Morning Post #3: The Sands Boss Arrives

Does this count as morning? Maybe it does. Either way, let's look at this week's Morning Post and this week's beta release.

Foreword

Before we begin, I should explain why this issue is on Saturday, and at this hour. Just like the cover image: when I went out on Thursday, a sudden downpour started, and I had not brought an umbrella. I caught a cold, spent a day or two recovering, and lost a fair bit of production time. But I am mostly recovered now. So let's look at this week's beta content!

Content Log

First, we made the final main-story level of the Sands of Time, including Story Mode, Challenge Mode, and Extra Mode. Yes, this also means the Sands boss has appeared!

It is worth noting that the art, music, and animation for the Sands boss are still in progress. Because of those factors, the current Sands boss is more of a gameplay reference.

After the animation is complete, many actual values will change. Once the art and music are finished as well, the boss presentation should match what I have in mind. Right now the boss is a static image, so its expressiveness is limited. Of course, a new main-story boss usually also means a new main-story achievement!

This also means new story content. As with BISHOP, part of the story is integrated into the boss battle, and the post-battle story here is something we had not done before. I also tried a visual effect in this dialogue sequence that I had not used before. You can experience it while playing.

As with shell-smashing, this version also adds multi-round support to I, Zombie mode. If you want to make a multi-round I, Zombie level in DIY, you can refer to the new Extra Mode.

Challenge Mode is the region's inherent Ultimate Battle. That said, I do think 40-wave levels may be too long; later sections can involve a lot of idle waiting and become a bit boring. So this Ultimate Battle has been compressed to 30 waves, in the hope of reducing long-level fatigue.

Next are some Sandbox mode updates! We fixed many problems from the previous version of Sandbox. Grid-point plants now behave normally in Sandbox. When placing zombies or some field objects on water, you no longer need to lay down Lily Pads first. Also, Corchid can now be planted by dragging in Sandbox mode (this is also a change for DIY, if you need to define custom seed packets inherited from Corchid).

We also noticed that changing cards is a bit cumbersome on PC, so to make it easier to use, you can now use keyboard keys on Sandbox's card selection screen.

First, you can press 1-8 to switch directly to the corresponding seed packet. You can also use up, down, left, and right to change the current selection (as shown below). These keys are dynamic and match the keybindings in your settings.

Finally, I want to mention a few zombie detail changes. First is Lantern Imp: in normal modes, daytime Lantern Imp now lands farther to the right, at the lawn mower's position. This gives us more possible responses (the old landing position was very close to the brain-eating point), such as using Power Peony's backward shots. This may make the level "Ground-to-Air Tactics" easier. We may reassess that level later and adjust it accordingly.

In I, Zombie mode, however, daytime Lantern Imp lands in the center of column 1. This means Lantern Imp can eat the Sunflower in column 1. Of course, sometimes this also causes downsides, such as when column 1 happens to have a CocoBottle Shine.

The other changed zombie is Fisherman Gargantuar. To make him feel more like a Sands of Time zombie, I made a few very curious small changes. Experience this little interaction in-game!

Oh, one more thing: the stars in the Sands of Time night sky are now easier to connect. If you have not discovered the constellation yet, try it now!

The final change is for translators helping complete the game's translation work. Beta releases can now reload in-game text by holding left CTRL+T, using a format that is convenient for humans to edit. I mentioned more details in the translation channel earlier; if needed, I will organize them and explain again.

Interesting Things

After the "king tile" style was changed, the first floor of Snowbloom Palace has an animation where a peony jumps to its target position. Surprisingly, you can shovel the peony during the jump to bypass the protected-plant requirement of that level!

Although this would be easy to fix, I do not plan to handle it. This cheese looks very interesting.

Also, this beta provides x64 and Android builds. The previous two betas did not mention Android, so it is its turn now, isn't it?

Some Future Plans

While the boss art is still being made, I plan to keep pushing the main story forward while adding details elsewhere: pause screens, death screens, and so on. Another item worth mentioning is that I plan to optimize the DIY loading page. The current one is ugly and not very easy to use.

Aside

Voyage's translation has now moved to ParaTranz! If you want to help translate, just join Voyage's ParaTranz translation project(external link, opens in a new tab)!

The current version still has a large amount of dialogue and new content that has not been translated. I will also help complete part of the translation work soon, especially the parts that affect play.

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