Hey everyone, I hope you had an awesome December and a great new years!

This month I've been feeling kinda bleh, with that and it being the holidays I've tried to take things a bit slower.

(To see links as images all in one place please check the Patreon version: https://www.patreon.com/posts/75431590 )

# Game Features

## Camera Rework

Changed how the camera works, took out the smooth zoom and made the Camera only exist at rounded x/y value of the Player. This fixed the weird scaling issues when zooming where you'd see things being 1 pixel wider or taller than they should be and the sprite wobble glitch when you stop moving.

## Snow Rework

Changed how Snow and Wet Sand are generated and stored when Culled

https://i.imgur.com/N8dokoa.mp4 

 

I'm now storing them in a ds_map and a ds_list, so I can check a ds_map cell to see if there isn't snow there already for creation, and use the ds_list for quick searching for an existing one to destroy when removing them.

Very important to remove BOTH entries when I remove one!

I'm also now checking against the AI collision map that Goblins and Animals use to see if they can move into an area. This saves me making a another whole check list of things, but since Grass isn't in the AI collision map, I've just made it so Snow can spawn under it for consistency.

https://i.imgur.com/Wur5PkR.mp4

I'm going to have to do something about how much Snow can exist at once though, since it's eating into the frame rate. Figuring out how to merge them into one object might work, or drawing them all at once with depth sorting maybe?

HMM! Reworked Weather to be localised?

https://i.imgur.com/Wur5PkR.mp4

This will save me loads of frames by not covering the whole island in snow. If necessary I can have multiple spots, and maybe even have them move?

I guess the trick now is figuring out how to make it less square, I do have them set up for random width/height.

I can probably use the shape system from the world gen that makes the rocks and trees etc, so it'll use the square but only place snow if it's in the circle of the square. This wont work with random sizes though, I'll have to have the shape in an array for each width/height variety so that's no good really.

What about having it move?

https://i.imgur.com/trgmw9S.mp4

I like this but I think I need a cloud, seems weird just appearing out of nowhere?

https://i.imgur.com/bFRdUCj.mp4

Not quite a cloud but it'll do for now as proof of concept

https://i.imgur.com/KQKkTd7.mp4

Reworked the shape/size and changed the angle of Rain!

https://i.imgur.com/jObMnRb.mp4

Also reworked how Snow and Wet Sand despawn, they now have life which decreases based on correct weather, their distance to weather cloud and the season! So for example, Snow melts faster in Summer!

Rain now waters Crops and Plant Pots in a specific area!

https://i.imgur.com/Uns1W8G.mp4

Slight issue with the Wet Sand despawning here, forgot the divide the coords by 16 to get the ds_map cell position!

## Saving/Loading

Got Snow saved!

Also Weather and Time are now saving!

https://i.imgur.com/cLnOYyR.mp4

Update! New Weather system saves! :D

https://i.imgur.com/diw4Abk.mp4

Slight graphical glitch there, I was had the code the sets up the Particle system being loaded AFTER the system was started :S FIXED!

## Item Gifting

I reused the Players Inventory screen and also updated the Chatting system to get this working right. Goblins will have likes and dislikes but for now their response is random.

https://i.imgur.com/RUxDtef.mp4

I'm going to add emotes to the portrait and a heart meter to the UI box, like with Pets!

https://i.imgur.com/k6pWUFB.mp4

Like so! I actually just used the exact same UI, just moved some things around and added a condition to get menu options based on if NPC or Pet. :D

# New Things!

## Lemon Trees

https://i.imgur.com/OE1WCXr.mp4

Along with Lemons from the trees, you can also make Lemonade!

I was working on a better tree design, but here's bigger Lemons in the meantime!

 https://i.imgur.com/f0QUZie.mp4

## Free Cam

No idea what this will be used for, maybe just cutscenes? But it's set up now!

https://i.imgur.com/3alC8uW.mp4

There was a some more stuff I was working on but got distracted trying to track down a bug where something was trying to access outside a grid. Never found what :|

Also fixed a bunch of problems I made for myself with the Minimap where it wasn't updating properly. Turns out I'd changed the surface cleanup code from 

surf = -1; surface_free(surf);

to

surface_free(surf); surf = -1;

while the second version makes logical sense, seems it doesn't work that way.

I hope the new year is treating you all well.

Thank you so much for your support and help this past year it's really meant a lot to me and helped me so very much to keep going.

https://i.imgur.com/IWGmfDY.mp4

Keep being awesome everyone! <3 <3 <3