A scorpion made of ore and a backpack you can hear

What happened today

This afternoon belonged to a newcomer we've been looking forward to for a long time: the Ore scorpion. Its shell looks like it was hammered out of raw iron ore, and turquoise seams glow between the plates, as if something inside it is burning. It now walks in all eight directions, raises its stinger and swings its heavy claws.

We've already taken it on with a sword in our test area. It's one of the bigger beasts waiting for you on Veyl. Where exactly it lurks, we're keeping to ourselves for now.

Three inhabitants of the red rock desert also got some polish. The Sand maw now bursts out of the ground with a clean cloud of sand, the Sail stilter finally looks where it's walking, and a few stray pixels on the Disc glider are gone. Small things, but exactly the kind you notice when one of these creatures is right in front of you.

What we got done

A backpack you can hear. Every action in your inventory now makes exactly one sound: equipping, unequipping, moving a piece of material. When something doesn't work, you get a short, quiet "nope" sound instead of nothing at all. It sounds minor, but it makes sorting your gear feel a lot nicer.

The starting area sounds like Veyl again. Music and ambient sounds are back in the first area, a few gaps in the ground are closed, and the wreck of your ship is back exactly where it belongs.

Finer edges. In the Terra Engine, the tool we build the world with, we can now paint very precisely where you can't go and where you can jump, instead of using big blocks. For you, that means you can get closer to rocks and ledges without getting stuck on invisible corners.

Not every creature wants a fight. While building, we can now tell at a glance who attacks and who is peaceful. Creatures that fight carry a little sword, the peaceful ones a pink flower. So Veyl will also have inhabitants that simply leave you alone. On top of that, we can now place items straight into the world and fill chests.

What's next

The Great desert bird is getting a bit more polish before we show it to you again. And we're quietly planning a few bigger things, which we'll tell you about once they take shape.

See you soon,