I know everyone is getting excited and ready to start the alpha testing. We are too and it's almost here! First off, we just want to say thank you to everyone for being so patient. It's really important to us that your first experience with Salt 2, even in the alpha state, is a good one. As such we've been putting a lot of time into getting all the content in we can and making sure everything runs as smooth and polished as possible. This has added more time on development than we originally wanted, but we really just didn't want to rush things and have that affect your first impressions of the game.

That being said, right now it looks we are probably about 3 to 4 weeks from alpha launch. Everything is essentially in and we are finalizing content, fixing some bugs and making some final balancing changes before launch. The game right now is very playable but we want to make sure it feels balanced and fun at all stages and so we are doing some late game testing and things like that before we start the alpha. Over the next few weeks we'll be putting the build on steam and requesting keys. Once that's done, you can expect to start receiving your alpha keys. We'll of course let you know soon the exact date you can expect the keys to arrive.

We've recently implemented both a mapping system and map items into the game. With the mapping system you'll be able to use your sextant to update your last known position on your map, and if you are on island, you can add that island to your map. When adding an island to map, it automatically knows whether it's large island or not so you don't have to worry about setting its size or getting in the right grid square. Your job as a cartographer will be to update your coordinates using your sextant, add the island to the map, and then you'll be able to add information to the island. This is still a work in progress and we still have some things to add like the ability to fast travel to certain islands like seaport islands through the map. 

We've also added in map items. If you've played Salt 1, you'll be familiar with these. These maps give you coordinates to certain points of interests. This means you can find a map to places like ancient ruins and use your compass and sextant to navigate there. 

We talked recently about how we adding commissions quests you can pick up in towns, but we've also recently added in guild quests. At launch there will be two guilds you can join: The Sea Scholar's and The Marauder's Guild. The Sea Scholar's Guild is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge by gathering artifacts and unlocking new technologies throughout the high seas. The Marauder's Guild is more focused on completing bounties and contracts that come in. These may to be hunt down and kill a pirate captain or to recover a rare artifact. 

Completing these guild quests will earn you a ranking in the guild and unique items such as ships and ship decorations. 

A lot of work recently has been put in to our sound design. We've implemented our ocean and island music. Now certain types of music can play while you are at sea or while you are exploring islands. And certain points of interests have specific music associated with them. In addition to music, we've also added in unique island ambient sounds based on time of day. In Salt 1, you would either have day ambient or night ambient sounds, but in Salt 2 we've also added evening and morning sounds. This means different times of day really have a completely different atmosphere both in terms of audio and in terms of lighting. 

We've also added some voice over greetings to some NPCs to give them more life and personality. While characters aren't fully voiced, you'll get to hear fun like quips and one liners when talking to them. 

The survival mechanics are a big part of Salt 2 and we wanted a hunger system that was fun and not just punishing. We recently implemented a system that uses 5 stages of hunger. If you are completely full, you will get a bonus to your stats. As you start to grow more hungry and your food meter goes down, your stats will also decline. If you get to where you are starving, your stats will severely decrease causing you to die very easily if you take damage. Luckily it isn't too hard to find food. Almost every island has wildlife roaming about and cooking stations to find. You can also always fish or food or visit a chef merchant. Also, eating will not only keep you from starving, but will often give you passive benefits for a certain amount of time. 

We also recently added player levels. Right now you'll be able to level from 1 to 50. As you hit certain levels this will also unlock new world tiers with new difficult enemies and loot. We also plan on adding the ability to increase your stats as you level and that will be going in soon. You currently level up by completing quests and killing enemies or hunting wildlife. 

In addition to pirate islands, natural islands, and desert islands, we also just added in battlemaster islands. These islands have an autumn style color palette and contain pirates more difficult than your typically run of the mill swabbies. You'll also be able to find unique wildlife and points of interest on these islands such as a rare and mysterious caves. 

We believe every good game deserves an awesome sunset. Recently we spent some time tweaking our lighting to make the transition from day to night look as good as possible. We're pretty happy with how it turned out and we think it adds a lot of atmosphere to the game. We've also added the ability to rest through the night or you can carry a hip lantern and explore in the dark. 

Another new piece of content added recently are world bosses. These are epic bosses that are very difficult but offer unique rewards. Finding them isn't easy and you'll have to often complete mini quests or collect a certain number of rare items in order to access them. We wanted some enemies in the game you could essentially farm for unique items like ship upgrades or certain weapon types and these fulfill that purpose. 

We've also added in more wildlife to the game. Recently we added foxes and boars. These can be found on specific islands and some of them even drop unique items or can be a reward for completing certain quests. Currently in the game you can find bears, boar, deer, and foxes. We will be adding more soon as well. 

As always we are still adding new points of interests for you to discover and explore. We recently added in a dungeon known as The Catacombs. These dungeons are maze-like with secrets hidden throughout and undead crawling every corridor. We also added in some mining caves which are a great place to find ore veins and more rare materials. 

Thank you for reading and again we will have a specific date for the alpha coming soon in the next few weeks!