Emerald Woods – Return of the Shed [0.4.7]

Emerald Woods is a survival and exploration game where you escape modern life to live alone in a mysterious, procedurally generated world filled with forests, lakes, caverns, and strange creatures. In this turn-based sandbox roguelike, combat isn’t the focus, but rather survival, creativity, and discovery: you can build shelters, farm food, tend animals, fish, craft tools and furniture, and explore abandoned buildings to uncover the secrets of the extinct Genco corporation scattered throughout the land. The game offers a chill experience with activities like cooking, painting with natural pigments, and navigating different seasons, encouraging players to choose their own playstyle each session.

The current version is available for free in “Earlier Access”, playable on browsers and downloadable for Windows at https://slash.itch.io/emerald-woods

A follow-up to this week’s version, this one’s smaller but includes important changes. The starting area has been redesigned, instead of the weird ruined cabin with items spread all around, there’s now a useful shed with all the starting tools tidy placed inside a crate; more than the visual changes this is now important because it’ll make it easier to survive (specially during the winter) IF YOU CHOOSE not to take the hardcore route of survival (it’s your choice after all).

There was also quite a lot of work on the onboarding / tutorial / first time experience to support season-specific content and introduce new, context-aware onboarding chains including:

• Further flow differences with winter seasons so it’s no longer broken for winter; the farming section has been removed and replaced with fishing.
• The fishing section is also available for non-winter seasons
• The onboarding now points the player to learn using containers through practical progress.
• Complex tutorial steps (e.g., making coffee) have been broken down into smaller, more manageable tasks.
• A new “Sheltering” section has been added to teach players about the importance of warmth and building enclosed spaces, especially in winter.

Additionally, there are now individual controls for audio channels: Music, Sound Effects and Ambient.