Update 0.2: Quill, real tools and a lot of fixes

Hi everyone, thanks for playing the demo this past week, and thanks for all the posts in the discussions, all emails and messages. A lot of you got stuck in the same places, and some of you found bugs we never would have found on our own. This update is mostly about that.

Quill, the helper bot

New worlds now start with a visitor. Quill is Professor Sprocket's journal keeper. It flies down from the sky on a little rotor, lands next to you and rolls along while you learn the basics. Whenever there's something new to do, it opens the journal in its chest, points the way and tells you in a speech bubble. It stays with you until your first Amber Drill is running. Then it hops, says goodbye and flies off, and from there you're on your own. The journal stays in the top left if you still want it, and J hides it completely (Quill leaves with it).

Tools

Every hand tool has a real model now, and the icons in your bag are made from those models. The swings are based on motion capture, so the axe actually chops, the pickaxe drives its point into the rock and the spade digs. The Builder's Hammer doesn't hit things anymore, it just builds. Trees get a notch where your axe lands, and the watering can tips forward and pours instead of flopping sideways. The copper, wind-up and glimmer tools in the picture are later tiers in the full game, and they got the same treatment.

Getting started

The most common report was running out of amber before the first Heart expansion, with no way to continue. That's fixed in a few ways:

• You can mine amber veins with a pickaxe now. Each tile gives a few pieces and slowly refills.
• New worlds have loose amber chunks lying around in the first light, plus fallen branches around the Heart and under the trees.
• Sticks make your first Stone Axe, Stone Pickaxe and Builder's Hammer. Trees and boulders need a tool now, so no more punching trees.
• New worlds start at sunrise, and the Gloom goes easier on you on the first day. The cold only starts 8 seconds after you leave the light.
• Berry bushes are gone once you pick them, so keep an eye on your food.

Smart Splitter and Priority Merger

If you've played other factory games, you know these. Research Sorting in the Workshop era. On the Smart Splitter, each output gets a rule: an item, Any, Any Undefined, Overflow or None. On the Priority Merger, each input gets a rank, and the highest one with something coming goes first. Little lamps on the machines show how they're set. Also new: while you place a building, every input (blue) and output (orange) of the machines around you gets an arrow that shows through everything. Lining up belts is a lot easier now.

Fixes and smaller things

• Keys go by their position on the keyboard, so AZERTY, QWERTZ and bépo work properly. You can rebind everything in Settings → Controls. The build menu is on B now (B again closes it), blueprints are on Q.
• Buildings on slopes stand level on a stone base instead of sinking into the hill. Belts stay flat across a slope and get posts where they need them.
• Hold E to pick up whatever you're looking at. Your hand only shows up when you're holding a tool, and pickups are listed in the bottom left.
• Fixed E sometimes doing nothing after a menu closed in an odd way.
• Fixed amber veins saying "null" instead of what you need to mine them.
• In co-op, your friends bend down to pick things up, kneel to plant and pour their watering can.
• A bunch of machines got new models and animations: crusher, clay pit, copper mine, sawmill, woodcutter, the workshop machines and the lanterns.
• Full game: the gear cutter, lens grinder, signal lamp, belt tunnel and the crystal cutter down in the caves got new models too, and the tall clock's hands and pendulum actually move now.
• Full game: belt tunnels pass items through at full belt speed (they used to slow the line down).
• Amber chunks cast real shadows.
• Your IP is hidden in the multiplayer panel until you click it (handy if you stream, SORRY Ghost!).
• Your demo saves will carry over to the full game.

Co-op: you and your friends need to be on the same version to play together. That's it for now. Keep the reports coming, we read every one of them. Cheers, The Lumenfall team