It's been a while since any updates, especially since I got a cold around the time I initially expected to release the explore update. Now I bring you an ETA! Most of the stuff I've been working on is either internal or art, so you wouldn't notice any changes, but the release date (approximately at least, may be earlier or slightly later) for explore has been pushed back to March 20, the first day of spring! Hope you guys can hang in there until then.

http://www.clipular.com/c/5569680972...nxixpFl7537JxA
Here's a screenshot of the upcoming explore page, which might come earlier than expected. I'm thinking about adding an overlay to show how many steps you have left.

Ahhh, the coati swirl is A+ :happycbig:

Explore has officially been added! The amount of steps has been increased to 40, since 20 seemed too short. The pets themselves aren't hard to run into, but it isn't easy to get one! It may take you a quite few tries if you aren't lucky.

Also, if you are getting this screen:
http://www.clipular.com/c/5421676802...OXmK7B1HiqhZVc
Clear your cache to fix it.

Bouncing ideas off the walls here, I'm thinking that, based on their encyclopedia entry, adoptables of that type with sometimes have random events to correspond with it.

Spaniel Flan: Will need to be groomed more often than other pets, when/if grooming is added.

Eggsotic Shorthair: Might pop up in a random spot on your page on occasion.

Hotdach: When/if grooming is added, the ability to remove the bun will be possible.

Ragamuffin: Possibly take care of baby adoptables? (baby babs would need to be difficult to care for somehow...)

Black Forest Dog: A random item might be removed from the inventory if the mood drops below 30% maybe? (There would need to be a vault or something to protect items.)

Chowchowder: Grooming not needed? (Or maybe grooming needed less often)

Apple pom: Trust is easier to gain.

Cranberry Tufted Deer: Make use of the unused battle system? They seem to like tussling.

Gingerbread Bear: A chance to get items from the sidebar. (More valuable items would be rare)

Pumpkat: The possibility of the pumpkin getting destroyed in explore, once disease and injury gets added. (It would be rare, like 5% or something)

Cookie Cat: Trust is harder to gain

Cherry Cheesecake Dog: Extra steps in explore

There's no telling when or if some of these are going to be added, but I'm thinking about ways to make it work.

I think I figured out a way for a pet's mood to go down every day using a date function, but it only goes down when you visit their page/profile (So none of the bars can go down if you don't visit your pet) Unfortunately, this means that the pets are basically "frozen" when it comes to needs if you don't visit them, making the frozen function only work for clicks (I want it to work for needs too eventually). I'm not sure if it works yet, but I'll keep checking back to see if the mood is going down every day.

Update #1: It's conflicting with the explore system since it uses the same variable (which checks the date before updating your "lastday"), So I'm going to split the needs date variable into a separate thing to see if that works better.

Overhaul time! While it is not coming today or tomorrow, I am on spring break. This means that I'll be able to get a considerable amount of work done.

You might be asking: what happened to the adopt overhaul? (sickness, death and "fairy dust") That will require more work on the needs system than I have done right now in order to work the way I want it to, so that update on the site has been put on hiatus. Hang in there!

Here is what I have planned for this current overhaul, which makes use of what I can do currently.

-Energy-
Introducing a new variable on pets: Energy. Training and entering contests will take energy (as well as exploring), and once your pet's energy hits 0 you won't be able to explore or enter contests until the next day. So regardless of whether you've explored that day or not, if you don't have at least 25% energy you won't be able to explore. Use energy wisely!

-NPC contests-
I don't have the knowledge to make live multiplayer contests between players, but it isn't too difficult to make NPC opponents to go against in contests. To make use of the unused stats on pets (they are there, but no visible as of right now), whether or not you will be slightly random based on the stats. So if you enter, say, a race then a higher speed stat will increase your likelihood of winning, but it will never be 100% guaranteed. Finally there will be another reason to breed pets besides breed-only adopts! This will also make use of the needs system, so low mood or unhealthy pets will not be able to enter contests or train.

Winning a contest will allow you to move on to the next difficulty level. They are structured like so:

• County
• State
• Regional (North, East, South, West)
• National
• International

Each level has the basic ranks: Beginner --> Intermediate --> Pro --> Championship. You must win each rank to move on.

-Residence-
Possibly the most major aspect of this besides contests. Users will be able to choose which part of the world the get to live in. This will affect the adoptables, items, and contests available to you. So sadly you will not be able to get a kangaroo adopt unless you chose Australia or bought it from another user. This in-game world will be divided into counties, cities, regions, and countries. Each will have their own leaderboard, to add incentive to winning contests. Imagine having your pet be the #1 competitor in the world! It replicates the real world, with all the major countries and cities, but counties will be fictional to avoid any issues that could be related to that. I plan to have area-specific explore zones as well.

What if you want to move though? Well you can, though it may be expensive! The farther away your next destination is, the more it will cost to move there. But beware! Moving will make you start from square one on the contest ranks, so it's back to county beginners with you! The bright side is that you keep all of your winning trophies. Maybe you can strive to get all the trophies from all over the world!

-Player Shops-
Since users will only be able to buy pets available to them in their region (besides the starters, which will be available everywhere), users will be able to sell their pets to other users by setting up a shop. Want a pet but you can't get it where you live? Buy one from a user who has it! Or get lucky and find one in the pound (which is universal), your choice. Each user shop will be able to have a custom description, prices, residence tax (you get to choose if non-local buyers have to pay a higher fee), and shop owner NPC (basically an image). Sell your prized pets!

http://www.clipular.com/c/4782683155...8ydebn4mPjkODA
A picture of the interactive world map. Canada, US, Europe, and the UK are going to be the places I'm focusing on getting done first; and will be the first playable places. The other locations probably aren't coming until the beta stage.

I updated the css a bit too, so there should be no more issues with the favorite pet image poking out of the sidebar and the main index image doing the same. Now it scales with your screen and window size and should work better with smaller screens, but it will still look funky on mobile devices.

With residence being close, I created a survey to allow users to have a hand in the new species that will come with it.

Directions: Select at least 1 (with a maximum of 3) animals from the links provided (UK|AUS|CAN|US) and come up with a wacky food combination to merge it with. The animals that appear most frequently will be chosen to be added to the site, while the food it is combined with will be randomly chosen from the entries (if more than one for the same animal exists). Having more than one entry with the same information will not count.

Link to Survey

Oh, nice! I'll hopefully have enough time to fill this out today if not tomorrow. :colonu: