v0.0.5 - Overhaul

 It gives me great pleasure to announce that version 0.0.5 of The Spotter’s Guide to Skelburn Park has finally been released! You can download and play the latest update right now, and I hope you’ll enjoy the wealth of new features on offer. This has been the largest update to the game so far, but it pales in comparison to those still to come. I’ll talk more about my plans for version 0.1 in a future devlog, but for now, let’s take a closer look at the new features available in 0.0.5…

4 New Birds

First things first, the birds. 0.0.5 is the first update to bring more than one new bird to Skelburn Park. In fact, it brings four. These are the tiny goldcrest, the familiar house sparrow, the unique starling, and the magnificent redstart.

This brings the total number of birds in the game to ten, almost double that of the previous version! As always, you can find more information about these incredible birds in-game via The Spotter’s Guide. And speaking of which…

Guide Improvements

The Spotter’s Guide itself has had a number of tweaks in this update. Firstly, the introduction of a contents page. Rather than flipping through the book page by page, you can now use the contents page to navigate directly to your bird of choice. You can also return to the contents page from any other page in the book, thanks to the inclusion of a new return button. Of course, the guide also has four new pages for the new birds, as well as a new page-turning sound effect. A minor addition, perhaps, but nonetheless important.

Scenery Detail

Up until now, the scenery in both the background and foreground of the level has been severely lacking in detail. This changes in 0.0.5, where great care has been taken to dramatically increase the level of detail across the board. In the background, fields are no longer slabs of solid green, they are now textured with grass stubble, tramlines, maybe even the odd crop circle… In the foreground, the woodland floor is covered with thick grass and beautiful snowdrops. Mushrooms grow on the trunks of trees and, most importantly, birds flock to new perching spots on the ground. In fact, in version 0.0.5, there are a total of twenty potential perching spots, compared to just ten in 0.0.4.

Other Stuff

Well, those are all the major changes in version 0.0.5. There are a couple of smaller things worth mentioning, though. First of all, the ‘settings’ button in the radial menu now has a new icon, which should hopefully make its purpose more apparent. The map also has some new functionality, insofar as that it can be opened. Sadly, it’s still blank inside, but this small change is to pave the way for things to come. Finally, this version of the game includes a small easter egg. Obviously, I won’t tell you what it is, but if you do manage to find it, a sticker will appear on the front page of the guide book as a reward (keep in mind that resetting the guide book will also remove this sticker).

Thank you for taking the time to read this devlog, and please enjoy the update.

Happy Spotting!