One of the first major additions we made in 2016 was the introduction of the player journal. We wanted players to be able to log their adventures and write down any interesting things they found such as locations, discovery details, etc. We also wanted the journal to automatically keep track of quests so that the player would be free to continue exploring and not worry about forgetting what their quest details were. 

Along with the journal we also implemented a brand new cartography system that gave players the opportunity to create charts of their world. We always loved watching the community share coordinates and interesting places they discovered, and we wanted to make that even easier and more fun with the in-game charts. We also added a cartographer NPC that rewards you for map accuracy. 

In 2016 we added a brand new end game pirate island to challenge players even with the best of gear. With these new islands we added pirate forts and multiple new pirate types, including bounty hunters and even a Pirate King Boss. Of course we also chocked it full of new items, rewards, and even related quests. 

While Salt is a game primarily about freedom and exploration, we wanted a main story and quest line to give players a sense of objective and depth to the world. This past year we completed the implementation of that story line, adding a fun end game boss battle and a whole lot of new loot. 

One of our favorite changes we made in 2016 was a change in our island distribution system. Over time as we added more and more content into Salt, things weren't really spread out evenly. The way the old system worked, it was quite common to encounter a lot of islands without much content and vast stretches of ocean before reaching more island clusters. With the island distribution change, we spread content out more evenly, giving players a much higher chance to find new content frequently.

A fun addition we made this past year was the introduction of pirate graves. Now when exploring the world you can find little tombstones with a description of how the person died, as well as a nice lockbox. We added multiple lockboxes with lots of loot for replayability. 

We also introduced three new NPCs this past year with multiple quests and a ton of items. These are friendly characters known as the Sea Scholar, Fisher, and Hunter. Each one has unlockable levels of items as well as a repeatable quest that gives you rare, epic, and even a chance at legendary item. 

This past year we also introduced our first ever island exploration music. Now when exploring large natural islands, there is a chance for music to play during the day and at night. We made the music non-obtrusive so as to add to the feeling of exploration and not take away from anything or be too distracting. 

In 2016 we also made some nice additions and changes to the crafting and inventory system. For crafting, we added a new recipe discovery system so that you could see all potential recipes of an item, which gives you a reason to go look for new items and helps you discover some potential recipes you may have never known existed. We also added in some sorting options to help keep your inventory a bit more clean, and added the ability to drag and drop items. 

Overall, 2016 was a great year for Salt. In addition to adding a lot of new content, we fixed a lot of bugs and made a bunch of small improvements to the game. Now, let's talk about 2017. 

Our main goal for 2017 is finish the implementation of multiplayer and release Salt out of early access. We also plan on implementing some other things such as Steam cloud saving, achievements, and other improvements. We are making some great progress on multiplayer and will share more information about that soon. 

Thank you everyone so much for supporting Salt and allowing us to continue developing this game. We are very excited for this year and can't wait to see what the future holds for Salt and it's community.