Below the Abbey: what's new from 3.650 to 3.698

A lot happened in a few days. The west opened up, the dead got a proper graveyard, goats went fishing (sort of). Here is the tour.

The west is open

Wenlock, the market town. It started as a quiet English market town and got a full glow-up: roofs that reach the walls, proper variety in roofs and doors, lettered signposts, a town wall, painted ground edges, trees you can walk through, a brook with reeds, willows and a small pier with a boat and lantern. The market stalls are now real shops (press a stall and the shopkeeper's shop opens), apple trees drop apples, and the fog is gone from the map. There are five lost goats and five lost llamas to find, plus six market quests and a town full of bells and village noises. Wenlock now sells every gear tier, white to orange, for every weapon type and armour slot.

The Wenlock Graveyard. Open for visitors. Cobbled paths, leafy ivy on the stones, autumn trees, golden soft light, cobwebs between graves, and six walk-in tombs. You can walk up to a crypt door and go in, and each tomb leads to its own tomb. Under the Avenue are the Vaults Beneath the Avenue: eight vaults, an achievement and a title, Vaultbreaker. The four maze entrances are proper built fronts now: a skull arch with an iron gate, a damp stair, a barrow and grassy doors, with statues, lamps and a glow. Stormclouds roll in over the yard with lightning and thunder. Lady Aldith and the Bloated Corpse give shorter speeches (long speech is now paged so it never runs off the screen).

Blackbriar Wood. A dark maze of trees with small bones scattered about, wild caves and ruins, pale dirt paths. The trees and walls got much darker, and if you carry a flame you can burn the trees. Floating signs became wooden signposts you read by walking up to them.

The Maze of Gardens. Sixteen painted hedge kinds, more flowers, bees, butterflies and drifting lights, a golden haze, a real boundary hedge with gates, petals and sunbeams, and five small folk with four quests between them. The garden map fills in as you explore.

The Warden's Seals, Sale and the Blighted Road (new). A new main quest, the Warden's Seals, takes you across a new world map of the west, to the town of Sale, along the Blighted Road (ten places), and into the Vault of Maldrake. The Rookery mere is on the way. The road, Sale and Wenlock got a far wall so the horizon looks finished, and there are no teleport stones anywhere on the Blighted Road.

Fishing, houses and a tidier backpack

Fishing: five rods, 40 fish, baits, a bait seller, fishing spots across the world, a line game and a rod animation.

Houses and real estate: agents in eight towns sell small, medium and large houses, furniture, a home chest and boss trophies.

Inventory: a Store button, a Sort button in chests, and acquisition stamps. Potion shortcut slots now appear in the same order on the game screen as in the inventory.

Infested houses: every town now has houses with cellars that hold something nasty, with painted corpses to set the mood. Thief quests send you past watchmen and cells, and Old Bracken has a den and a book.

Orbs and torches: the new Glow Orb lantern gives a steady, wider blue-white light. Torches and orbs stack, and shift+click splits a stack.

Maps and the Atlas

The world map of the west has places spread out so no icon or name overlaps, and names sit right under their icons. The Atlas of Mazes and Dungeons lists every area with a been-there box and a finished box, sorted by level (low to high or high to low). Names stay scrambled and faint until you reach a place, then they unscramble in bold. Hidden ruins and caves show as "Hidden ruin", and the twenty wild caves of the Pilgrim's Path are listed. Each graveyard maze has its own door picture and its own layout on the map.

Fighting got better to look at and to play

Spell and power animations: every caster spell has its own effect. A fireball charges, flies, bursts and leaves the enemy burning. Frost is a full white-and-blue version with shattering ice. Thief, warrior, ranger, paladin, monk and goat powers have their own animations too.

Wounded enemies flush red as they near death, so you can see who is about to fall.

Priest heals are fixed amounts, like potions, so the first heal gets weaker as you level. There is a new single heal, Restoration, at level 62.

Every class's powers were rebuilt as a ladder: each later power hits harder and costs more, and 23 new powers fill the gaps at higher levels.

Normal creatures are shorter (a height cap), and the graveyard ghouls got shorter so their faces show.

Mercy: a beaten bandit now begs for mercy about one time in eight, and a surrendered bandit you strike fights on.

Flying crows now fly, front on, instead of standing in the air.

The deep places

The Deeper Hollow got four rounds of polish: brighter hubs in the Underlevel, a new shrine and Honey Press, notes with labels you can read from a distance, and a lot fewer odd, floating or identical things. The Underlevel water is dark and wet with soft light glints. The three hives of the book quest are smaller, each with a rescue quest of its own and a different shade of honey. The Well Maze is half the size, with a secret exit and orb lamps. The graveyard maze gates are centred, and one gets a new red gate.

Speed

The game is smoother. A 60 frames-per-second cap stops it racing on fast screens, the CRT glow no longer reads the whole screen back every frame, the well mazes and sign lettering now build only when you reach them, and the nearby-decor cache and the audio unlock got cheaper. Greendale got a pond and the Old Bridge a plate beside the bridge.

Small things

A new game now says "Equip your weapons before fighting!".

Sut stands one level above his area.

The Dig and Fish buttons no longer cover Embark.

Test links to the well maze and graveyard now land where they should.