I'll get straight to it tonight (partly because it's nearly 1am and I really need to sleep).

I'm excited to announce some huge new features in version 0.5.8 and a raft of bug fixes. Big thanks as always to the community - shoutouts below. Also, check out the brand new sprites in game from the pixel art team (Elfie the Explorer, ArkHaven, sometimesihavequestions / Merlin)!

Enjoy!

Roguefort get a first-person "Skyrim" style render mode.

ENTER THE THIRD DIMENSION and experience the game like never before! Use mouse-look (or controller right-stick), your equipped weapon in your hands, a click-to-interact crosshair, number-key spell hotbar, and Minecraft-style 5-tile build reach. Do not worry - it's ok - it's still turn-based and always will be. Your movement snaps to the direction you're looking and it's 8-directional, as is the natural law.

Pick it in Settings -> Display -> Render Mode

But wait, there's more.

By cannibalising even more code from game projects I'll now never have time to complete, I was able to also resurrect another rendering mode... So, you can also choose to experience the game in a (broadly speaking) Diablo style of view.

This new 2.5D render mode is a voxel-sprite version of the world with a Diablo-style 3/4 camera, dynamic day/night sky with a phased moon, stars, aurora over arctic biomes, Breath of the Wild style swaying grass with a player sweep-trail, drifting clouds, rain that splashes, towering distant peaks, atmospheric per-biome dungeon caverns, and procedural actor animation (idle, attack lunges, hit recoil, death crumple). As with the first-person 3D mode, you can select it in Settings -> Display -> Render Mode

That said, I do want to stress that the game is a traditional turn-based roguelike, and so the default rendering setting will always be 2D top down. You know, like that old game, what was it called? Starts with R... hmm?

Here's a massive big list of everything else, which I've collated from the (checks notes) 90 commits since this time last week... phew!

A particular shoutout to Merlin the Questioner who actually submitted an entire document worth of a treasure trove of suggestions and bug fixes - so many of these are straight from the doc.

• Player-rotatable furniture - press \[ or ] (or LB/RB on controller) during placement, with a live ghost preview (AJ)

• Split stacks - Shift+S, or new \[split] / \[sell n] / \[move n] buttons in your backpack, at vendors, and at chests, lets you carve off a partial amount of any stack (ArkHaven)

• Reworked message log - a compact floating band near the action, with toast pop-ups for important events (danger, deaths, discoveries). The classic always-visible sidebar is preserved as an opt-in (Elfie)

• Terroir tab and the level-up perk screen are properly legible now - tooltips on every keystone, perk, and tradition header; a new "Your Build" rail and keyword glossary on level-up; arrow-key / D-pad inspect so controller and Steam Deck players can finally read their build (SamV)

• Instant Movement toggle in Settings -> Display - sprite snaps to the next tile, Caves-of-Qud style (hotgar)

• Bigger, better bookshelves - capacity raised from 4 to 16 books, and NPC shelves stocked more sparingly so most are 1-2 books with the occasional rare "library treasure" shelf (ArkHaven)

• Farming polish - troughs now visibly show fill level, a new Milk Bucket lets you bump-milk any dairy animal without a stool, bumping livestock pets them for +1 happiness on every species, and a hireable farmhand in Hayreld will top up your troughs from nearby chests for 5g per 500 turns. Drying racks accept fresh grass on bump and hand over finished bales the same way. Multi-buy livestock dedupes names so you don't end up with three Henriettas

• Build mode polish - all wood types are known by default, Wood Floor can overwrite generated POI floors, and painted eggs are placeable as decor

• Settlement NPCs render a thought-bubble badge when they're sleeping, working, commuting, socializing or hiding, so you can spot the talkable ones at a glance

• Directional interact prompt when 'c' is ambiguous (SamV)

• Controller players can now access Build and Cast Spells through PanelHub (RB), and the Wait action is visible in the controls help with device-aware button glyphs (FlyinJ)

• Six previously dormant companion abilities actually do things now - the Snow Leopard negates snow and blizzard speed penalties, the Marsh Hound follows you across water, the Wild Rabbit forages herbs as you walk through flora, the Giant Toad reels small foes adjacent on hit, the Storm Roc parts foul weather around the party, and a couple more

• Community sprite submission tool got a live in-game preview column - pixel artists can now see exactly how a sprite will look in-game across biomes, times of day, and seasons before submitting

• Demo and full-game saves no longer share a folder - each gets its own save directory, ending the bug where installing one would eat the other's saves (Elfie)

• Title-screen Help, Credits, and Settings no longer crash, and the "View Intro" buttons in the Systems tab work everywhere now, with full keyboard navigation (SamV)

• Controller Y / on-screen Bag button opens your inventory again (FlyinJ)

• Mossy Grotto no longer auto-discovers itself from the starter bed - you actually have to find it (SamV)

• Glitched-tile squares no longer reappear after a reload (ArkHaven)

• Creatures can no longer settle on or block dungeon staircases (the "shy mushroom deleted the stairs" report)

• Dungeon walls now visibly contrast against the floor across every biome - no more stepping into a wall you read as floor (SamV)

• Dungeon objects no longer leave stray grey tiles when removed - chests, cages, traps, fonts, and item drops all clear back to the correct biome floor, and cobwebs no longer leave a "weird grass patch" underneath (SamV)

• Shy mushrooms are now actually observable - they retract at 2 tiles (1 while sneaking) instead of 4, they no longer spawn within retract range of staircases, and the Mossy Grotto is guaranteed to have one near the entry so the mechanic can be learned

• Pressing a number key to pick a perk or level-up choice no longer secretly eats the matching dungeon quickslot food

• The spell belt no longer overlaps the bottom toolbar at its default position

• Warden Elric's wall-build quest only counts actual walls inside Hearthmere now, not chairs or floors

• Balance fixes - EPIC-tier books now pay EPIC-tier XP, the Prospector recipe set is craftable again, the Lich got a small HP bump for boss-tier parity, dangling raid drops and an uncompletable pave upgrade are fixed, and the cheese merchant's feed stock is no longer dead

Hey all,

This is a patch that - all going well - resolves launch issues for players on Linux. The game hopefully launches properly on Linux via Steam, including Arch and EndeavourOS, resolving the long-standing silent hang on startup. Thanks for your patience, and to everyone who reported it (especially Yrebrac and sanskritguy on Discord).

Some other fixes:

Fishing fixes

• The reel mini-game no longer ends instantly. One keypress is one action again, so you get your full time to land the catch (thanks SamV for reporting this).

• Casting with a fishing rod no longer throws a spurious "No ranged weapon equipped" message.

Gold fixes

• The Character Sheet now shows your correct gold. It was previously stuck at 0. (Again, thanks to SamV for the quick bug report).

• Mining a gold vein now properly adds to your gold. The counter updates as expected.

Also! New sprites have arrived in this patch, thanks to dev team pixel artists ArkHaven, Merlin, and ElfieTheEsp.

9 new creature and companion sprites:
coastal serpent, sea turtle, deepbat, rockslide beetle, cave bear, and the mine canary, frost owl, and storm roc companions, plus a crystal bat touch-up.

That's it for tonight - now, back to sleep for this Australian dev :-)

Enjoy and have a nice weekend.