“Friends, neighbors,” Professor Sprocket announces, sweeping his arms in a grand gesture at the crowd that’s gathered before his makeshift stage. Murmurs of confusion, of skepticism undulate through the audience:

”This again?”

“Last time he did this, didn’t he, like, want to take over the Cave or something?”

“Isn’t someone supposed to be watching him?”

Aliza, standing with her arms crossed and cap tipped down at the other side of the stage, bristles slightly, but stays out of it.

Other than a slight twitch at one corner of his wide grin, Sprocket appears unperturbed. He continues, “I’ve gathered y’all here today for one reason: to apologize.” He removes his hat, holding it close to his chest as he bobs his head in a very clearly practiced show of contrition. He holds that for a moment, waits for the first hesitant we forgive you to rise from the crowd, and then flips the hat back onto his head and spreads his arms, motioning to something hidden under the large tarp behind him.

“And t’ unveil the greatest invention the Cave has ever seen!” With another sweeping motion, he pulls the tarp free to reveal a large contraption. “Introducin’, the fantastic, the wondrous Combinabulator! That’s right, folks, this here contraption does it all—craftin’, combinabulatin’, recipe organizationin’. Just select your recipe, insert the required components up in this end, then hit a few buttons and a whole new thing’ll pop right out that other side there.”

The crowd is near-silent, but there is a vague, nervous energy in the air. Something between excitement and apprehension. Sprocket takes a moment to soak it in—looks as though he may as well be immersed in applause—before continuing.

“Now, now, folks; contain your excitement.” A few uncertain murmurs rumble from the crowd. “I know what y’all are thinkin’—and, no, there ain’t no scheme, and there’s an almost ninety-six percent chance that it won’t gain sentience and turn evil. This here’s the new Professor Sprocket talkin’—modest, everyday Mycenian citizen. Honest work for honest folk.”

He makes one final sweeping motion, beckoning the audience to come closer. “Come on up, take a look for yourselves! This here’s a public installation—free t’ use for everyone!”

• The crafting page has moved from the obscure tab in players’ inventories to the main menu (Places > Combinabulator)
• Fishing has been expanded with new components:
  • Jellyfish
  • Ghost Knifefish
  • River Ray
  • Water Lily
  • Fish Hook
  • Iridescent coral
  • Pearl
  • Pond Water
  • Net
  • Pond Squid Ink
  • Rockstar Bass
  • We’re still working on the texts for these new fishing items, so they currently appear as “null” - you’ll still get the item as normal, and we hope to have proper texts in place soon!
• More fishing fail texts were added
• More recipes were added and players can now create the following items through crafting:
  list

  • Mushroom Grove Background
  • Rainbow Bowtie
  • Rainbow Tie
  • Dancing Dandelions
  • Tricorn Hat
  • Pages Aflame
  • Light from Outside the Cave
  • Fancy Fish
  • Moonbow Background
  • Bonefish
  • Moonlight Rays
  • Tiny Jellyfish Swarm
  • Black Sea Wave Circlet
  • Bronze Sea Wave Circlet
  • Rainbow Magic Streak
  • Golden Magic Streak
  • Ghostly Floating Candles
  • Black Floating Candles
  • Walnut Anklets
  • Ebony Anklets
  • Iridescent Anklets
  • Prismatic Neck Bow
  • Prismatic Tail Bow
  • Ominous Clouds
  • Dusk Sky Background
  • Dawn Sky Background
  • Ominous Sky Background
  • Hip Cobalt Blue Scarf
  • Hip Colbalt Blue Legwarmers
  • Shadowy Mage Scarf
  • White Chanfron
  • Black Chanfron
  • Hacker Side Splash Wig
  • Enchanted Pink Gaze
  • Enchanted Mint Gaze
  • Enchanted Lavender Gaze
  • Enchanted Apricot Gaze
  • Enchanted Dark Brown Gaze
  • Enchanted Icy Gaze
  • Floating Lilies
• Random encounters, a new mechanic, was added, and players can acquire certain recipe components through random encounters:
  • Fabric scrap
  • Torn incantation
  • Matches
  • Bottled cloud
  • Unmagical sprout
  • Cooking herbs
  • Looking glass shard
• Management interfaces for fishing and encounters were added for staff to make it easy to update

As a note, we’re working on a better display for the Combinabulator page; we know it’s not easy to sift through the recipes right now. Also, since there’s been such a long wait for the new crafting items to be released, we decided to make all of the new recipes common recipes so that they’re immediately accessible to everyone. However, we do plan on adding to the secret recipe collection in the future, so hang on to those recipe bottles!

Starting now, there’s a chance our NPCs will stop by and offer you a gift! When this happens, the banner at the top of the page will be replaced with a notification. The notification will remain until you accept or reject the gift, and they won’t stack. This means that you won’t get another encounter until you accept or dismiss the current one.

For now, it’s only the new components, but the system is fairly complex and flexible and we’ll be using it for a lot more in the future.

We hope you enjoy the updates! A big thanks to glitch for all of the coding work he did, Loon for doing a lot of the art for the additions, staff and players for recipe and item ideas, and to the coordinator team for helping with all the flavor texts, spreadsheets, and logistics of the update!

AAAAAAAAAAA I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!! ;;;;;0;;;;;;  so many beautiful items to craft…....

also I’m SO hype about the random encounters!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t wait to see some friends pop up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IM DYING OF EXCITE THIS TRULY IS THE BEST OF DAYS

WORK WAS GOOD, I GOT FREE DRINK, SPROUT GROWS TOMORROW, AND CRAFTING IS HERE SO I CAN FINALLY MAKE TAMSI’S ALT OUTFIT FOR REALSIES. GOOD BEANS.

IM SO EXCITED!!! THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS!!

I CANT WAIT TO CONTINUE TO WANDER AROUND PPLS PROFILES AND GET REWARDED WITH LIL TRINKETS FOR IT

SPROCK YOU WACKY DUDE WHAT WILL YOU COME UP WITH NEXT

ahhh super excite for everything listed in here <3

I know this has been a lot of hard work for you guys so THANK YOU!

Scarlet can finally get her ominous clouds background! ;w;

Sorry for the late reply, but I can’t wait to get a new fishing fish! I wondered why I got a Rockstar Bass earlier XD
Anyway, YAY!!! RANDOM ENCOUNTER = ME HAPPY!!! mE LiKe frEE PriZEs 0_o