Ahoy there friends!

We’re happy to announce the release of the 3.0 update for Fairwind Isle!

We’ve put a lot of time and effort into this release and we’re hoping it’s going to make the play experience more engaging and enjoyable for everyone!

A bevy of new content, rebalanced gameplay and more awaits for players at all stages of the game!

Island Update

Quite possibly the largest part of this update is the new and improved player island! It is now contains a plethora of new items, areas and space for the player to build in - as well as secrets to discover.

The island is now separated into six different portions, each with a variety of items, plants and more for the player to discover, utilize, craft and cook with.

Each portion is blocked off by a pile of rubble that the player can spend their coins to remove - staggering progression to help ease everyone into the new content.

Item and Crafting Overhaul

Another big change that is coming with 3.0 is an overhaul of the item and crafting systems, re-ordering the levels of many of the items, and bringing a whole new system of rarity to help players distinguish more common items from those that are more rare.

This new system brings along with it updated recipes that use all new ingredients, new tiers of crafting and complementary new “Resource” and “Component” items which are required to craft certain items.

One great example is the new category of items used for cooking called “Seasonings”, which are harvested or crafted by the player, and required to create many dishes - with higher quality dishes calling for more complex combinations.

Alongside this - many of the cooking recipes have been overhauled to better fit to their rarity, as well as to create a more diverse path for players to create the food that they would prefer - such as allowing greater flexibility to make your taverns serve entirely Vegan food, or even just bowls of fish!

Better Early Player Experience

A large thing that we really wanted to focus on with this update was the early game experience for new players, as well as continuing players. The initial versions of the game provided players with a basic start of a few buildings, but didn’t really give much direction beyond that.

In order to streamline this experience and introduce mechanics more slowly to the player, a number of changes were made in order to create a more step-by-step approach.

These changes included a number of new, easy to craft early game items, as well as lower tier versions of existing items (such as the “Lean-to” as an easier to craft, but less effective, version of a tavern).

Alongside this, the player is now presented with resources and recipes in a much more gradual, staggered manner - allowing them to get used to the earlier crafting chains and systems before advancing to more complex ones.

To top off all of these new onboarding changes and features, we’ve also added a helpful and friendly new unique NPC, “The Guide”, who is found on your island when you arrive. They act like any other unique NPC and provide the player with a reliable, early source of tourism - as well as having plenty of useful tips and tricks to discuss!

Environment and Graphical Updates

While the biggest (visual) change of this update is the map expansion, we’ve also spent a lot of time going over the play environment to create a more engaging, immersive and visually interesting experience for players.

All areas of the map now have their own unique soundscapes and ambient noises that provide a better sense of life and depth to the space - such as rolling waves and seagulls near the oceanside, birdsong and animal cries near the forest and even strange creatures crawling around under the surface in the desert.

We have also enhanced the detail around a lot of the play area, making the world feel a tad more “lived in” and interesting to explore. This includes all new set dressing, world props and explorable spaces - as well as an entirely overhauled terrain system (which will also make building and placing tiles a lot faster!)

Lastly, the lighting and ambience has had a pass, and we hope that it will be more visually appealing to players, with higher detail in the lighting and shadows, as well as more general visual clarity and quality.

We hope these changes will make the game a more enjoyable experience for all players, as well as allowing everyone to share their creations with each other and offer new experiences.

We hope that this update will be just the beginning of many exciting improvements to come. As always, we greatly appreciate your feedback, so jump in, explore the new features, and please let us know what you think.

Patch Notes

New Features

• The map has been expanded! You can now unlock more parts of the Island to build and play in, with new unique resources and more!
• A new item type, “Seasoning” has been added to Cooking.
• A new unique character has been added, “The Guide”, who will spawn at the start with the player, and give helpful hints.
• A new ambient sound system has been added to bring some more life to the island. Each area has a different set of ambient effects that play dynamically.
• The Save System has been updated, making it more robust and less likely to cause lag spikes - as well as a much needed interface overhaul that makes it easier to manage multiple saves.

Changes & Improvements

• Players now move slightly faster
• NPCs will now only walk instead of randomly sprinting.
• Improved the physics on a number of objects like capes.
• The lighting and reflections around the island have been improved.
• NPCs will now look at you when you are nearby, as well as looking at what they’re doing.
• The player character will now look at the object they are trying to interact with.
• The environment around the island has been adjusted to look better.
• Taverns can now only be crafted from a crafting table.
• Lean-tos have been added as an early game Tavern replacement.
• Sand piles have had their loot tables adjusted, and regular sand piles now have a low chance to drop Clams.
• A number of recipes now require seasonings.
• A number of higher tier recipes now require additional (or new) ingredients.
• Several new early game recipes have been added for Cooking.
• “Grilled Seafood” is now available as a base Cooking recipe.
• Several resource spawns have been redistributed to new zones.
• Players can now auto walk (keep walking without a key held down) using Middle Mouse Button or Right Stick press.
• Items with on use (or other) effects will now say so on the tooltip.
• The saving function for world objects and terrain has been optimized, which should reduce lag spikes.
• Most harvestable objects now take 3 hits to harvest instead of 4.
• If a harvestable object is not fully grown, it will now take less hits to harvest.
• Terrain Texture updating has been improved, making it a bit more efficient and cause less instances of frame spikes.
• The Join Code system has been overhauled to use much shorter, easier to read codes.
• Farmed objects can now drop seeds if the player harvesting has the “Botanist” trait.
• The targeting indicator for tools has been updated to be more visible and easier to see in overly bright situations.
• Item descriptions now show more useful information such as their tier and type.
• Crafting Menus have been updated, and now have a new look and animations.
• The required/have amounts on crafting stations have been updated to be more clear.
• Many food items have been renamed to better reflect their ingredients.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a transparency issue with grass.
• Fixed an issue that caused unique NPCs to get stuck on subsequent loads.
• Fixed a clipping issue with the default player shirt.
• Fixed a layering issue with the pants of both the Dockmaster and Exporter
• Fixed the LOD not loading correctly for the Dockmaster’s board.
• Adjusted the LODs on a number of props to reduce jarring pop-in.
• Fixed an issue with Lady Aletta’s feet being displayed in the wrong spot.
• Fixed some missing terrain near the shoreline.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a lodge building to not reward any gold if the NPC was unhappy enough.
• Fixed a bug that caused NPCs eating at taverns to incorrectly judge the quality of food.
• Fixed a bug that caused generic recipes to not correctly be craftable due to unmarked items.
• Fixed a bug that prevented generic items from being removed from the inventory.
• NPCs can no longer use objects they can’t reach, which was causing them to lock up or get stuck.
• Fixed an issue that caused food to sometimes not be consumed when an NPC visits a Tavern or Lodge
• Fixed a missing skin synchronization script on the player’s default pants.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Lodges and Taverns to not store or save items properly.
• Fixed an issue that could cause farmable objects to spawn at odd scales.
• Fixed an issue that was causing several recipes to produce the wrong item in some circumstances.
• Fixed a problem that caused multiple tilled dirt spots to be removed when digging one out.
• Palm tree leaves now correctly move in the wind.
• Fixed an error that could make Glass impossible to craft in certain circumstances.
• Fixed a typo in the description of the higher tier bench.
• Fixed a bug that caused the glamor camera to activate while using a crafting station.
• Object labels will now correctly hide themselves when using a crafting station.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a crafting station to display random ingredients when opened.
• Fixed an issue that caused the recipe slots on a crafting station to not correctly reload after crafting an item.