In the new upcoming location which is almost complete ("The Screaming Swamp"), a new terrain system allows extremely large locations (this one is about five miles in diameter, but could potentially be hundreds of miles if you want a really big walking simulator), and also will likely use a new light scattering / fog effect which allows realistic haze and blurring without any noticeable drop in performance, in fact it may boost performance once it replaces the old postprocessing effect that has been used to blur the player's vision when losing consciousness. The new method is faster and can be used for several effects via a single shader.
Screenshot of the fog:
Two new locations
The new build contains two new locations, each about half a mile in diameter: "The Barrens" and "Martha's Marsh".
The new build is also streamlined to reduce memory usage and build size (100 MB smaller despite more content).
There's at least one known glitch: in "The Barrens", the game pauses briefly as you move through the location.
It's also possible there may be random glitches in some locations since there was at least one missing item (in the intro) which has been fixed, but it's difficult to determine whether there have been any other random problems that developed.
Workaround / fix for "Begin" button problem
For the newer locations, the "Begin" button only works if you click on the lower half. The next build (possibly tomorrow) will contain a fix, but in the meantime you can just click on the lower half of the button and it'll work. There is also frequently a delay after clicking on the button, but that usually only takes a few seconds at most and possibly is imperceptible on most newer machines.
The new build will also contain two new outdoor locations, at least one of which is about half a mile in diameter (the largest yet).
Here's a screenshot from one of the upcoming locations:
And something unusual in that location:
New build, new location
New build with a new location, the McGurkville Swamp. Also fixed a glitch that had caused a strange delay when selecting a location to investigate. There may still be a delay when clicking "Begin", however, for the newest locations.
Two New (Dark and Large) Locations
The latest build contains two new forest locations which are each about a third of a mile in diameter, the newest in a line of dark locations. There are still some glitches: it seems to take far too long to click on the buttons for these locations (both the entry in the location list and the "Begin" button). There are also some graphics problems.
Some screenshots:
New build with new location - Mumford Cemetery
The latest build contains another dark location, a cemetery in the town of Mumford, in addition to some fixes and graphics improvements.
New build with new location - Spudge's Water Park
The new build contains "Spudge's Water Park" (a semi-dark location), and the default number of pixel lights has been boosted to 24 (which shouldn't affect framerate) to keep the lights in portions of Spudge's from flickering, but existing players (who already have a user settings file saved) may need to change it manually by going to Settings and adjusting the pixel lights up to around 24. The previous default was 16.
Also, some bugs were fixed including a glitch which prevented some of the user settings from being applied at startup.
Here are some screenshots of the new location:
New location nearing completion
Another "dark" location, Spudge's Water Park, is finally nearing completion despite some technical difficulties that kept it long delayed. Here's part of the concessions court:
New Location - "Crampton's Warehouse"
The latest build contains a new location : a 19th century warehouse which has remained disused for unknown reasons despite multiple recent owners. Like the last one, it's another dark location.
The build also contains some new types of ghosts, and some minor fixes.
New location - "The Vaults"
A new build has been uploaded with a new location to explore - an abandoned 19th century underground warehouse - along with some additional minor changes. Many people requested more underground / dark locations, so this is the first of a series that will hopefully be completed within the next week or so.
