Swarm: interface, handbook and merging
Swarm's longest day yet: we played it a lot ourselves, found what was awkward and reworked it on the spot. The mode got new windows, a quest log, a handbook and a merging scene that makes you want to merge more. The mode is still in the works — the shots are from the work-in-progress version.
A new interface
Swarm's windows are now plum-colored, with big buttons, cards and rarity badges — like good mobile games. The menu opens with M, and the quest log comes first. At the top is the main path, led by Grandpa Timofey, below it the residents' quests. Press “Follow” and a marker appears on screen showing you where to go. And you collect the reward for a finished quest from the resident themselves.
All 25 interface icons — quests, items, collection, events, honey, pollen, merging and more — are drawn by hand, pixel by pixel, in the style of the rest of the game.
Merging that's a joy to watch
Merging three identical monsters into one is now a little celebration: light, rays, stars, a ribbon with the new frame and the bonus the monster got. Eggs hatch just as nicely: first the egg cracks, then you see what came out.
The handbook
There's a lot in Swarm: materials, mobs, zones, fields. So you don't have to guess what “Chitin” is and where to get it, everything can now be clicked. Click a material in a price — its page opens: who drops it and where. Click a mob — you see its health, damage, how long until it respawns and what it drops. Every zone has its own page with its fields and how to get there. The “Show the way” button sets a marker, and “Back” takes you back along the chain to where you came from.
The pages build themselves from the same data the game runs on — so a new mob or field gets its page right away. For the place pages we drew a map of the archipelago, and it goes in there next.
Mobs, bosses and events
Mobs live on the fields: some are personal — only you see and fight them — others are shared. Every zone has its own boss. Mobs and bosses drop materials, and materials plus honey make gear — for example, shears need chitin. Health now slowly regenerates after a fight.
Events happen on the fields too. A Bud grows from the pollen collected nearby, and when it bursts everyone gets honey according to how much they contributed. At night Thornbacks wake up on the fields — the whole crowd fights them together. On Windy Peak the Fluffball appears — a fight for big swarms.
Roblox-style controls
Swarm has its own controls: the camera is pulled back, and you always run at full speed — no holding or double-tapping. There are more on-screen buttons you can just click with the mouse: collected boosts, the bag, the hive. We're still polishing this.
Sound no longer stutters
This one isn't about Swarm but the whole game. On a laptop, the whole system's sound would start to stutter while the game was running — even with sounds turned off. The cause was found by measuring: the game kept the audio device open even when nothing was playing. Now on computers the game opens audio only when it's really needed — for example, when someone talks in voice chat — and closes it after 15 seconds of silence. It ships with the next update.