Updates and fixes

NEW Read Git history for the updates page when the deploy runs as the app's own user

Read Git history for the updates page when the deploy runs as the app's own user

NEW Use a feather emblem that shows on every device instead of the raven

Use a feather emblem that shows on every device instead of the raven

NEW Weapons, a Market exchange board, faction banners, cheating reports with fair play rules, a wiki, and an updates page...

Pitchfork, Cudgel, Sling and Iron Sword: made and sold like any item, used up in raids, robberies and plunderer fights The Exchange: most and least sold items, copies about, price moves this week Faction banners from a pattern, colours and emblem, or an uploaded picture owners can take down Report a player for cheating, naming the fair play rule; owners read reports beside bugs Public No cheating, Wiki and Updates pages; the updates page fills itself from Git on every deploy

NEW New Fire and Steel missions: a home, a skin, putting out a fire, fighting plunderers, bounties; daily crime and plund...

New Fire and Steel missions: a home, a skin, putting out a fire, fighting plunderers, bounties; daily crime and plunderer jobs for everyone

NEW Bug reports with a photo or video, read on /admin, and owners can play as the player to see it; offline animals stay...

Bug reports with a photo or video, read on /admin, and owners can play as the player to see it; offline animals stay on the map

NEW Rob animals close by, buy horseshoes with Apples, see who's online, valley tables on the landing page, plain terms ti...

Rob animals close by, buy horseshoes with Apples, see who's online, valley tables on the landing page, plain terms tick

NEW Tap any home on the map to set it alight; Terms and Conditions page, and buyers tick no-refunds before PayPal opens

Tap any home on the map to set it alight; Terms and Conditions page, and buyers tick no-refunds before PayPal opens

NEW Open the next valley when every valley is full: newcomers start in the oldest with room; owners see and manage valley...

Open the next valley when every valley is full: newcomers start in the oldest with room; owners see and manage valleys on /admin

NEW Faster map for busy valleys: shared home list, plain animal reads, live map events at most every 3 seconds

Faster map for busy valleys: shared home list, plain animal reads, live map events at most every 3 seconds

NEW Pay for Pineapples with PayPal's buttons on the page instead of leaving for PayPal

Pay for Pineapples with PayPal's buttons on the page instead of leaving for PayPal

NEW Restart Reverb on deploy when its service is installed

Restart Reverb on deploy when its service is installed

NEW Live updates over Laravel Reverb: the map refreshes itself, notices and messages pop up

Notices and private messages broadcast on each animal's private channel and show as toasts Chat lines and anything that changes the map broadcast on the valley's channel; pages fetch what changed Without a Reverb key in the build, nothing changes: pages keep fetching on their own

NEW Add a skin shop for homes: Corn skins, then Apple skins, each guarding the home harder

Add a skin shop for homes: Corn skins, then Apple skins, each guarding the home harder

NEW Town house looks, a Hospital, homes that burn to ash, any faction's bounties, and Irongate's plunderers

House Packs baked into flat-colour GLBs: eight new home looks and a Hospital building that lays beaten members up for less time A home being burned shows flames and smoke on both maps, then ash until it's rebuilt; anyone at the door can put the fire out Only a home that stands can burn; notices name who was caught Any faction's leader and council can put out warrants from their own store; a caught outlaw pays back what its crimes took Bands of Irongate plunderers ride for held farms in daylight; every faction can fight them together for a share of the haul

NEW Expect the underworld on the faction page for members too

Expect the underworld on the faction page for members too

NEW Name the Animal Farm Dev Team as the information officer on the Privacy page

The Privacy and POPIA page and the footer took their names from the server's settings, which still said RevenueGuard and a personal name. They now say Animal Farm and The Animal Farm Dev Team, set in the code.

NEW Let faction members loot, plunder and burn, even their own faction

Crimes aren't only for lone wolves any more: faction members can loot a treasury, plunder a farm and set fire to a home, their own faction's included, and get bounties put on them like anyone. A faction can forbid turning on its own with a raid rule; a member who does it anyway gets a strike, and the leader and council hear of it either way.

NEW Let animals, homes and buildings grow as you zoom in

They used to keep the same size on screen at every zoom, so zooming in made them look smaller against the land. Now animals and markers keep their size far out and grow with the land past the middle zooms, and homes and buildings always keep their size on the land, so zooming in shows them close up, in detail.

NEW Let factions raid any region from anywhere, held to their own raid rules

The rules that a raid had to start next to the faction's land and from the front line are gone: any faction can raid any region from anywhere (the Farmhouse still needs 2 of its 4 neighbours). Instead a faction's leader and council set its own raid rules: front line only, next to our land only, leader's call only, and factions to spare. Breaking one doesn't stop the raid but gives a strike, 3 strikes in a season flag the member to the leader, who can excuse them, wipe their strikes, remove them, or run the faction rogue with no rules at all. The map warns before a raid that breaks a rule.

NEW Say why 'Put on a shelf' won't go, and show any turned-back action's reason

With no price typed the shelf button did nothing: the server turned it back and the game didn't say so. The button now waits for a price in range and says what to type. And everywhere in the game, an action the server turns back now pops up its reason instead of silently doing nothing.

NEW Explain every greyed-out button in the game

A short note now sits under each button that can't be pressed yet, saying what's still needed: horseshoes, Corn, materials in the faction store, walking somewhere first, a home still going up, a daily limit reached, Apples or Pineapples short, and so on. Covers the region cards, homes, the faction base and studies, Irongate's people, Pell's cart, the scrub, Apples, the Wall, Wanted and cash-outs.

NEW Newest change first on each day of the updates page

Newest change first on each day of the updates page

FIXED Public updates and fixes page, filled with this week's changes; owners post more on /admin

Public updates and fixes page, filled with this week's changes; owners post more on /admin

NEW Show how much the faction store holds next to each number

The faction strip reads 380/950 Corn and 100/300 wood: what the store has next to the most it can hold, which grows with its buildings.

NEW Show your faction's treasury, store and needs under your own bar

Members get a second strip on every game screen: the faction's name and Corn, what its store holds, and what it's short of for its next step (a Den, a building's next level or a farm's next growth), linking to the Faction page to give.

NEW Scatter Quaternius's nature pack across the 3D map

Woods, meadows, rocky ground and the open scrub now grow trees, bushes, berry bushes, stumps, logs, mossy rocks, flowers and long grass from the Ultimate Nature Pack (CC0), picked at random for each spot and the same for everyone. 44 green-season models, 2.7 MB, drawn as instanced meshes; the simple cones and pebbles show until they load.

NEW Show every dropdown's open list in the theme's colours

The Workshop's Shape list groups its choices, and the dark colours only reached options that weren't in a group, so the open list came up light with pale text. Every select's options and groups now take the theme's colours, and the dark theme asks the browser for its dark list.

NEW Add Pell's cart from Irongate, offer buildings only where they help, and call the game Animal Farm

Pell, an Irongate pedlar, sells six basics for Corn in the Market, three a day per animal, so there's always something to buy; her goods have no maker and carry no royalty. A Mill is only offered and built where Corn grows, and a Well only on a farm. The site, logos and share text say Animal Farm, whatever the server's APP_NAME says.

NEW Tap your own home on the map to manage it, and break it down if you need to

A tap, hold or right click on your own home on either map opens its card right there: walk home, go in, raise it, skin it, pick its look. Standing at the door you can now break it down: it asks once more, then gives back half the materials of its top level so you can camp somewhere else.

NEW Give the map twice the room for animals, homes and buildings

You can zoom in twice as far, and homes, faction buildings and the farmyards' barns and windmills take half as much of the land once you're out past the closest zooms, so every region has twice the room. Homes can stand 15 paces apart instead of 30, and a region shows up to 24 animals at once when you're close in. Walks take the same time as before.

NEW Add the Medieval Village Pack's houses as home looks, and campfires by tents

Ten more looks for a home on the 3D map: a timber house, town house, stone cottage, low cottage, inn, forge, stable, mill house, sawmill and bell tower, from Quaternius's LowPoly Medieval Village Pack (CC0). Each model is fetched only when a home uses it, 3.4 MB in all. Every tent now has a campfire burning beside it.

NEW Give the farm buildings their own faction roles, and let animals pick their home's look

Four new faction buildings, each with a job: a Mill (more Corn gathered there, a tower windmill at level 3), a Well (keeps its farm watered, and from level 2 the faction's farms next door), a Coop (lays 4, 8 or 15 eggs into the store every half hour) and a Silo (holds 1500 to 6000 Corn). Homes can now look like a village house or a barn, coop, silo house, windmill or water tower on the 3D map; their level still sets their strength.

NEW Dress the 3D map with Quaternius's LowPoly Farm Buildings

Faction buildings now show as farm buildings in the faction's colour: a small barn for a Den, a water tower for a Watchtower, an open barn for a Drill Yard, a silo house for a Storehouse, a barn for a Workshop and the big barn for a Head Office. Hollowmere's yards get a windmill, well, coop, barns, silo and water tower, and every farm beyond the fences a barn and a silo or windmill. The pack is CC0; models converted to GLB, 1.4 MB.

NEW Build homes on the 3D map from Quaternius's Medieval Village MegaKit

Huts, Cottages, Forts, Keeps and Castles are now put together from the kit's walls, doors, windows, roofs, chimneys and towers (CC0), coloured in each owner's skin, instead of a box and a cone. The pieces ship without their heavy textures, 857 KB in all, and the simple shapes show until they load. Tents keep their canvas look: the kit has no tent.

NEW Draw huts and tents bigger on both maps

Homes were drawn smaller than the animals standing by them. They're now about two and a half times the size, so a Tent or Hut is easy to spot.

NEW Let animals pitch a Tent as well as build a Hut

A Tent is a home's first, cheapest level: 10 wool and 5 wood, up in 5 minutes. It hides its animal like any home but holds nobody off, and can be raised to a Hut later. Both the home card and the scrub's right-click card offer a Tent or a Hut, and tents are drawn as canvas on both maps.

NEW Right-click the open scrub to walk there or set up camp

A right click or long press on the scrub opens a small card with Walk here and Set up camp here. Camping on the spot puts the Hut up at once; from afar the animal walks there and the Hut goes up on arrival, with a notice either way. Walking off elsewhere calls the camp off.

NEW Let animals walk onto the open scrub and the wild land round the farms

A tap on the scrub between the regions now sets an animal walking there on both maps, instead of doing nothing. The wild patches round each farm count as open scrub until the farm grows into them, so animals can stand, gather and camp there too.

NEW Extend Ironfield into ten regions with missions that get harder the deeper you go

Ironfield Road runs out of Irongate's east districts into nine mining regions in three more depths. Nobody holds, builds or camps there. Each region has a mission against its guards: 2 men at the road up to 11 at the far pits. Animals put in up to 10 horseshoes for better odds; a win carries off Corn, iron, copper, gold and Rosettes that grow with depth, and getting caught means the pound for an hour per depth. Each region's men stay on guard for 4 hours after a go, and there's a new daily job for it.

NEW Fill the open ground with scrub anyone can camp on, and thin resources far from the farms

Every bit of open ground between the regions, out to a wider valley edge, is now the Scrubland: drawn with low bushes on both maps, walkable, and anyone's to gather wood from and build a home on, though nobody can hold or raid it. Land is richest near Hollowmere and the farms and thins out to a quarter further away: regions hold and regrow less, and gathering brings in less the further out an animal stands.

NEW Let factions dig trenches from the water to irrigate their farms

The leader and council of a farm's faction dig a trench from the nearest pond, mere or spring, up to four regions away, paying Corn, wood and stone per stretch. A trenched farm and the patches it grew into never run dry. Rivals standing anywhere along it can fill it in for 3 horseshoes. Trenches show as water-blue lines on the 2D and 3D maps.

NEW Give every player 50 extra horseshoes, kept until spent

Horseshoes above the usual ten now stay until they are spent, and none come back meanwhile; the bar shows the plain count when over ten. A one-off migration hands every player 50 on top of what they have.

NEW Fill the map's empty patches with camping land, and make farms need water

58 small glades, camp fields, thickets, springs, spinneys and knolls fill the gaps between regions. Ponds, meres and springs give water, and a farm now needs 10 water every 12 hours (up to two days ahead): a parched farm can't be gathered and pays its holders nothing.

NEW Grow Irongate east: Smithy Row, the Black Dog Tavern and Gallows Square

Three new districts join the town east of the old ones, with four more people. Bram the smith works 10 stone and 10 wood into 1 iron, three times a day; Nell at the Black Dog serves a hot meal for 30 Corn that gives a horseshoe, once a day; Sergeant Cobb drills Ironfield's Gate Night men; and Mother Rook watches. The IRONFIELD label moves further east to make room.

NEW Fill the empty land round the valley with the frontier

The dark land between and beyond the farms is now 25 frontier regions: woods for wood, ponds and meres for clay, scrub and heath for dye from the bushes, stony ground for stone, commons for wool, and four rare spots out at the edges: Glitter Gully (gold), Old Copper Seam (copper), Wild Hives (honey) and Berry Brake (berries). Anyone can walk out and gather there, and factions can hold and raid it like other land; each borders its nearest neighbours. Ironfield's country east of Irongate stays empty. Both maps draw the frontier's trees, ponds, bushes and rocks.

NEW Grow gold, copper, fruit and veg on the far farms, with four new recipes

The third ring of farms now grows what nowhere else does: gold at Coldharbour, copper at Copperhill, pears at Northfold, carrots at Hartley, berries at Rushmere and pumpkins at Southmere. They gather like the other rare crops, can be stored, fenced and spent on growing those farms. Four new recipes use them: a Gold Crown (gold and dye), worn in place of a hat; a Gold Ring (gold and copper) to own and sell; a Fruit Pie (pears, berries, eggs) that doubles your next 5 gathers; and a Veggie Stew (carrots, pumpkins) that gives 3 horseshoes at once.

NEW Make the valley bigger: a third ring of six farms and their wild land

Six new farms stand out at the edges of the valley, each with three patches of wild land to grow into: Northfold (honey) and Hartley (herbs) in the north and north-west, Coldharbour (iron) north of Irongate, Southmere (herbs) and Rushmere (honey) in the south and south-west, and Copperhill (iron) in the south-east. Each is reached from the nearest second-ring farm and is bought, raided and grown like the others, so 24 more regions can be held. The map and the whole-valley view widen to take them in.

NEW Let homes grow stronger without end, with faction help and Builder's Mortar

Past the Fort, homes keep levelling: a Keep, a Castle, then Castle 2, 3 and on. Each level costs half as much Corn again as the last, more stone, wood and iron, and an hour longer, up to a day; each makes burning harder, and hiding inside harder to arrest, though a hunter at the door always keeps a 10% chance. Faction mates standing at your door can lend a hand while a level goes up: each cuts the time left by a third, for a horseshoe and 3 Rosettes, up to five of them a level. Builder's Mortar, a new workshop recipe, raises your home a level at once: you pay that level's materials, not its Corn. The home card lists faction mates' homes going up, to walk to and help.

NEW Let every animal build its own home, hide in it and dress it in a skin

Each animal can build one home where it stands, anywhere but the Farmhouse, the Paddock and Irongate, and raise it from a Hut to a Cottage to a Fort with Corn and materials. Inside it, the animal is hidden from the map until it walks out, and a bounty hunter at the door has 10% less chance a level. Each level also makes a burner 12% likelier to be caught; a burned home drops a level and smokes out whoever hid in it. A home skin is a new workshop item, made and sold in the Market like any other; put one on and your home shows its colours on both maps. A "Your home" card under the map builds, raises, enters and dresses it.

NEW Close the gaps reviewers found in gifts, crimes and Irongate

Gifts lock both animals, so the ten-a-day limit on receiving holds when several arrive at once, and the bag no longer offers items bought with Apples that can't be given yet; it says up front when you can't give at all. A crime checks again, under the lock, that you are still a lone wolf past your day's wait, and founding a faction waits for a crime to play out, like joining one. Wick reads where an outlaw really is after a walk, and locks in the same order as an arrest. On the maps, the animal and people cards fit the room beside the tap, close when the map moves, and start fresh for each animal; Ma Vetch's picker moves on when a material runs out. Ma Vetch and the Captain stand clear of their district names, the town gate opens where Gate Road comes in on both maps, Irongate's cards no longer suggest raiding, and an animal's profile has Send an item too, so it works without a pointer.

NEW Draw Irongate and its people on both maps

Irongate now shows past the east fence on the flat and the 3D map: cobbled districts inside a stone wall, tenements in the Rookery, sheds, crates and a crane in the Iron Yards, the Garrison's stockade and watchtower, and lamps at the gates. Its five people stand in their districts; tapping one, or opening a district's card, shows who they are and what they do: the Captain's count of Sunday's men, Ma Vetch's prices and a way to sell to her, Wick's tips on outlaws, and Old Tamsin's Rookery board. Gate Night's arrow now marches out of the Garrison, and the IRONFIELD label sits out in the country beyond.

NEW Build Irongate, the humans' town past Ironfield Gate

Irongate's three districts stand past the east fence: the Rookery, where outlaws and lone wolves lie low; the Iron Yards, off Ironfield Gate; and the Garrison, where Ironfield's Gate Night men muster. Anyone can walk in, but no faction can raid, hold, build or gather there, and Gate Night never burns it. Its people are a fixed cast, not players: Captain Brannock counts Sunday's men, Ma Vetch the fence buys materials from lone wolves in the Yards for a little Corn (60 a day at most), and Wick the informer sells a hunter word of which district an outlaw hides in for 25 Corn, once every half hour; the outlaw hears that someone asked. An outlaw standing in Irongate is hidden from anyone outside its district, except a Dog in the town, and the Wanted board and a failed arrest only say "somewhere in Irongate". Lone wolves get the Rookery board to talk among themselves. An animal thrown out of a faction now hears about it, has to spend a day as a lone wolf before its first crime, and can't join a faction while a crime is still playing out.

NEW Keep gifts from becoming a way round the market or the pound

An animal can give items from level 2, not from the pound, not while it is stopped from writing, and not across a block either way or a Trade Ban. An animal in the pound can't be given anything, nobody can be handed more than ten items a day, and an item bought with Apples waits out the 14-day cash-out hold before it can be given away. Putting an item on a shelf now locks it, and a shelved item that has left its seller's bag can no longer be bought: its listing comes down instead.

NEW Tap an animal on the map to see its profile, write to it or give it an item

On both the flat and the 3D map, a tap, press-and-hold or right-click on another animal opens a small menu by it: Open profile, Message (the chat window) and Send an item. Sending opens your bag: any unused item that isn't on your shop shelf can go, five a day, and the other animal gets a notice. An animal that blocked you can't be sent anything.

NEW Show the map in 3D, with every animal as itself

The map can now be seen in 3D: Hollowmere's fields, woods, brook, pens and pond at a slant, faction land in its colours, raids marching as arrows, and every animal standing on it as its own 3D model, dressed in what it wears. Your animal walks along its route with its walk or gallop. It works the same way as the flat map: tap to walk, press and hold or right-click for the region card, drag, pinch, scroll and keys. A 2D/3D button switches between them, and each device remembers the choice; 3D is the default where the browser supports WebGL 2, and the flat map takes over if 3D can't start. The server now sends what each shown animal wears, in one query, and puts you, then outlaws, first in each region's sample, so you never count in the "+N" crowd and outlaws always show.

NEW Show each animal in 3D on its profile, wearing what it owns

Both profile pages get the animal in 3D: one model per species (the free Quaternius animal pack, with the goat, sheep, pig, hen and raven built from it in Blender), turning when dragged, with buttons for its moves: idle, walk, eat, fight, build, and fly for the raven. It wears one shop item per spot, the newest copy that isn't used up or on a shop shelf: hat, scarf, watch bell, cloak, prize ribbon, gloves, iron shoes, and a banner, pickaxe or basket on its back, each in its maker's colours and pattern. three.js and the models load only on those pages.

NEW Let the owner paste the Google sign-in keys on the admin page

The admin page gets a Google section next to PayPal: the client ID, the secret (stored encrypted, shown only as its last four characters), the redirect URI the client has to list, and a Test button that asks Google whether it knows the ID and secret. Once both are saved there, "Continue with Google" uses them instead of the ones in .env.

NEW Name the nginx site revenueguard so Cable Elite stays the fallback

nginx falls back on the first site it reads for an address it doesn't know, and it reads them in name order. A site file called animalfarm.cc sorted before cableelite.co.za and took that place from Cable Elite. The guide also says how to take the old address away once its domain is cancelled, and that the mailbox must move first.

NEW Move the site to animalfarm.cc and forward the old address

The deploy scripts and guide now name animalfarm.cc. revenueguard.co.za gets an nginx site of its own that forwards every page to the same page on the new address, keeping its certificate. The mailbox stays on revenueguard.co.za, so setup.sh keeps the mail settings there.

NEW Open the front page with Marietjie's own poster, melting into the page

Her poster replaces the drawn one: a web-sized copy (a smaller one for phones) at the top of the front page, its edges fading into the dark page on every side so it has no frame, with the play and puzzle buttons in the fade beneath it. The drawn poster is gone.

NEW Open the front page with a farm poster

A storm breaking into a golden sunset over the farm, drawn in the page itself: a pig on three tiers of hay bales under the green flag with the hoof and horn, a dark horse and a brown horse in harness, a cow, sheep and hens, the barn on the left and the windmill on the right, with a little film grain. RevenueGuard's name sits over the sky with "Hollowmere, season one" and two lines of our own in red, then the play and puzzle buttons. On a phone the words come first and the scene sits under them.

NEW Add a second ring of farms: Ashcombe, Fennick and Marlow

Three more farms lie out beyond the wild land round the first three: Ashcombe in the north grows iron, Fennick in the far west honey, and Marlow in the south herbs. Each is bought or raided like the others, reached from the first-ring farm next to it, and has three patches of wild land to grow into. The map's world is bigger to fit them, and the server's copy of the region outlines is regenerated to match.

NEW Let members help build, and every helper makes it go up faster

A member standing where their faction's building is going up can lend a hand for a horseshoe and earns 3 Rosettes. Each extra pair of hands adds half again to the pace, so what is left of the work goes faster: two builders take two-thirds of the time, three take half, up to six builders. Each member helps once per level. Buildings show how many are building and a Help build button for members standing there.

NEW Keep a faction's store in its buildings, and let raiders loot them

A faction keeps 300 Corn and 100 of each material in hand; each building it raises stores more (a Den 500 Corn and 150 of each material at level 1, a Storehouse 1,000 and 300, a Head Office 800 and 250, others 150 and 50). A full store takes no more: gifts are refused, and farm income, tax, levies and entry fees stop at the brim. Raiders who take a region carry off the share of the store its building held, as much as fits in their own store, and both factions hear what went. A lone wolf's loot now takes the same share of the store's materials as of its Corn. The Faction page shows each total against what the buildings hold.

NEW Rule from a Head Office, and take the painted buildings off the map

Taking the Farmhouse no longer makes a faction the House. Its leader or council builds a Head Office there (300 Corn, wood, stone and clay, two hours), and the faction rules once it stands; the valley hears when work starts and when it is done, and the three extra law changes come then. The Head Office needs no Den and defends the Farmhouse once it stands. Starting any building ends the hour of peace a region gets after changing hands, so a faction busy building can be raided, and a Farmhouse taken before its Head Office stands takes the work with it. The map no longer paints barns, the farmhouse, stalls or the windmill: the only buildings on it are the ones factions raise.

NEW Tap or left-click to walk; press and hold or right-click to see what's there

A quick tap or a left click on the map walks to that spot and no longer opens the region's card. A right click, or pressing and holding on a phone, opens the card without walking. A line under the map says so.

NEW Take the step-by-step walk button off the region card

Animals walk straight to wherever you tap, so the card no longer counts walks away or offers to walk to the next region on the way.

NEW Settle raids, crimes and walks within a minute instead of half an hour

The game only moved on every half hour, so a raid landing at 23:35 waited until midnight. The tick now runs every minute; every step already checks what is due, and upkeep and farm income still pay once per half hour. The map also fetches the result a minute after the next raid lands, and a raid that has landed says so instead of offering to join it.

FIXED Fix bugs found playing through the game

The faction store lists every material, so third-ring farms can be grown and water can be given. The open scrub never runs out instead of sharing one small stock across the valley. Gather buttons say 'about', since boosts add more. Plural regions, the build hint naming all buildings, a plain 'Your Tent.', Escape closing a region's card, and the story telling new players how to gather.

NEW Give each region only so much to gather, growing back over time

A Corn field holds 400 Corn and grows 80 back an hour; a material region holds 120 and grows 24; a farm's rare crop holds 45 and grows 9. Gathering takes from it, a gather can take no more than is left, and an empty region can't be gathered until some has grown back. The region card shows what is left and when it is full again, and the map marks picked-clean regions.

NEW Walk at 500 paces a minute

Crossing a region now takes about half a minute, and a Speedo still doubles it.

NEW Walk a bit faster: 180 paces a minute

Crossing a region now takes about a minute and a half instead of two and a quarter, and a Speedo still doubles it.

NEW Take the roads off the map

Animals walk anywhere now, so the lanes, footpaths, bridge, lane names and the trails from your region to its neighbours no longer draw. Fields, buildings, the brook and region borders stay.

NEW Walk straight to any spot you tap, at your own pace

Tapping the map sets your animal off in a straight line to that exact spot, at 120 paces a minute, instead of hopping one region at a time. It stands in whichever region it is passing through, so it can act there on the way, and a Stop button halts it where it is. Your animal moves along a dashed line on the map and the page catches up when it arrives. A new Workshop recipe, the Speedo, is a drink that doubles your pace for an hour, including the rest of a walk already under way. The server learns the map's region outlines from resources/data/ hollowmere.json, written from the map's own drawing by npm run map:geometry, so both agree on which region a spot is in.

NEW Take payments and cash-outs through PayPal only

Pineapples are bought through PayPal in US dollars, and cash-outs go to the animal's PayPal email. Paystack is gone: its client, its webhook and return page, the bank account check and bank transfers, the OTP step on the Cash-outs page, its key on the admin page, and the rand prices. A migration drops the bank account columns from payout details and deletes any saved bank details and the old Paystack key. The privacy page, README and DEPLOY.md name PayPal only. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Take Bitcoin off the privacy page and the README

Cash-outs go only to a bank account through Paystack or to PayPal since Bitcoin was taken out, but the privacy page still listed a Bitcoin address among the payout details we collect, and the README still described Bitcoin cash-outs being sent by hand. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Open an animal's profile from its name

Clicking a player's name used to open a private message, or nothing at all on the rankings. Every name now opens that animal's profile: its species, faction and role, level and Rosettes, Market and Creativity skills, a record of battles won, nights at the gate, outlaws and secret edits caught, missions, sales, designs and times caught, any warrant out for it, its shop with Buy buttons, and its collection. A Message button on the profile opens the chat, and the separate message buttons on the faction page, the Wanted board and the map stay where they were. A profile never shows what the animal holds (Corn, Apples, Pineapples, materials, horseshoes) or where it stands, and only animals in the same valley can see it. Your own name still goes to your own page. The biography's "Sold N items" now counts sold listings, since the Rosettes for sales stop after 60 a day. The market's price line, Buy button and power line moved into a shared component so the profile's shop works the same way. The privacy notice says what a profile shows. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Let players plant apple trees with Pineapples and harvest Apples

A tree costs 900 Pineapples, fruits after two days and then grows five Apples a day until it has given 130. Its basket holds three days of Apples and the tree waits while it is full, so players come back to harvest and nothing grown is lost. An animal can have five trees growing at once. A grown Apple costs about 70c, less than a bought one (80c to R1) but more than a cash-out pays (60c), so trees are the cheapest way to Apples and never a way to make money. Harvested Apples wait before a cash-out like bought ones, and the owner's page counts them with Apples swapped for.

NEW Sell Pineapples for money, and swap them for packs of Apples

Real money now buys Pineapples instead of Apples. Pineapples do one thing: swap for packs of Apples on the Apples page. The money packs keep their rand and dollar prices and each buys the Apple pack of the same rank, so the cheapest Apple still costs 80c and every cash-out leaves the game ahead, but what an Apple costs takes two steps to work out. Shops, the Wanted board and sale notices now speak of "the game's share" instead of naming its percentage. The owner's page counts Pineapples sold and Apples swapped for them.

NEW Take Bitcoin out of cash-outs

Cash-outs are paid by bank transfer through Paystack or by PayPal only. Players can no longer pick Bitcoin or save a Bitcoin address, the owner's Cash-outs page loses its send-by-hand and Mark paid steps, and payout details drop the Bitcoin address column (nobody on the live site had saved one). DEPLOY.md no longer describes paying in Bitcoin.

NEW Let factions study Attack, Defence, Science, Farming and Marching

A faction's leader and council start one study at a time, paid from the treasury and the store; levels 3 to 5 also need honey, herbs or iron from the farms. Attack and Defence make raids and held land stronger (Defence counts at the gate too), Science speeds up studying, Farming makes members gather more, and Marching gets raids there sooner. Studies stay from season to season and show on the Faction page. Ironfield now sends 6 men to Gate Night, plus one for every study level the strongest faction has, and still at least two for every active animal.

NEW Tell the valley how Gate Night went, and show it on the map

Ironfield's Sunday raid settled at 19:00 without a word to anyone, and a map opened earlier kept saying the raid was still coming. Now every animal gets a notice saying whether the gate held, what burned and the Rosettes earned; the map shows the result for the rest of the evening and fetches it by itself a minute after the raid; and before the raid it shows how many men are coming and how many the defenders hold back so far.

NEW Give cashing out its own page in the menu, and let players save PayPal details early

Players find Cash out in the menu, save their PayPal email (or a Bitcoin address) there even before cashing out opens, and ask for cash-outs once it does. A bank account still waits for bank transfers to open, since each check costs the game R3. The Apples page links to the new page.

NEW Let animals cash Apples out, with the owner approving each one

An animal saves its payout details, in its own name with its ID or passport number, and asks to cash Apples out by bank transfer through Paystack, by PayPal, or in Bitcoin. A South African ID number must pass its check digit and show the animal is 18 or older, Paystack checks with the bank that the account is in that name and ID, and the details are stored encrypted and deleted with the account. Cash-outs pay R0.60 or $0.036 an Apple, less than the cheapest Apple costs, so every one leaves the game ahead. They run from 500 to 5,000 Apples a day, one at a time, and Apples an animal bought wait 14 days in case the payment is reversed. The Apples leave the balance when the animal asks. Each cash-out then waits on the owner's new Cash-outs page, with the animal's legal name and where its Apples came from over the last 30 days. Pay sends it through Paystack or PayPal; Bitcoin is sent by hand from the owner's wallet and marked paid with the transaction ID; Turn down gives the Apples back with a reason. A failed or returned payout gives them back once, however often the provider says so. Paystack and PayPal both refuse a second payout with the same reference, so a lost answer can be checked or sent again without paying twice. A Paystack transfer that waits for an OTP takes the code on the page. Cash-outs stay closed until the owner opens them on the admin page, which warns that a lawyer should confirm the game may pay out money first. The privacy notice now says what cash-outs collect and who sees it. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Let shops price items in Apples, and add Orchard membership

A seller can now price an item in Apples as well as Corn. On an Apple sale the seller gets 85% and the game keeps 15%; a maker's 5% royalty on a resale comes out of the seller's share, and rounding always goes the game's way. Apple sales pay no House levy, since Farmhouse taxes are for Corn only. Market Square shows each price in its own currency, and a buyer short of Apples gets a link to the Apples page. Orchard membership costs 60 Apples for 31 days, renewed by hand, so there is no monthly billing. Members get one free horseshoe refill a day (a button in the game bar and on the Apples page), a tree badge by their name in chat, messages, rankings, faction lists and shops, and a seventh shop shelf. The admin page counts members, and the Today screen counts the day's Apple sales. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Sell Apple packs, swap Apples for Corn, and add the owner's admin page

Apples now have a source: players buy them in packs of 50 to 1,000 on the new Apples page, with Paystack in rand or PayPal in US dollars. Bigger packs cost less per Apple, up to 20% off. Paystack payments are confirmed when the player comes back and by Paystack's signed webhook, PayPal orders are taken when the player comes back, and either way the Apples are paid out once. A payment that doesn't match its pack waits for the owner instead. Apples swap for Corn at 10 Corn each, one way only, so the Corn everyone earns free never becomes money. A bounty hunter now collects the bounty less the game's 20%. The admin page at /admin, for accounts made admin with app:make-admin, holds the Paystack, PayPal and Claude keys, encrypted with the app key and never shown again in full. It tests each key, shows the Paystack webhook URL, opens Apple sales, and shows what the sales brought in. Chat translation uses the Claude key saved there before the one in .env. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XD4d3HMfYUpTm1mHnDWaW2

NEW Put bounties up in Apples, not Corn

The House now pays a warrant's bounty from its own store of Apples, which members fill from the Faction page, and anyone can add Apples of their own. The hunter who serves the warrant collects every Apple. A warrant nobody serves by the season's end hands its Apples back to whoever put them up.

NEW Pay bounties out in Apples

Apples arrive as the game's premium currency: every animal has a balance, shown in the top bar once it has some, and every Apple is a ledger entry that pays once. Earned Apples stay in the game. Bounties are still put up in Corn, by the House and anyone adding to them, and the hunter who serves a warrant is paid in Apples: one for every ten Corn. The Wanted page, the region card and the notices show the bounty in Apples.

NEW Add plunder, the House's warrants and bounty hunters

Lone wolves can now plunder a farm section a faction holds by standing on it: they carry off 8 of its crop and up to 20 Corn from the holders' treasury. It settles like other crimes, with a chance of being caught, and runs on its own clock: an hour's rest for the plunderer, two hours' watch on the section, and it doesn't use up the day's loot or burn. The House's informants name animals who committed crimes in the last three days. On the new Wanted page, the House's leader or council puts out a warrant with a bounty from the treasury, and the valley hears of it. Anyone can add Corn to a bounty. An animal standing in the same region as the outlaw can try an arrest for 2 horseshoes (55%, 70% for dogs): a catch sends the outlaw to the pound and pays the bounty, a miss lets them slip away for half an hour. Outlaws carry a target on the map, and region cards offer Arrest and Plunder. A new season lapses warrants.

NEW Let farms grow into the wild land round them, one new region at a time

Each farm beyond the fences has three patches of wild land round it, drawn as scrub. The leader or council of the faction holding the farm can grow it into the next patch: the patch is cleared into a new region of the farm, held by that faction, growing the farm's crop and paying Corn like the farm. The first growth costs 200 Corn, wood and stone from the store; the later ones also need the farm's own crop. A new region borders only its farm, so raiders take the farm first and its regions one by one after; the regions can raid the farm back. Wild land stays off the map's paths, raids, gathering and sales. The map grows again to make room, and the farm's card shows how far it has grown and what the next growth costs.

NEW Grow honey, herbs and iron on the farms, and six recipes that need them

Each farm beyond the fences now grows something Hollowmere doesn't: honey at Thornbury, herbs at Brookside and iron at Willowby, three to a gather. Anyone can gather it while the farm is unclaimed; once a faction holds the farm, only its members can, so farms are worth fighting for. Six new Workshop recipes need these crops: Honey Cake (skills grow twice as fast for 6 hours), Iron Pickaxe (next 10 material gathers double), Iron Lock (your home can't be burned for 3 days), Healer's Kit (your whole faction walks out of the pound), Iron Gate (a region you hold can't be raided for 6 hours, never the Farmhouse) and Iron Plough (your farms pay double for a day). The map labels each farm with its crop and shows gated regions.

NEW Add three farms beyond Hollowmere's fences to buy or fight over

Thornbury Farm north of the Barn, Brookside Farm across Hollow Brook and Willowby Farm south of the Paddock now border the valley. A faction's leader or council buys an unclaimed farm for 300 Corn from the treasury; a held farm is taken in a raid from a region next to it, like any land. Each farm pays its holder 5 Corn every half hour, and the valley hears when one is bought. The map grows to show them, with the wild land round them; you still start on Hollowmere and zoom out to see the whole valley.

NEW Put Gate Night and your faction's battles above the map

What needs you now, Gate Night and raids on or by your faction, now sits in banners between the game bar and the map, each with its horseshoe picker and button, instead of below the map where it was easy to miss.

NEW Add a chat window, pop-ups for messages and news, and the bell

Tapping an animal's name in a region card now opens a chat window over the map: you talk without leaving the screen, and replies arrive every few seconds while it's open. A link opens the whole conversation. Every game screen now checks for new messages and news. They pop up in the corner, with Reply for messages and Open for news, and the badges stay right between pages. The bell at the top collects game news: a raid marching on your faction's land (and a call to join your own faction's raids), how each battle went, sales in your shop and royalties, requests to join and their answers, crimes against you and how your own went, new laws on the Barn Wall and uprisings. Opening it marks the news read.

NEW Add Workshop recipes with powers for players and factions

Eleven new shapes in the Workshop carry a power. You still design the look and name and make numbered copies; a copy's power starts when its owner uses it up, so makers sell them and earn the royalty on resales. For the animal: Gathering Gloves (next 5 gathers bring half as much again), Iron Shoes (your next raid or defence counts a third more), Night Cloak (your next crime is half as likely to be caught), Willow Tonic (out of the pound now) and Prize Ribbon (double Rosettes for 3 hours). For the faction: War Banner (raids hit 15% harder for 12 hours), Thorn Hedge (the region you stand in defends 15% harder for a day), Feast Basket (members gather a quarter more for 12 hours), Watch Bell (criminals targeting the faction are likelier to be caught for a day), Mason's Trowel (finishes a building going up) and Golden Sheaf (one extra law change, House only). Stronger recipes open at Creativity levels 2 and 3; none gives horseshoes. Used items stay on record but leave their owner's things. Powers working right now show in the game bar on every screen.

NEW Let a newcomer found a faction on day one

On launch day there is no faction to join and crime opens at level 3, so founding at level 2 for 200 Corn left every newcomer's story waiting at "Pick a side". Founding now costs 150 Corn from level 1: a newcomer has that after the story's first three steps. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

NEW Finish the Pick a side step for animals already in a faction

An animal that joined or founded a faction before reaching the story's fourth step could never finish it, since joining only counted while the step was open. The step now opens finished for anyone already in a faction, ready to collect. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

NEW Show the next step everywhere and say why actions are unavailable

A Next step bar under the game bar on every screen shows the story step you're on, how far along you are, and a button to where it's done, or to collect the reward. Unfinished missions on Today get the same Go button. The game bar now shows what you carry. Buttons that would fail explain why instead: Buy says how much Corn you're short, Gather and Raid say when you're out of horseshoes, and founding a faction or committing a crime say which level, Corn or wait stands in the way. An empty Market Square opens the Workshop.

NEW Let any animal message any other privately

Messages gives every player an inbox: search for any animal by name, or tap a name in chat, the market or the faction list, and write to them in a conversation of your own. New messages show as a badge on the mail icon in the top bar and on Messages in the sidebar, and the open conversation and inbox refresh while you read them. The reader can translate a message into their language, as in chat. A reader can block a writer, which stops both writing to the other, or report a message. Reports go to a new staff page showing the message and the few before it; our team lets it stand, or hides it and mutes the writer in messages and chat for 1 to 30 days. An animal can start 20 new conversations a day, so spam stays small. Also fixes the sidebar marking Me as current on /play/messages: a parent link now only matches its own pages. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

NEW Add missions, Market and Creativity skills, rankings and a Today screen

Every animal now follows a story, Arrival in Hollowmere, in four chapters that open one step at a time, and gets three daily jobs picked for its species, level and side (faction or lone wolf). Missions count what the game already does: walking, gathering, chat, the faction store, battles, crimes, designs, crafting, listing, buying and selling. Sales and purchases grow a Market skill; approved designs, crafting and every sold copy of your design grow Creativity. Both are ledgered like Rosettes, so the new Rankings page shows this season and all time. Today is the new first tab: the story step, today's jobs, skills, the shop's day and what needs you, with a badge for rewards waiting.

NEW Clear out what was left of the bill checker

The bill checker's tables were already dropped; this removes the rest. Its migrations go (the staff flag they added to users now lives in the users migration, and the removal migration still cleans older databases), along with the pricing sheet, the bill auditor's icon and share image, the Mailgun, Paystack, inbound email and pricing settings, and the bill sections of DEPLOY.md and setup.sh. The icon is now the barn under a crown, upload limits fit a game that takes no uploads, and the database and package are named after RevenueGuard. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

NEW Make walking between regions free

Walking to a neighbouring region no longer costs a horseshoe anywhere; gathering and raids still do. The region card, README and tests follow.

NEW Add faction bases: a Den and four buildings raised on held land

Factions raise buildings on regions they hold, paid from the treasury and a new materials store members give to. The Den comes first (more defence and member room; raiders who take it carry off a fifth of the treasury), then a Watchtower, Drill Yard, Storehouse or Workshop, each up to level 3. Buildings fall with their land and a new season clears them. The map shows each building in its holder's colour, and region cards and the Faction page let the leader and council build and upgrade.

FIXED Stop page views using up the limits on chat and messages

Laravel keys an unnamed throttle by the signed-in user alone, so the play area's 120 a minute and chat's 20 a minute shared one count. After opening about 20 pages in a minute a player's chat message, private message or puzzle answer was refused with "Too Many Requests". Each action's throttle now names its own count. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

FIXED Fix what a playthrough of the House, uprisings and crimes found

The Wall no longer offers the House's own animals a Rise up button the game then refuses; while an uprising gathers they're told they can stand with the House once it opens. A narrow select keeps its arrow inside it instead of at the far edge of the row. The secret edit lists only laws with a number, follows the law picked even after the Wall changes, and says when no law has a number. The market page shows no levy when there is no House to collect it, matching what buying charges. An uprising won by lone wolves says the House has fallen instead of promising a new House. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01BwNXkuj2hLLAuQjDn7feaR

NEW Make the map an open world you walk across

Hollowmere is now drawn as a street map: shaped fields and woods, Hollow Brook, the Barn, the Farmhouse, the windmill, the market and named lanes. You drag and zoom it like a street map, tap a region for its card, and see every animal standing where it is, faction land in its colours and raids marching as arrows. Each animal now stands in one region. Walking to a neighbour costs a horseshoe and is free inside your faction's land; you gather where you stand, and raids start from a region next to the target. The map page also shows the laws on the Barn Wall.

NEW Load the home page in full from Spot the Edit

The REVENUEGUARD link was an Inertia link to a Blade page, so the home page opened inside a box on top of the puzzle.

NEW Point the deploy kit at the game: lay out the valley on deploy, check its pages

Point the deploy kit at the game: lay out the valley on deploy, check its pages

NEW Polish the game screens and rewrite the README for the game

Polish the game screens and rewrite the README for the game

NEW Add the game screens: map, Barn Wall, market, faction, chat, profile and Spot the Edit

Add the game screens: map, Barn Wall, market, faction, chat, profile and Spot the Edit

NEW Turn RevenueGuard into a game: remove the bill checker, add the valley rules

Factions, the Barn Wall with secret edits, raids, uprisings, lone-wolf crime, Gate Night, the Workshop and shops, chat with translation, the half-hourly tick and the daily Spot the Edit puzzle, with tests.