A week of playing it: the changelog

This one is different. Most posts here tell one story. This one is a list.

For a week I mostly played the game. Every time something confused me, annoyed me or simply looked wrong, I wrote it down. On 30 October that was a list running from a to n. On 2 November it ran from a, right through the alphabet, and out the other side to b3. Three play testers, all in one household, sent reports of their own the same weekend. We are so grateful to everyone who plays it and tells us what they find. Alongside that, two bigger pieces of work landed: a whole layer of things to discover in the village's quiet corners, and a pass on how people and monsters move.

The result is well over a hundred changes, most of them small. A toast that disappears before you can read it is a small thing. So is a farewell that mentions a flask you never borrowed. But a game is made of small things, and a new player meets all of them at once.

Performance work ran alongside all of this, and it is left out on purpose. This is only about the game: what you see, hear and do.

The Bracketts' pig, walked home. It follows the hero's footsteps to the farm yard, and waits if you wander off.

Under the hood The 2 November list alone came to 55 lettered items. They were split into three pieces (the HUD and panels; conversation, town and voice; the world, lighting and generator), each built in its own worktree and reviewed until a review round came back clean, then merged and checked as one.

Quests and finding your way

• Three tabs on the Quests panel. Story, Errands and Home, each with a small count. The counts used to look like key caps, and I tried pressing them. They are now small pills, with a title such as "Story: 1 quest".
• Paging works. The panel used to show "1 / 3" whichever page you turned to. Pages now keep a steady order, and the number moves as you go.
• Done steps shrink. A finished step is one thin line: a small picture, the title struck through, and a tick.
• Steps here come first. Steps in the place you are standing show in full. The rest fold into one line per place, such as "+1 in the hedge maze", which opens when you click it.
• Rewards as pictures everywhere. The panel, the quest card and the quest log draw the same reward strip: a gold coin pill and item pictures with counts, with a "?" for anything you have not met yet.
• The panel stays off the map. It used to cover the corner map on smaller windows. It now stops above it and scrolls inside.
• Quest cards fit longer quests. A card lays out six to eight steps without crowding.
• Main quests have a star. The same quest mark is used everywhere, with a gilt star for the main story. People with a side quest to offer now carry a plain quest mark over their head instead of a small dot.
• The done card points at other people who need help. "Folk nearby could use a hand" lists up to two side quests you could pick up next. It never pushes the main story at you.
• The panel stops jumping about. It changes tab only when you accept a quest, never when you hand one in.
• Main quests open on story time. Tilly needs a couple of hours with her father before she can talk about the wolves. Wren only comes to the Arms at dusk. Bram wants a night to think before he sends you down the mine. Until then they tell you why not yet, and when and where to find them.
• A chapter ends with an invitation, not a cut. Finishing the autumn's last quest no longer turns the page by itself. Bram invites you to the Bracken Burning, tonight or tomorrow night, and you walk to the green. The chapter's storybook plays there, among the people you helped.
• No skipping to the moment. Every "rest until the festival" offer is gone. Time passes because you sleep, sit or play. The turn to the next season is offered at the end of the chapter's storybook, and afterwards from the Book or your bed, never on its own.
• Festival steps say which day. "Bracken Burning: the green, in 3 days (autumn 12), from five till eleven", or tomorrow, or today. A tester waited on the green and nothing happened, because it was the wrong evening. If the day is not set yet, the step says what sets it.
• A word about festivals. The first festival step explains them once: one day of the year, at set hours. Arriving early on the day, you are told that folk gather on the green from five and the fire is lit at dusk.
• People who are away say so. A step whose person is out on the moor used to point an arrow at the moor, where nobody was drawn. Now it reads "Out on the moor; back at the bakery from 5", with no arrow.
• Show me leads to the crypts. Guidance into the crypts now points at the chapel, the real way in.
• The chapel says when it is open. "It's locked" became: open on Sundays and feast days, and whenever Reverend Edric or Nan Greave is inside.
• The Adventurer's Book takes the Journal in. The Journal page left the window. The people you have met get a People page with portraits and hearts, and the town's gossip and goings-on get a News page.
• Quests get a story. Every quest has a short paragraph about who is hurting or hoping, and why. I asked for "a little bit more emotional attachment" than "Father can't get to his woods".
• The rank strip sits under every window's title. Your crest, your rank, the bar and what the next rank brings.
• The hand-in card always opens. Handing in a quest could play its fanfare with no card. The talk now closes, the scene plays, then the card.

Clean slates under way. The finished step is one thin line; the current one keeps its picture and Show me.

Talking to people

• Answers lead somewhere. Ask Hollis where to get bread and the next replies follow from his answer: "Buy bread", or "Where is the bakery stall?". It used to be only "Can I ask you something else?".
• Buy goes to the thing you asked about. The shop opens on the right shelf, with the bread ringed.
• Plain questions. "Where can I get bread?", not "How do I get a bread?". A shopkeeper no longer tells you they are off duty in the third person, and names keep their capital letters ("Elsie is off duty", not "elsie").
• Goodbyes that make sense. Twenty goodbyes and greetings assumed something you might not know: Ambrose's flask, a sleeping baby, a fish story, a dare. Each is now neutral, or only said when it is true.
• Nan's key. Nan's greeting mentions "the key". You can now ask "What key?", and she tells you to mind your own business, for now.
• Tilly's gift. When Tilly gives you silverleaf, a picture toast says so, and you can thank her.
• Ambrose has a stall. The chandler sells torches, eel oil and an iron lantern from his stall on Market Row, while he is there.
• The quest mark in a reply is a neat green disc with the icon centred, not an icon squashed into a number circle.
• The room and the meal explain themselves. "A night's sleep clears weariness, and you wake rested." "Hunger gone for half a day. Takes an hour." Asking for a room too early tells you when to come back.
• People call you over. When someone walks up to talk, they call out once in their own voice: "A word, if you please?".
• Sit a while. The square's benches and a table at the Arms let you sit for an hour. Someone sits with you and passes on a rumour, and now and then it is someone who needs a hand. The prompt now says plainly that an hour passes.

Room, supper or both. Each says what it does for you before you pay.

An answer that leads somewhere: buy it here, or find the other seller.

Buy bread opens on the bread. The purchase shows as a picture with its price, not a line of text.

Shops, cards and the satchel

• The button says why not. A purchase you cannot make says why on the button itself: "Need 15 more gold", "Need 1 iron ingot".
• Forge from the card. A piece Bram can improve shows the ingots and gold it needs, and a Forge button when you have them.
• Less to read. Shop cards lost most of their text; costs are pictures.
• A hungry buyer is asked. Buying food at the Arms while hungry, Hollis asks whether you want a hot meal now instead. The bread is for the road.
• Potion cards became bottles. Each recipe is a bottle tile with a slot for every ingredient, its effect, how many you hold and how long it lasts. Tap it open for the details.
• The brew card. When a find completes a recipe, the game pauses and the potion turns into view: you can brew this now, at Mother Agnes's cauldron.
• Forge upgrade cards lay out their materials as tiles, with "have / need" on each and the gold on its own line.
• The lesson card names what it wants. The item, "You have 0 of 1", and where it can be found.
• Trophy spots explain themselves. An empty wall spot says it is a wall spot and which of your trophies would hang there.
• The satchel fills the panel, six across on a wide window. The ruby's note no longer mentions a "specialist" nobody has met.
• Glowcap has a use. Crush one for half a minute of light.
• Chests hold more than coins. Ingredients from the place, sometimes a potion, and now and then nothing but dust and bones, which Bram says aloud.

Every button says what is missing. The worn leather armour shows its forge cost in pictures.

Potion cards as bottles. The slots under each bottle fill as you gather.

Glowcap, crushed for light. The satchel grid now uses the panel's width.

The HUD and the map

• Toasts last as long as their words. A long line stays up long enough to read; a short one goes quickly.
• Corner map labels stay on one line and use short names ("The Arms"). A quest spot is named for its step, never "The spot".
• The chosen crest stands out with a light fill, a forest border and a gold ring.
• The hunger chip pulses when you are famished, and opens the Home tab's Hungry page when you click it.
• The direction pointer is a stubby arrow, not a long thin needle.
• The EQUIPPED ribbon no longer sits over an item's name.
• One set of panel parts. Tabs, sub-tabs, search, sort, banners and back buttons are the same pieces on every page.
• The map got its edges. Unexplored ground sits under fog with a feathered edge, walls and seen ground draw as joined, smoothed shapes, and there is a compass and a legend. The big map fills the page under the rank strip.

The village map fills its page, with the rank strip above and the panel tabs under it.

First person and the camera

• No more first-person card. The "Continue in first person" card is gone. Without the mouse, one quiet line sits under the crosshair: click or press a key to look around. Any key but Esc takes the mouse back, after a door as well as on a fresh load.
• Talking does not cost you the mouse. Closing a conversation by choosing a reply takes the mouse straight back.
• No sudden spins. A single wild mouse jump, which could spin the view in the maze, is ignored.
• Your hand holds your sword. The first-person hand is the same fist whatever sword you carry, with the equipped blade in its grip.

One line under the crosshair instead of a card in the way.

The village and its secrets

The biggest single piece of the week. The idea is that the world shows you things before anyone names them, and that every quiet corner is worth a visit on your first day.

• Twenty-seven quiet places each have something to see and something to find, available on a new save, before any quest.
• The Book's Places page has blanks. Each quiet place is a blank card with a one-line hint until you have heard of it or been there.
• Help comes as a ladder. Stuck on a clue, you get a nudge after a while, a firmer one later, and the answer last. Asking skips ahead.
• Quests can start from what you find. A name over a door, a bench, a candle at a grille. A main-story clue you saw early is remembered, and the person who gives that quest knows you saw it.
• Carved marks. A heron, a barrel and cross, and five notches turn up in stone and wood around the village and beyond.
• The still mill wheel. The old mill's wheel does not turn. Free the millstone and it turns again, where you can see it from the square.
• The ice house dare. The children dare you. The key hangs on a hook in the Arms, and Hollis pretends not to see.
• The tithe barn doors open with a puzzle of stones in two boxes on the beam.
• Brannoc's spring has nine channel slabs. Open the right three and the water runs.
• The wheel pit grate opens with the Rat King's keyring onto a short tunnel that ends under the well.
• A cracked wall in the old bailey breaks through to a Vere cellar.
• The empty far cottage across the mere: boarded up, a light in its window some nights, and sometimes a goblin bolting out of the back with a turnip. Its cellar leads to a goblin tunnel, and clearing it means fewer raids.
• Your home's cellar, and under one flagstone, Silas Crewe's sea chest and the fifth stone.
• Under Brackenmere, a Book page that draws the ways beneath the village as you find them, dotted where you have only heard they join.
• The crag lamp on Heron Crag lights when you hold a cold stone and brightens with each stone. The cold stone frosts near the places it belongs.
• Sounds that point somewhere. Wolves beyond North Lane at dusk once the remedy is done; three notes of a bell off the staithe at dawn.
• Forage moved to the quiet places: cress at the spring, comb at the skeps, honey on the moor, reeds at the washing stones.
• Little happenings: a light in the mill loft, something small at the bakery bins at night, with crumbs and footprints left by day.
• A climb up the crag with Tobin's grapnel to a lookout that names the places you can see from it.
• The garden walk round the outside of the garden wall opens after Fen's promise, and ends at a bricked-up door.
• A brambled footbridge to the north woods, cleared with the ember pot.
• The King Mound's door appears on the moor's skyline later in the story.
• Clues in the worlds next door: a tally post in the Charwood, a cracked rock in the mine, a banging gate at Frostpeak, heron prints in Whisperfen, and a sundial in the hedge maze.
• People where their stories say they go: Lob at the tithe barn at sunset, Hollis in his kitchen garden at dawn, and Old Nat on the almshouse bench, where you can sit and hear one of his tales each day.
• The name over the door. "S. CREWE" is cut into the oak over your home's door, and the Crewe headstone and its neighbours carry their names.
• Locked ways tell the truth. Exits that refuse you now name what is in the way, rather than "ask in the village".

Places in the Book: a hint for every quiet corner, and a tick once you have been.

The old mill. Its wheel stands still until you free the millstone.

The tithe barn's doors, with their two stone boxes on the beam.

Brannoc's spring and its channel slabs.

The ice house, the children's dare.

The Crewe stone, with the name cut where you can read it.

People and animals that move better

• Townsfolk turn on their feet. They step round instead of sliding, start and stop in step, and look at you with their heads, up and down as well as side to side.
• Little differences. Each person has their own idles; hands land on counters; feet sit on uneven ground.
• Monsters feel alive. They breathe while standing, turn with weight, circle you with sidesteps that their feet can actually make, and blend from one move into the next.
• Carried loads sit properly. Lamp's sack rides on his shoulder and leans with him, and loads stay in hand for a moment after stopping, so they no longer flicker.
• No more shuffling in doorways. Someone who has stepped aside three times without getting anywhere settles where they are.
• No more black hats. The rain hoods on townsfolk are gone; the shawls stay.
• Goats and geese move. They graze, wander and waddle, and startle when you swing near them.
• Walk the pig home. The Bracketts' loose pig and the lost lamb on North Lane follow you home. Hilde thanks you when the pig is back in the yard.
• Walk Bun home. Bun follows you to the well in the square, and a card thanks you with a honey bun.
• Folk notice when you swing at their animals. The first time, Bram has a word, with a short reaction for each kind of animal.

The hero

• A cape that shows your rank. A newcomer wears red, turning blue at rank 2, then green, purple, crimson and cream as you rise, with the scarf changing too.
• The cape flows. It sways and trails instead of snapping back at every step.
• A cleaner face. The hero's face is smoothed, gloves and trousers take their colour under armour, and the sword hand closes round its hilt.

Ranks 1, 2 and 10 in the look lab: the newcomer's red cape, blue at rank 2, then a gold scarf and a purple cape.

Fights, the crypts and the wider world

• Defeat tells you what happened. In a run you are back at the entrance, and told what happened to the gold in your pouch. Knocked down in a raid, you hear that you are back on your feet with all your things. I thought defeat dropped your gear for you to collect. It does not: you keep your items, and the words now say so.
• Dropped herbs wither, and the first time it happens you are told.
• The crypt stair asks before you leave. The stair back to the village mid-quest used to walk you out. Now it says the crypts go on, and asks.
• Candle stands carry their numbers. Each stand has its numeral cut in stone, and the minimap shows the numbers, turning yellow once lit.
• Lighter crypts, keep and mine. Lit rooms read clearly now; unexplored dark stays black.
• Nights are dark dusk, not black. The moon and the night sky are a touch brighter, and rooms indoors are no longer pitch black after dark.
• Hedge mazes get corners and courts. Generated mazes put ornaments in some corners and now and then open a fountain court.
• Levers near their gates. A lever no longer hides at the far end of the maze from the gate it opens.
• Maze minimaps show dead ends, chests and things to use, without decoration.
• New crypt skulls in the niches.
• The Fen's way in explains itself. With gold in your pouch, the signpost tells you this is the way you came in, and only the ferry gets your pouch home.
• Chests behave. The castle alcove chest faces the room, the risen chest in the Fen stays solid, and the tinkering goblin carries only his hammer.
• Banks you cannot jump in the Charwood and the Fen are now clearly too high to try.
• Village fixes. The old hammer lies flat on the Fenns' table, the far jetty runs into open water clear of the crag, and troughs and ploughs no longer sit through fences.

Late at night on the square. Dark, but you can still see where you are going.

The far jetty now runs out into open water.

Sound and voices

• Music comes round sooner. The quiet between pieces is shorter, and music fades on a change of place instead of cutting.
• Everything you read is spoken. Every clue, reading and locked door that shows a line is read aloud by the narrator.
• Hunger and tiredness say what fixes them: a meal at the Arms or a bite from your satchel; your bed or a room at the Arms.
• Narration is not cut off. Lines finish while you walk or fight, and wait their turn instead of talking over each other.
• New voices. Bram's tips and reactions, Hilde's thanks for her pig, Tilly's thanks, call-overs from Elsie, Hollis and Bram, and dozens of narrator lines. Five voices could not be recorded this month, so Nan's "What key?" answer and a few call-overs are shown as text until they can be.

Touch

The iPad and touchscreen controls are in their own post: Brackenmere on a touchscreen.

Still open

A few things are mine to judge: the cape's sway, the monsters' crouching sidestep, the sit card. Two reports could not be reproduced: thin black lines on screen while turning, and a blue box in a timber yard trough. If I see them again I will grab the browser and settings. The Quests panel on a phone held sideways is only partly fixed, and five voices are waiting for next month's recording.

For a week I mostly just played Brackenmere. Every time something confused me, or looked wrong, I wrote it down. By the end the list ran right through the alphabet and out the other side. Three play testers, all in one household, sent their own notes too. My AI helpers worked through all of it. Here are the highlights first, and then the whole list.

A big thank you to everyone who plays Brackenmere and tells us what they find. Every note makes the game better, and we are so grateful.

The farmer's runaway pig now follows you home.

Knowing what to do next

The list of quests used to be a muddle. Now it has three tabs, one for the main story, one for errands and one for your home, and the steps you have finished shrink to a single crossed-out line. Steps that happen somewhere else fold away until you need them.

People in the story also keep their own time now. Tilly needs a couple of hours with her poorly father before she can talk about wolves. Wren only comes to the inn at dusk. If someone is out on the moor, the game says when they will be back, instead of pointing you at an empty field.

The end of the autumn chapter used to jump straight to the next season. Now Bram invites you to the bonfire on the green, and you walk there yourself to see it.

Finished steps shrink to one line with a tick.

Conversations that make sense

When you ask the innkeeper where to find bread, he now offers to sell you some, or tells you where the bakery stall is. Clicking "Buy bread" opens his shop right on the bread. Shop buttons say exactly what you are missing, like "Need 15 more gold".

Twenty goodbyes that mentioned things you might never have heard of, a borrowed flask, a fish story, a dare, now make sense whoever you are.

An answer that leads somewhere.

Every button says what is missing.

Secrets in the quiet corners

The biggest change of the week: every quiet corner of the village now has something to see and something to find, from your very first day. There is an old mill whose wheel has stopped, an ice house the village children dare you to open, a tithe barn with a puzzle on its doors, a spring with nine stone channels, and an empty cottage across the lake where a light shows some nights and a goblin sometimes bolts out with a turnip.

The Adventurer's Book keeps a blank card for each place, with a little hint, until you find it.

A hint for every quiet corner, and a tick once you have been.

The old mill's wheel stands still until you free it.

Folk, animals and the hero

The townsfolk now turn on their feet instead of sliding round, and the monsters breathe, shift their weight and circle you. Goats and geese wander and graze. A lost lamb and a runaway pig follow you home.

The hero wears a cape that changes colour as they rise through the ranks: red for a newcomer, then blue, green, purple and more.

Red for a newcomer, blue at rank 2, purple and gold by rank 10.

Darker corners, less dark

Nights in the village are now a deep dusk rather than black, and the Vere crypts are easier to see once you have lit them. The candle stands in the crypts have their numbers carved on them, so the puzzle is fair.

Night in the square: dark, but you can still find your way.

Everything else we changed

The highlights above are only part of it. Here is the whole list, in plain words.

Quests

• The quest list has three tabs, Story, Errands and Home, each showing how many quests it holds.
• Turning the pages of the quest list now shows the right page number.
• Finished steps shrink to one crossed-out line with a tick.
• Steps in the place you are standing show in full; steps elsewhere fold into one line per place.
• Rewards are shown as pictures everywhere: gold, items and a question mark for anything you have not found yet.
• The quest list no longer covers the little map in the corner.
• A quest card can now hold up to eight steps without getting crowded.
• Main story quests have a gold star, and people with a smaller job for you show a quest mark over their heads.
• When you finish a quest, the game suggests a couple of people nearby who could use a hand.
• The quest list only changes tab when you take on a new quest.
• Story quests wait for the right time of day, and tell you when and where to come back.
• The autumn chapter ends with an invitation to the Bracken Burning on the green, and you walk there yourself.
• There is no button to skip ahead to a festival. Time passes when you sleep, sit or play.
• Festival steps say which day and which hours, and the first one explains how festivals work.
• If someone is away, their step says where they are and when they will be back.
• Show me now leads to the chapel, the real way into the crypts.
• The chapel tells you when it is open.
• The Adventurer's Book now holds your journal: a People page with faces and friendship hearts, and a News page for village gossip.
• Every quest has a short story about who needs help and why.
• Your rank and what the next one brings sit at the top of every window.
• The card for a finished quest always appears.

Talking to people

• Answers lead on to sensible next questions.
• Asking to buy something opens the shop on that very thing.
• Questions are worded the way people talk, and names keep their capital letters.
• Twenty greetings and goodbyes no longer mention things you might not know about.
• You can ask Nan about the key she mentions. She tells you to mind your own business, for now.
• When Tilly gives you silverleaf, you are told, and you can thank her.
• Ambrose the chandler has a market stall selling torches, oil and a lantern.
• The quest mark in a reply looks neat.
• The inn's room and supper say what they do before you pay.
• People who want a word call you over in their own voice.
• You can sit on a bench for an hour, and someone may join you with a rumour or a job.

Shops, cards and your satchel

• Shop buttons say what you are missing, like more gold or an iron ingot.
• Bram's forge shows what an upgrade needs, with a Forge button when you have it.
• Shop cards have less to read; costs are pictures.
• Buying food at the inn when you are hungry, Hollis offers you a hot meal.
• Potion recipes are little bottles that fill as you gather ingredients.
• When you find the last ingredient for a potion, the game shows it and tells you where to brew it.
• Forge upgrade cards show each material and how many you have.
• The lesson card says what item it wants and where to find it.
• Empty trophy spots on your wall say which trophy would hang there.
• The satchel uses the whole window, and the ruby's note makes sense.
• Glowcap mushrooms can be crushed for a little light.
• Chests hold ingredients and sometimes potions, and sometimes only dust and bones.

The screen and the map

• Little messages stay up long enough to read.
• Names on the corner map fit on one line.
• The crest you choose stands out clearly.
• The hunger sign pulses when you are very hungry, and opens help when you click it.
• The direction pointer is a short, clear arrow.
• The "equipped" ribbon no longer covers an item's name.
• Every window uses the same tabs and buttons.
• The map has fog over places you have not been, smooth walls, a compass and a key, and fills its page.

Looking through the hero's eyes

• The box asking you to click before looking around is gone. A small line under the middle of the screen says to click or press a key.
• After a conversation, you can look around straight away.
• A sudden jump of the mouse no longer spins you round.
• The hero's hand holds whichever sword you carry.

Secrets in the village

• Twenty-seven quiet places each have something to see and find.
• The Book keeps a hint for each place until you find it.
• If you are stuck on a clue, help comes a little at a time.
• Some quests start from something you spot, and the people in them remember you saw it.
• Carved marks, a heron, a barrel and cross, and five notches, appear around the village and beyond.
• Free the old millstone and the mill wheel turns again.
• The children dare you to open the ice house, and the key hangs at the inn.
• The tithe barn doors open with a stone puzzle.
• Open the right three channels at Brannoc's spring and the water runs.
• A grate in the wheel pit leads to a tunnel under the well.
• A cracked wall opens into an old cellar.
• The empty cottage across the lake hides a goblin tunnel, and clearing it means fewer raids.
• Your home has a cellar with an old sea chest under the floor.
• A new page in the Book maps the passages under the village as you find them.
• The lamp on Heron Crag lights up when you hold a cold stone.
• Wolves howl at dusk and a bell rings at dawn, pointing to places worth a visit.
• Herbs and honey grow in the quiet places.
• Little mysteries happen: a light in the mill loft, crumbs by the bakery bins.
• You can climb the crag to a lookout that names the places you can see.
• A walk round the garden wall ends at a bricked-up door.
• A footbridge to the north woods can be cleared of brambles.
• A door appears in the King Mound later in the story.
• The nearby worlds have clues too: the woods, the mine, the mountain, the marsh and the hedge maze.
• People go where their stories say, and Old Nat tells a tale a day on his bench.
• A name is carved over your front door, and the old headstones carry their names.
• Locked ways tell you what is stopping you.

People and animals

• Townsfolk turn on their feet, start and stop properly, and look at you.
• Everyone has their own little habits.
• Monsters breathe, turn and circle you.
• Sacks and loads sit properly on shoulders.
• People no longer shuffle back and forth in doorways.
• The odd black rain hats are gone.
• Goats and geese wander, graze and get startled.
• A lost lamb and a runaway pig follow you home.
• Bun follows you back to the well, and you get a honey bun as thanks.
• People notice if you swing your sword at their animals.

The hero

• The hero's cape changes colour with rank.
• The cape sways gently instead of snapping.
• The hero's face, gloves and sword hand look better.

Fights and adventures

• When you are beaten, the game tells you what happened. You keep your things.
• Herbs you drop wither away, and you are told the first time.
• The crypt stairs ask before you leave mid-quest.
• The crypt candle stands have numbers carved on them.
• The crypts, castle and mine are easier to see once lit.
• Nights are a deep dusk, and rooms indoors are not pitch black.
• Hedge mazes have ornaments and the odd fountain.
• Levers are near the gates they open.
• Maze maps show dead ends, chests and things to use.
• The crypts have new skulls.
• The marsh signpost explains the way home with your gold.
• Chests face the right way and stay solid.
• Banks too high to jump look too high.
• A few village things are tidied up: a hammer, a jetty, and troughs and ploughs out of fences.

Sounds and voices

• Music comes back sooner and fades gently.
• Everything you read is also spoken aloud.
• Feeling hungry or tired tells you how to fix it.
• Spoken lines finish properly and take turns.
• Lots of new voice lines, with a few more to record next month.

And on a tablet

Brackenmere now plays on an iPad too. That has its own post.

A few things are still on my list to look at again, and some voices are waiting to be recorded next month. But the game reads much more clearly than it did a week ago.