Wanderleaf

Six Ascension milestones now give titles and rewards: Ascendant at 5, then Highclimber, Cloudwalker, Skybound, Starreacher and Summitborn at 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30. Each brings Summit Marks, and from 10 a gift: a banner colour, a cloak trim, the Starlight aura, a gold pennant on your cairn and, at 30, a crown of light of your own. The new Ascension Records page keeps your fastest climb, fewest potions, highest Ascension and the Omens you have beaten.

From Ascension 21, the keepers are Ascended. Each of the eight wears a crown of light in its own colour and has a new move every third turn: Old Mossback’s thorns, Old Honeypaw’s swarm, the Frost Giant’s frost, Thawhorn’s flood, the Ruin Guardian’s flaring stone, the Storm Drake’s lightning, the Aurora Warden’s dazzle and the Withering’s rot. A unique dropped by a keeper there is Ascended one time in four, with an extra affix.

Old Brannoch, the Cairnkeeper, has wares now. Spend Summit Marks on an aura of light and motes at your feet, a climber’s cloak with gold, silver, frost or ember trim (the trims also edge any cape you already wear), a new colour for your banner in the Hall of Heroes, or Skye, a snow lynx kitten who walks with you in place of your dog or cat. The Summit Beacon, built by the cairn at camp, adds a tenth to the Marks every climb pays.

Climbs now pay Summit Marks: every keeper beaten on a climb earns them, more for each star on your Omens, and a finished climb earns a bonus. Old Ironjaw and the Old Salamander pay extra if beaten along the way. Old Brannoch, the Cairnkeeper, now stands by the Hall of Heroes at camp: he rolls a unique’s affix again, letting you keep the roll you like, or raises a unique a tier. Beside him, a cairn gains a stone for every climb you finish.

From Ascension 11, each climb comes with an Omen. Before you ascend, choose one of three: Thin Air halves what potions heal, Dim Lanterns brings dusk to every area and lets foes see you from further, Ironhide gives every foe a guard to break, Restless sends every foe after you, and Hunted sets the Hunter, a great grey wolf, on your trail from area to area. The more stars, the harder. From Ascension 21 you choose two.

The Ascension no longer stops at 10. After the Climb come the High Climb (Ascensions 11 to 20) and the Summit (21 to 30), where each level makes every foe 15% stronger, and past 30 there is no end at all: each climb counts up, and the highest you reach is kept. Camp’s Ascension panel shows all four tiers and where you stand. Past 10, the odds of a mythic from keepers and rare foes keep rising a little each level, up to an even chance.

The Old Salamander guards three treasures of its own now. Beat it for Emberhide, a coat that heals you each turn while you are below half health, or The Blind Eye, an amulet that lets no foe slip your blows. Rarest of all is The Salamander’s Tail, a club whose every third hit sweeps 1.5x as hard and leaves the foe’s next blow at half. The Deepways have a tune of their own at last: Lamplight Below, a hammered dulcimer over a low drone.

The Deepways can be fished and mined now. Cast into the Glimmer Caves’ still pools for blind white fish, or along the Dark Water’s shores for its own catch, the legendary Dark Water Sturgeon among them. Crystal clusters glow in the Glimmer Caves’ caverns: mine them for Glimmer Crystal, and the rock below gives up gems one strike in four. At the anvil, forge the Glimmer Blade or Crystal Mail from them.

The Deepways have people now. Old Prospector Abner sits in the Miners’ Rest, his helmet lamp still burning. The ghouls ran him out of the Veins, and he dropped his pick, his ore sack and his spare lamp; bring them back to him. On the Dark Water’s south shore, Lamplighter Odette lights the old lamps, and the mine ghouls snuff them out again. Drive off three ghouls and she lights the whole shore for good.

The Dark Water has its keeper. The Old Salamander lies on the island’s warm stones, blind and pale, its red gills fanning slowly. Four cold braziers stand around it. Light them before you fight: for every one burning, its blows land lighter and yours harder. Every third turn it draws its great tail round. Defend and you stand firm; take the sweep and it knocks a brazier out, so light it again or fight on in the dark.

The Deepways are no longer empty. Cave bats flit through the Old Workings and under the Dark Water’s fall. In the Glimmer Caves, crystal crawlers pick over the rock, low pale crabs grown over with violet and blue crystal; they leave you be unless you start it. And in the Workings and on the Dark Water’s shores, mine ghouls hunt on all fours: miners the dark kept, their old helmets still on, their lamps long dark, their eyes not. Shepherd Elspeth’s shawl now sits on her shoulders.

The Deepways reach the Dark Water. Go down the steps from the Glimmer Caves, or climb down the old well behind the houses in Mapleshire, and you come out by an underground lake, black and still under glowworms like stars. A waterfall roars into it from the dark. An old stone bridge runs out to an island of warm stone, where an altar has a salamander cut into it and something has shed a skin longer than a boat.

The Deepways go deeper. Clear the fall of rock in the Old Workings with a pickaxe, or climb down a cave mouth on Cloudberry Fell, and you reach the Glimmer Caves: crystals glowing violet and blue, a hollow of glowing mushrooms, still pools where pale fish turn. Wake the three dull crystals and a bridge of crystal grows across the chasm, to a great geode full of gemstones. Past it, steps go down toward water lapping in the dark.

The Deepways begin. On the west side of Beaver Dam Ruins an old mine mouth leads down to the Old Workings: timbered tunnels, rails and carts, a lift, iron and copper to mine. It is dark, and your lantern lights a circle round you. Light the four cold braziers and an iron gate opens on the miners’ pay chest. Past a fall of rock, something glimmers. A keeper’s lair wall now stands in the water too, so there is no way round it.

Silvermere now has places only one class can open: five each at Reedshore, the Isles and Ironjaw Deep. A Warrior fells the marked great tree at Reedshore and heaves aside the marked boulders, an Archer shoots down the cages hung high, a Rogue opens the sealed chests, a Cleric cleanses the blighted shrines and a Mage reads open the rune-sealed caches. Each holds gold and materials, and now and then one of Old Ironjaw’s uniques.

Old Ironjaw now drops three uniques of his own. The Ironscale Hauberk catches a foe that strikes your guard, so your next hit lands 1.5x as hard. The Spoon Lure, a ring, makes fish bite in half the time and brings rare ones twice as often. Ironjaw, his mythic blade, bites a second time on every third hit. Silvermere has its own tune too, Pull for the Isles: a fiddle and an accordion over the rhythm of the oars.

Silvermere has its own fish now. Reedshore, the Isles and Ironjaw Deep each have four of their own from the shore, from the Reed Roach to the Drowned Bell Catfish, each with a dish to cook. Take Maren’s boat out into deep water, well away from any shore, and you can cast over the bow for four more found nowhere else, up to the Silvermere Sturgeon. Her boat holds still while your line is out. Row off and the line comes in.

Silvermere has its people. Boatwright Maren at Reedshore lost her new oars and her pot of pitch to a gale. Find them along the far shores and she puts her new boat in the water. From then on the boat at every jetty is hers, lighter to row and steadier in the wind. Out on the Isles, Keeper Bram’s lamp burns low until you row his three cans of oil out to him, and then its two beams sweep the water again.

Silvermere has its keeper. Old Ironjaw, a giant pike with old hooks rusting in his jaw, waits in the shallows off the tower isle in Ironjaw Deep. Walk out over the causeway and fight him from the shore. Between his bites he sinks back under the water, where your blows land at half. Defend as he surges up to bite and you catch him at the surface, where your next blow lands hard. When the water goes still, his Iron Jaw is coming.

Silvermere has its own foes now. Snapping turtles lie in the reeds along Reedshore and the Isles, marsh gulls with dark brown hoods swoop at you by the jetty, and dusk wisps, cold little lamps of light, drift along the shore of Ironjaw Deep. Each one has a body of its own, and the gulls will come for you if you get close.

The Hall of Heroes’ banners now face the path you walk up, their poles behind them. The sealed chest’s iron bands run over its lid and down its front and back, and inside it, once open, there is a little gold. The marked boulder’s X sits whole on its face, and the rune-sealed cache’s slab slides clear and leans against its side instead of passing through it.

Every area up the climb now has five places only one class can open: Beaver Dam Ruins, Storm Peak, the Northern Lights Sanctum and the World Tree. A Warrior heaves a marked boulder aside or fells a marked tree, an Archer shoots down a cage hung high, a Rogue opens a sealed chest, a Cleric cleanses a blighted shrine and a Mage reads a rune-sealed cache. Each holds gold and materials, and now and then a keeper’s unique.

Three glyphs are hidden in the world: Way, Gate and Far. Find them behind the places only one class can open, or now and then from a keeper beaten at Ascension 5 or higher. Set all three in the right order in an epic or better chest piece at a smithy and it becomes the Wayfarer. Whoever wears it can Blink: tap open ground up to 18 metres away and you are there. A page in the Bestiary gives the order.

Your heroes now help each other. Each one at level 20 or more gives every hero more experience and gold, and each class gives the whole household a gift once one of yours reaches level 50: more health from a Warrior, sharper aim from an Archer, more mana from a Mage, stronger potions from a Cleric, more gold from a Rogue. The Hall of Heroes at camp shows a banner for each, and a new hero’s World Map shows what the others have found.

Each class has a gift now, on its own button. A Warrior’s Might lands the first blow twice as hard, an Archer’s Far Shot engages from far off with two arrows, a Rogue’s Shadow slips past foes unseen for a sure critical, a Cleric’s Light wards you, and a Mage’s Arcane Sight sets foes burning. Maple Forest and Frozen Lake each hide five places only one class can open: a marked tree or boulder, a cage hung high, a sealed chest, a blighted shrine, a rune-sealed cache.

Each class has its own weapons now, in the shops and at the forge: Archers carry bows, Mages staffs and wands, Clerics maces and censers. Another class’s find goes in the new stash chest at camp, now 40 places. Return the Leaf comes only in the story, once the Withering is nearly gone. At the World Tree you kneel and dip your flask in the stream. Scenes open with a clear view, the stick no longer sticks, and a Mage’s opening spell flies to its foe.

Ironjaw Deep opens north of the Isles: a dark bay where a drowned village shows at low water, its roofs and chimneys out of it and a bell still in the church tower. A causeway of old stones runs out to a ruined tower, and something big circles under the water there. Also, Storm Peak’s bridge is clear of its standing stone, the palest skin tones are warmer, and the lines on arriving at Frozen Lake, Storm Peak and Northern Lights fit what you see.

Hands, legs and feet now suit your class too, so everyone is dressed their own way head to foot. A Mage wears hose and slippers with drawn-up toes, his hands wrapped in cloth, a bead on each toe and a glowing rune on each hand from epic. A Cleric wears pale hose cross-gartered in the tier’s colour, sandals and white gloves. An Archer has leggings, tall boots and bracers. A Rogue wears near-black leather banded in the tier’s colour, with a knife on his thigh from epic.

Chest pieces now suit your class too. A Mage wears a robe in the tier’s colour, wide at the sleeves, its hem banded from epic and gold from legendary, with a high collar. A Cleric wears white vestments with a tabard, a gold cross on it from epic. An Archer’s leather is laced up the front, with a hooded mantle from epic, and a Rogue’s is near black with crossed straps. Robes move with your stride. Warriors keep their armour. Hands, legs and feet come next.

Head pieces now suit your class, the same gear worn each class’s own way. A Mage’s head piece is the pointed hat itself, its band and brim in the tier’s colour, with stars from epic, a gold crown from legendary and a gem atop a mythic one. A Rogue wears a headwrap, an Archer a feathered cap, a Cleric a circlet that becomes a mitre at legendary. Warriors keep their helms, and uniques look the same on anyone. Chest, hands, legs and feet come next.

You can row now. Take the rowing boat at Reedshore’s jetty and head out on Silvermere, or walk on west to the Isles, where open water holds five islands: a lighthouse with its lamp turning, a ruined chapel, a heronry in tall pines, a hermit’s hut and a sandbar where the gulls stand. The stick or a tap rows you, a little slower than walking, and the wind drifts you. Step ashore at any landing and the boat will wait for you.

A fix for something you could run into after a fight. When a foe was beaten, it sank away but left an invisible patch behind where it had stood, so you couldn’t walk there. Now that keepers drop their spoils where they fall, that meant you sometimes couldn’t reach them at all. The ground clears as soon as the foe is gone, and a keeper’s spoils can be picked up from a little further off.

Silvermere begins. West of Willowmere, once the orchard’s keeper is beaten, Reedshore opens onto a wide still lake. Reeds stand thick in its shallows, swans drift across it and willows lean over the water. A lane runs past a fishing hamlet of three cottages down to a jetty, where a rowing boat waits, tied up. By the boathouse a new boat sits on trestles, its ribs still bare. Nets hang drying on their poles, and the fishing is good from the jetty and the shore.

Cloudberry Fell has a tune of its own at last: Heather and Stone, a slow air in three for walking the moor. A fiddle carries it over a drone held low and steady, the way pipes would sound, with a harp turning under it and a soft drum now and then like a walker’s stride. A flute takes the tune up an octave, then it turns through C and D before coming home.

Cloudberry Fell has come to life. Shepherd Elspeth grazes her flock by the old drove road, and three of her ewes have wandered off across the moor: find them and walk them home. Antiquary Hollis stands inside the ring of stones, still trying to count them the same way twice. Heather Sprites and brown Fell Hares roam the heather, the tarns hold four fish of their own, and the cloudberries can be picked at last, for a crumble.

Wanderleaf has a new line under its name: A Whole World to Wander. The old line pointed at a single goal, the climb to the World Tree. That climb is still there, but the game has grown well beyond it, with side areas to find, the Old Arena, keepers waiting in their lairs and twenty-seven uniques to hunt. The new line says what Wanderleaf has become: a wide world to explore at your own pace.

The rest of the uniques are here. The Ruin Guardian, the Storm Drake, the Aurora Warden and the Withering each guard three more, and Boss Rush has three of its own from wave 15: Emberfang, Worldender and the Crown of the Wandering King. From wave 10, a keeper’s echo can drop that keeper’s uniques too. A new Uniques page in the Menu lists all twenty-seven by where they drop, the ones you have not found yet left in shadow.

The first twelve uniques are here. Old Mossback, Old Honeypaw, the Frost Giant and Thawhorn each guard three: two legendaries and a mythic, each with its own look and its own power in a fight. Heartwood roots a foe every fourth hit; Glacier Plate chills whatever strikes you; the Beekeeper’s Veil sends bees to sting. Their stats roll within ranges, so no two are alike. A keeper drops a legendary one time in twenty and its mythic one time in a hundred, better with each Ascension.

Gear now looks its tier. One colour ladder runs through the hero, the bag, item names and the beam over a drop: common iron grey, rare blue, epic purple, legendary crimson, mythic gold. Each tier has its own finish as well. Common is matte iron; rare is polished steel with a ridge on the helm; epic glows faintly, gems at the chest and brow; legendary adds a short cape; mythic shines brightest, motes of light circling you.

What a foe leaves now lies where it fell. Gold and experience still come at once, the coins flying to you, but gear, meat, pelts and other finds wait on the ground in a small pouch, a beam of the best piece’s colour above it. Walk onto it or tap it to take it. An ordinary drop fades after about a minute and is lost if you leave the area, flee or fall. A keeper’s spoils rise where it fell and wait until you come for them.

Boss Rush now has a home of its own: the Old Arena, south of camp. A ring of sand lies under tiers of old stone you can climb, eight plinths along the top. Once the World Tree is saved, each plinth holds a keeper’s pale echo. Touch the Trial Stone and the echoes step down one after another, each wave stronger, fought right there in the world. Some health returns between waves; step off the sand to end the run. The Menu’s Boss Rush now leads you there.

Lairs lock again on every Ascension: the keeper awake on the climb waits behind its wall, its guards as strong as the climb, the Ruin Guardian’s runes in a new order. A lair stays shut until its area’s quest is done. Lose a fight and your foe is whole again; lose to a keeper and you wake at its lair’s way in. Quest items spread across their areas, beaten foes no longer block the ground, braids hang over the shoulders, and the cleric’s staff stays upright.

Every keeper now waits inside a lair of its own, two of its guards at the way in. Old Mossback, Old Honeypaw, the Frost Giant and Thawhorn hide behind hedge, fence, ice and snow, their barriers cut or broken in three places. The Ruin Guardian’s door opens to its four runes touched in the carved order. Storm Peak’s ledge is crossed between gusts, the Aurora Warden’s veil parts while three star-lamps burn, and the Withering’s blight washes away with spring water. Once open, a lair stays open.

Rare foes and the daily bounty now stand in the world. Each stage’s rare foe waits in its own area until you beat it, a gold ring at its feet and its name above it, and the day’s bounty stands in the area your climb has reached, ringed in red. Neither wanders or comes for you: walk up, fight it where it stands, and walk on. In the Menu and the Quest log they now say Go, and the leaf shows you the way.

Abilities now go to level 10. Past level 4 each costs two points, and levels 5 and 10 bring something of the ability’s own: a third arrow for Split Shot, a longer mark, a trap that freezes longer. Each ability card says what its next level gives. Your fight bar grows with you: four abilities to start, then one more at levels 10, 20, 30, 40, 70 and 100, and heroes you already have keep their eight. A level up now shows what you gained.

Every class’s abilities are reworked so each one does something of its own. The Archer marks a foe, looses arrows that keep falling and sets frost traps. The Warrior sunders armour, breaks a keeper’s wind-up with Shield Bash and makes a Last Stand. The Mage calls down a Meteor that lands next turn and hides behind Mirror Images. The Cleric renews and consecrates, and a Miracle raises you when you fall. The Rogue envenoms, exposes and vanishes before a strike three times as hard. Your levels are kept.

Past the meadows’ east edge the land climbs to Cloudberry Fell, a high moor of heather and little dark tarns under a wide sky. Old stones stand in a ring on the rise, one of them fallen, a taller stone keeping watch outside, and a cairn marks the top. An old drove road crosses the moor from the meadows to Driftmarsh, rowans with red berries stand in the hollows, and cloudberries grow by the water. It opens once you reach the meadows. Its shepherd and flock are coming.

Meltwater Meadows has its people now. Ice-cutter Ingrid waits by her sledge: the early thaw carried her saw, tongs and pick downriver, and they lie on the gravel bars where the water splits. Four fish of its own, from the Gravel Grayling to the Ice-Run Salmon, swim in its pools, with a fire by the water to cook them. Where the ice gives way, the golden leaf brightens. Its tune, “Snowmelt”, is a flute and a fiddle over a harp running like meltwater.

Meltwater Meadows joins the climb between Frozen Lake and Beaver Dam Ruins. Crocus Sprites come up through the snow, River Otters slip out of the braids with a fish in their jaws, and white Ermines dart over the drifts. Its keeper is Thawhorn, a great moose with ice in its antlers. Every few turns ice crusts its coat and blows glance off, until a skill shatters it or three blows crack it away; when it lowers its antlers, Defend. Foes further up are a little stronger to match.

Meltwater Meadows is new, between Frozen Lake and Beaver Dam Ruins, where the ice gives way to spring. The river runs free again there, braided over gravel bars, with snow still lying in the hollows and to the north, crocuses coming up through it, birches, pines upslope and little meltwater pools. Cross it by the bridge or the stepping stones. For now you walk through it on your way up; its creatures, its keeper and its people come next.

Frozen Lake is much bigger now, more than twice the ground it had. Out past its old edges there is a second thawed pool with floes of ice on it and a bench on its shore, more pine woods heavy with snow, more ice crystals and two more spires, and more of the lake’s foes. Its frozen river runs on out to its new edges, and everything that was there is where it was.

Heron Fen has a tune of its own now, “Still Water”: slow and misty, a reed pipe over a chord held low like mist on the water and a harp’s ripple, with now and then a deep note under it all, like a bittern booming out in the reeds. A cello takes the tune the second time round.

Heron Fen has come to life. Fen Dragonflies and Marsh Wisps drift between the pools, and none of them comes for you. Four fish of its own swim there, from the Fen Perch to the Moonlit Eel, each with a dish. Birdwatcher Bryony keeps a hide on the heron pool’s shore; a gust scattered her notebook over the fen, and three pages are caught in the reeds. Eel-catcher Maud sets her traps by the big pool and is a friend to be made.

Heron Fen is new, off the path east of camp and open from the start: six reed pools in a wide, flat fen under a big sky, four joined by boardwalks. Three are crossed end to end; the heron pool has a jetty and a bench. Herons stand very still in the shallows, with weeping willows round the water. Fish from a crossing, the jetty or the shore, pick berries and mushrooms, and, once the climb reaches it, walk on north to Millbrook Orchard.

Flour and honey can now be made as well as bought. Wheat, apples and honeycomb are gathered in Millbrook Orchard: Miller Agnes grinds two wheat into flour at the mill, and Beekeeper Barnaby spins a honeycomb into two honey. Meat comes in three sizes: lean from small beasts, raw from middling ones, and a prime cut from the stag, the old boars and Old Honeypaw. Eight new dishes use them, from Hearth Bread and Apple Tart to a Prime Roast, most under a new Kitchen tab in Cooking.

The willows have been redrawn. Each one now has a rounded crown, and its long fronds hang from inside it in a curtain that falls most of the way to the ground, where before many of them floated in a ring around the trunk. You will find them round the lake and the pond in Willowmere and by the pond in Mapleshire.

Cooking has a new screen and three new staples. Dishes are laid out as tiles, with a Ready tab for what you can cook right now, a tab for each place you fish, and every boost shown as an icon. Salt from camp’s shop, flour from Miller Agnes and honey from Beekeeper Barnaby can go into any dish: salt makes it last a turn longer, flour gives bigger boosts and honey heals more.

The climb has been rebalanced now that Millbrook Orchard is part of it. Ordinary foes in every stage after the orchard now match the level you usually arrive at, so the fights there are a real test again, and the gear you find there can be worn as soon as you arrive, a keeper’s prize one level later. The title screen has been redrawn too, with the hero in the new sunglasses.

Millbrook Orchard has its people now. Miller Agnes at the watermill needs the sheaves the rooks scattered, and Barnaby keeps the bees by the skeps. There are four new fish to catch in the millpond, a fire by the water to cook them on, and the orchard has a tune of its own. The glasses the optician sells have all been redrawn, with proper frames and lenses that catch the light; arms reach the ears, and the monocle hangs on a fine chain.

When you make a new hero you now choose female or male on the first screen, and nothing is picked for you. The townsfolk with women’s names are drawn as women now, with long hair, braids, curls, a bun or a ponytail.

Every hairstyle has been redone. Hair now covers the head the way hair does, with a real hairline: Short has a swept fringe, Long falls past the shoulders and frames the face, Curly is curls all round, and the Mohawk stands up from the scalp instead of sinking into it. And the bag is easier to use: potions can be drunk straight from Supplies, brews and elixirs are kept there until you want them, and on a narrow phone the brewing list and the Keepsakes tab no longer run into each other.

Every skill now looks like itself in a fight. A Warrior’s Whirlwind spins, Power Strike comes down from overhead, and Fortify braces behind a shield instead of swinging at the foe. A Mage raises a Fireball in both hands and throws it trailing embers, and Frost Nova leaves a ring of frost. Arrows trail sparks and Rain of Arrows falls on the foe; a Cleric’s Smite brings down a pillar of light; a Rogue’s Twin Fangs strikes twice in a green cloud. Heals lift both arms in rising light, and a foe that is burning, chilled, poisoned or stunned shows it for as long as it lasts.

Millbrook Orchard joins the climb, between Maple Forest and Frozen Lake, with foes of its own: a Crabapple Sprite, a Hedge Badger and a Mill Rook. Its keeper is Old Honeypaw, a great bear who has been raiding the hives. Every few turns he eats from a honeycomb to heal; knock it out of his paws with an ability, or shake it loose with three blows, and defend when he rears up. A hero already past the orchard finds him waiting there.

A new hero has a gentler start. Until level 3, ordinary foes hit softer and have less health, and a health potion heals more than half your health. What you find in Maple Forest can be worn as soon as you find it. And Try Again after a defeat in the open world now puts you straight back into that same fight in the world, not the old battle window.

A new place on the way up: Millbrook Orchard, between Maple Forest and Frozen Lake. Rows of apples and pears behind dry-stone walls, a millpond with its watermill turning, a weir to cross by, hedges, beehives and a meadow of poppies. For now you walk through it on the way to Frozen Lake; its own creatures, its keeper and its people come next. The map makes room for it: everything past Maple Forest sits one step further along.

Your home’s working pieces, part two. A fish tank holds up to six fish from your bag, swimming in their own colours, and once a day visitors leave coins in its jar. A pet bed gives your pet somewhere to curl up while you’re home, and its first rest each day turns up something it found: dogs dig things up, cats bring things in.

Your home’s working pieces, part one. The kitchen’s shelf of jars is now your pantry: every meal you cook at your own stove makes two, and you can eat them from its shelves. At the carpenter’s bench you can make a music box, which plays your home’s tune chosen from the places you’ve been, and a map table, which opens Travel and adds Home to it, taking you straight into your house from anywhere. Shelves in every room now show their jars and books.

Travel is now a page of its own, laid out by the journey: the climb’s six areas in order with each keeper’s state and the next one marked, the towns side by side, and the places beyond the World Tree. A map view draws the climb as a trail from camp up to the Tree. Finishing an Ascension now says so, with the climb’s prize on its own card and what the next one brings. Camp’s music should no longer crackle on slower phones.

Gardens have grown in the other three towns, each in its own way. Skyreach keeps kale, leeks and purple cabbage behind low stone walls capped with snow, with a cold frame and an alpine rock garden of heather. Driftmarsh raises its beds of cabbages, marigolds, beans and cranberries off the damp ground inside fences of bundled reeds. Timberhold weaves wattle fences round ferns, mushrooms on an old log, herbs with a straw bee skep, and beans.

Camp has grown. Its middle is spaced out, so the stalls, the people and the work stations have room around them, and a new crafts quarter to the west holds the leatherworker’s and fletcher’s benches beside a workshop shed, hides drying and a straw target. The path north now meets the edge where you come in from Maple Forest.

Each home you buy in a town now has pieces of its own to build: the plans by its door, the places chalked on its floor, and a garden box with its own plot. Building one home no longer furnishes the others.

The water now looks like water. Ponds, pools and rivers ripple slowly, catch the light and pick up the colour of the sky, and the ponds have a soft ring of foam at the edge. The holes in the ice on Frozen Lake stay dark and still.

The sky got a makeover. It now shades from a hazy horizon to a deeper blue overhead, with a sun and its glow, and clouds drifting slowly by. Northern Lights and the Starfall Expanse have a moon and stars instead. A second ring of hills rises behind the first, with snowy peaks around Storm Peak and firs around Frozen Lake. And the World Tree now stands on the horizon from camp onward, a little nearer in each area as you climb.

The ground now looks like what it is. Each area is painted in its own kind of ground: grass, snow, stone, earth, sand, ash or moss. Thousands of tufts of grass, fallen leaves, flowers, mushrooms, pebbles, ice shards and glowing cinders now cover it, depending on where you are. None of it gets in your way, and it stays off the paths and out of the water.

The world now has a smoother, softer look. Tree crowns, rocks, hills and people shade round instead of in flat facets, while boxes, roofs and blades keep their edges. The light comes from the sky above and bounces off the ground below, and each area’s sun has its own colour. Shadows are sharper and softer at the edges, and they follow you around.

The elementals are made of what they are. They used to share one ball with a ring of shards. Now the Lightning Elemental is a figure of lightning rising out of a storm cloud, its bolts striking the ground; the Starfire Wisp is a falling star with a tail of fire; the Abyssal Current is a spinning whirlpool with eyes; and Kindling, Unionized marches on the spot with its picket sign. If your device asks for less motion, the lightning stays steady.

Beating The Withering used to pile every sound up at once: the victory fanfare played twice, a level up and the achievement bells on top, and the finale came in underneath them all, and every sound built a reverb of its own. That was more than the device could keep up with, so it crackled. Now the fanfare plays once, every fanfare and jingle shares one reverb, and the finale comes in a moment later as the bells ring out.

Camp has a soundtrack of its own: a waltz on the flute over plucked strings and a soft bass, easing back now and then so you can hear the place itself. And camp sounds like somewhere: the campfire crackling louder as you walk up to it, the creek and the pond each from its own side, wind in the leaves and birds all around. Step into your house for a lullaby by the hearth. All of it is made by the game as it plays, with no recordings.

Every building in the towns is a real room now: the Sleepy Owl Inn with its bar, hearth and tables, the bakery with its ovens and bread, the observatory with its great telescope and globe, the lodge with its long table and antlers on the walls, and all the rest, each furnished for what it is. Your own homes are rooms too. And Innkeeper Mabel, who used to freeze the screen when you went to see her, now gives you a room for the night.

The houses on the edges of the towns now have rooms you can walk into, and someone living in each: a beekeeper, an old soldier, a painter, a fiddler, a stargazer and more. Each is a friend to make, with their own story, a favourite gift, a favour to ask and a keepsake at the end. The rooms are real rooms, with walls, windows, a floor and furniture, and the wall between you and the camera dips out of the way.

Camp has come to life. The vendors each have a proper place now: market stalls with striped awnings, their goods on the counter and painted signs, a forge for the blacksmith and a kennel for Poppy the animal breeder. A new optician sells glasses and shades, and around camp you’ll find a windmill, a well, a garden, hay, carts, lamps along the paths and a stone with the golden leaf set in it.

Ascension is now a real part of the game. Once the story is done, camp’s menu explains it and lets you Ascend: the whole world grows stronger, and the six keepers wake again at their shrines, one after another, from Old Mossback to The Withering. Beat them all to complete the Ascension and earn a legendary piece or better, then climb again, as high as Ascension 10.

Tapping is clearer: whatever you tap, a creature, a herb, a tree, gets a thin gold outline while you head over to it, and quest items and treasure caches can be tapped now too, even when your finger lands just beside them. Walk or run while you move: push the stick out to its edge to run, or tap the Walking / Running button, which now works while your other thumb steers and remembers your choice. Your dog is shaped like a dog now rather than a ball.

The people along the river now have their part in the story. Each says a line once, when its moment comes: Silas the first time he sees the golden leaf, the fishers and scavengers about what's been coming down the water, the World Tree's root-keeper who watched the leaf fall. A golden leaf on someone's name means they have something to tell you. And when it's all over, Silas finally gets to hear how it went, and the story closes with its own ending.

The golden leaf now shows itself only when it has somewhere to lead you, and stays out of fights; tap the goal line to call it out. Once the Withering falls it goes home for good: at the World Tree the crown glows gold, golden leaves drift down, and the leaf rests on the bark. Touch it and it will guide you once more: to an unfinished quest, an unopened treasure cache, or fish you haven't caught yet, then fly home.

Added fishing to every river: Maple Forest, Storm Peak, Northern Lights and The World Tree each have four fish of their own, and every catch cooks into a dish. Fish from further up the climb give more fishing XP and cook into stronger dishes. The float also lands on open water now: it used to land a little way back toward you from the fishing spot, which suited a small fishing hole but put it on the bank beside a pond.

Smoothed the camera into a fight in the world and back out after a win. It glides in over 0.7 seconds, circling the short way to the fight view nearest where it was and easing the picture up clear of the panel, then glides back over 0.6 seconds facing the fight’s way. The old camera eased by a fixed share of the remaining distance each frame, which does most of its moving at the start; a timed move begins as gently as it ends.

Leaving the game from inside another page now takes the whole tab with it, where the host page allows it. When the browser’s Back has nowhere to go, a game running inside another page sends the whole tab to the site’s home page instead of loading a page inside its own window. Inside a frame, the page you came from is the page doing the framing, so a game that leaves by loading it opens the site inside itself.

Picking berries and the like stopped stalling before the pop-up. Timed, most of the stall was the game setting every rock, tree and bush back onto the ground each time the area updated, though none had moved. Scenery that stays put is now set down once, and all of it again only if the ground itself changes; the pop-up and sound now come before the update. The pause showed where the player was looking; only timing it showed where the time went.

Every story boss got a fight of its own, each warning of its big blow a turn ahead: Old Mossback grows a moss shell a skill shatters, the Frost Giant freezes you at three frost, the Storm Drake flies beyond any ordinary blow but an Archer’s or Mage’s, and The Withering’s blight turns heal skills and health potions into harm. A boss loss costs nothing. A boss that grew only with its area fell behind a faster-growing hero, so each is measured against the hero who meets it.

Elderheart became Wanderleaf on every screen, and its final boss became The Withering. What the saves are filed under did not change: progress stays under the old storage keys, so every existing save still loads; an export keeps the old signature, which lets old exports import; and the old boss’s bestiary counts carry over. A rename touches two lists, what the player reads and what the data is keyed on, and the second stays put or moves only with a migration.

Whoever starts a fight now strikes first. Engage an enemy and one real attack is rolled (it can hit, crit or miss) and shown in the world before the battle opens: an archer takes the bow off the back and shoots, everyone else lunges and swings. An enemy that ambushes you gets its own opening strike as the battle opens. The strike is rolled before it is shown, so the world never plays a hit that the battle then calls a miss.

Archers carry the bow on the back, draw it in battle, and hit what they aim at. On this figure the drawing hand cannot reach the string at the bow, so the draw is a push: the string hand sets at the chin and the bow arm drives the bow out, the joint angles solved for each figure. The arrow lands on the enemy’s surface, found fresh each shot, and rides its flinch; a dodged arrow flies over its shoulder. Measuring first saved animating an impossible draw.

Moved the Engage button, and made every battle action wait a moment before it answers: 650 ms after an ambush, 250 ms after a fight you chose. An aggressive enemy starts the fight itself on contact, so the battle screen could appear under a thumb already on its way to Engage, and the tap landed on whatever was there. Moving the button was not enough on its own: the new screen also has to ignore the tap that was aimed at the old one.

Armour became clothing. Every head, torso, leg, foot and hand item takes its shape from its name: a Cloak is a mantle and a cape, Chausses are mail from thigh to ankle, Bracers guard the forearm and leave the hand bare. Each piece is sized from the part of the body it covers, so one item fits every build. A piece can be in the scene and never seen, so the check fires rays at every piece and counts how often it is hit first.

Obstacles are read out of the finished scene now rather than registered by each thing that creates one. Props are built in about a dozen places, and a hand-maintained list would be incomplete from the day it was written. Reading the assembled scene catches everything by construction, including anything added later by someone who never heard of the list. Ground cover is left out on purpose: being stopped by a tuft of grass is worse than walking through a log.

Dragging to turn the camera while steering with the thumbstick threw the view somewhere random. One listener tracked a single previous finger position for every finger at once, so a second thumb on the stick was measured against wherever the camera finger had last been: about 43 degrees in a single frame. Only the finger that began a drag turns the camera now. When two controls interfere, the one that changed most recently is the suspect and usually not the cause.

Feet sank into hillsides and floated over dips. The ground is drawn as flat triangles about four units apart, while the character’s height came from the smooth curve those points were generated from: two different surfaces, diverging by about 0.28 between points, half a lower leg. The character stands where a ray fired straight down strikes the ground now. When two representations of one surface disagree, the one being drawn is the true one.

Equipment showed correctly in menus and in battle but never on the character out in the world. The world model was rebuilt only when the class changed, and putting on a helmet does not change your class. The comparison covers all ten equipment slots now, along with hair, body and skin. A cache key that omits half of what it is caching is not a cache: it is a guarantee that the stale version is the one you see.

Hair framed the face down to the exact height the eyes sit at, so a dark slab cut across the eye line. Head-on it read as a normal haircut, because the piece sits side-on to the camera. Character previews turn by dragging now, which is how it was found. Some faults only exist at an angle nothing has looked from, and a preview showing one fixed view is a preview of that view rather than of the character.

Standing beside a wandering creature let you fight it over and over. The respawn timer was filed under the creature’s position at the moment it reached you, while the check that lets it return reads the position it starts from, and a creature that chases you is never in the same place twice. It keys on the home position in both now. The timing was always right; the address it was filed under was not.

Starting a new game skipped the save picker, and the picker is the only screen that claims a slot, so the game ran with none assigned and every save returned without writing. The boot assigns a slot now whether or not the picker is shown. The failure only exists across a reload, so a save system is not tested by saving. It is tested by returning.

Rewrote the opening. The Begin Adventure button was sitting below the fold on a phone and starting out disabled: measured at 1406px down a page with a 915px viewport. New players were landing on a screen with nothing to press. The empty save picker is gone too: a file dialog with no files in it isn't a choice, it's a wall.

Moved saves onto their own storage keys. Renaming a storage key silently deletes every existing player’s save, so the old keys are still read and migrated rather than dropped.