The New Britannia Herald https://catnipgames.net/blog/ A nightly look at what changed in Shroud of the Avatar, read aloud. Every episode covers one day of development: what shipped, why it was broken, and what is different when you log in. en-us tools/blog-podcast.ps1 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Catnip Games Catnip Games A nightly look at what changed in Shroud of the Avatar, read aloud. Every episode covers one day of development: what shipped, why it was broken, and what is different when you log in. false episodic Catnip Games catnipgames@gmail.com 2026-09-17 · Offline play returns and the Mac build stops downloading itself twice https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-17.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-17 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Offline single player is playable again, and it no longer asks for an account, a password or an internet connection. The Mac client had been shipping a second copy of the whole game since the fifteenth of September, and four new checks now stand between a build and that mistake. Player vendors speak for the first time, the Oracle learned which shopkeeper in which town stocks what you want, and buy orders on a player vendor can be filled a few at a time.

  • Offline single player is playable again
  • The Mac client shipped a second copy of itself
  • Player vendors have voices now
  • The Oracle knows where to buy things
  • Buy orders can be filled a few at a time

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Offline play returns and the Mac build stops downloading itself twice Offline single player is playable again, and it no longer asks for an account, a password or an internet connection. The Mac client had been shipping a second copy of the whole game since the fifteenth of September, and four new checks now stand between a build and that mistake. Player vendors speak for the first time, the Oracle learned which shopkeeper in which town stocks what you want, and buy orders on a player vendor can be filled a few at a time. false 53 0:17:08 2026-09-16 · Companions answer the call and the Hidden Vale finds its voice https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-16.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-16 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Offline companions can finally be summoned by name, and they now fight with authored personalities, fall back when badly hurt, and stop out-leveling the player they serve. The Hidden Vale overworld went from no ambient sound at all to twenty-four emitters that follow the clock. Seven player-run towns stopped dropping arrivals into the water, world entry stopped waiting on the bank list, and the prison riot in The Clink can open its own cell doors again.

  • Offline companions summon, fight and retreat
  • The Hidden Vale overworld gets ambient sound
  • World entry stops waiting on your bank
  • Seven towns stopped drowning their visitors
  • The Clink riot finally opens the cells

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Companions answer the call and the Hidden Vale finds its voice Offline companions can finally be summoned by name, and they now fight with authored personalities, fall back when badly hurt, and stop out-leveling the player they serve. The Hidden Vale overworld went from no ambient sound at all to twenty-four emitters that follow the clock. Seven player-run towns stopped dropping arrivals into the water, world entry stopped waiting on the bank list, and the prison riot in The Clink can open its own cell doors again. false 52 0:13:12 2026-09-14 · Your armour took itself off and we finally caught it doing so https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-14.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-14 Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday was the end of a long-running bug that removed gear you were wearing, a deliberately failed release that proved our rollback had never worked, and a large pile of music leaving the game download. New character names now get checked before they are allowed, the guild website learned to talk back to the game, and ninety-seven tracker items closed.

  • Worn gear that took itself off after a zone change
  • A failed release staged on purpose, and what it found
  • Seven and a half hours of music left the download
  • New character names get checked at creation
  • The guild website starts writing back to the game

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Your armour took itself off and we finally caught it doing so Monday was the end of a long-running bug that removed gear you were wearing, a deliberately failed release that proved our rollback had never worked, and a large pile of music leaving the game download. New character names now get checked before they are allowed, the guild website learned to talk back to the game, and ninety-seven tracker items closed. false 51 0:16:20 2026-09-13 · The shard locked its doors and the stronghold refused to fight https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-13.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-13 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Sunday was two hours of players turned away at the door, and the release pipeline being rebuilt so that cannot happen the same way again. The world also stopped filling in with people partway through a session, a brand new stronghold was declining to run its own boss fight, and six thrones were found underground. Lot deeds now upgrade in place, and player vendors can sell a thousand potions five at a time.

  • Two hours of locked logins and a rebuilt release
  • The spawn queue that ended for the whole session
  • A stronghold fight that switched itself off
  • Lot deeds upgrade in place, house untouched
  • Player vendors sell a stack a few at a time

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The shard locked its doors and the stronghold refused to fight Sunday was two hours of players turned away at the door, and the release pipeline being rebuilt so that cannot happen the same way again. The world also stopped filling in with people partway through a session, a brand new stronghold was declining to run its own boss fight, and six thrones were found underground. Lot deeds now upgrade in place, and player vendors can sell a thousand potions five at a time. false 50 0:13:51 2026-09-12 · Invisible stairs, a crash we chased twice, and a stronghold raised in a day https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-12.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-12 Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A player found a staircase in his dungeon that did not exist, and pulling on that thread took two thousand eight hundred invisible walls out of ninety-eight dungeon rooms. The crash dropping people to the desktop in busy towns had a second cause hiding under the first, and the test shard went back several builds while the real fix was written. Also a new Cabalist stronghold east of the Obsidian Trial, dungeon entry that no longer freezes for the better part of a minute, and the arrow keys finally made safe.

  • Invisible dungeon walls removed from ninety-eight rooms
  • The tabard crash and the rollback it forced
  • Dungeon entry and login freezes both gone
  • Arrow keys in number fields no longer kill the client
  • The Cabalist Stronghold and Vitium, the Hollow Eye

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Invisible stairs, a crash we chased twice, and a stronghold raised in a day A player found a staircase in his dungeon that did not exist, and pulling on that thread took two thousand eight hundred invisible walls out of ninety-eight dungeon rooms. The crash dropping people to the desktop in busy towns had a second cause hiding under the first, and the test shard went back several builds while the real fix was written. Also a new Cabalist stronghold east of the Obsidian Trial, dungeon entry that no longer freezes for the better part of a minute, and the arrow keys finally made safe. false 49 0:12:47 2026-09-11 · The freeze is run to ground and the sieges stop ignoring their own switches https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-11.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-11 Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The world-entry freeze that has been stopping clients for weeks was found in a wait with no timeout, and the client now takes the older path around it. Town sieges got a full review that found the server starting wars it had been told not to start, and killing a Cabalist finally pays the person who killed him. The guild and town website went from a plan document to a running site in a single day.

  • The world-entry freeze is found and fixed
  • Two arrow keys could take down the client
  • Town sieges stop starting themselves
  • Guild and town website built in one day
  • Why the new client holds more memory

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The freeze is run to ground and the sieges stop ignoring their own switches The world-entry freeze that has been stopping clients for weeks was found in a wait with no timeout, and the client now takes the older path around it. Town sieges got a full review that found the server starting wars it had been told not to start, and killing a Cabalist finally pays the person who killed him. The guild and town website went from a plan document to a running site in a single day. false 48 0:16:22 2026-09-10 · The engine moves, the fish fight back, and Chaos learns to wait https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-10.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-10 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The whole project was lifted onto a new version of the game engine in a single day, against the written advice of the team, on my say-so. Fishing became a contest you can lose, after testers reported landing every fish they hooked. Sixteen gigabyte Macs get their texture memory back, the game window remembers where you left it, and nightly builds now soak on an internal shard before they reach testers.

  • A one day move onto a new engine version
  • Fishing you can now lose
  • Builds soak on QA before Chaos sees them
  • Blurry textures on shared memory Macs
  • The window that forgot its own size

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The engine moves, the fish fight back, and Chaos learns to wait The whole project was lifted onto a new version of the game engine in a single day, against the written advice of the team, on my say-so. Fishing became a contest you can lose, after testers reported landing every fish they hooked. Sixteen gigabyte Macs get their texture memory back, the game window remembers where you left it, and nightly builds now soak on an internal shard before they reach testers. false 47 0:16:44 2026-09-08 · Town lots go to auction and the loading bar stops lying https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-08.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-08 Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Vacant lots in NPC towns will now be sold by auction, with a cut of the price going to the player who left. A loading screen that hit an error can no longer hang forever, and the reason we were blind to those hangs was that our own logging server had been kicking most clients off at boot for a week. Also: every rider in the game spent Tuesday morning frozen in the saddle, and that one was our fault.

  • Vacant town lots sold by auction in gold
  • The loading bar that could freeze forever
  • Six bug reports, one avatar sunk in the ground
  • Fire warning rings pointing at the wrong ground
  • A quarter of vendor stock that would not sell

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Town lots go to auction and the loading bar stops lying Vacant lots in NPC towns will now be sold by auction, with a cut of the price going to the player who left. A loading screen that hit an error can no longer hang forever, and the reason we were blind to those hangs was that our own logging server had been kicking most clients off at boot for a week. Also: every rider in the game spent Tuesday morning frozen in the saddle, and that one was our fault. false 46 0:16:00 2026-09-07 · The game speaks Japanese and dying no longer costs you anything https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-07.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-07 Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 No game code went in on Monday, and forty-four tracker items closed anyway. Japanese language support came off the board after a reader sat down and read it, specializations became something you choose at a trainer instead of something the game guessed, and nineteen separate house and decoration complaints were proved fixed. A tester also died repeatedly to confirm that dying no longer costs you skill experience.

  • The whole game now readable in Japanese
  • Specializations you choose instead of the game guessing
  • Nineteen house and decoration fixes proved
  • Dying on purpose to prove death is free
  • Two time machines arguing about the hour

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The game speaks Japanese and dying no longer costs you anything No game code went in on Monday, and forty-four tracker items closed anyway. Japanese language support came off the board after a reader sat down and read it, specializations became something you choose at a trainer instead of something the game guessed, and nineteen separate house and decoration complaints were proved fixed. A tester also died repeatedly to confirm that dying no longer costs you skill experience. false 45 0:13:47 2026-09-06 · Twelve fixes proved on a Sunday when nobody wrote code https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-06.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-06 Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 No game code was written on Sunday, and twelve fixes still crossed the finish line because testers went and proved them. A sheathed weapon stops burning, an emote no longer ends a conversation forever, the compass agrees with the sky, and a crypt chandelier can finally be put out. One new report came in from the forums, about a lump of terrain that will not hold a decoration.

  • A compass that lied about the rain
  • An emote that ended a conversation for good
  • Weapon effects that kept burning after you sheathed
  • A long session that stopped getting heavier
  • The chandelier in the Ancient Stone Crypt

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Twelve fixes proved on a Sunday when nobody wrote code No game code was written on Sunday, and twelve fixes still crossed the finish line because testers went and proved them. A sheathed weapon stops burning, an emote no longer ends a conversation forever, the compass agrees with the sky, and a crypt chandelier can finally be put out. One new report came in from the forums, about a lump of terrain that will not hold a decoration. false 44 0:12:00 2026-09-05 · A Saturday with no new code and twenty-three fixes proved by testers https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-05.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-05 Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Almost nothing was written on Saturday. Three changes went into the code, two of them about this show, and twenty-three tracker items still closed, every one of them a fix checked by a tester rather than by the person who wrote it. Nine were about houses, four were about the first ten minutes of a new character's life, and three were the game doing the right thing while refusing to mention it.

  • A day of proof instead of production
  • Nine housing and decoration fixes signed off
  • The first ten minutes of the game put right
  • Combat that worked but never showed you
  • Two new reports from the forums

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> A Saturday with no new code and twenty-three fixes proved by testers Almost nothing was written on Saturday. Three changes went into the code, two of them about this show, and twenty-three tracker items still closed, every one of them a fix checked by a tester rather than by the person who wrote it. Nine were about houses, four were about the first ten minutes of a new character's life, and three were the game doing the right thing while refusing to mention it. false 43 0:12:20 2026-09-04 · Forty-three items closed in a day and one verification came back failed https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-04.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-04 Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Almost no new code went in on Friday. Instead forty-three tracker items were closed, forty of them verification tasks proved by testers rather than by the people who wrote the fixes, and one of those checks failed and became a bug that closed the same day. Automatons learned to sound like machines, pets stopped being reset by zone lines, summons now follow you and cost focus to keep, and four separate crafting table irritations went away.

  • Forty-three tracker items closed in one day
  • A failed verification became a same-day bug
  • Automatons, guards and townsfolk get their right voices
  • Pets keep their buffs and summons cross the zone line
  • Four crafting table irritations put right

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Forty-three items closed in a day and one verification came back failed Almost no new code went in on Friday. Instead forty-three tracker items were closed, forty of them verification tasks proved by testers rather than by the people who wrote the fixes, and one of those checks failed and became a bug that closed the same day. Automatons learned to sound like machines, pets stopped being reset by zone lines, summons now follow you and cost focus to keep, and four separate crafting table irritations went away. false 42 0:13:17 2026-09-03 · The lava stopped burning fire elementals and testers proved twenty-six fixes https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-03.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-03 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A fortress full of lava had been cooking the fire creatures that live in it, and the spell that puts you out was giving you a moment of grace it should never have given. Twenty-six tester verification tasks closed in a single day, covering roughly twenty-three separate fixes. Also a belt and a potion that would happily shrink you twice, dungeon reverb applied to your menu clicks, and a reset tool that had to decide where a character with no story belongs.

  • Fire elementals no longer burn in lava
  • Douse no longer buys a moment in the fire
  • Twenty-six tester verifications closed in a day
  • The Faerie Belt and the shrinking potion stacked
  • Dungeon reverb was echoing your menu clicks

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The lava stopped burning fire elementals and testers proved twenty-six fixes A fortress full of lava had been cooking the fire creatures that live in it, and the spell that puts you out was giving you a moment of grace it should never have given. Twenty-six tester verification tasks closed in a single day, covering roughly twenty-three separate fixes. Also a belt and a potion that would happily shrink you twice, dungeon reverb applied to your menu clicks, and a reset tool that had to decide where a character with no story belongs. false 41 0:12:52 2026-09-02 · Forty-eight things stopped answering the mouse and one tooltip found them https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-02.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-02 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A complaint about a planting bed tooltip uncovered forty-eight objects that had stopped taking clicks, dungeon entrances included. The crafting window's lot storage option now survives being reopened, three lot-sign lies got corrected, and fourteen dead leaderboards came back. A fourteen-hundred-item performance report was read properly instead of worked from the top.

  • The forty-eight objects that ignored the cursor
  • Use lot storage survives reopening the crafting window
  • Three ways a lot sign was lying to you
  • Fourteen hundred allocation warnings, read properly
  • Every leaderboard in the game answers again

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Forty-eight things stopped answering the mouse and one tooltip found them A complaint about a planting bed tooltip uncovered forty-eight objects that had stopped taking clicks, dungeon entrances included. The crafting window's lot storage option now survives being reopened, three lot-sign lies got corrected, and fourteen dead leaderboards came back. A fourteen-hundred-item performance report was read properly instead of worked from the top. false 40 0:18:13 2026-09-01 · A siege that fought itself, and books that finally have pages https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-09-01.html catnipgames-herald-2026-09-01 Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The army besieging a town spent the whole siege attacking its own leader, who was standing inside a stone shrine. The book system grew a writing toolbar, two new lettering styles, a dressed-up reading window and an optional three dimensional book. Summons now follow you between scenes, small pets can keep up with a running player, and the Oracle has been persuaded to discuss Love.

  • A besieging army attacking its own Cabalist
  • The book system grows up in one day
  • Summons and pets survive the zone line
  • A temple that measured itself six times too big
  • The arena floor you could pick a fight with

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> A siege that fought itself, and books that finally have pages The army besieging a town spent the whole siege attacking its own leader, who was standing inside a stone shrine. The book system grew a writing toolbar, two new lettering styles, a dressed-up reading window and an optional three dimensional book. Summons now follow you between scenes, small pets can keep up with a running player, and the Oracle has been persuaded to discuss Love. false 39 0:18:18 2026-08-31 · A moon on your buff bar and the morning it broke everything https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-31.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-31 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Moon Magic runs on a moon the game had never shown anyone, so it went on the buff bar, and then locked every skill button in the realm for a few hours. Vanish had been hiding players at half the strength its own tooltip promised, over a missing pair of brackets. Houses can now be moved around their own lot, Water Magic got its largest pass yet, and thirty songs written by a player are hidden across the world as wax cylinders.

  • The moon indicator that sealed the skill bar
  • Vanish computed fifty where it promised ninety
  • Water specialists finally do something for the group
  • Moving your house around your own lot
  • Thirty songs hidden in wax, with a songbook as the map

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> A moon on your buff bar and the morning it broke everything Moon Magic runs on a moon the game had never shown anyone, so it went on the buff bar, and then locked every skill button in the realm for a few hours. Vanish had been hiding players at half the strength its own tooltip promised, over a missing pair of brackets. Houses can now be moved around their own lot, Water Magic got its largest pass yet, and thirty songs written by a player are hidden across the world as wax cylinders. false 38 0:17:42 2026-08-30 · One tutorial guide, seven voices, and two brand new spells https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-30.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-30 Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The child who teaches the opening lessons on the Isle of Storms had a different voice at every stop, kept vanishing, and could not spell her own name. The startup freeze at the end of the loading bar is fixed, and the launcher now cleans up after a bad exit without being asked. Sun Magic gained a beam you plant your feet for, Death Magic gained a capstone that raises the dead around you when you fall, and choosing your two specializations is finally its own decision.

  • Anais and the seven voices of the Isle of Storms
  • The loading bar freeze and the watchdog that slept
  • Judgment, a Sun beam your allies feed
  • Revenant Stance and the risen dead
  • Specializations become a decision you make

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> One tutorial guide, seven voices, and two brand new spells The child who teaches the opening lessons on the Isle of Storms had a different voice at every stop, kept vanishing, and could not spell her own name. The startup freeze at the end of the loading bar is fixed, and the launcher now cleans up after a bad exit without being asked. Sun Magic gained a beam you plant your feet for, Death Magic gained a capstone that raises the dead around you when you fall, and choosing your two specializations is finally its own decision. false 37 0:17:47 2026-08-29 · The Saturday every character in the build became a ghost https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-29.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-29 Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 New characters wake on the Isle of Storms without a body and must find the Magic Mirror to earn one, which briefly turned every character in the game into a spirit. Client crash reports that used to arrive with four useless lines in them can now be resolved into real function names, and the first two run through it were one defect. Bard songs work in a fight again, the start-up freeze is fixed, and the Oracle answers in the language you play in.

  • New characters wake as spirits and find the mirror
  • Crash reports that named nothing now name everything
  • The blank window that lasted five minutes at start-up
  • Bard songs return to the fight, visibly
  • The Oracle learns fishing, and your language

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The Saturday every character in the build became a ghost New characters wake on the Isle of Storms without a body and must find the Magic Mirror to earn one, which briefly turned every character in the game into a spirit. Client crash reports that used to arrive with four useless lines in them can now be resolved into real function names, and the first two run through it were one defect. Bard songs work in a fight again, the start-up freeze is fixed, and the Oracle answers in the language you play in. false 36 0:17:32 2026-08-27 · Towers that missed, pets that refused, and a build that lied https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-27.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-27 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The guard towers in the castle arena have been firing at nothing for years, and now they hit. Pets will finally attack another player when you order them to, fog of war covers sixty-seven overland maps, and sixty-five bosses have a trophy waiting behind their kill. Also a build that reported perfect success while shipping forty-four broken shaders.

  • The arena towers stop being decorative
  • Pets can attack players again
  • Fog of war spreads to the overland maps
  • Achievements get records, trophies and an editor
  • A clean build hiding forty-four shader errors
  • The Options window row audit

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Towers that missed, pets that refused, and a build that lied The guard towers in the castle arena have been firing at nothing for years, and now they hit. Pets will finally attack another player when you order them to, fog of war covers sixty-seven overland maps, and sixty-five bosses have a trophy waiting behind their kill. Also a build that reported perfect success while shipping forty-four broken shaders. false 35 0:18:24 2026-08-26 · Dragons learn to aim, and bosses stop being stunned to death https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-26.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-26 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A player reported that dragons had never once damaged them, and they were right about every creature in the game. Creatures now turn to face what they are swinging at, bosses absorb between two and six crowd control effects before they fall, and the threat system got written down for the first time. Also, ten thousand missing voice recordings, and mushrooms have stopped bleeding.

  • Creatures now face what they are hitting
  • Bosses absorb crowd control by tier
  • The threat system, written down at last
  • Ten thousand missing NPC voice recordings
  • Bloodless creatures stop bleeding

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Dragons learn to aim, and bosses stop being stunned to death A player reported that dragons had never once damaged them, and they were right about every creature in the game. Creatures now turn to face what they are swinging at, bosses absorb between two and six crowd control effects before they fall, and the threat system got written down for the first time. Also, ten thousand missing voice recordings, and mushrooms have stopped bleeding. false 34 0:17:46 2026-08-25 · Shields learn to stop magic and every cape starts moving again https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-25.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-25 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A very large Tuesday for the least-used skill tree in the game. Shields can now block spells, the character sheet stopped capping the block number it showed you, and a broken shield finally tells you what it has switched off. Elsewhere the cloth on every cape and cloak was untangled after an engine upgrade scrambled it, balance numbers can now be changed for the whole shard while people are playing, and a bug report that was confirmed four separate times was never a bug at all.

  • The Shield tree gets six repairs and one new skill
  • Live balance numbers changed while the shard runs
  • Capes and cloaks move again after the engine upgrade
  • Control point waves stop being a stopwatch
  • A four-times-confirmed bug that never existed

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Shields learn to stop magic and every cape starts moving again A very large Tuesday for the least-used skill tree in the game. Shields can now block spells, the character sheet stopped capping the block number it showed you, and a broken shield finally tells you what it has switched off. Elsewhere the cloth on every cape and cloak was untangled after an engine upgrade scrambled it, balance numbers can now be changed for the whole shard while people are playing, and a bug report that was confirmed four separate times was never a bug at all. false 33 0:18:24 2026-08-24 · The bestiary woke up, and then it learned to run away https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-24.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-24 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday was a creature day. The whole wild bestiary now thinks four times faster, wounded animals break off and flee, dragons enrage, and creatures finally use the area attacks they have been carrying around unused. Battle Fatigue shipped in the morning and was retuned off tester reports by dinner, the Eastreach Gap control point stopped repeating wave eight forever, and thirty-six completely silent creatures got a voice.

  • The whole bestiary starts thinking four times faster
  • Wounded creatures break off and run
  • Cast bars, ground warnings and interrupting a spell
  • Battle Fatigue shipped and retuned in one day
  • Eastreach Gap keeps escalating past wave eight

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The bestiary woke up, and then it learned to run away Monday was a creature day. The whole wild bestiary now thinks four times faster, wounded animals break off and flee, dragons enrage, and creatures finally use the area attacks they have been carrying around unused. Battle Fatigue shipped in the morning and was retuned off tester reports by dinner, the Eastreach Gap control point stopped repeating wave eight forever, and thirty-six completely silent creatures got a voice. false 32 0:16:30 2026-08-22 · Leaving your body, thirteen-year-old titles, and tooltips that finally tell the truth https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-22.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-22 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Saturday brought two spells that let you step out of your own body and drive a creature around, forty-six skill titles that have sat unclaimed in the game data since 2013 and are now handed out retroactively, and a rebuild of item tooltips so a sword tells you what the sword is. Kobold mages learned to look after their friends, and enemies learned to stop shouting over each other. A texture tool built in the morning was used that same afternoon to take eight point seven gigabytes of art down to two.

  • Two possession spells, held behind a lock
  • Item tooltips stop folding you into the numbers
  • Forty-six skill titles, unclaimed since 2013
  • Kobold mages learn to support their group
  • A texture tool, and a very large saving

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Leaving your body, thirteen-year-old titles, and tooltips that finally tell the truth Saturday brought two spells that let you step out of your own body and drive a creature around, forty-six skill titles that have sat unclaimed in the game data since 2013 and are now handed out retroactively, and a rebuild of item tooltips so a sword tells you what the sword is. Kobold mages learned to look after their friends, and enemies learned to stop shouting over each other. A texture tool built in the morning was used that same afternoon to take eight point seven gigabytes of art down to two. false 31 0:15:48 2026-08-21 · The eye with no eye, a map that hoarded every map, and a young tyrannosaur https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-21.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-21 Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Friday brought a large pass over pets and creature movement, a map window that had been holding a gigabyte and a half of artwork to draw one page, and a new tier fifteen dinosaur with a hand-animated tail swipe. Animal Lore learned to tell stories about fourteen beast families, in eight languages. Vendor search stopped ignoring the filters you typed into it.

  • Pet leash and creature movement overhaul
  • The map window that held every map at once
  • Animal Lore gains written lore in eight languages
  • The Young Tyrannosaur and its hand-built tail swipe
  • Vendor search filters that finally filter

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The eye with no eye, a map that hoarded every map, and a young tyrannosaur Friday brought a large pass over pets and creature movement, a map window that had been holding a gigabyte and a half of artwork to draw one page, and a new tier fifteen dinosaur with a hand-animated tail swipe. Animal Lore learned to tell stories about fourteen beast families, in eight languages. Vendor search stopped ignoring the filters you typed into it. false 30 0:18:36 2026-08-20 · Ninety-three blurry maps, missing shadows, and a siege nobody could win https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-20.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-20 Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Ninety-three zone maps had been loading at their smallest size for three weeks, ambient occlusion had never once run in a downloadable build, and the first real town siege refused every kill inside the town it was besieging. Tamed pets stopped dismissing themselves twelve seconds after every summon, quitting the Windows client dropped from twenty-six seconds to two, and large graphics cards finally get a texture budget worth their size. Also retroactive achievements, streetlight controls for town governors, and a comparison tooltip that does the subtraction for you.

  • Ninety-three zone maps stuck at their smallest size
  • Ambient occlusion never ran in a shipped build
  • The town siege that could not be won
  • Tamed pets dismissed themselves after twelve seconds
  • Entering and leaving the game both got repaired

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Ninety-three blurry maps, missing shadows, and a siege nobody could win Ninety-three zone maps had been loading at their smallest size for three weeks, ambient occlusion had never once run in a downloadable build, and the first real town siege refused every kill inside the town it was besieging. Tamed pets stopped dismissing themselves twelve seconds after every summon, quitting the Windows client dropped from twenty-six seconds to two, and large graphics cards finally get a texture budget worth their size. Also retroactive achievements, streetlight controls for town governors, and a comparison tooltip that does the subtraction for you. false 29 0:17:08 2026-08-19 · Loyal elementals, empty sieges, and a game master inside a wolf https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-19.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-19 Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Summoned creatures stopped standing guard over your corpse and following you back from the ankh, and a tamed pet stopped dismissing itself fifteen seconds after every summon. The loading screen learned to give up after three minutes, Linux quits stopped being filed as crashes, and six towns held under a siege with nothing in it to fight were released. Game masters can now take direct control of any creature in a scene, and a crowns-for-gold exchange was built end to end and shipped switched off.

  • Pets and summons that would not leave
  • The loading screen that never gave up
  • Game masters possessing creatures
  • A crowns-for-gold exchange, built dark
  • Six towns under a siege with nobody home

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Loyal elementals, empty sieges, and a game master inside a wolf Summoned creatures stopped standing guard over your corpse and following you back from the ankh, and a tamed pet stopped dismissing itself fifteen seconds after every summon. The loading screen learned to give up after three minutes, Linux quits stopped being filed as crashes, and six towns held under a siege with nothing in it to fight were released. Game masters can now take direct control of any creature in a scene, and a crowns-for-gold exchange was built end to end and shipped switched off. false 28 0:16:37 2026-08-18 · A ninety foot dragon, and a month of your things audited https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-18.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-18 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Dragon totems in player dungeons were summoning creatures nine storeys tall into rooms with ceilings, and paying nothing at all when you skinned them. A month of server changes was read back line by line hunting item loss and duplication, and more than twenty real defects came out of it. The bard trainer sells the bard school again, catchphrases stopped undressing people, and the server stopped printing developer error text into player chat.

  • Totem dragons cut to a fifth of their size
  • Field dressing worked on almost nothing players placed
  • A month of item loss and duplication audited
  • Four hundred developer error lines out of player chat
  • Eleven of fourteen bard skills were unbuyable

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> A ninety foot dragon, and a month of your things audited Dragon totems in player dungeons were summoning creatures nine storeys tall into rooms with ceilings, and paying nothing at all when you skinned them. A month of server changes was read back line by line hunting item loss and duplication, and more than twenty real defects came out of it. The bard trainer sells the bard school again, catchphrases stopped undressing people, and the server stopped printing developer error text into player chat. false 27 0:16:25 2026-08-17 · Dragon breath that never burned anyone, and eight languages catch up https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-17.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-17 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday's work fixed a whole class of area attacks that had been drawing themselves and hurting nobody, including dragon fire cones and lava channels. Sieges went back to being shared fights and now hold sixty-four players. Eight languages caught up on a month of untranslated text, and the team found out why the coverage report had been reading ninety-nine percent while whole features sat in English.

  • Hazard zones that applied no damage at all
  • Sieges are shared fights again, sixty-four players
  • Eight languages catch up, and the coverage report was blind
  • The client took twenty seconds to close
  • The inventory warning that cried wolf a hundred times

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Dragon breath that never burned anyone, and eight languages catch up Monday's work fixed a whole class of area attacks that had been drawing themselves and hurting nobody, including dragon fire cones and lava channels. Sieges went back to being shared fights and now hold sixty-four players. Eight languages caught up on a month of untranslated text, and the team found out why the coverage report had been reading ninety-nine percent while whole features sat in English. false 26 0:14:47 2026-08-16 · The storm came off its leash and took the whole week with it https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-16.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-16 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Sunday was mostly one long argument with Lightning Storm, which had been striking about thirty times where thirteen was the plan, hovering a metre over everyone's heads, and losing its cloud partway through. Quick Deposit arrived, broke twice in public, and got fixed twice the same day. Summoned elementals came back down from double health, and the studio finished moving into its new name.

  • Lightning Storm and every lasting ground field
  • Quick Deposit, and the garlic problem
  • Summoned elementals at double health
  • The day you could not drag your own boots off
  • Moving the whole game into a new name

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The storm came off its leash and took the whole week with it Sunday was mostly one long argument with Lightning Storm, which had been striking about thirty times where thirteen was the plan, hovering a metre over everyone's heads, and losing its cloud partway through. Quick Deposit arrived, broke twice in public, and got fixed twice the same day. Summoned elementals came back down from double health, and the studio finished moving into its new name. false 25 0:14:39 2026-08-15 · Every skill description read, every language fixed, armor sets switched on https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-15.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-15 Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The team read all five hundred and fifty nine skill and rune descriptions against what those skills actually do, and corrected a hundred and twenty one of them. More than twelve thousand broken conversation keywords were repaired across eight languages, so five hundred and ninety two NPCs stopped answering in English to players who chose otherwise. Matched armor sets finally pay the bonus they were designed for years ago, all four hundred and seventy six achievements got badge art, and player catchphrases went from idea to built in a single day.

  • The skill description audit and its hundred and twenty one lies
  • Twelve thousand broken NPC keywords across eight languages
  • Matched armor sets shipped switched off, now switched on
  • Badges for all four hundred and seventy six achievements
  • Player catchphrases built in one day

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Every skill description read, every language fixed, armor sets switched on The team read all five hundred and fifty nine skill and rune descriptions against what those skills actually do, and corrected a hundred and twenty one of them. More than twelve thousand broken conversation keywords were repaired across eight languages, so five hundred and ninety two NPCs stopped answering in English to players who chose otherwise. Matched armor sets finally pay the bonus they were designed for years ago, all four hundred and seventy six achievements got badge art, and player catchphrases went from idea to built in a single day. false 24 0:15:09 2026-08-14 · Dungeon masters get a console, and the bard finally finishes a song https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-14.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-14 Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Player dungeon owners can now run their halls by hand as a live event, firing traps from a console, speaking through a boss and unlocking the reward chest when the party has earned it. The bard's own songs stopped cutting his music after a fourth attempt found the real cause. A cleared siege now comes off the overworld map for everyone, tamer gear finally delivers four bonuses it has advertised since launch, and sixteen school deep dives went up in a single day, dragging about sixty defects into the light on their way.

  • Dungeon Master mode and traps that can hurt
  • The bard stops silencing his own song
  • A cleared siege leaves the overworld map
  • Tamer gear finally pays its four bonuses
  • Sixteen school deep dives, sixty defects filed

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Dungeon masters get a console, and the bard finally finishes a song Player dungeon owners can now run their halls by hand as a live event, firing traps from a console, speaking through a boss and unlocking the reward chest when the party has earned it. The bard's own songs stopped cutting his music after a fourth attempt found the real cause. A cleared siege now comes off the overworld map for everyone, tamer gear finally delivers four bonuses it has advertised since launch, and sixteen school deep dives went up in a single day, dragging about sixty defects into the light on their way. false 23 0:16:31 2026-08-13 · Seventy five songs arrive and the bard is finally allowed to play https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-13.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-13 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 The music systems landed almost all at once. Seventy five period songs went into the game, an on screen keyboard appeared, USB piano keyboards now play your instrument with real dynamics, and bard skills stopped putting the instrument away mid performance. Alongside that, the achievements the game has counted for years finally have a book to read them in, dungeon owners can stake gold in a prize chest, and twenty three reported bugs went down.

  • The bard stops interrupting his own music
  • An on screen keyboard and a real MIDI piano
  • One period tune becomes seventy six
  • The achievements journal and a realm wide celebration
  • Dungeon prize chests and the first placeable traps

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Seventy five songs arrive and the bard is finally allowed to play The music systems landed almost all at once. Seventy five period songs went into the game, an on screen keyboard appeared, USB piano keyboards now play your instrument with real dynamics, and bard skills stopped putting the instrument away mid performance. Alongside that, the achievements the game has counted for years finally have a book to read them in, dungeon owners can stake gold in a prize chest, and twenty three reported bugs went down. false 22 0:18:33 2026-08-11 · The bard rework lands, antialiasing finally renders, and towns can turn https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-11.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-11 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Tuesday was one of the largest days this project has had. The bard school was rebuilt from the ground up with full experience refunds, antialiasing was found to have never worked once in this client and now does, a player's report about a single spell icon turned into a hundred and forty-four redrawn glyphs, player dungeons got portals, and town governors can now turn their whole town to face a different direction without evicting anybody.

  • The bard school rebuilt, with full refunds
  • Antialiasing that had never once rendered
  • One player's icon report, a hundred and forty-four redraws
  • Dungeon waygates, and the black screen that ate them
  • Turning a whole town to face the dawn

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The bard rework lands, antialiasing finally renders, and towns can turn Tuesday was one of the largest days this project has had. The bard school was rebuilt from the ground up with full experience refunds, antialiasing was found to have never worked once in this client and now does, a player's report about a single spell icon turned into a hundred and forty-four redrawn glyphs, player dungeons got portals, and town governors can now turn their whole town to face a different direction without evicting anybody. false 21 0:16:29 2026-08-10 · Pets stop bleeding, house lots sell again, and four fixes come back out https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-10.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-10 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday's biggest repair was undoing Saturday's. A change that stopped pets healing themselves collided with pet data that had been doing the same job for years, and wounded pets began draining health while standing perfectly still. A player read the changelog and caught four of Sunday's fixes as wrong, all four came back out, and the lot sale feature was put right end to end after its first day with testers.

  • Pets losing health while standing still
  • Four of Sunday's fixes were wrong and came back out
  • Buying and selling house lots works end to end
  • Hidden players stop being pointed at by every NPC
  • Combat numbers that did not match the tooltips

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Pets stop bleeding, house lots sell again, and four fixes come back out Monday's biggest repair was undoing Saturday's. A change that stopped pets healing themselves collided with pet data that had been doing the same job for years, and wounded pets began draining health while standing perfectly still. A player read the changelog and caught four of Sunday's fixes as wrong, all four came back out, and the lot sale feature was put right end to end after its first day with testers. false 20 0:13:37 2026-08-09 · Names stop showing through walls and the world gets its colour back https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-09.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-09 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Sunday was spent putting right what a new image pipeline had taken away, including a lost exposure setting that had made every scene too dark and a night vision spell that had turned the world into an old green monitor. Overhead names finally stopped drawing through stone, after four attempts and one build where they vanished altogether. Pets stopped healing themselves, decorations stopped resting inside each other, and the Distract skill learned to distract something other than your own pet.

  • Overhead names and health bars stop showing through walls
  • The lost exposure that made the whole world dark
  • Eye adaptation, and Night Vision losing its scanlines
  • Pets stop self-healing and remember their wounds
  • Decoration placement checks the spot at the moment you drop
  • Distract alerts five creatures at the right spot

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Names stop showing through walls and the world gets its colour back Sunday was spent putting right what a new image pipeline had taken away, including a lost exposure setting that had made every scene too dark and a night vision spell that had turned the world into an old green monitor. Overhead names finally stopped drawing through stone, after four attempts and one build where they vanished altogether. Pets stopped healing themselves, decorations stopped resting inside each other, and the Distract skill learned to distract something other than your own pet. false 19 0:16:42 2026-08-08 · The world went black and every kobold got its voice back https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-08.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-08 Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Saturday moved the client's image effects onto a new post-processing package, which delivered per-scene looks, blending zone volumes, and a completely black world for one morning. A day of voice work followed: automatons speaking as human women, every boy in the game cast to a girl's voice, and eleven hundred kobold lines that had gone missing without a single complaint from anything. Also a resized texture memory budget for eight gigabyte cards, and a tester's new-player playthrough that became nine shipped fixes.

  • The new post-effect stack and the black screen
  • Automatons, Estgard's guards, and every boy in Novia
  • Eleven hundred kobold lines recovered from nothing
  • Texture memory budget sized for real cards
  • A playthrough report becomes nine fixes

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The world went black and every kobold got its voice back Saturday moved the client's image effects onto a new post-processing package, which delivered per-scene looks, blending zone volumes, and a completely black world for one morning. A day of voice work followed: automatons speaking as human women, every boy in the game cast to a girl's voice, and eleven hundred kobold lines that had gone missing without a single complaint from anything. Also a resized texture memory budget for eight gigabyte cards, and a tester's new-player playthrough that became nine shipped fixes. false 18 0:18:34 2026-08-07 · Spike walls that never bit, a blank map, and 533 repainted icons https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-07.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-07 Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Friday went underground. The oldest system in the game, traps, finally got an owner, and two of them had been dealing a rounding error for years. The in-game map that had been blank for two days was fixed at the root, a second complete set of skill icons went in, and a swamp mushroom debuff that could not agree with itself was straightened out.

  • Traps get an owner after a decade
  • The map that died at startup and stayed dead
  • A second set of 533 skill icons
  • Creature spells and swamp gas failing quietly
  • Three times a tester changed the work

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Spike walls that never bit, a blank map, and 533 repainted icons Friday went underground. The oldest system in the game, traps, finally got an owner, and two of them had been dealing a rounding error for years. The in-game map that had been blank for two days was fixed at the root, a second complete set of skill icons went in, and a swamp mushroom debuff that could not agree with itself was straightened out. false 17 0:17:02 2026-08-06 · Seven monsters finally lose their temper and dungeon builders get a manual https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-06.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-06 Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Thursday brought a full Dungeon Builder panel, a generator chest that runs backwards to swallow your rooms, and a fifteen-section manual for the people building them. The Guild Finder went from nothing to shipped in about fifty minutes. Also, seven creatures that were supposed to enrage had their rage wired to a trigger nothing in the game ever pulls, and one Moon skill was making you worse the more you trained it.

  • Seven creatures whose enrage never fired
  • The Dungeon Builder panel, the reclaim chest and the manual
  • The Guild Finder, built in a single morning
  • Pets that explain themselves, and a tuning window for testers
  • A directory of all four hundred and thirty-five player towns

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Seven monsters finally lose their temper and dungeon builders get a manual Thursday brought a full Dungeon Builder panel, a generator chest that runs backwards to swallow your rooms, and a fifteen-section manual for the people building them. The Guild Finder went from nothing to shipped in about fifty minutes. Also, seven creatures that were supposed to enrage had their rage wired to a trigger nothing in the game ever pulls, and one Moon skill was making you worse the more you trained it. false 16 0:16:50 2026-08-05 · Eighty-one bugs closed, guild wars get a calendar, dungeons get plaques https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-05.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-05 Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A single Wednesday took eighty-one reported bugs off the tracker, with the unattended bug loop learning to split the queue in half so two of it could work at once. Guild wars can finally be scheduled days in advance, and declaring one no longer opens your whole guild to attack by the entire world. Player dungeons gained a live map, a server-checked point budget and an entrance plaque with First Clear records, and the achievement system that has been running quietly since twenty sixteen finally started telling players about it.

  • The eighty-one bug day and the loop behind it
  • Guild wars can be declared now and fought later
  • Sixteen hundred creature models measured for click areas
  • Player dungeons get maps, budgets and record plaques
  • Ten years of hidden achievements wake up

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Eighty-one bugs closed, guild wars get a calendar, dungeons get plaques A single Wednesday took eighty-one reported bugs off the tracker, with the unattended bug loop learning to split the queue in half so two of it could work at once. Guild wars can finally be scheduled days in advance, and declaring one no longer opens your whole guild to attack by the entire world. Player dungeons gained a live map, a server-checked point budget and an entrance plaque with First Clear records, and the achievement system that has been running quietly since twenty sixteen finally started telling players about it. false 15 0:17:02 2026-08-04 · Attenuation is gone, smoke bombs hide you, pets stop looping https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-04.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-04 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Combat experience no longer shrinks after a long session, and the hourly ceiling that paid nothing at all is deleted. A single bad drag could switch off the entire interface for the rest of your evening, and two faults plus a watchdog put an end to it. Also today, the smoke bomb finally conceals you, tamed pets stop dumping their fights on their handler, and every housing lot in town is drawn on the map at its true size and facing.

  • One bad drag killed the whole interface
  • Combat experience attenuation removed entirely
  • The smoke bomb finally hides you
  • Pets stop leash looping and the taunt works
  • Every housing lot drawn on the map

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Attenuation is gone, smoke bombs hide you, pets stop looping Combat experience no longer shrinks after a long session, and the hourly ceiling that paid nothing at all is deleted. A single bad drag could switch off the entire interface for the rest of your evening, and two faults plus a watchdog put an end to it. Also today, the smoke bomb finally conceals you, tamed pets stop dumping their fights on their handler, and every housing lot in town is drawn on the map at its true size and facing. false 14 0:14:56 2026-08-03 · The smoke bomb was the biggest melee hit in the game https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-03.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-03 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday's work capped a stealth damage term that made a two-second escape skill the strongest opener in Subterfuge, retired skill decay, and made unlearning return all of your experience instead of half. Buffs that had been dying at every zone line since 2020 now survive the trip, zone loads got about two and a half seconds shorter, and the Cave Wrasse finally stopped fighting like a crocodile. Also a public Resource Atlas, a launcher that can keep an old build, and seventeen tracker issues closed.

  • The stealth term that doubled Sneak Attack
  • Skill decay retired and untraining made free
  • Buffs surviving a zone change after six years
  • Two and a half seconds cut from every zone load
  • The Cave Wrasse gets its own attacks and an ambush

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The smoke bomb was the biggest melee hit in the game Monday's work capped a stealth damage term that made a two-second escape skill the strongest opener in Subterfuge, retired skill decay, and made unlearning return all of your experience instead of half. Buffs that had been dying at every zone line since 2020 now survive the trip, zone loads got about two and a half seconds shorter, and the Cave Wrasse finally stopped fighting like a crocodile. Also a public Resource Atlas, a launcher that can keep an old build, and seventeen tracker issues closed. false 13 0:16:27 2026-08-02 · Pet trainings that did nothing, and tester reports nobody read https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-02.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-02 Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A Sunday spent rebuilding the taming skills from the root, where an audit found that four of the five pet training passives had never affected a pet at all. Also the nightly automation that had quietly stopped reading tester reports and said it was fine, a single oversized item that could make a whole container unreadable, and an avatar that would stop dead with the forward key held down.

  • The taming tree rebuilt, and three passives that did nothing
  • The automation that stopped reading tester reports
  • One big item made a whole container unreadable
  • The avatar that froze with the forward key held
  • NPC voices, wrong names and gestures that never played

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Pet trainings that did nothing, and tester reports nobody read A Sunday spent rebuilding the taming skills from the root, where an audit found that four of the five pet training passives had never affected a pet at all. Also the nightly automation that had quietly stopped reading tester reports and said it was fine, a single oversized item that could make a whole container unreadable, and an avatar that would stop dead with the forward key held down. false 12 0:15:28 2026-08-01 · Two hundred bots, a switched-off lever, and stealth that finally hides you https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-08-01.html catnipgames-herald-2026-08-01 Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Saturday was the day the crowd test finally worked, and it found two pieces of code whose cost grew with the square of the player count plus an entire cheap-simulation system that had been commented out for longer than our source history goes back. Stealth stopped drawing a shimmering outline of every hidden character, and creatures can now lose you when you break line of sight. Plus the Chaotic Clone stopped introducing itself, a single player report on a Linux laptop uncovered texture streaming being off everywhere, and every window in the game learned to hold a little glass.

  • Two hundred test bots and the crowd performance hunt
  • Stealth, line of sight, and the new smoke bomb
  • The Chaotic Clone stops giving itself away
  • One Linux report uncovers texture streaming switched off
  • Window themes, glass, patterns and per-window opacity

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Two hundred bots, a switched-off lever, and stealth that finally hides you Saturday was the day the crowd test finally worked, and it found two pieces of code whose cost grew with the square of the player count plus an entire cheap-simulation system that had been commented out for longer than our source history goes back. Stealth stopped drawing a shimmering outline of every hidden character, and creatures can now lose you when you break line of sight. Plus the Chaotic Clone stopped introducing itself, a single player report on a Linux laptop uncovered texture streaming being off everywhere, and every window in the game learned to hold a little glass. false 11 0:18:29 2026-07-31 · The right-click that kept aiming at the middle of your screen https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-31.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-31 Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Friday was spent on the things that had been quietly wrong for months. Right-clicking a creature to command your pet works from anywhere on screen again, the Remember User Name box remembers, the text floating over people's heads got re-cut at twice the detail, and the character window was rebuilt around a model you can actually see. Also, ten invisible test bots set off four hundred and eighty-one fireworks from underneath the terrain.

  • The right-click that aimed at the middle of the screen
  • Remember User Name, and the quit dialog nobody answered
  • Nameplates and speech bubbles re-cut for readability
  • The character window rework and its bigger model
  • Test bots that fired fireworks with no bodies

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The right-click that kept aiming at the middle of your screen Friday was spent on the things that had been quietly wrong for months. Right-clicking a creature to command your pet works from anywhere on screen again, the Remember User Name box remembers, the text floating over people's heads got re-cut at twice the detail, and the character window was rebuilt around a model you can actually see. Also, ten invisible test bots set off four hundred and eighty-one fireworks from underneath the terrain. false 10 0:16:55 2026-07-30 · Windows, dungeon maps, and the day NPCs stopped saying outlander https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-30.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-30 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A player standing in your garden could reach through a window and open the chest by your bed. That is fixed, and so is the reason two thirds of our voiced characters called everyone an outlander. Also on the show, every dungeon in the game gained a see-through three-dimensional map in a single day, the crafting table gained a queue, and the test shard admitted it had been letting in sixteen people.

  • Reaching into a house from the garden, closed
  • Every dungeon gets a see-through 3D map
  • Voiced NPCs stop calling everyone outlander
  • A full day of crafting quality of life
  • The push toward two thousand five hundred players

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Windows, dungeon maps, and the day NPCs stopped saying outlander A player standing in your garden could reach through a window and open the chest by your bed. That is fixed, and so is the reason two thirds of our voiced characters called everyone an outlander. Also on the show, every dungeon in the game gained a see-through three-dimensional map in a single day, the crafting table gained a queue, and the test shard admitted it had been letting in sixteen people. false 9 0:16:59 2026-07-29 · Blueprints you can trade, lots you can sell, and one invisible wall https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-29.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-29 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Wednesday brought shareable decoration blueprints you craft, inscribe and hand to another player, and a full player-to-player lot sale flow proven against a harness that crashes the server at every database write. It also brought the fix for a transparent rectangle the size of your screen that had been eating every click on your own lot. Plus the chat box that kept stealing your keyboard, and every creature in the game weighed and charted in a single day.

  • Shareable decoration blueprints, crafted and traded
  • Player-to-player lot sales and the crash harness
  • The invisible rectangle on the decorating bar
  • The chat box that stole your keyboard twice
  • Every creature in the game measured and charted

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Blueprints you can trade, lots you can sell, and one invisible wall Wednesday brought shareable decoration blueprints you craft, inscribe and hand to another player, and a full player-to-player lot sale flow proven against a harness that crashes the server at every database write. It also brought the fix for a transparent rectangle the size of your screen that had been eating every click on your own lot. Plus the chat box that kept stealing your keyboard, and every creature in the game weighed and charted in a single day. false 8 0:18:22 2026-07-28 · Forty-one windows would not open and the seas were finally painted https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-28.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-28 Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A single fault in the shared window code stopped most of the game's windows from opening, and a second one meant the ones that did open would not come to the front. Decorating gained undo and redo, town governors got a tool that flattens ground for a plaza, and all twenty-five surface maps were redrawn with real water, missing docks and house roofs restored. A tooltip that had been reporting other players' damage at a tenth of its real value since 2021 was finally caught.

  • Most windows stopped opening, and none came forward
  • Decorating gains undo, redo and a terrain leveller
  • Every surface map redrawn with real water
  • A five-year lie in the damage-over-time tooltips
  • Patch notes arrive in the launcher at last

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Forty-one windows would not open and the seas were finally painted A single fault in the shared window code stopped most of the game's windows from opening, and a second one meant the ones that did open would not come to the front. Decorating gained undo and redo, town governors got a tool that flattens ground for a plaza, and all twenty-five surface maps were redrawn with real water, missing docks and house roofs restored. A tooltip that had been reporting other players' damage at a tenth of its real value since 2021 was finally caught. false 7 0:18:20 2026-07-27 · The black bar, the white text, and Graff Island's missing sea https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-27.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-27 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Monday was a day of embarrassing bugs found and fixed. All the text in a session could turn plain white because one small window asked what colour it should be a moment too early, a black band across the screen was hiding the way into every zone, and every weapon in the game had been printing a damage range twice as wide as the one it rolls. Zone maps also learned to draw the sea again, five deep dive proposal pages went public, and the top right corner of your screen finally works.

  • Font settings could fail for a whole session
  • The black bar that ate the Enter Area button
  • Every weapon lied about its damage range
  • The No Ransom tag on nearly every location
  • Zone maps draw the sea instead of the seabed

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The black bar, the white text, and Graff Island's missing sea Monday was a day of embarrassing bugs found and fixed. All the text in a session could turn plain white because one small window asked what colour it should be a moment too early, a black band across the screen was hiding the way into every zone, and every weapon in the game had been printing a damage range twice as wide as the one it rolls. Zone maps also learned to draw the sea again, five deep dive proposal pages went public, and the top right corner of your screen finally works. false 6 0:13:01 2026-07-26 · Chat, the combat bar and the whole HUD leave the old interface https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-26.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-26 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A Sunday spent tearing out the old interface at speed. Chat, every NPC conversation, the combat bar and the entire in-game heads-up display all moved to the new framework, and the combat bar promptly arrived in the wrong corner of the screen with nothing in it. Forty-five NPCs got their voices back, taming collars stopped being stuck forever, and seven design deep dives went up for public voting.

  • The combat bar landed empty and undraggable
  • The whole in-game HUD comes off the old interface
  • Chat and NPC conversations move across
  • Forty-five silent NPCs get their voices back
  • Seven design deep dives open for public voting

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Chat, the combat bar and the whole HUD leave the old interface A Sunday spent tearing out the old interface at speed. Chat, every NPC conversation, the combat bar and the entire in-game heads-up display all moved to the new framework, and the combat bar promptly arrived in the wrong corner of the screen with nothing in it. Forty-five NPCs got their voices back, taming collars stopped being stuck forever, and seven design deep dives went up for public voting. false 5 0:17:48 2026-07-25 · The Castle Atos crash, the red inventory, and a dungeon with no loops https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-25.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-25 Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 A tester's game closed itself three times in eight minutes whenever an NPC began to speak, and the hunt for it fixed three separate ways voice audio was being thrown away mid-sentence. The inventory window came back to parity after a full tester pass, and one refused item can no longer flag your entire bag until you relog. Plus frost and lightning enchants built from art nobody could reach, a generated dungeon that passed every check while being a straight corridor, and every line of Japanese dialogue in the game.

  • A crash that closed the game when NPCs spoke
  • Inventory round two, and the red-item mess
  • Frost and Shock weapon enchants, and elementals that missed
  • The generated dungeon that was a straight line
  • Japanese finished, all sixty-six thousand lines

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> The Castle Atos crash, the red inventory, and a dungeon with no loops A tester's game closed itself three times in eight minutes whenever an NPC began to speak, and the hunt for it fixed three separate ways voice audio was being thrown away mid-sentence. The inventory window came back to parity after a full tester pass, and one refused item can no longer flag your entire bag until you relog. Plus frost and lightning enchants built from art nobody could reach, a generated dungeon that passed every check while being a straight corridor, and every line of Japanese dialogue in the game. false 4 0:16:20 2026-07-24 · Hills stop hopping, two dozen skills stop lying, and a sunset ruins an experiment https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-24.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-24 Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Friday brought a large combat correction pass, a movement fix that undid the wrong half of an older fix, and the first live run of an experimental pixel art rendering mode. The backpack was rebuilt on the new interface framework and now opens in place, and a batch of long-standing audio faults finally went down. Richard walks through why each one broke before saying it is fixed.

  • Downhill hopping and the fix that caused it
  • Two dozen combat skills corrected in one sweep
  • The phantom stun icon in player versus player
  • Pixel art rendering mode and the sunset that fooled it
  • The backpack rebuilt on the new interface

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Hills stop hopping, two dozen skills stop lying, and a sunset ruins an experiment Friday brought a large combat correction pass, a movement fix that undid the wrong half of an older fix, and the first live run of an experimental pixel art rendering mode. The backpack was rebuilt on the new interface framework and now opens in place, and a batch of long-standing audio faults finally went down. Richard walks through why each one broke before saying it is fixed. false 3 0:14:21 2026-07-23 · Gates that checked nothing, an addon shop, and named dungeons https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-23.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-23 Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Thursday's work started with a release that never ran because the safety check guarding it had crashed on its way to looking for problems, and a second check that had been passing without reading anything since the seventeenth. The team then spent the morning locking down what a community addon is allowed to do on your machine and the afternoon building and deploying a store to share them. Also shipped: one search across everything your account owns anywhere in the world, custom names on player dungeons, the last of the tooltips rebuilt, and about fifty tracker bugs including a golem that could dispel your sneaking.

  • Two build gates reporting green while checking nothing
  • The addon sandbox in the morning, the addon store by evening
  • Name your own dungeon, and be known for it
  • One search across every chest you own
  • The tooltip cluster finished, and the tooltips that leaked

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Gates that checked nothing, an addon shop, and named dungeons Thursday's work started with a release that never ran because the safety check guarding it had crashed on its way to looking for problems, and a second check that had been passing without reading anything since the seventeenth. The team then spent the morning locking down what a community addon is allowed to do on your machine and the afternoon building and deploying a store to share them. Also shipped: one search across everything your account owns anywhere in the world, custom names on player dungeons, the last of the tooltips rebuilt, and about fifty tracker bugs including a golem that could dispel your sneaking. false 2 0:14:32 2026-07-22 · Crafting tables learn to reach into your own chests https://catnipgames.net/blog/herald/2026-07-22.html catnipgames-herald-2026-07-22 Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:30:00 -0500 Wednesday brought crafting stations that pull missing ingredients from the storage chests on your own lot, followed by a five-angle attempt to break that feature before players could. Twelve more windows were rebuilt on the new interface system, the dungeon builder's decoration library nearly doubled and every prop in it was catalogued and described, and stealthed characters can finally see themselves.

  • Crafting stations pull from lot storage chests
  • The dupe hunt against the new crafting feature
  • Twelve more windows rebuilt on the new interface
  • Four hundred and ninety-three dungeon props catalogued
  • Stealth stops hiding you from yourself

Full transcript · that day’s work log

]]> Crafting tables learn to reach into your own chests Wednesday brought crafting stations that pull missing ingredients from the storage chests on your own lot, followed by a five-angle attempt to break that feature before players could. Twelve more windows were rebuilt on the new interface system, the dungeon builder's decoration library nearly doubled and every prop in it was catalogued and described, and stealthed characters can finally see themselves. false 1 0:15:02