After 2 months of development, 0.37.0 is here! Before I would begin: if you'd like to get instant access to the playtest then all you have to do is join my Discord server[discord.com]! Just hit me up and I'll grant you access. I'd love to hear you feedback! :)

Besides the features planned for this milestone, I managed to fullfill 54 feedback reports. Some of them overlapped with the planned features, while some were pretty awesome ideas and improvements which I didn't think of. So thank you to all who contributed, I can't believe how much better the game is just because some of you are willing to help me with your feedback. :)

• The world map is finally reworked, heavily inspired by my beloved Slay the Spire.

• Instead of removing cards from your deck and restoring reputation between every levels, now they can be only found as special nodes on the map, and they are much rarer.

• Islands' modifiers are now illustrated with icons and chevrons instead of a wall of text and numbers. However, if enabled in settings, the actual values can be shown once again.

• New games start in the world map scene, where players can choose from 3 starting islands. Except when the user is a first-time player: in that case the game starts on a random first island already, so they can experience the core of the game instantly.

• Now cards can be upgraded through the Blacksmith and the Rest Camp node which can be found on the new world map.

• With each upgrade, either the resources/population they provide increase, or the resources they cost decrease. The upgrade ranks are colorcoded for better readability.

• Redesigned and improved the quality and readability of many interface elements. Some of them weren't fully clear, now I think they convey their purpose much better. 90% of the UI received a new look, so I guess we should skip listing them here. ^^

• Cards (while also getting a new look) received new highlight particles!

• Both the startup loading screen and the ones before island scenes got a new and improved look.

• New tile selling visuals: instead of turning into water, they are now indicated with reddish highlight with tents or ships on it.

• Separate draw and discard pile inspecting instead of the previous, combined modal where already drawn cards were semi-transparent.

• Quests and towns' gold generation mechanic are already available on the first level.

• When a new card is added to your deck, you receive it into your hand.

• Card drawing now costs gold.

• Territorial Deed and Contract Labor are now part of the starting deck. (exchanging gold for a tile or workers)

• New tutorial texts added and improved existing ones. Added a button into settings to reset tutorial status.

• Removed "discard card X" quests and made demands harder a bit.

• Improved tile tooltips.

• Added ultra widescreen support and implemented UI scale setting.

• Updated the "What's next?" panel's content.

• Balanced some cards and other mechanics.

• Polish & bugfixes: Many minor polish and bugfix commits, including font adjustments, missing/misconfigured assets, and improved error handling.

• Created a promotional site for the game: https://www.hexlands.com/

For the next patch, I plan it to be a smaller one, because the faster the iteration, the better it is. It will contain mostly new cards and polishing the features added with this patch because I'm sure and hope that there will be tons of feedback.^^ After the next, smaller patch, I'll jump back into the next big feature: a unique final level for the currently available world map (more to come of course), and meta progression!

Once again, thanks for sticking around, and let me know what do you think about these new features, I would really appreciate it. As always, join my Discord server[discord.com], just hit me up and I'll grant you instant access to the playtest! I'd love to hear you feedback!
Thanks for reading, and have a nice week! :)
Tudvari a.k.a. Portgate Studios

• Like in other roguelikes, now there is an end turn button which discards all cards in your hand and draw you 5 new ones. This gives me more opportunities game design wise and players will have one less thing to learn due to being already familiar with this system.
• Due to this change, card selling is now removed and drawing card is only possible once per turn. (but it became much cheaper)

• Functions similarly to a health system: you have 3 "health", lose it all, and you lose!

• Every third turn, your people have a task for you. Sometimes they instantly tell you their wishes, sometimes you have to claim the tile first on which a golden exclamation mark appeared.
• Completing a task gives you various rewards, though right now it's either resources or a card into your hand. But a task is only available for a given duration.
• Every second task is a demand. It gives you no reward, instead you lose reputation if you not complete it in time.

• After every level, now you have the option to remove a card from your deck.
• Before every level, now you have the option to either remove a card from your deck or restore a reputation.
• I know this feels a bit clunky right now, but these were needed features and it couldn't wait till I implement a proper, branching node selection screen, like in Slay the Spire or other roguelikes.

• When you run the game for the first time, instead of going through a series of "lecturing" levels, now you immediately jump into a normal run/session and these helpful tutorial texts appear as you play and discover the features.

• Basic graphics settings! No quality settings yet, but you can already change resolution, window mode, refresh rate, VSync, etc.
• Mouse and scroll sensitivity settings! Sorry guys for taking this long...
• Now that settings became quite big, it was necessary to implement tabs. So all new and previous settings are now grouped neatly into tabs like Controls, Gameplay, Graphics or Audio.

• All offered cards are lame? If that's the case now you can grab a pile of resources instead!
• Can't remember what cards are in your deck? Now you can inspect it while choosing, so you can make the best decision. (Map inspect is coming too!)

• Unusable cards are now desaturated for better distinction. Now it's clear which cards are usable right now.
• Tile highlighting has now a better color palette, because previously e.g. the green tile highlights were hard to see over plains or forests.
  
• Highlighting now also includes outlines! Some tiles' highlight were hard to see with all the trees or buildings on it, so now they are outlined.
• Also, tiles no longer rise from the ground: I think highlighting is good enough now and this immersion breaking feature became a bit redundant.

• Discord Rich Presence: now your friends can see which level are you right now.
• Some other systems have also been in development, but they are not yet visible to the players. This is because they are kind of "empty" as of now. But they are working for sure, for example the game now has localization, statistics and achievement system! Before the Steam Demo I'll add extra languages, all kind of stats and achievements, so stay tuned!
• And obviously lots of smaller fixes and polishes, algorithm fine tuning, etc, you know how it goes.