The Sapling is a short simulation game where you design your own plants and animals, and put them in a world together. Or you turn on random mutations, and see what evolution does to your ecosystem!
The Q and E buttons can now be used for vertical camera movement, like CTRL and SHIFT
Fixes related to seasons:
* You will no longer get an extinction message if there still are dormant seeds (like for a seasonal plant)
* Plants that are dormant (shed leaves) now have a 'dormant' status labels when you zoom in on them
* You are no longer in 'add alga' mode after editing seasons
* There now is an absolute max age, to prevent immortal 'always dormant' plants
* Dormant plants now take damage from fire
Balancing body parts:
* The first vertibrate carnivore mouth is now better with meat and less generalist
* The first generalist arthropod mouth can now survive longer out of the water
* Small changes to eye color ranges so the progression makes more sense
* The game now also recognizes obliglate blood feeder mouths (like the bat mouth) as full mouths
Finally implemented postponed fruit shape features:
* The fruit shape now also mutates
* The fruit shape is taken into account when two plants 'merge' as a result of sexual interaction
Visual fixes and improvements:
* The meteorite model no longer hangs in the air after impact
* Filter feeders now sim closer to the surface, where the plankton is
* Removed shadows by mountains, because they were always glitchy anyway
* Fixed problem where clouds of various wheather types were sometimes rendered as if under water
* Fixed problem where snow was sometimes rendered as if on top of the snow cloud
Misc:
* Removed various glitches related to animals that just escaped being eaten
* Fixed the textual representation of 'if you see food'-type instincts (was 'if you see SOMETHING' before)
Code hygiene:
* Fully removed the old instinct view from the game
* Fully removed the old 'ovule' system from the game
I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com.