The goals for 1.2 were mostly cosmetic, since the creation of the kickstarter I’ve had an email a day asking about the lack of female units, I’ve decided 1.2 was the time to remedy that. I’ve also wanted to start putting in structures with decorative purposes, so you’ll see those beginnings in this release. And of course, bug fixes (more than I’ll list in the changelog, actually).

This was a difficult update for me, I found designing female units particularly frustrating. Before Timber and Stone, I was much more used to creating art with a higher graphics fidelity. Differentiating male from female using only a couple dozen vertical pixels (versus a couple thousand polygons) proved to be a much more daunting task than I would’ve imagined, and even now I’m not quite satisfied with their models (the wood chopper, especially). Their designing, modelling, re-designing, and re-modelling took far too many hours away from implementing real game features. But somehow I also found it fun, it’s been a while since I’ve had to create art assets for character objects.

One of the other major updates to Timber and Stone’s visuals is in the addition of an option to change how the game is being lit. If your graphics card can handle it, the game can be rendered via per-pixel shaders, which allow for more accurate lighting, hard & soft dynamic shadows, and SSAO. However, the option is still there for the current per-vertex lighting.

The changes for 1.3 are planned to be quite different than those in this update. In a few weeks time we’ll see expanded enemy behaviors which will bring difficulty back to the game, a more complex system for unit inventory, the return of the necromancer, and possibly the beginnings of a stockpiling implementation merging with the virtual inventory. Oh, and fire.

Change-Log for 1.2 

-Line of Sight checks are now more accurate for units already in combat. You should see less units playing tag rather than fighting.
-Spider digging behavior has been slightly changed, they are more likely to continue tunneling in existing holes.
-Trees now ‘wiggle’ when they are being chopped.
-Tree, raw stone and grass appearances have all been adjusted.
-Female units are now in-game, all 16 professions now have female alternates. Several dozen new female names have also been put in the game.
-Livestock now must be tended to, this is also how livestock eats. The change will lessen the amount of time your herders are standing around idle.
-Several character traits are now affecting units; hard worker, bad/good vision, courageous, over eater, clumsy, quick learner and cowardly traits are all functional.
-Ballista bolts now damage blocks they collide with.
-The Ballista now reloads slightly slower.
-Idle workers will now sit if they can find a chair nearby.
-New Decor Structure: Stone Bench. Another chair type, for your units to sit on when idle.
-New Decor Structure: Post Banner. There are plans to allow the player to design their own, but for now, red and grey.
-New Decor Structure: Pennant Banner.
-New Door Structure: Large Castle Gate. This is the first door type that doesn’t provide it’s own support. Requires at least 4 block tall walls on either hinge, with a 4 block gap in between.
-New Lighting Structure: Wall Sconce. Must be placed against a wall and one block above the ground.
-The Resource menu items have been rearranged, thanks goes to Pangaea.
-There are new video settings for lighting, shadows, & SSAO.
-Crafters will now craft items in the queue that are below uncraftable items.
-Archers can now fire at enemies while patrolling.
-Fixed a bug where the Adventurer could attack targets from very far away using melee weapons.
-Fixed an error that arose when switching a unit’s profession from farmer to trader, resulted in broken farmer progress bars and broken farming zones.
-Sleeping fishermen no longer show a work progress bar.
-Crafters now alert the player (via bubble) if they require additional workshops to continue crafting.
-Wood Choppers will now properly move forward in their work queue if the current job cannot be completed.
-Miners, builders and farmers will no longer produce ‘lag’ if they cannot get to their working zones. Instead they will inform the player that they are lost.
-Adventurers no longer gain experience from attacking dead enemies.
-Fixed a memory leak that occurred when building in water.
-There is now a check for duplicate migrant names. This also applies when renaming units.
-Fence Gates are no longer indestructible by enemies.
-Taking control of an adventurer while he’s already walking will no longer prevent first person controls.
-Adventurer walk speed in first person is now affected by the unit’s level.

The first build for 1.1 was given to the testing group a few days back, after only one additional build, I think we’re ready.
The windows 1.1 is up in the download section. A mac version will come later tonight.

Edit: Mac version now available as well.

If you’d like to see released more often than this, please participate in this poll.

Change Log for 1.1
-You now start the game with 8 units, the starting food range has also been increased to accommodate.
-Door opening animations now play for merchants and their pack mules.
-All non-military units now have the preference to wait in your hall while idle.
-There is now a notification to alert the player when a merchant arrives in your map.
-If a unit is asleep while saving, they should now remain asleep upon loading.
-New sound effects have been added for fishing, these are played when a fisherman successfully catches food.
-Doors & Gates now contain ‘occupying’ blocks that prevent animals from pathing through, this also prevents additional blocks from being built into doorways.
-Units can no longer fall asleep while an enemy is in range.
-Lampposts are now slightly dimmer, as requested by player suggestion.
-Merchants and traders now face each other while trading.
-There is now a new option to globally turn off all lampposts in the daytime hours.
-Removed rare ‘heart shot’ critical hits which would ignore armor, as requested by player suggestion.
-Animal corpses can now be disposed of via a right click menu, the same as enemies. Useful if you do not wish to wait for a forager (of if he can’t reach the animal).
-Fixed an error where obstructed structures (beds especially) would be selected when right clicking on blocks above.
-Fixed a bug where multiple crafters would work toward a crafting a single structure. This would usually result in loss of resources.
-Fixed a bug that occurred when units fell from ladders, the falling state wouldn’t correctly trigger, and the unit would float with negative health.
-Cancelling structure construction should no longer bug its crafters’ progress bar.
-The slain merchant notification has been corrected.
-Fixed a crafting bug that would occur when building beds next to walls with a 1 block height.
-New Profession: Adventurer
-The default music volume has been lowered.
-Halting while showing bow range on an archer/forager no longer permanently displays the range.
-New UI element containing additional controls for Infantry, Archers, and Adventurers. These can be found by left clicking the image of the unit in the frame at the bottom right corner of the screen.
-New military control – Guard Position: The unit will attack anything that comes into his sight range, but will always return to the guard position when idle.
-New military control – Patrol: Allows the player to set a route for the unit to patrol. Can still attack and take regular commands, but will always return to the patrol when idle.
-New military control – Guard Unit: Choosing this will command the unit to follow and guard another unit. Useful for protecting your foragers and wood choppers.
-You’re now given a small amount of wheat when starting a new game.
-There is now a limit on spider spawns, they should also be less inclined to re-burrow and tear up your map.
-New sound effects have been added for melee combat.
-Goblin types are now being saved, you should no longer be seeing goblin ravagers turn into archers upon loading your game.
-There is now a preference for builders/miners to only look for work in their sight range (~20 blocks or so). When this preference isn’t checked, they would always find the closest blocks to work, regardless of distance (this is how they worked in versions prior to 1.0).
-The rate of merchant visits and migration is now affected by how many roads you have leading out of the settlement. A road in each cardinal direction will maximize your visits.
-Goblins are now more aggressive, especially after finding your roads.
-New Furniture Structure: Bed (Cloth), contains a cotton-filled mattress and cloth bedding. The required materials for the straw bed have also been changed, they now require animal hide instead of cloth, and less wheat.
-Fixed a bug where wood choppers would produce lag if they could not reach their target tree.
-Building & mining work finding is slightly faster, this should only really be noticeable if your designations are near the 1000 block limit.
-Fisherman are now ‘better’ at finding fish, they are less likely to stand idle if they cannot find work.
-Units will no longer stand in the air upon waking from a bed.
-Foragers can now collect animal hide from hunted boar and sheep.
-Holding ALT while right clicking to move a military unit will allow them to find targets and attack while walking to their destination.
-Saving now produces a subdirectory with a backup save.
-The ‘halt’ icon is now shown red when activated, instead of grey.

Just have to post one more beta before v1.0. The last update had a few too many bugs for my liking. I’ll post a few of the more important fixes below.

Bug Fixes:
Fixed a fatigue regeneration error that would occur while sleeping
Fixed an error where Migrants and Merchants wouldn’t show up if your hall was cluttered.
Fishermen should now be able to fish off docks that are greater than one block above water.
Fixed an issue with builders trying to path to roofing even if the blocks were unreachable with a ladder.
Remedied another issue with builders not moving onto another available block if the closest was unpathable.

Figure it’s about time to update the main page here. There’s been about 9 or 10 releases to the testing group since 0.5b, so I should probably post another numbered release.  These tester only builds have seen new professions, including a Trader, Herdman, and Tailor. Some new gameplay features have also been added, these include: ballistae, roads, sleep & fatigue, merchants, livestock farming, and decorative furniture. A full change-log will be posted below.

Also worthy of note, is that this will be the last release of this kind before the first public release (v1.0), so please, please, get your bug reports in, anything that looks like it should be fixed for 1.0. Severe drops in frame rate, odd unit behavior, pathing issues, work finding issues, balance tweaks, even GUI ugliness. Post it all.

Change Log For Version 0.9b

General Changes:
Fatigue & Sleep – Fatigue now affects a unit’s work pace and will force them to sleep. A well rested miner, for example should mine twice as fast as an exhausted miner, provided they are of the same level. Units can either sleep in a crafted bed, or right on the ground, and fatigue (health also) will regenerate while the unit sleeps. To control when or how often your workers find sleep, there are settings in the unit’s preferences tab. Beds can be assigned ownership to a single unit, or assigned to specific professions, or set to be free for all. Sleeping in a bed is more fatigue efficient that sleeping on the ground.
Roads & Hall Designation – Your hall is a designation to establish the location of your town hall / meeting hall. In order for migrants and merchants to travel to your map, you must have a road that leads from the edge of the map into and back out of your hall. All visitors will follow these paths in order to interact with your settlement. It’s best to keep these roads protected.
Migration -  Migrants now bring a variety of resources along with them as they come into your settlement. What they bring is usually related to their profession, migrant farmers for example can now bring seeds, and blacksmiths might carry metal ingots, weapons, and armor. The migrant window will not pop up as soon as the migrant enters your map as in previous versions, instead the message will be displayed when he has made his way into your meeting hall.
Diagonals –  Units can now work and path diagonally, this allows your builders to walk and build across diagonal walls with 1 block thickness.
Ballista – The first of the siege weapons for Timber and Stone. They require an operator in the form of an infantry unit (set to ‘operate siege weapons’ in his preferences tab). Siege equipment will always require player interaction, so aiming and preferences are set when selecting the ballista by left clicking.

New Professions:
Tailor – Tailors are the crafting profession that works with raw fibers and leather to provide cloth resources, basic armors, and rope. Their tools include a loom, and shears.
Trader – Works with travelling merchants to negotiate trades. In order to barter, your trader must meet with a merchant in your hall. They will then work out a random number of trades which will be presented to the player for final approval. The trader will gain experience from this regardless if the trades are accepted or not. Also important to note, the more time a merchant spends waiting for a trader to meet him, the less likely they will be able to come to agreements when negotiating.
Herder – your animal husbandry worker, requires a bit of player interaction to get started, then they’re as self sufficient as crop farmers. Right click on an animal you wish to domesticate, it will then follow your herder. Next, you should lead the animal into a fenced in area. Right click again, and you can release the animal for domestication. Once released, the herder can start to gather resources. Like farming, it takes a while for the animals to become ready to be “harvested”. You can gather hair, eggs, feathers and wool. You can also slaughter the animals, which provides the same resources as hunting, but is quicker.

New Resources & Gatherables:
Cloth - Created from wool, cotton, or flax fiber. Variety of uses including bedding and torches.
Shears – Used by the Tailor and Herder professions.
Cotton – Another non-food farming product, used to make cloth.
Wool – Obtained by hunting or tending to Sheep, Forager and Herder respectively.
Torch – Torches can now be equipped in the off-hand slot for all professions. They are crafted by carpenters or engineers, and require wood, cloth, and animal fat. The recipe provides 2 torches.
Shepherd’s Crook – Necessary when herding and moving livestock.

New Structures:
Loom
Straw Bed
Medium Table
Large Table
Wood Chair
Fence Gate
Ballista