Desert 0.2.1-alpha — Sailboat

0.2.1-alpha “Sailboat”

Richer sand and trails, recoverable Nomad sailing gear, and fixes from sailing playtests.

• More depth and shade in dune sand and nearby ripples.
• Sand trails gain shaped depressions and rims that flatten the surrounding ripples.
• Nomad wrecks and camps with recoverable sailing gear, a streamer and a crow's nest.
• The dev console can open over any menu; unlocking origins updates the open menu.
• A crow's nest can be placed on a standing mast from deck height.
• The Varran's sheet ring rests on the deck, and waist ropes follow the rider's displayed movement.
• Waist lines show the selected line's name, length and tension; reeling and untying work that same line.
• The board can catch up on slack lines and carry momentum around a sailing rig. Motor assistance is limited under load; heavy towing grounds it and makes it sputter until you ease off.
• A physical sailing field guide in the sail scenario explains wind, trim, steering and the Varran bridle.
• Shorter weather announcements, spoken when storm news changes.

0.2.0-alpha

The second alpha of a cozy survival game on a dead desert moon. Your home is a bubble
shield you carry with you, on a rig you build and tie down against the wind. Everything
is still rough: grey boxes, placeholder sounds, numbers still moving. It's here to be
played and broken.

New since 0.1

• The chassis is the one structure. Crates and slots are gone:
  • Anything sticks on a chassis's faces, and frames take walls and shelves.
  • Hover trays lift toward the sand they face.
  • Everything on a deck shares one power pool.
  • Walls and fabric catch the wind and shelter what's behind them.
• Power boxes come in four makes, from a colonial cabinet to a temple shrine. Each bay has
  a light strip, and a Console ranks and switches devices as far as the box allows.
• Sailing for real:
  • The sheet is a line you haul in and ease out, and the cloth shows its trim.
  • With a helm and a keel, a camp sails as a land yacht.
• The hoverboard skids on hard carves, lands hard, crashes, and comes in four makes.
• Deeds: 40 of them in eleven trees, earned in play with a bell and a badge. Four starts
  open by deeds.
• Two new starts:
  • The Varran settler flies a kite rig with his board as its keel.
  • The Archaeologist digs ruins out of the dunes.
• Dune archaeology:
  • Storms strip windward faces and bury the lee.
  • Big dunes hide ruins that a big storm bares.
  • A Console's ground radar maps what's buried, and a scoop and a sieve dig it out.
• Wrecks to cut open seam by seam, with live hazards to make safe first.
• The anomaly: a rare storm the forecast can't see, and the tells that give it away.
• Vents and plumes: sand columns that tower over the storm walls from far off, and booms
  that arrive after you see the burst.
• Sightlines: ruins on the horizon, true to size, catching the light.
• Sleep in a bedroll to skip a night or a storm, and auto-walk for the long haul.
• The radio:
  • Its storm reports come in a recorded voice.
  • Seven gods broadcast on its dial.
• Sand that reads as sand:
  • lopsided ripples;
  • grain at your feet;
  • grainflows down slip faces.
• A creative menu in the dev console, to build anything in a test run.

What's in it

• The moon: endless dunes that the wind reshapes. A day and night with the gas giant
  Tu overhead and its eclipses, and storms you can see coming as a wall on the horizon.

• The camp:

  • a bubble shield that keeps the storm out;
  • chassis pieces you join into a deck, with hover trays, frames and walls;
  • whatever you find stuck on it: devices, batteries, hooks, lamps, a sail.

• Power: solar panels, a wind turbine, batteries, power boxes and cables, on a budget
  that has to last through night and storm.

• Rope: stakes, lines and reels to moor what floats and tow your camp behind you.

• Survival: water, food and a suit with five slots, and a condenser that wrings water
  out of the air.

• Salvage: finds half-buried in the dunes, ruins to walk into, and wrecks to cut open,
  all uncovered and buried again as the weather moves the sand.

• Farming: planters that grow root-tubers in the clear and vat fungus in the storm's
  dark, wild saltbush, and a harvester that feeds you.

• Gear: hoverboards, a radio, a Console for your instruments and maps, and a compass that
  Tu's field and the ground pull off north.

• Five origins:

  • the Surveyor tows a camp;
  • the Salvager rides light;
  • the Homesteader stays put;
  • the Varran sails;
  • the Archaeologist digs.

  All but the Surveyor open by deeds. Each runs in Normal, which saves as you go, or
  Ironman, where death ends the run.

• The dev console and its scenarios are left in, for jumping straight to a storm, a
  wreck or a vent. A scenario's run, or any run a dev command has touched, counts no deeds.

How to start

1. Unzip the download for your computer and open the folder.
2. Start the game:
   • Windows: Desert.exe.
   • macOS: Desert.app.
   • Linux: Desert.x86_64. If it won't start, make it executable first:
     chmod +x Desert.x86_64.
3. Choose New game, pick who you come as, then Normal.
4. Press F1 for the keys list. It shows every key as it's bound now. F11
   switches fullscreen.

You'll need a graphics card with Vulkan (Windows and Linux) or a Mac on macOS 13 or
later (Apple silicon) or 11 or later (Intel).

Known issues

• The builds aren't signed, so your computer will warn you the first time:

  • Windows SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then
    Run anyway.
  • macOS says the app can't be opened because Apple can't check it for malicious
    software. Control-click Desert.app, choose Open, then Open again. On
    macOS 15 or later, try to open it once, then go to System Settings → Privacy &
    Security and click Open Anyway. Or, in Terminal, from the folder it's in:
    xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine Desert.app.

• Saves from 0.1 don't load, since the camp is built differently now. Your settings
  carry over.

• Saves may not carry over between later builds either. A build that can't read a save
  says so on the main menu and leaves it alone; it never loads half a run.

• It's an alpha. Expect rough edges, odd physics in a hard storm, and balance that
  will change. Your save, your profile and the game's logs are in:

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\Desert
  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Godot/app_userdata/Desert
  • Linux: ~/.local/share/godot/app_userdata/Desert

  The version is in the main menu's corner. Please name it when you report a bug.