Patch notes

3 November — a tidier screen#

• The HUD scales as one In the alpha: counters, the quest scroll, the ability bar, menus and effects now grow and shrink together with the game window, and stay inside it in tall windows.
• Right-sized friends In the alpha: Pip and the other named characters no longer appear too large in the world. Their art is unchanged; only the drawing scale was fixed.
• Keyboard: Tab now moves between game controls, and I opens the inventory.
• Fixed: an effect could block the click that opens the quest list.

2 November — the alpha comes together#

• A real journey In the alpha: in the lead’s local alpha you can walk from Hearth through Nearfield Glade to the Threadway, visit Starwell, ride the Pneumatic tube up to the Quiet District and come home again. Nothing teleports you.
• Practice works In the alpha: the bug that refused travel to Memory Meadow is fixed, and nine lessons are connected.
• Rewards are honest In the alpha: a room pays out only after the real turn engine confirms the result. The old debug circles, floating labels, web panel and free helper are gone.
• Faster Threadway In the alpha: the street now loads in nearby sections. The lead measured about 105 MB at start instead of 482 MB, ready in about 3 seconds instead of 11.
• Approved art Approved: all 16 turn-based room backgrounds, every turn effect, every Run HUD piece, the Quiet Tracts repair art and the redrawn monocyte. Most of these are already in the alpha.
• Your cast Approved: Fen, Bram, Mote, Pip, Rill and Cress have chosen looks. The larger, recoloured Ranger, Pip and Mote were withdrawn.
• Coming next Approved: home disturbances become turn-based boards, the board grid becomes a real grid with a strong border, and a shuffle engine will build varied but fair runs.
• Still old online: the public preview site still runs an older build (82c3add). The local alpha is not pushed.
• This wiki is new: it now works like a Fandom wiki, with an article for every character, place and system, infoboxes, categories, link previews and a better search.

1 November — turns, not timers#

• Encounters are turn-based Approved: rooms now play like Into the Breach. You move on a grid, the threats show what they will do next, and you can undo a move. See Turn-based encounters.
• Small tiles, clear goals Approved: the grid uses 24 px squares and stays visible. Every lesson explains itself in plain text.
• The Apothecary changes Approved: it now offers signal tuning, rest and a calming visit from an astrocyte. Field gear moved to the Workshop.
• New fonts In the alpha: the game uses the approved Canopy and Fieldnotes fonts.
• A quest scroll In the alpha: quests open on a winding scroll with unread markers.
• Threadway doors In the alpha: you can enter several buildings, and the camera tilts as you walk.

31 October — the game is now Arborwake#

• Renamed: the project and game are now called Arborwake everywhere in the accepted game, its documents and this wiki. Accepted game
• Your saves move with you: the first time you open the renamed game in a browser, it copies your existing saves across, keeping both slots, and leaves the old ones in place as a backup. Close any tabs running an older build first.
• Memory Meadow: the practice place formerly called Practice Grove is now Memory Meadow. In the story it is also the Act V refuge. Approved
• Walking in depth Accepted game: the Threadway gained walking between front and back layers, lifts and polygon-shaped floors on main, behind an opt-in switch.
• New game plan: version 0.5 of the game plan and its companion dossier became the plot authority. See Arborwake: The Long Wake. Approved
• Not renamed yet: the old Expeditions and Skills demos still show the old name inside, because they are frozen copies of earlier commits.

30 October — a world to walk in#

• Overworld preview In the alpha: the lead built a six-place overworld on the Placeholder branch, with roaming cells, free movement around scenery and fades between connected places. It became the public preview.
• Systems work opens up: you allowed parallel work on overworld characters, skills, items, keepsakes, quest rewards and the economy.

29 October — the wiki opens#

• New: this wiki. One place to play, review and build, which opens straight from disk. Every demo is a single file you can double-click; nothing points into an agent’s worktree any more.
• New: honest status on everything. Each feature now says where it lives (Accepted game Dev prototype Proposed Retired) and who checked it.
• Checked: the wiki reran Claude A’s and Claude B’s automated tests at their latest commits — all passed (163/163; 69/69 and 42/42). That is a useful signal, not acceptance.
• Art Proposed: pericytes now sit on curved, living vessel surfaces (k015), replacing the rejected “pipe” kit. Waiting for your review.

28 October — cells that touch#

• Art Dev prototype: cells got living connections. Astrocyte processes bend as you brush past; a neuron’s axon carries myelin wraps from an oligodendrocyte; all six non-player cells can be made solid. Try them on the Characters page.
• Art: the neuron’s dendrite crown and the oligodendrocyte’s wraps were approved; an oligodendrocyte body notch was repaired.

27 October — a big day on every branch#

Expeditions arrive (as a prototype) Dev prototype#

• Generated runs: a seed builds a short trip from hand-made rooms, with an optional harder side branch.
• Six encounter types, each based on real research: The Breach (injury waves), Quiet Tract (repairing myelin with precursor cells), Pressure Front (stress “weather”), Relay Chain (outside help with a cost), Many Hands (cells cooperating around a leak) and the optional Tag Garden puzzle.
• The Quiet District: restore white-matter rooms to repair a road home, earning a note, a new resident, a faster road and a shortcut.
• Your rule applied: losing any neuron or tract segment now fails the room at once.
• Accessibility: Gentle mode and a Comfort option that swaps visual effects for slower work.
• Play the demos.

Classes and skills arrive (as a prototype) Dev prototype#

• Three play styles: Sentinel (long reach, anchor and pull), Coordinator (a companion and crowd steering), Warden (sheltering rings and braces). One button: tap or hold.
• Ten run upgrades with trade-offs.
• A skills lab that runs them inside Claude A’s real rooms.
• A proposed new home — the “living circuit” homestead — playable as a demo and awaiting your decision.
• The first skill set (Dash, Sweep, Beacon) was retired after Claude B’s own audit Retired.

Art Proposed#

• The Ranger is chosen: the “Drift” look with “Bloom” softness, in eight directions plus a side view — approved.
• The cast is redrawn from real anatomy after the first version looked like recolours, then animated: Pip, Mote, astrocyte, neuron, oligodendrocyte and pericyte — all approved in a final check.
• Environments: the first Hearth Grove and Threadway paintings were rejected; a solarpunk direction was accepted for a prototype, and the home became a set of care gardens. Latest repairs await your review.

In the game Accepted game#

• Nothing new to play — on purpose. Codex prepared the agreed plans for bringing expeditions and skills in safely, added a tested loader for future pixel art, fixed a test timing race and a development-server issue in worktrees, and reviewed the first submissions from Claude A and B.

26 October — Circuit Ranger is playable Accepted game#

• The opening is complete: explore Hearth Grove, the glade and Mote Pocket; help Mote or gather Supply; prepare for a forecast; defend; recover; and get an honest field report after about three minutes.
• Continue in the same world and walk the side-on Threadway to Starwell.
• Saving with a backup of your previous save and protection against an older tab overwriting newer progress.
• Interaction practice to learn Tend, Call and recovery safely.
• Fixed before release: the Ready button could postpone the disturbance repeatedly, and finishing work sometimes showed an “interrupted” message.