October was a busy month. The game moved to its own server and its own address, learned to speak English, three bosses woke up under the forest, the water came alive, and the ground turned out to be full of little treasures. Here's all of it, grouped by theme rather than by date.
Three bosses under the forest
Deep under the forest, three giants now sleep, each in a hall of its own.
- The Rootbreaker, Keeper of the Roots: about 110 meters down, under the forest giant. The fight opens with a cutscene, and the boss has its own music and health bar. It swings its arms, sends roots up through the floor and hurls boulders; at half health its bark bursts and it gets up on its feet, and at the end it flies into a rage and brings the ceiling down in a rockfall. The reward is 50,000 coins, plus the Rootbreaker's Heart trophy for your first win.
- The Starsnout, Lord of the Burrows: about 260 meters down. A giant star-nosed mole that ducks into burrows, dives into the floor and races underground as a mound toward wherever the ground shakes. The reward is 100,000 coins and the Starsnout's Crown.
- The Firegill, Mother of Fire Salamanders: about 331 meters down, at the very bottom of the world. A huge fire salamander in a lake of lava. The reward is 200,000 coins and the Undying Plume.
We told the story of how we dreamed them up and made them in a post of its own. Before heading down, stock up on food, torches and a good weapon. More on weapons below.
The desert got more dangerous
New creatures have moved into the sands:
- The Horned Viper hides in the dunes, buried in the sand.
- The Fat-tailed Scorpion has armor on its front, a venomous sting, and it glows at night.
- Jackals roam in packs at night and try to steal your loot.
- The Death Worm swims through the sand and comes to the noise of your drill. But it drops a key!
- Shabti guard the tombs in squads, and they pull themselves back together if you knock them apart.
The desert also has its own long-eared bats and gerbils.
To fight back, the workbench now makes shields, from the Wooden Shield to the Golden Shield. A shield adds a defense bar over your hearts, and you don't need to hold it: just carry it with you. Scorpion chitin makes Chitin Armor, and your bow gets Poison Arrows.
Fights got fiercer
At the end of the month, fights with every creature in every land got harder and more interesting:
- The sword strikes in a combo of three, then your arm takes a short rest. Each strike hits the two nearest enemies.
- A shield takes 70% of a blow.
- Food heals over 3 seconds instead of at once, and right after a hit you have no time to eat: "No time to eat — fight back!"
- Seasoned creatures show up more often, especially at night. Each has a trait of its own: swift, armored, venomous, calling for help, or draining your health.
- Packs attack two or three at a time and chase you longer, and hiding behind a torch or on top of a pillar won't save you anymore.
New weapons and dynamite
Five new kinds of weapons:
- The hammer, from the Mallet up to the Golden Hammer. A charged smash sends a shockwave along the ground, breaks the scorpion's guard and flushes the viper out of the sand.
- The Spear stabs, flies when thrown, and hits at full strength underwater.
- The Boomerang hits on the way out and on the way back, and brings loot and fruit back with it.
- The Fire Staff shoots a fireball for a piece of coal, burns cobwebs and lights up the dark.
- The Whip lashes 5 tiles out, stuns, pulls loot to you and scares jackals off.
And there's Dynamite. Buy a stick at the shop for 1,000 coins, or make it at the workbench from Gunpowder. Stick it into a wall next to you or throw it in an arc, and the blast leaves a round crater. Dynamite breaks any block that isn't protected, and whatever it knocks loose lands in piles that only the thrower can pick up. Careful, though: the blast hurts everyone nearby, you included!
Drills, the workbench and books
- Ores by rung. Every ore needs a drill that's strong enough. A drill that's too weak skids off the block in a spray of sparks, and the cursor over that block turns amber with a little lock in the color of the drill you need. At the workbench, each drill's card shows what it can break.
- Each land has its own drills. The desert adds a rung of its own: the Quartz Drill.
- Grandad's Book now opens with the "Crafts" chapter: workbench recipes appear in it one by one, and any recipe you figure out on your own gets written down by itself. The last chapter, "Nature", covers fish, forest gifts and creatures.
- The task journal (L key): up to three tasks at a time, each with a reward.
- The Adventure Diary (K key): every quest gets its own chapter, told by Cubby himself, with pen drawings in the style of Grandad's letter. It also has "What next?" and "Where", so you know where to go.
- Favorites. Alt+click a stack to give it a gold star. A starred stack can't go into the bin, be thrown away or be sold by mistake.
- Throwing things into the world is the Q key. And a reward you have no room for no longer disappears: it lands at your feet.
The shop, trade and cooking
- Every world now has a shop: the Shop in the forest, the Bazaar Tent in the desert. It buys your catch, forest gifts, coal and gems at prices that change, and one good of the day sells for double.
- The order board by the shop: three orders a day, plus a weekly order the whole world works on together.
- Once a day you can bring a gift to a neighbor.
- Two days out of seven, the Travelling Merchant sets up by the shop with goods of his own.
- The Cooking Pot at the fireplace: one fish comes out fried, two make Fish Soup. Eight dishes give you a boost for 10 minutes, up to three at once. Raw fish can't be eaten anymore: cook it first.
- Rare colorings of your catch (storm, starry and moon) are worth five times as much.
- Special nights: the blood moon (creatures are fiercer, but their loot is richer), the night of lanterns (creatures are peaceful and fireflies are everywhere), and the fish run (they bite twice as often).
- Come back after 6 hours or more and you get Fresh Strength: you dig faster and your stamina comes back quicker.
- Every shelf now has 5 places, and the artifact Cubby stands under shows how many coins a minute it earns.
Finds, artifacts and starcoins
- Dig finds. About one block in ten of the land's earth and stone gives up a lump with a find inside, at any depth, even in a dynamite crater. You wash the lump clean in a little mini-game with a brush (Grass, Copper, Iron or Golden), and in water it goes even faster. Every land has 200 finds: 150 shared and 50 of its own. Sell them at the shop and collect them in Grandad's Book.
- Gifts for a full chapter, forever. Find everything in the forest and you get Light Feet (you run 40% faster); find everything in the desert and you get Jerboa Jump (you jump a block higher). All the forest's artifacts give you Grandad's Clock (chests open a quarter faster), and all the desert's give you False Bottom (every fifth chest holds two artifacts).
- Artifact cards. The first time you get an artifact, it appears as a big trading card, with a different back for each rarity.
- Starcoins, a new star currency. Star shards lie around the world, and some nights there's a starfall. Grandad's Fuser mints a starcoin from four shards and some fuel. At the shop, starcoins buy the Star Clock (opens any chest on a stand right away) and the Star Chest, which can hold star artifacts that no other chest has.
- Coins are shared between all your lands: what you saved up in the forest is yours in the desert too.
- Keys dropped by creatures now sparkle like the keys in the ground, so you won't miss them.
The world map
Instead of a shelf of lands, there's now a real world map. Pick a land and Cubby walks the road to it on his own. New lands are bought with coins and starcoins: the desert costs 1,000,000 coins and 3 starcoins. You'll find the map in the pause menu.
A livelier world
- Living water: waves on the surface, a shimmer and sunbeams underwater, seaweed, glowing underground lakes and waterfalls pouring from springs in cave roofs. We tell how it was made in a post of its own.
- New clouds: light shines through them, their edges are alive, they move smoothly, and sunbeams fall through the gaps.
- Living treetops: trees sway and their leaves rustle.
- Lakes and waterfalls are now protected: nobody digs or builds next to the water, so it can't drain away.
- Vines hold on tight, and you can walk on the roofs of houses.
Better together
- The game moved to cubbydig.io and plays through its own server, no sign-up needed.
- LEADERS: boards for total coins, by biome, for the week and for Grandad's Book.
- FRIENDS: add people from the TOP list, see who's playing right now, invite them by code or link, visit a friend's world or invite them over to yours.
- Chat: a world chat with history, plus private messages. You can hide, block or report anyone.
- You can link your hero to an e-mail, Yandex ID, Google or VK ID and play as him on any device. And hero names are now one of a kind, with no look-alikes.
- The While you were away window tells you what happened while you were gone, and the bell keeps the history.
- Two servers, Russia and Finland, each with its own saves. Newcomers land on the nearest one, and playing together runs smoother.
- The whole game is now in English. You can switch the language in the settings.
- The game got faster: it holds a steadier 60 frames per second on weaker devices and loads much quicker. The settings now have a frame rate option.
A new quest: The Cloud Shepherd
Climb ladders all the way up to a cloud, and on a little cloud island you'll meet Grandpa Cloudchaser, the cloud shepherd. That rascal Whirly has blown his seven cloud lambs all over the forest. Find them all, and your reward is a little cloud called Puff that you can float on, and even drill from mid-air.
If you get stuck, there are hints on the quests page.
That was October. Come and see it all for yourself!