Plots: luck in the mine and a job for every local

Digging in the Plots mine got a lot more exciting: almost one block in eleven gives you something. Crops and trees now come down in a chain, and the locals have tasks that always leave you knowing what to do next.

Luck in the mine

A block still gives its usual loot, and sometimes one of five events drops on top of it. While one event is running, a new one won't start.

• Multiplier. The same block pops back up where you broke it, a little bigger, with a “2×” label. Wait 5 seconds and you take double. Hit it and you take a chance: the block can grow to 4×, 8× and 16×, or it can fall apart, and then a sad face appears above it and you only get the usual loot. Sometimes at 8× the block flashes “16×” for a moment and crumbles down to 4×. 16× is collected on its own, with a little celebration.
• Bomb. A round bomb with a sparking fuse falls out of the block. Hit it, and a second later it blows up and collects everything around it for you. The bomb only takes what your pick could break on its own, and it never touches anyone else's things.
• A golden spark lands on a nearby block and hops around. Break the block with the spark in time and you get its loot ×5 and a new spark, up to six in a row.
• Little chest. The block turns into a little chest. Three hits start three reels: coins, ore and Shaft Dust. Three of a kind, and everything is ×3.
• Lucky ore shimmers in rainbow colors. Five hits and you get a prize: coins, ore ×10, a bomb or a spark. Sometimes it's empty.

Each event has its own sound: the multiplier's clicks, the hiss of the fuse, the chest's reels. Sounds in Plots are on from the start.

Crops and trees in a chain

Cut a ripe crop, and the ripe crops of the same kind next to it get cut right after. Chop a log, and the whole tree comes down from the bottom up, up to 20 logs. The loot goes straight into your pocket, a spark flies to you from each block, and the clicks climb higher and higher. At the Crossroads, every tree and the quarry wall can now be broken all the way.

A job for every local

After the first steps, Goals used to show one distant goal, and everything else was a trip along the lines of “go see so-and-so”. We've removed those trips. Now twelve locals have 27 tasks with real work in them: the Plot Caretaker's are about hirelings, and the Bladewright, Platewright, Old Angler, Forester, Cutter, Soul Seeress, Moneychanger, Trophy Buyer and others give tasks about their own trade. A local's tasks open up when you actually need what they do: the sword ones after hunting, the pick ones after the quarry.

Goals also has new groups: Things to do, with up to three different activities to choose from, and Locals' tasks.

Pick and bags

• The Gold Pan enhancement on a pick gives more ore from every block. The Cutter applies it and has a task about it, and the first time you enter the mine, the game will point you to it.
• Ice and Scarlet Sand now go into the regular mine bag, not just the little one.
• The Hopeful Pick no longer points its blunt end forward in your hand.
• Hits in Plots knock mobs back less, so they don't fly out from under your sword.