Nikki Severin

Ahoy Ylanders! Today, we spoke with our Art department about what's coming to Ylands! And we bring you a short peek into the brand new guardian of Arid caves! Conceptualizing the Arid Hyena The creation of our new hyena creature for the Arid region in Ylands started with the need for a guardian of the dark, mysterious caves. We chose a hyena for its reputation as a cunning and resilient animal, aiming to evoke a sense of danger and challenge. The goal was to create a creature that fits the harsh, unforgiving nature of its environment. This creature is meant to add a new layer of depth and excitement to the game, challenging players in unexpected ways. From 3D Model to Life: Crafting the Hyena We built the hyena directly in Blender, focusing on sharp edges and glowing green crystals to emphasize its role as a cave guardian. Following our pipeline, we skinned the model in Maya to ensure smooth integration with our animation workflow. The final model, with its intimidating stance and piercing eyes, meets our vision of a menacing creature. Every detail was crafted to enhance the creature’s unique and formidable presence within the game world. Animating the Guardian: Breathing Life into Our Creation For the animation, we reused the set from the Wendigo, as both creatures share the same skeleton. This approach allowed our artists to add more variations while enabling our animators to focus on other critical tasks. Creating a new animation set is very time-demanding, so reusing existing animations was a practical solution. By optimizing our resources this way, we were able to enrich the game’s animation quality overall. What are your thoughts? Are you looking forward the the hyena? Let us know! Stay Classy!

⭐ HIGHLIGHTS ⭐ Tutorial gameplay tweaked, finally everyone can jump across the first ditch in the starting chapter Audio is not broken anymore once you finish the Elmwood's Outpost story General bug fixes FIXED [YLD-52720] Fixed: There is no music in game after disconnecting at wrong time from Story Land. [YLD-52785] Fixed: VS: Custom tools: get/set obsolete position/rotation script tiles do not work with preview objects. [YLD-52717] Fixed: VS: new Set position tiles do not work correctly with animated single entities/GLs and Move to script tile. [YLD-52710] Fixed: Editor: Group templates supports Event listeners, Position animators and Rotation animators again.

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Ahoy Ylanders! After the exciting news of last week (watch here ICYMI) we are back with another announcement: Update 2.3 is live now and packed with content! Are you ready to get your ELVEN EXPEDITIONS started? Random Encounter Objectives Random Encounters were given mini quests! Each Encounter now has a quest you can complete and to make sure you know exactly what to do, we included a way to track its progress. Luring lighthouse A new chapter of the story takes you to the Monsoonal region where strange things started happening. Could this have something to do with the arrival of elves into the region? It is up to you (and Horatio Reginald Elmwood, of course) to find out what's going on! Gamepad support FINALLY! You can play Ylands with a gamepad, including an aim-assist support to help you during combat. New Random Encounters created by community Ros Bobb has been given a makeover by our community. In each region, you can find new stalls, galleries, and houses made for Ross Bob! Quality of life improvements You may now use the free-placing feature for your blueprints, it can be freely rotated and snapped to ground at your will. And a few more things here and there EDITOR improvements Polished ease of use of input fields throughout the editor. Merged Terrain and Advanced Terrain Tools and split Game Logics into Basic Logics and Script Logics. Custom Enums are now a standalone Visual Script Category. Custom Localizations basic workflow introduced - create your own localization tables for custom games. Positions and Rotations in Visual Scripting reworked to be more intuitive. New Project Browser makes searching and opening Editor Scenarios much easier. Are you curious about other new features, fixes and additions? See the Changelog for update 2.3 here: 2.3 Elven Expeditions - Changelog - Changelogs - Ylands

Ahoy Ylanders, We've been hard at work on the upcoming update, which we titled Elven Expeditions. And before we release it, we bring you the experimental build! Available only to Steam users, the Experimental build offers you guys a chance to: test upcoming features & changes report any bugs & provide early feedback (#experimental_build room on our Discord server is a great way to do that) HOW TO TRY THE EXPERIMENTAL BUILD Go to your Steam library and right-click Ylands Select Properties, click the "Betas" tab, and enter "YExperimentalPublic" as the password (excluding the double quotes) This will unlock the "i_will_back_up_my_saves" branch. (Please note that you don't need to back up your saves anymore this is just the name of the branch). After selecting the branch and confirming it, Steam will begin downloading the new experimental branch SUPER IMPORTANT INFO! Any progress you make on the experimental build DOES NOT carry over to your live game!!! When you start playing experimental, we will now copy your live progress into experimental for you. You can try your actual progress in the new update right away (remember that you are playing in a separate environment so it will not affect your progress on live by any means). What WILL be copied: Adventure mode progress, All editor scenarios and tools, Non-protected workshop scenarios and all the blueprints you have uploaded to the workshop All your purchased blueprints All your local blueprints What WILL NOT be copied: Sharegames Rented servers (if you want any of those maps on experimental, you will need to turn them into singleplayer maps before you start experimental for the first time) Any workshop assets with global user data (leaderboards, game sets, etc) Do not copy any local files! Any TAMPERING with local data can lead to irreversible loss of progress!!! Not all features that will be released in the full release are necessarily available in the Experimental build. It is possible that some features available in the Experimental build might be changed, balanced, or removed before the full release. ...with that out of the way...onto the good stuff! Highlights Random Encounter Objectives We improved random encounters so now you are able to keep track of RE objective progress. We hope it will motivate you and your friends to explore ylands even more now. Luring lighthouse A new chapter of the story takes you to the Monsoonal region where strange things started happening. Could this have something to do with the arrival of elves into the region? It is up to you (and Horatio Reginald Elmwood, of course) to find out what's going on! Gamepad Gamepad controls is finally here for you. Do not forget that with gamepad we help you a little bit during the combat with the aim assist. Quality of life improvements You may now use freeplace feature for your blueprints, it can be freely rotate and snap to ground at your will. EDITOR improvements: Polished ease of use of input fields throughout the editor. Merged Terrain and Advanced Terrain Tools and split Game Logics into Basic Logics and Script Logics. Custom Enums are now a standalone Visual Script Category. Custom Localizations basic workflow introduced - create your own localization tables for custom games. Positions and Rotations in Visual Scripting reworked to be more intuitive. New Project Browser makes searching and opening Editor Scenarios much easier.

Ahoy Ylanders! Today, let's for once leave the seas of Ylands and instead dive into what it's like to be a tester. In general, us testers get to shine when a new feature or asset is introduced and given to us in its raw state. Here it's important to keep two mindsets: one of a tester, but also one of a player. But let's get to the latter in a little bit. Generally, as testers, we basically have one important job - to grab what we've received and attempt to break it in any way imaginable. Already knowing all that is doable in the game, this is where we do that "all" and way more. We get to wreak havoc and investigate all that could possibly go wrong, and this is where being creative and imaginative really pays off. Finding as many ways to break every new thing as possible lets us, after all, try our very best to bring you everything in the most polished, pristine state after it's reported, fixed and retested. The mindset of a player comes into the picture when we also have to consider the question of: is this user friendly? As most of us already have our fair share of experience with games, we know fairly well if not only the usability but also design is something that would generally please a player. Overall, it's important to us that every new thing is easy to understand, can be used well, but also looks a way that would catch our eye as players. As such, not only do we find bugs, but also bring our own feedback to the table. When a release is knocking on the door, that's when the most things can possibly go wrong. Instead of testing rather specific things, we now have to look through every single corner of the game to make sure nothing has been broken in the process. Even things that until now seemed minor are important to test so that we can try our best to make the experience we bring you, our players, as flawless as it could be. And then the release comes, maintenance happens, and we have the job and last chance of checking that everything is fine, so we split the most important parts of the game amongst our lovely team of testers and go through all Story ylands, intro, shop etc., basically all that absolutely has to be in a proper state no matter what. And we have to manage in time so that you can get the finished product and continue sailing as soon as possible. Overall, seeing that progress that newly added things go through is really exciting, as it goes from a sometimes rather broken state to a finished feature and we get to experience all those stages. Sometimes that results in funny bugs that we would not otherwise experience while being simply players, which we then get to share with you, our community, afterwards. At the same time, it can be a difficult job since we're not just playing the game. It can sometimes take us days to find how a specific bug happens, which often results in us just doing the same thing over and over and over again until we figure it out, and then once more after it's fixed. It takes a lot of effort, thinking, and patience, but in the end it's always worth it. If you run into a bug or simply need help with something, let us know in our Discord! That's it for this week! Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders! This week, our programmer Radek will share a few insights about our internal system called Notice Board. This nice addition to our game is a digital bulletin board, crafted to enhance your gaming experience by bringing you relevant information happening around the Ylands game. Key Features Dynamic Content Updates: Keeping players informed and engaged is crucial, so we've developed a dynamic hub filled with content to ensure you never miss out on the essential happenings in the Ylands universe. Stay updated on upcoming patches, new shop content, latest features, and game changes. Visual Experience: To get your attention, we have designed an aesthetic board with a charming board theme. Our UI Designer carefully crafted the variants of paper notes that are easily integrated into the dynamic system we developed. Technical Aspects Originally the tool was required by the marketing team and it was intended to be just a place with brief notes served to the players updated approximately once a month. Because of this simplified design and underestimation of the potential size of that system, we encountered several complications during the development process. We chose a more simplistic approach inspired by the classic blog systems but we had to work with static data uploaded on the server. We chose the JSON file format for storage. The JSON file you upload to the server needs to be manually edited, which can be easy for a tech-savvy person, but can be a nightmare for the average PC user. That's why it's important to choose the right tools while simplifying the editing process itself, which was also underestimated at first. If you're building a tool that requires the work of others while giving you the ability to update content fairly frequently, reach for a database solution rather than static data and expose some simple frontend app with convenient editing tools. Unfortunately, we were limited by time and did not expect that the system would become such an integral tool. Fortunately, there are ways to automate these things, so we created a spreadsheet where the marketing team can update their data while keeping track of what has been published. They then generate a JSON file from that table and just send it to the backend server. While this process still requires the involvement of at least 3 people, editing such a spreadsheet and then uploading the final changes to the server takes much less time. In conclusion, we'd just like to point out that it's always a good idea to consider the importance and potential workload of such a system and invest time in developing tools and then working with them more efficiently accordingly. Since its release, the Notice Board has become one of the most visited places in Ylands. We are constantly working on improving the Notice Board and have some exciting additions planned for the next update. Is there something you'd like to see on the Notice Board? Let us know! Stay classy, ylanders!

⭐ HIGHLIGHTS ⭐ Tech Tree - When you select a known recipe in the Tech Tree, it will now also be selected in the crafting menu. Continue on your Adventure - Some of you who skipped the last two updates couldn't continue playing. Not anymore! Handbook Rewards - Some players didn't receive their rewards during multiplayer gameplay, but now they will have them back. Elmwood's outpost - A few Ylanders had their progress in this story Yland restarted; we have reverted it. Low memory optimization - You might have experienced a crash on Crimson Shores Yland - this issue is now fixed. FIXED [YLD-50689] Fixed: Handbook rewards: Collectibles rewards can be claimed for clients again. Affected players will receive all rewards they should have gotten after the loading of exploration map. [YLD-50630] Fixed: Reduced memory consumed by lights shadow maps to manageable amount. [YLD-50644] Fixed: Exploration map compatibility issues for saves made in before 1.10. [YLD-50645] Fixed: Editor: Freeze when you start PC only empty world. [YLD-50666] Fixed: Editor: Custom transactions in scenarios without gameset/scenario data never finished, always resulted in refund. [YLD-50674] Fixed: Editor: Is group tile does not work correctly in custom tools when you provide them anything else than Group/Entity/Game logic. Fixed: Entity thumbnails in inventory can sometimes disappear or get switched with different ones. TWEAKED Tweaked: Improved readability of table view.

Ahoy Ylanders, In today's dev diary, we will look at a significant change in the history of Ylands development that fundamentally influenced the creation of new assets and significantly improved players' ability to personalize their game creations and equipment. In the initial stages of game development, it was essential for us to design a specific visual style that would be unique and have great potential to not visually age soon. This key aspect was further influenced by other particular requirements, such as the need for a smooth change in the time of day, weather, and editable terrain. With an increasing number of players and the amount of time they spent in the game, there came a need for a more significant variability in-game assets, even though the game already contained thousands of unique objects. After testing various options for solving this problem, we decided to make all game objects colorable. On the one hand, this decision was great because it potentially created infinite variations of current assets without negatively impacting the data size. However, on the other hand, it brought a tremendous amount of work for the entire graphics team. To preserve the original visual style, we designed a system that would keep the artistically stylized shading of the model while also adding the possibility to colorize this model with three different colors. We achieved this effect by adding a second UV set to each model, which contains information about which part of the model is colored with one of these three colors. The original shading of the model remained stored in the first UV set, which now only contains different shades of gray. The final visual of the model is created inside the game engine using a custom shader, where the black-and-white shading is multiplied by the defined colors. In the game, there is a database where each object has its base colors stored, so the resulting visual corresponds to the original one, with the new option to change this coloration anytime. This new feature allowed us to create even more beautiful and diverse game environments, and more importantly, it allowed you, our players, to unlimitedly customize your creations, such as building your dream house and coloring it according to your preferences at any time in the future. Do you use this option in the game? What is your favorite way to use it? Let us know! Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders! We're thrilled to share some behind-the-scenes insights from our 3D artist department about a new animal coming to the Taiga region in Update 2.3. This is going to be a great one so you will have to wait a bit longer for it. The Creative Journey: From Squirrels to Cows Our journey began with an open slot in the Taiga region, prompting our designer to suggest adding a new animal. The first idea was a giant squirrel, but animation challenges led us to brainstorm further. We then played with the idea of something prehistoric and herbivorous, like a dinosaur. Imagine that in Ylands! However, we soon realized that the best idea was right in front of us, especially with the upcoming 2.2 update bringing encounters reminiscent of the bygone cowboy era. Our designer, Pypse (who often interacts with you on our Discord), came up with a brilliant idea: a cow. Merging Utility with Aesthetics: The Taiga Cow This cow isn't just an animal; it's a symbol of our commitment to blending utility with aesthetics. It animates well, is great for riding, can be milked, and fits perfectly with the Taiga's cowboy theme. Deciding on the type of cow was challenging, with numerous breeds to choose from. We settled on the unique Highland cattle, known for its shaggy coat. Artistic Challenge: The Highland Cattle Model Creating a model of the Highland cattle required special attention to its distinctive, shaggy fur. Thanks to our team of experienced artists, we found a fantastic direction for stylization, making our cow model a work of art. We're excited to show you the initial versions of the fur! Bringing the Cow to Life: Sounds and Animations In the Ylands team, we hope you'll also appreciate the sounds and animations of this noble Taiga creature, integral to our thoughtful stylization process. We're in the process of creating those, so stay tuned! Thank You, Community Your feedback is crucial as we continue to develop and refine our game. We're grateful for your participation in the Ylands community. Your adventures, challenges, and achievements inspire us every day and we are so excited to hear what you think about this furry cow addition to Ylands. Happy exploring in Ylands, and we can't wait for you to meet our newest Taiga resident! Stay Classy!

Hello Ylanders, We’re back with an exciting blend of news about our latest feature: Handbook Rewards. This addition is all about enriching your entire journey in Ylands, with a special focus on those initial, crucial hours of gameplay. A Rewarding Start We understand that the first few hours in Ylands can be decisive. Players who overcome the initial learning curve tend to find deeper enjoyment and stay longer. With this in mind, Handbook Rewards are designed to make the early stages more engaging and less daunting. By offering meaningful rewards for early tasks, we aim to help new players find their footing and uncover the true potential of Ylands. Rewards Across Your Journey But it’s not just about the start. Handbook Rewards bring value at every stage of your adventure. Whether you’re gathering essential resources, unlocking unique and powerful weapons, or acquiring special collectibles, these rewards are tailored to enhance your experience. Streamlining Progression A key goal of Handbook Rewards is to offer a smoother progression path. These rewards come in at just the right time to help you unlock new regions and tackle the challenges ahead. It’s about reducing the grind and increasing the enjoyment of each milestone you reach. While also giving you a long term goal to aim for in the case of Story Chapters or some more difficult Region conquering Diary Events. Looking Forward Handbook Rewards represent just one step in our ongoing effort to make Ylands more engaging. We see great potential in integrating this system with future features, like daily quests or login bonuses, to continually enhance your gaming experience. Your Feedback, Our Compass As you delve into this new feature, we’re eager to hear from you. Your experiences, especially during the early stages of the game, are invaluable in helping us refine and evolve the Handbook Rewards system. Thank you for being part of the Ylands community. Your adventures, challenges, and achievements are what inspire us to keep improving and expanding the world of Ylands. Happy exploring, and here’s to many more rewarding adventures ahead! Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders! Updates are consistently geared toward enhancing your gaming experience. Each update brings a combination of significant features and behind-the-scenes improvements to ensure smoother and more enjoyable gameplay. Let's delve into the journey of these features. Wish List Our wish list is a culmination of various sources, including community suggestions, insights from focus tests, brainstorming sessions with our designers, and feedback from our team members. We also take into account thoughts gathered from QA feedback sessions, creating a comprehensive pool of ideas. Priorities Every update is driven by specific goals, such as improving recipes for new players or transforming sailing into a thrilling adventure. We compile a list of approximately 40 objectives for each update, aiming for a balance between fun and functionality. Design The Feature Owner plays a crucial role in crafting a design document with mockups to visualize ideas. Some features are even prototyped using our Editor, adding a tangible dimension to the creative process. Design Review A creative huddle takes place involving the Project Lead, Producer, and Designers. Their focused brainstorming session ensures alignment with our overall vision and addresses any potential challenges. Implementation With a detailed plan in place, we share our ideas with the implementation team. Each feature follows a specific timeline, accompanied by status meetings and vigilant oversight to ensure a smooth transition from concept to reality. Feature Review We did it! Upon completion, the Project Lead and Producer evaluate the feature's integration into the game, considering its overall enjoyment factor. Other developers also provide feedback during this phase. Feature is Ready The moment of truth arrives as QA takes center stage. Rigorous testing is conducted to identify and address any bugs, ensuring the feature is polished and ready for release. As our team eagerly tackles the next project, they remain committed to resolving any issues promptly. We're excited for you to experience the new feature and have a fantastic time with it! 🚀🎮 And that is a feature's journey from the point of view of Production. Do you have any questions about this process? Let us know in the comments! Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders, We've been hard at work on the upcoming update, which we titled Tremendous Techtree. And before we release it, we bring you the experimental build! Available only to Steam users, the Experimental build offers you guys a chance to: test upcoming features & changes report any bugs & provide early feedback (#experimental_build room on our Discord server is a great way to do that) HOW TO TRY THE EXPERIMENTAL BUILD *optional* If you've been playing for a while and are not a newer player, please delete the contents of this folder C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\Bohemia Interactive\Ylands\Crashes go to your Steam library and right-click Ylands select Properties, click the "Betas" tab, and enter "YExperimentalPublic" as the password (excluding the double quotes) this will unlock the "i_will_back_up_my_saves" branch. (Please note that you don't need to back up your saves anymore this is just the name of the branch). after selecting the branch and confirming it, Steam will begin downloading the new experimental branch SUPER IMPORTANT INFO! Any progress you make on the experimental build DOES NOT carry over to your live game!!! When you start playing experimental, we will now copy your live progress into experimental for you. You can try your actual progress in the new update right away (remember that you are playing in a separate environment so it will not affect your progress on live by any means). What WILL be copied: Adventure mode progress, All editor scenarios and tools, Non-protected workshop scenarios and all the blueprints you have uploaded to the workshop All your purchased blueprints All your local blueprints What WILL NOT be copied: Sharegames Rented servers (if you want any of those maps on experimental, you will need to turn them into singleplayer maps before you start experimental for the first time) Any workshop assets with global user data (leaderboards, game sets, etc) Do not copy any local files! Any TAMPERING with local data can lead to irreversible loss of progress!!! Not all features that will be released in the full release are necessarily available in the Experimental build. It is possible that some features available in the Experimental build might be changed, balanced, or removed before the full release. Please delete the content of the folder: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\Bohemia Interactive\Ylands\Crashes If you forgot to delete the content of the folder and the game starts as a new game contact us for help. ...with that out of the way...onto the good stuff! HIGHLIGHTS New Experimental! Brand new way of playing the experimental build, now your live progress is copied to experimental so you can try the new changes with your own character and with your own progress! You can also try out your Editor tools and scenarios and see if they work, please keep us informed! Tech Tree Progress through core and most optional recipes is now based on a Tech Tree, allowing for more a controlled and fun system of unlocking crafting recipes. Handbook rewards New rewards for handbook tasks and story (bear in mind some of them are placeholders in experimental). Some rewards can be obtained only through the handbook and nowhere else, so remember to claim them! Compass overhaul Compass is now always visible and has an all-new visual for increased contrast. We also added the detection of cave entrances. Proximity chat Players are now able to communicate via a built-in proximity voice chat in multiplayer sessions. Inventory context button improvements We felt the item detail window was too hidden, so we displayed it more prominently (replaced the "Used In" button). Used In was moved to the item detail window, along with several new functions (Link to the crafting recipe, ability to craft more of the same item, etc.) Alchemy changed to crafting The alchemy table now works as any other workstation (potions are researched in the tech tree as most of the other recipes). Region map is now single-player by default Do you often run out of space in the region map? Now all your maps are single-player by default. Servers are always accessible by a separate game list in the region map. This should double the space for your own ylands! Avatar frames Now you can change the borders of your avatar's face. You can gain some as a reward or buy some in the shop. Frames are visible to all your friends. Biotop polishing Flora and fauna are now region-specific. We also changed the visual (both terrain and new entities) of every region. There are now some new animals like hens, and many new plants, rocks, and trees. Random encounters Random encounters are now region-specific (except for vendors). Vendor encounters were rebalanced and their compositions were updated. Optional recipes were separated into smaller pools to reflect progress in the Tech Tree. We also added a new method for the optional recipe and exploration point acquisition (Interactive entities hidden in Random encounters). Quality of life improvements List of valid entities for inventory containers extended (or changed). Tutorial rebalanced for new changes. Items automatically removed from containers no longer drop on the ground Destroyed entities from REs no longer drop resources. Hardened items no longer fall to the ground when terrain is modified below them. Stumps can be removed using a pick tool. Empty categories in the Crafting menu are hidden until you learn their contents. Sailing speed rebalance Boats were rebalanced to be slower than most ships. Ship speeds were rebalanced for a more linear progression. The angle of optimal wind was increased and the negative effect of sailing against the wind decreased. The power of sails and engines is applied by an exponential curve - less power is required to reach a reasonable speed. Gamepad PC alpha version Early access to the implementation of Gamepad controls for you to try out. Bear in mind that some UI windows are still in progress and you will not be able to use the gamepad in them properly. But especially in combat or general gameplay, we would like to know how gamepad controls work for you. Also please try our new aim assist using the gamepad. Full gamepad implementation will happen during next year. Aim assist Players using a gamepad or playing on mobile are now being assisted with aiming. Secondary Interaction bound to E key We moved some radial menu actions to a separate hotkey. Feedback improvement You can send feedback messages with save files attached. Indicators for saving and bad connection Whenever the game autosaves, an indicator flashes in the bottom right corner. Should you experience issues with an internet connection, the game will display that as well. Also, losing progress when your internet connection is poor should be mitigated to a minimum. EDITOR: Custom tools folders Organize Toolbox neatly into virtual folders. EDITOR: Debug stepping alpha version Introducing an alpha version of a powerful debugging tool for Custom Games containing complicated Visual Script. Add breakpoints to Visual Script tiles, test the game in the Debug mode, and walk through the script step by step. This feature is hidden by default but can be enabled by /enabledebugging 1. Critical Blocking Issues: tech tree does not work properly in multiplayer handbook rewards can disappear in multiplayer Please note that not all texts are translated at the moment and some old texts are not updated yet.

Ahoy, Ylanders! Embark with us on a visual journey into the realm of artistic creation as we unveil the process behind some of the mythical animals in the Ylands universe. Today, we'll delve into the minds of our talented artists: Karel, Filip, and Jakub, as they created the fantastical beings that already inhabit your Ylands experience. Wooden Golem by Karel "Research is key to capturing the true essence of the Wooden Golem. I drew inspiration from my favorite Lord of the Rings movie, blending majestic and dangerous Ents with dumb and heavy Trolls. The challenge was to strike a balance between enchanting and mysterious, ensuring these creatures seamlessly meld into the forest landscapes our players will explore." Stormfeathered Banty by Filip "Creating the Stormfeathered Banty was a challenge. I immersed myself in the world of flying beasts, drawing inspiration from our animator Matej and his pet hen, as well as the old Mayan kingdom. It's fascinating how ordinary animals and tribal art can breathe life into these mythical creatures." Emerald Scaleneck and White Burroworill by Jakub "When thinking of Emerald Scaleneck and White Burroworill, I drew my inspiration from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail (easter egg) and the TV series Dinosaurs. Incorporating these comical ideas into these mythical creatures added an otherworldly dimension. It's amazing how a blend of fantasy world, funny animals, and artistic interpretation can create creatures that feel both cute and captivating." A heartfelt thank you to Karel, Filip, and Jakub for offering us a glimpse into the creative process that births these mythical creatures! For a deeper dive into our artistic endeavors, don't forget to explore our art developer diary in the future. Share your thoughts on these extraordinary creations, and until our next artistic revelation... Stay Classy!

Ahoy Ylanders, It is finally here! We know, we know, it's been a while and sorry about that, but we think the major improvements and over 200 fixes, additions and tweaks are worth the wait! Before you skip to those long requested features, let us thank you for sticking with us in 2023, you are making wonders in Ylands! Let's see what Update 2.2: Tremendous Techtree has brought for you! Tech Tree Tired of randomly exploring the world to find specific recipes? So were we. But now, we're introducing a much better way to get them - The Tech Tree! Finally, you can take technological progress into your own hands and be in charge of advancing through the tree and helping it grow. Wanna know more specifics about the Tech Tree? Go see this Dev Diary: https://ylands.com/community/topic/32592-dev-diary-298-big-technology-change-incoming/ And to help you get started with the Tech Tree, we have a competition on our Discord! Join in and compete with other adventurers for the limited Fox on Board pet. Join the competition here: https://discord.gg/ylands?event=1207664814902480976 Handbook rewards Handbook is great, but everything can be improved. That's our mindset in a nutshell, so what is the Handbook improvement? Rewards for you! Some of these rewards will be useful in your journey and some are Handbook exclusive. One of the exclusive rewards is a C.A.G. avatar frame that can be claimed only by helping Reginald Elmwood with his assignment. What are some of the other rewards? Go open up your Adventurers Handbook and find out! Compass improvements Behold! A brand new never-disappearing compass found its way to Ylands. Storm, fog, night or the brightest sunshine - worry not! With its updated visual, the new compass will always help you find your way... or cave entrances, as those too are marked on the compass from now on. (Our miners reported dozens of hours saved when looking for resource deposits.) Avatar frames Wanna treat yourself by getting an exclusive look for everyone to see? A whole new section of the shop is here and with it an immense dose of style! Choose yours and show it off for all Ylanders to see! Proximity chat Yeah, every game has some kind of voice chat, but where is the immersion? In close proximity. So, make sure to test this new feature out with your closest friends! At least in the Adventure mode, where you can only hear each other when relatively nearby. But worry not, when playing in Creative, you can hear each other regardless of how far apart you are. Mobile aim assist Yet another thing you've been asking for quite often. Here it is! Better aim for mobile users. Pew! Pew! Pew! Are you curious about other new features, fixes and additions? See the Changelog for update 2.2 here: https://ylands.com/community/topic/32773-22-tremendous-tech-tree-changelog-wip/ Valentine sale is ON right now! Our lovely Valentine's sales are still going on. Exclusive limited pet Fox on Board and discounts on more pets, recipes and, of course, the proposal emote! Head to the shop and send a gift to that special player.