Update 0.1.34: The Guide, the Tutorial and the Census

Update 0.1.34 is rolling out now on Android, iOS and Windows. Everything on the server side is already live, so as soon as your app updates you will see the new screens and the new rules together. This is the largest update since launch. It focuses on helping new players find their footing, on giving every player a clear reference for how the world works, and on a set of fixes reported by the community during the first days after release.

The Game Guide

Crownfront now has a complete guide, on the website and inside the game.

Every item, creature, building, resource node, recipe and skill has its own page. Those pages are written by the team, but the numbers on them are not typed in by hand. They are read from the live game every time the page is opened, which means drop chances, recipe costs, building health, the fifty percent siege floor, burn timers, enhancement cost and success odds at every rung, jewelry tier odds and affix ranges are always exactly what the server is using today. When the balance changes, the guide changes with it.

Inside the game, look for a small round question mark. It sits in the top corner of every context menu, in the corner of an expanded bag row and of a skill card, and beside the Craft and Buy buttons on recipes and Trade Hub offers. Tap it and the guide opens on that exact subject. If the guide's page has not been written yet, you still get the subject's name, description and full facts panel. If the website cannot be reached at all, the game shows what it already knows about the item from its own content, so the button always answers.

The full guide, with search and the Getting Started path, is available from the website's Guide page and from the new Guide tile in the menu. The website also has a new Economy page, described below, and a link to both in the header.

A guided start for new players

New accounts now begin with a fifteen step tutorial that follows the Getting Started guide:

1. Walk by tapping the map.
2. Gather wood from a tree.
3. Fight a deer for leather.
4. Plant your first flag.
5. Tap the flag and see the land it claims.
6. Gather the materials for a workshop.
7. Build a Personal Workshop on your land.
8. Smelt iron.
9. Craft a sword, a wooden shield and a breastplate, then equip them.
10. Build a Log Cabin.
11. Travel between your saved locations.
12. Say hello in chat.
13. Open your profile and add a friend.
14. Visit your starter city.
15. Settle in: build a City House, make friends, join a kingdom.

Each step appears on a small card beside the system log with the instruction, a progress line where it helps, and a Guide button that opens the matching page. The card can be hidden to a chip, a step can be skipped, and the tutorial can be left at any time. Settings has a Replay tutorial option for anyone who wants the tour again.

Three milestone gifts of common materials arrive along the way, at the flag, the workshop and the crafting step, so the first hour is about learning the loop rather than grinding for it. Each gift is granted once per account, ever. If no deer is nearby when the fight step comes up, the card's Find a deer button brings one to you, up to three times per account.

Players who created their account before this update are offered the tutorial once on their next login and can decline it.

Four new menu screens

The four empty cells in the menu are now in use.

Guide opens the in-game guide with search, the Getting Started path and every section.

Updates shows every news post and patch note, this one included, rendered inside the game. A dot appears on the tile when something new has been published since you last looked.

Events gathers everything happening right now in one place: live events and announcements from the team, where each Cinderroc is roosting and when the fallen ones will rise again, your city's election with its closing time and current leader, open Crown Collection windows, and any scheduled maintenance with its window in UTC.

Support lets you open a ticket without leaving the game. Choose a reason, give it a title, describe the problem, and the team will answer in a simple conversation thread you can return to from the same tile. Your existing tickets are listed with their status: waiting for staff, staff replied, or resolved. Your app version, platform and approximate location are attached to a new ticket to help with investigation, and the form says so.

Free starter destinations

Every player's Travel menu now carries two saved destinations chosen at the moment they first spawned: the nearest city that has a Trade Hub, and that city's Trade Hub. Both are free to travel to for life, with no limit on uses, and they never move. The rows sit right under Home. If the hub is ever destroyed its row disappears, and if the city falls both rows go with it.

Players who already had an account receive their two rows the next time they open the Travel menu, worked out from their own first spawn. The Cities list that briefly appeared in the Travel menu has been removed; these two rows replace it.

The Economy Census

The website has a new Economy page showing the state of the world's economy as it stands today: crowns in circulation, Royal Sigils in circulation, and the count of every item in existence, split into owned, held in escrow, and listed for sale on Trade Hubs. Goods listed on a hub leave the ledger until they sell, so they are counted separately and included in the totals. The count is taken once an hour and the page shows when it was last taken and when the next count is due. Every published item is listed, including the ones nobody holds yet.

Monthly mayoral elections

Cities now hold an election every month. Any resident can cast a vote for another resident from the City screen's new Election tab, and change it at any time during the month. At midnight UTC on the first of each month the votes are counted and the winner takes office. Ties go to the candidate whose earliest vote came first. A winner who has left the city forfeits to the sitting Mayor, and a month with no votes leaves the Mayor in place. Every resident and the outgoing Mayor receive a message when the office changes hands. The first count will be for September's ballots.

Creatures no longer return to the same spot

When a creature is slain it now comes back at a genuinely random point on land within its home range, never in the water and never on the same coordinates. The world remembers that new spot, so a server restart no longer puts every creature back where it first appeared. The Cinderroc now roosts at a random point within a few kilometres of its volcano instead of the exact same coordinates every time.

Android

The Android app no longer declares orientation or resizing restrictions, which Google Play's review had flagged for large screens. The game itself is designed for portrait and still plays in portrait on every device, phones and tablets alike; it now sets that at startup rather than in the app's declaration. Android release builds are also optimised for size and memory, which should make the app lighter on lower end devices. iPhone and iPad are unchanged.

Fixes

Kingdom and city property no longer shows a personal name as its owner. A kingdom flag, a Hall or a City House belongs to the organisation, and its menus now say so.

Gloves and other tools now arrive with their full charges, so the one second gather works from the first swing. Pairs crafted before this update have been restored to full.

Rings and amulets are visible in the bag again. The jewelry category had never been drawn, so polished pieces sat in the bag unseen.

Armor and weapons worn by recruited companions now fit their bodies, and the breastplate finally has worn art on every wearer.

A dismissed golem now stays at your workshop instead of joining your next flag jump.

The Silk Bandage can be used; it shipped with its numbers but no Use button.

Item icons are centred and fill their slots properly in the bag, on the hotbar, in the Trade Hub, in the guide and on the website. Thirty one items that only had art baked into the app, including every jewelry tier, every flag dye and the staff, now have their art on the website too.

Wooden Signs no longer show a second floating sign above the board.

The tutorial card sits beside the system log on every screen size instead of pushing the bottom bar up the screen.

Screens no longer briefly say unavailable while the servers are being updated. Each service now keeps answering through its own restart, and the website and the game retry a read once before giving up.

Tutorial gifts cannot be lost: if the economy service is briefly unreachable at the moment a milestone is reached, the gift is delivered the next time the tutorial is opened, and only once.

The raw material formerly called Oil is now called Crude Oil, to keep it clearly apart from Refined Oil. Nothing about the item itself has changed.

Rankings on the website no longer show kingdom and city treasuries as if they were players.

For the team

Staff can now teleport directly to where a player currently stands rather than to where that player first appeared in the world. The Control Center gained a read-only board for Crown Collection rotations and a single dial to close or extend an open window.

Thank you

Most of the fixes in this update came from reports made in the first days after launch. Please keep them coming, through the new Support tile, the website's support page, or the community channels.