# 📢 Update 0.2.0-alpha — Underground Overhaul

**Release Date:** 11/2/2026
**Version:** 0.2.0-alpha
**Development Stage:** Alpha

## 📋 Overview

Update 0.2.0-alpha brings a major overhaul to underground exploration, resource gathering, and player progression.

With a significantly deeper world, redesigned cave generation, new geological materials, and expanded mining opportunities, the underground is becoming a much more diverse environment to explore. This update also introduces a permanent tool progression system, customizable pendants, expanded crafting, and redesigned interfaces to support the game's growing collection of features.

## ✨ Added

**New Ores & Resources**
- Added five ores: Coal, Copper, Iron, Gold, and Titanium.
- Ores generate in veins of varying sizes, with a higher likelihood of appearing near caves.

**New Underground Materials**
- Added four stone types: Limestone, Granite, Slate, and Basalt.
- Added Gravel, Clay, and Packed Dirt.
- Added Quartz as a new underground resource.

**Cave Formations & Vegetation**
- Added Stalactites and Stalagmites.
- Added Moss, Brown Mushrooms, Hanging Roots, and Cave Vines.

**Expanded World Depth**
- Extended the underground to **Y = -100**, significantly increasing available space for mining and exploration.
- Added Bedrock, an unbreakable block forming the world's bottom boundary to prevent players from falling into the void.

**Tool Progression System**
- Introduced permanent tools that are unlocked and upgraded individually rather than carried as inventory items.
- Tools are automatically selected based on the type of block being mined.
- Different blocks require specific tool types and minimum upgrade levels.
- Higher-tier tools provide faster mining speeds and access to increasingly difficult materials.
- Tool upgrades unlock additional pendant slots.
- Added a dedicated Tools menu for viewing tool progression, upgrade requirements, and equipped pendants.

**Pendant System**
- Introduced collectible pendants that can be equipped to tools for additional abilities.
- Tools support up to three pendant slots, unlocked through progression.
- Added the Haste Pendant, which increases tool speed.
- Pendants can be managed through the Tools menu.

**New Crafting & Smelting Recipes**

Added and updated the following recipes:

**Building & Construction**
- 4 Planks — 1 Log or 4 Hanging Roots
- 4 Bricks — 4 Clay + 1 Coal
- 4 Torches — 1 Plank + 1 Coal
- 4 Ladders — 2 Planks
- 1 Door — 3 Planks
- 4 Packed Dirt — 3 Dirt + 1 Gravel

**Nature & Survival**
- 1 Sapling — 4 Leaves
- 1 Leaf Bandage — 3 Leaves + 1 Hanging Root or 3 Leaves + 1 Cave Vine

**Equipment**
- 1 Haste Pendant — 2 Quartz + 2 Gold Ingots + 1 Limestone

**Smelting**
- 1 Copper Ingot — 2 Copper Ore + 1 Coal
- 1 Iron Ingot — 2 Iron Ore + 1 Coal
- 1 Gold Ingot — 2 Gold Ore + 1 Coal
- 1 Titanium Ingot — 2 Titanium Ore + 1 Coal

**Block Identification**
- Added a "What Am I Looking At?" panel that identifies the block currently under the player's cursor.
- The panel can be enabled or disabled in Settings.

**World Map Controls**
- Added a toggle to show or hide the player's location icon on the world map.

## 🔄 Changed

**Underground World Generation**
- Completely redesigned cave generation, replacing scattered air pockets with more natural cave systems.
- Introduced geological variation based on depth, replacing the previously uniform stone underground with multiple rock types and material distributions.
- Caves now feature more varied shapes, sizes, and formations.

**Existing World Compatibility**
- Previously generated chunks now receive additional underground terrain beneath their original boundaries to accommodate the expanded world depth.
- Existing terrain and player modifications are preserved.

**Background Walls**
- Updated background wall appearances to make them more visually distinct from foreground blocks.
- Added a visible boundary between foreground and background blocks, except where the background is the sky.

**Camera Behavior**
- The camera now stops scrolling downward when the player reaches the bottom of the world, preventing the empty void beneath the terrain from appearing on screen.

**World Map Defaults**
- Chunk Borders and Chunk Versions are now disabled by default for a cleaner initial map view.
- Both overlays can still be enabled manually.

## ⚡ Improved

**Inventory, Crafting & Tools Interfaces**
- Redesigned the Inventory and Crafting interfaces and introduced a matching Tools interface for a more consistent experience.
- Expanded the crafting interface to better accommodate the growing number of available recipes.
- Improved organization and navigation across the game's inventory, crafting, and progression systems.

**World Map Rendering**
- Improved world map visual quality to more accurately represent the actual blocks and colors found throughout the world.
- Underground geological materials, ores, terrain, and cave formations are now more clearly distinguishable on the map.