It's been a while, thanks for being here! The holiday season always has a way of derailing my schedule and habits completely. Fortunately, the new year is also a great time to get those habits back on track.

Last update I had some plans for new levels by the end of the year. After playing Sapling a bunch and getting some feedback, I realized I had to make some changes. It quickly became obvious that issues I had suspected really needed to be addressed if the game was to keep developing. More on that below.

Version 0.2 changelog:

• Removed interval/tick based energy harvesting from sunlit leaves and energy consumption from the mass of the sapling.
• New sapling leaf and sunlight mechanic.
  • Leaves in contact with sunlight now charge for a couple seconds then absorb energy from the sunlight.
  • Leaves can only absorb energy from one sunlight (the nearest to the player), even if overlapping more than one.
  • Each sunlight has a limited amount of energy to provide.
  • Sunlight will shrink as energy is absorbed.
  • Larger sunlight contains more energy than smaller sunlight.
  • Updated leaf spawn and absorbing animations.
• Growing stems and branches cost significantly increased.
  • Energy cost is displayed on energy bar while aiming.
• Aiming helper updated with 3 states:
  • Stem/branch can be grown.
  • Stem/branch can't be grown because it is too short, blocked by a wall, or isn't angled high enough (stems only).
  • Stem/branch can be grown but will kill the sapling due to lack of energy (red aim helper with skull icon)
• New and reworked sunlight spawning entity.
  • Fixes sunlight spawning within the walls of the level.
• Level rebalancing (work in progress).
• Updated tutorial to reflect changes
• Add feedback and social links to main menu.

Now for the crunchy bits about why this change was necessary. From feedback and myself playing, I noticed some now glaring issues I thought might work out at the time:

• While the idea of harvesting energy and consuming energy on an interval felt thematic, it was ultimately very hectic and almost impossible to parse. When you made an action, it wasn't immediately intuitive or obvious the benefit or consequence of that action. Starting at this point made any expansion of the mechanics untenable as it would only exacerbate the issue. It also wasn't very peaceful or tranquil watching your energy bounce around like mad.
• Leaves could stack in a single sunlight making one sunlight could be worth the same as multiple sunlights spread around.
• Sunlight could provide infinite energy encouraging an optimal strategy of massing a bunch of branches into the same sunlight area by growing stems the minimum amount and keep growing branches.
• It took some time for the negative impact of growing your sapling to impact your energy. Given this, near the end of the level you could race upward rapidly without suffering the consequence.

Over the holiday, it became more and more clear that I had to rework the gameplay. Pushing new content would just add to the amount of work I'd have to redo after a gameplay change. After discussing ideas with my partner, we landed here with this update.

The changes in this update make the way leaves and sunlight interact much more intuitive and the feedback clearer. When the sapling grows stems and branches, you lose a predictable amount of energy. If I put a leaf in sunlight, leaf starts to glow, leaf *bings* and I gain a predictable amount of energy. That's it. With this much more simple basis, more complex mechanics can be layered on top without the player getting lost in what is actually happening. The player needs to be able to follow and trust the gameplay.

In addition, by turning each sunlight into a finite, predictable resource, the sapling can no longer stack so much momentum onto a small amount of sunlight spawns. My hope is that this will encourage more exploration and strategic spreading of branches.

Looking forward, I've put together a schedule for an actual release and have a vague idea of where I'd like to take the game going forward. For now, my plan is to start creating more level mechanics to make levels more varied and interesting. Hopefully, the next level released will have something new to play around.

In the meantime, keep growing!