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Today's update brings a number of small additions in a wide variety of areas. Nothing major, but hopefully people will be able to have fun with it.
Information pages
I aim to make Dopcom just a little bit mysterious, because I believe that the thrill of discovering hidden secrets around every corner is a major part of the fun of classic virtual pet sites.
However, Dopcom has become perhaps a little bit too mysterious, since a lot of the core game mechanics weren't really documented anywhere.
This is now fixed! The information section has been updated to include detailed guides and tutorials on every major site feature.
(If you see anything missing from the information pages, please let me know in the forums so that I can rectify this!)
New stamps
Six new stamps have been added! Half of these are earned by raising specific forms of the new pet species added earlier this year, and the other half are a little bit more mysterious...
Vase slots
A new type of furniture has been added: items that go in vase slots.
Some existing items (including the Clay Pot furniture sold in the General Store) now grant a "vase slot", which can be used a variety of decorative items such as flowers or flags.
The general store now sells colored pennants that can be placed in vases, and there is a new craftable flower bouquet item that can be placed in vases as well.
This new furniture slot doesn't have a lot of options, but future updates will flesh it out much more.
The Money Hole
A new feature has been added to the Town Square!
Some established players have significant amounts of money and no real way to use it, because currently the only way to spend dopcoins is at the General Store or at other users' shops.
Now there's a new option: throw your money in the Money Hole!
The Money Hole has a global leaderboard where users can compete to donate the most money, and also offers a chance to receive exclusive furniture items—with higher donation amounts resulting in higher chances and more available items.
Other tweaks and bugfixes
- Prices at the Curio Shop have increased
- The Fluffy Towel grooming item now reduces affinity to Water
- There is now an icon on the rooms of pets that need grooming
- The new grooming icon and all weather symbols are now forum emotes
- Crops in gardens shouldn't affect break chance calculations for garden equipment such as fountains and sunlamps on harvest days any more
- Cleansing Shampoo no longer tries to reduce affinity to aspects that have already been reduced to 0
- Fixed some bugs where out-of-stock trades weren't properly getting marked as such
- "Skip to content" link has been added for users who use keyboard controls or screenreaders (yes, I know that screenreader and keyboard control support is pretty spotty right now, but I'm going to see if I can improve this over the next few updates)
What's next?
Now that this update is out and its many loose ends are wrapped up, development can begin in earnest on the in-universe calendar and seasons system.
Each of the five seasons will last for 39 days and come with different weather patterns, exclusive furniture items in the Curio Shop, and other features.
Eventually, each season will also have a unique solstice festival celebrated for three days in the middle of the season.
In addition to the seasons, the beginning of the exploration system is on the horizon and quickly approaching. Soon, players will be able to take their pets out to explore the Crossroads area.
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fog
) and for the updates on the horizon 