menu, with more organized layout
• Added grass density slider to options menu – newer graphics cards can turn this up for better looking grass.
• Player can now attack whilst crouched improving stealth kills
• New animal added: Squirrells
• Fixed bug where some animals wouldn’t show up
• Improved look of ponds
• Deer now have more health and will attempt to flee if you hit them
• Killing deer will now attract skinny mutants who may attempt to feed on the carcass
• Skin from deer can now be collected and worn
• Deer skin will keep players warm if worn, can mix/match lizard skin and deer skin
• New item added: Generic meat (can be sourced from deer or raccoons)
• New item added : Wrist watch (can be found in luggage, or on some dead passengers) – use as crafting ingredient (such as on timed explosive)
• Changed recipe for timed explosive to include watch
• Audio – new cave sound effects added
• Audio – Improved cave ambient audio fade out zones
• Audio – Fixed audio slider in options menu not working correctly
• Audio – Reverb added to cave sound effects
• Audio – All sound effects now fade out on player death
• Audio – Tuned levels of weapons, footsteps
• Audio – Made frog sounds quieter,less frequent and less annoying
• Audio – Lowered chance to cave combat music playing
• Audio-Fixed suitcase open sound using flesh hit sound effect
• Skinny enemies – increased speed, added in some missing animations. Increased health
• slightly. Will now travel in groups of up to 3 making them more of a threat.
• Pale cave enemies faster, more health and increased hit damage
• Improved geese lake layout, new rocks and details
• New ground textures! – improved parallax mapping, and better blending – switch to relief or lower if there’s any slow down with this (via options menu)
• New rock detail textures added to most rocks
• New pine tree and pine tree moss textures and improved look of (some) dead trees
• Major re-work of cave2 environment, more interesting rooms, better layout of rocks, new rock types and better flow through areas. Added small water falls
• Armsy will now sometimes tear down trees
• Reduced chance that regular cannibals will flee after player kills one of their group
• Fixed skinny cannibals sometimes having leader props on dead body
• Fixed some instances of enemies stuck not doing anything
• Fixed bug where player would have issues climbing rope if cold and shaking
• (multiplayer) Fixed log duplication bug, where it was possible to spawn multiple logs when picking up up a log
• Fixed issue where you couldn’t pick up rabbits. You can now take rabbits out of traps or out of cages.

The integration to Steamworks when it comes to cloud saves leads me to believe that future multiplayer matchmaking could come soonish. Otherwise it looks like more fixes and additions that will round out the overall experience. I like that they keep layering on new features and that these devs are consistently updating the game. The money I spent on it long ago has already gone to good use. I am surprised at all of the new ideas that keep popping up, and hope that the finished project is as awesome as it seems it will be. The game is already vastly different than it was when it first came to early access, and that’s great to see. Keep an eye out for a post coming soonish where I check out some of the new features!

#theforest #patchnotes