The Thistlewolf Post #2: Sandbox Mode Arrives

Another week has rolled around! Good morning, everyone! Let's take a look at this week's beta release.

A Quick Recap

This week's beta was originally meant to introduce the Sands of Time boss. The programming work is, in fact, largely complete. But the five levels immediately before it are all set in the Pond, so we felt the boss needed a very short transitional level to bring players back to the Sands of Time first. Its story setup and other details still need more polish, so there is no new boss in this week's beta.

We then considered filling the gap with Trials. After building two of them, however, I found that their pacing and finer details still needed substantial work. A beta release can scale back its art, music, or animation, but I do not think its core design should feel equally unfinished. So in the end, we put all our remaining development time into Sandbox mode.

Content Log

First, we revised the notice that appears when you launch a beta build. It now appears only once per game session, and the letter itself reminds you to back up your save data.

The previous beta contained a bug that could affect saves, though it was fixed quickly. I still think a backup reminder is worthwhile in case anything similar happens again. (Of course, I will do everything I can to prevent a repeat.)

Next up is a feature people have been waiting a long time for—Sandbox mode! To enter it, simply type sandbox on the world map. A proper entrance will be added inside Snowbloom Palace later.

Sandbox mode lets you freely place plants, zombies, and field objects, as well as switch between scenes. Near the end of development, we expanded its placement options even further: most field mechanics found elsewhere in the game can now be tried in Sandbox. You can also test every Active Skill there! It is even possible to equip combinations that normal play does not allow, such as Homing Thistle Darts and Red Stinger Laser at the same time.

The mode can also save and reload the entire field, which comes in handy when you need to repeat the same test.

Another change concerns the “Previous Selection” feature. Previously, using it would remove every seed packet already in your tray—even those that were also part of your previous selection.

For example, suppose your current selection is Sunflower, Peashooter, Wall-nut, and Cherry Bomb, while your previous selection is Cherry Bomb, Hygro Plantago, Lily Pad, and Peashooter. The moment you pressed the button, all four current cards would jump back to the selection area before being returned to the tray. In other words, Cherry Bomb and Peashooter would teleport out only to be selected again immediately!

Now, cards shared by both selections stay in the tray and move as close as possible to the slots they occupied in the previous selection. No more teleporting out and straight back in.

We also fixed two smaller seed-selection bugs:

• GHTR-000000DA Dragging a seed packet on the selection screen could preview the wrong card
• GHTR-000000DB Using “Previous Selection” in a particular order could leave seed packets in an invalid state

We also redesigned every zombie card so the full set aligns more naturally, rather than looking uneven as it did before. You may have noticed that a few of the cards are still somewhat blurry; we will address that later.

There is one level adjustment as well: we moved the two Bishop Tiles in column 2 on Floor 2 of Snowbloom Palace. Activating either tile used to kill the Power Peony you are meant to protect immediately. That made it difficult for players to learn how Bishop Tiles work and created needless frustration. A trap where one trigger means instant failure does not seem appropriate at this point in the main story.

The tiles have therefore been moved to their current positions. As expected, this makes Floor 2 noticeably easier, especially at the beginning: the terrain and starting plants can now carry you through much of the opening. The level's main threat—the hamster balls—remains, however. This is the adjustment we are going with for now.

Odds and Ends

You may not know that two Hygro Plantagos activated on the same frame can both absorb the same liquid. Until now, the trick required frame-perfect timing, although Time Stop made it much easier.

While building the Hygro Plantago Trial, we wanted to include this two-Plantago technique without making Time Stop or some other special setup mandatory. In this release, we have therefore widened the valid timing window to 0.5 seconds.

This beta is available in x64 and x32 builds. We also got Android compiling, but because Android devices generally lack keyboard input, the main test content from these two beta releases cannot be accessed there. Once proper in-game entrances are in place, future beta releases will ship for Android as well.

Some Future Plans

You may have noticed that the Music Box, Library, and related screens currently feel unevenly laid out. We plan to redesign this entire part of the interface later, especially the Music Box.

Here are some UI design sketches from that process. They are explorations, not the final interface: the layout below has plenty of problems of its own, and this area still needs much more thought.

Aside

I recently came across this community website: pvzvoyage.com/zh/. I was honestly amazed by how well made it is! The Download and DIY Levels sections, in particular, are exactly what Voyage has been missing.

To the player who built the site and keeps it running: thank you, sincerely. If you ever need help from me, I will do everything I can.

That's it for this week's Morning Post—see you next week!