v0.3.0: Beards & Bedrock

⛏️ v0.3.0: Beards & Bedrock

The story’s ending at Depth 40, a short opening scene, dig records, a livelier cave, the Hold Ledger, clearer Warden fights, a new Skill Tree, a growing beard for Pip, and a Report a bug button

📜 Story

New games open with a short scene of three lines that sets up the clan, the vein and the crown. It plays once, before the tutorial.
Depth 40 now has its ending. Reach it and the story’s ending plays, then a line shows your next goal. If you were away from the game when a dig got there, it plays the next time you come back.
The full Act one scene at Depth 20 plays once per save. Later trips to Depth 20 show a short banner instead.
Both scenes can be watched again from the Knowledge Base, and the story tracker moves on to the four Kings after the ending.
Pip’s face is on the tutorial cards.

📏 Dig records

A depth ruler shows this dig, where your last dig ended and your deepest ever. It appears after your first New Dig.
When you reach a depth at least a minute faster than last dig, a small chip says so.
A new deepest depth gets a “New record” toast.
The New Dig screen shows how fast your last dig went and what your Ancestral Knowledge buys next.
Pace stamps: on a re-dig, beating your best time to Depth 10, 15, 20 and every 5 after earns a one-time stamp, like “First time past Depth 15 in under 40m!”
A goal for the second dig: from Depth 12, once you have one trade agreement, the depth panel names your second one and its price in Trade Points.
Relic finds count up: the toast shows how much of the collection you have, like “Relic: Miner’s Lantern (7/17)”.

🔁 Restore

Restore buttons only buy what you have unlocked and what the current challenge allows, and a line says what they bought and what is still left to buy.
The Ancestral Engine waits for the Trade Post before it restores your last trades.

🌳 Skill Tree

A new look: an icon for each of the 24 skills, lines that follow what each skill really needs, a badge for owned, ready and locked skills, and a burst when you buy one.

🕯️ A calmer screen

Parts of the screen appear when they become useful instead of all at once. Saves that are already playing see everything as before.
One message at a time: tutorial cards, hints, achievements and unlock cards no longer pop up on top of each other.
The Upgrades tab says how many are ready to buy, and the Hire buttons say who they hire: miners for the vein, workers for your rooms.
Costs and stock below 1,000 show as whole numbers.

⛏️ Clicking and Ascension

Scraps from clicks: every 60 hits on the vein drop some Blueprints or Timber, whichever you are shorter on (worth 3 seconds of that room’s output, up to 6 a minute). Only your own clicks count: nothing offline, from the Ancestral Engine or from helpers.
Ascension Points now count only New Digs that reach Depth 10. Many tiny digs no longer pay out. Digs you made before this update all still count. Shallow digs still count toward the number of digs you need to Ascend.

🧔 Pip

Pip’s beard grows as your deepest dig passes Depth 20, 40 and 60, and once more after your first Ascension. It stays with your save.
He gets muddier the deeper a dig goes, and cleans up when you start a New Dig.
He visits the cave now and then while you play (never in your first hour). Click him for a small gift of ore. Settings > Gameplay/Stats has a switch to turn his visits off.

🏕️ A livelier hold

The cave comes alive from minute one: hired miners walk in from the mine doors and spread out round the vein, the ore cart rolls off about once a minute, and every room you build gets its own lantern.
The first time you build each room, it rises out of the floor in a puff of dust and a dwarf walks over to move in.
Critical hits and every new power of ten of Ore throw ore chunks into your Ore counter (only when you mine yourself; off with Reduce screen shake and flashes).
Text Size in Settings > Display: bigger text without bigger panels.
Settings opens on the tab you used last, and “Exit Without Saving” is a small link at the bottom that still asks first.

🧭 New Digs and Ascension

Your first New Dig is a moment: what you keep flies into a chest, your Ancestral Knowledge fills up, then the omen cards are dealt. A click or any key skips it.
The Ascension screen shows what your points buy and about how long the way back to your depth takes. After you Ascend, the depth panel tracks your comeback.
While Dig Deeper waits on resources, one line says the fastest fix, worked out from your real rates (for example “+1 worker in Surveyor’s Office, 2m sooner”).

🗺️ The deeper hold

Each biome gets a title card the first time you reach it: its name, its rule and a fanfare, then the biome’s story card as before.
Warden fights are easier to read: a bigger boss bar led by the Warden’s title (for example “Warden of the Drowned Halls”), a line that says what you can do, and a countdown that turns red a few seconds before a Dwarf Miner is taken.
The Hold Ledger (Records): eight first chapters of your hold, from the first hire to the first biome, each stamped when you finish it.
The Ancestral Engine keeps a log (Records > Engine): a row for each dig it starts, its personal bests, and a short summary when you come back.
The Achievements screen is sorted into categories, can show the goals closest to done first, and gives each hidden achievement a small hint.

📖 Knowing more

Point at any currency’s icon to see where it comes from, what it is for, and whether a New Dig or an Ascension keeps it. The Knowledge Base has a new Currencies page.
A “?” next to the Guild Hall opens the Knowledge Base, and every screen’s “?” help has a button to its Knowledge Base page.
More tooltips show every bonus and its multiplier: Cave-in DPS, the depth bonus and Trade Points per second.
A Chronicle page in the Knowledge Base lets you reread every story moment you have seen, in story order. The Act One and ending replays live there now.
The Trade Post has a “Trade in 30 seconds” guide and a Recommended tag on the nation that best speeds up your next Dig Deeper.

🔧 Fixes

Save slots on the title screen show play time, when you last played and how many Kings you have freed.
Clicking a cave-in wall now gets your click power bonuses (up to triple damage), and the cave-in panel’s DPS and time estimate match what the wall really takes.
A raid at an empty Runic Barracks tells you to assign warriors, instead of showing one warrior hitting for 0.
A hero the picked omen leaves with nothing to do (Nettle in The Quiet Hold, Kesta in The Closed Passes) is greyed out and marked “Resting”.
Space and Page Down no longer mine or dig deeper while a room popup is open.
The first window on a 1920x1080 screen fits above the taskbar.
The New Dig Rune Shard preview counts the Stonehummer’s rank-up, so it matches what you get.
Daily quests no longer ask you to break cave-ins before you can reach one.
Hiring discounts from the Beast Den and Tavern count staff after a minute of work, so moving workers in just to hire no longer pays.
The Time Warp help says that warped Trade Points owe no nation upkeep.
Brazilian Portuguese numbers use a decimal comma (1,5K). French, Italian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese switches say On/Off instead of Yes/No. The Russian “King freed” line no longer calls Queen Imbra a king.

🐞 Bugs and crash reports

Report a bug on the title screen and in Settings > Gameplay/Stats copies a short report (game version, your system, your settings and the latest log lines, no names) for you to paste into our Discord, and opens the Discord.
Crash reports are on by default. You asked for faster fixes, and this is how we find the crashes we never see. A report has the game version, your system and where the game crashed. It has no names, no save files and nothing else from your computer, and your IP address is not stored. A one-time note explains it, and you can turn it off any time in Settings > Gameplay/Stats under “Send crash reports”.