November Project Goals

So I decided to do things a little backward this month because of the fact that University releases this week along with what's likely to be a large patch tomorrow. There's no point in working on updates BEFORE a patch so I worked on Foraging & Candle Crafting Mods this weekend. 

Barring any major complications with the patch the Foraging mod will be ready this weekend! I added a ton of layers to it, here's a quick overview:

• Foraging will provide you with several different groups of harvestable types, i.e. mushrooms, berries bugs
• General world objects you can forage from include bushes, flowers, grass, rocks, shrubs, trees, and water plants
• Each type of plant you forage from will have it's own unique items to forage
• Each type of plant you forage from will have it's own unique challenges for your sim to deal with, i.e. Bee Stings or Finding Snakes
• There are 2 types of more serious things that can happen that will make you sick for a period of time, these conditions will affect how your sim looks and feels
• All challenges you encounter will give your sim a negative buff - some of those will keep your sim from foraging while they have the buff
• You can forage for herbs and bugs from Outdoor Retreat, herbs from Vampires, and herbs Realm of Magic although the likelihood of finding them is less
• Sims with the Collector, Loves Outdoors, Survivalist, Incredible Forager, or One With Nature traits will be successful at foraging more often
• Sims with the Incredible Forager, Survivalist, and One With Nature traits will get twice as many foraged items
• You will not be able to forage if you are dazed, possessed, or if you have some of the negative buffs from foraging
• Every once in a while sims who are successful at foraging will also get a Feeling Lucky buff that will help them be more successful at foraging while the buff is active

I've been tinkering with the candle-crafting mod off and on for the last month or so but this weekend I specifically worked on wrapping up the tuning files. In one of my last posts I mentioned that I made it so that candles that aren't inside of a container will pour into a wood block mold. Instead of just opening the mold immediately I decided I wanted to make it a little more interesting so I added an option for candles to 'cure'. I'm still looking at a couple of different ways to make that work properly and after a ton of testing this last weekend I may have figured it out.

ALSO, the recipes I've made up to now will be getting updates along with the Fresh Plate Cookbook. Here's a list of features, some of these are done but others I still need to wrap up:

• Updated basic cookbook tuning
• Seasonal cooking menus will be expanded allowing you to sort by season then by type of cooking, then by type of dish
• Added Cultural Cooking menu and recipes; includes everything from City Living and Jungle Adventure
• Added an optional file to add 'Seasonal' menu to fridges, need to add 'Cultural' menu as well
• Recipes will be able to be found in BOTH the regular in-game menus (fridge or stove) as well as my Fresh Plate Cookbook

Later down the line I'd like to add a bunch of other menus to help sub-divide all the dishes in a more functional way but I'll look at that more in the future. 

Also - University! I'm super excited about it. I'll likely separate a bunch of stuff, add slots to surfaces, and all the stuff I normally do when a new pack comes out :D I'm also finally going to get back to making videos via the EA Game Changers program so if you're interested you can check those out. 

And last update, but definitely not least, I'm going to focus on getting my candle crafting mod out by the end of the year, so that will be number one priority. Hopefully I'll have it done in time for the holiday :D This means outside of the university stuff I won't be releasing many downloads until then - I want to make sure everyone knows I'll be shifting gears to get the mod done and playable. Although some of you may be sad about that keep in mind that once the mod is ready you'll be getting close to 30 different types of candles!

Alright everyone, now that I've written my novel for the month I'll likely go quiet with WIP Updates for a little. Look forward to seeing video, mod/object updates, and the Foraging Mod here over the next week!

Brazen <3