Event Updates

* The new event encounters have been implemented into explore - we apologise for the delay, as these were meant to appear with Tier 3 of the Champion Shop
* The "Groupies" text section of the Brotherhood of Zeal page has been edited to mention all groupie-exclusive bases and eye colours that you can receive, where previously it only listed Wine
* When visiting V'Kai and Vashkartzen, you now have the option to exchange Reputation in higher increments than 1 and 5—the option to exchange 10 Rep for 50 AT and 50 Rep for 10 MB has been added
* You can now exchange 25 Arena Tokens for 1 Manticora Beetle (or 125 AT for 5 MB) in the Champion Shop

New Eyes

You can now breed some new Sectoral eyes! These eyes need a parent with each of the factor eyes in order to have a chance at appearing!
* Sectoral Crystal & Lavender
* Sectoral Sapphire & Albinoid
* Sectoral Pink & Violet
* Sectoral Tyrian & Indigo

All Sectoral eyes will pass their factor colours at 40% and Sectoral eyes at 20%. For example, this means that Sectoral Sapphire & Albinoid passes 40% Albinoid, 40% Sapphire, and 20% Sectoral Sapphire & Albinoid.

New Reptile Roundup Level

A new level for Reptile Roundup has been added! The level is called "Miombo Woodland", and the new skin is called "Vine Snake". This level requires you to take 2000 steps in explore with your current pride leader in order for it to be unlocked! If you have already taken 2000 or more steps in explore, the level will unlock after one more step.

Eastern Miombo Woodland 100 Points	Snake Scent 80 Points	Lichtenstein's Hartebeest 80 Points	Twisted Muunze 70 Points
Snake Skin - Dark 70 Points	Mndondo Branches 60 Points	Sable Antelope Calf 55 Points	Puffed-Up Savanna Vine Snake 50 Points
Falling Petals [Rainbow] 46 Points	Emperor Flat Lizard 42 Points	Stierling's Woodpecker 40 Points	Snake Eggs 38 Points
Mosque Swallow 35 Points	Golden Land Snail 30 Points	Herald Snake Carcass 25 Points	Sable Antelope Carcass 25 Points
Rock 20 Points (Normal Only)

Minor Impossible Update

Impossible mode now shares a prize pool with Hard mode. We might look into adding unique rewards for Impossible mode in the future if there is a demand!

New Monkey Business Content

New decors have been added to Monkey Business, available year-round!

Blue Footed Baboon Spider	Noble False Widow	Blue Monkey Beetle	Flower Crown [Nettle-leaved Bellflower]
Flower Crown [Egyptian Starcluster	Flower Crown [Tricolor Felicia]	Eroding Limestone Boulders	Eroding Limestone Rocks

New Patrol Drop

A new decor has been added as a potential drop when sending your submale out on a patrol!

- African Grass Rat

New Oasis Decor

A new year-round decor has been added to the Oasis!

- Aging Cheetah

Progress Update

We'd like to update you all with some of our plans and progress on how everything has been going lately!

"Spirited" Main Male Pose

Please enjoy this preview - this is before whiskers, cleanup, and skin work, so it may appear unfinished. The mane shape presented is Normal.

Work is underway for this currently, we're sorry it's been taking a while but we hope it'll be worth the wait!

Recode

The recode of the site is underway, but will take a long time. Coding standards have changed a lot since Lioden first came into fruition, and as many of you know who have been with us from the start, we originally started out pushing out updates every single week with priorities on fast coding. There is so much content on Lioden to address and reformat onto our new framework that it's not as simple as the coders getting together and having no sleep for a week and just hashing it all out. We want to make sure the actual game concepts - breeding chances, battling chances, hunting chances, etc. etc. - stay as they are, with no variation on the recode, so things don't get 'harder' or 'easier', they just stay the same, but with much better coding behind them. We want new visual changes (such as upgraded hunting images, etc.), and indeed a new layout (Lioden's layout is at least two or three generations behind current web standards) which we will show a renewed preview of soon (as, since the stream, we took further feedback on board and made new adjustments), but more importantly we want more robust, cleaner code to hopefully serve a faster and slicker game experience. This takes a lot of time, and isn't going to be something that comes quickly. It's frustrating to all of us, but it is ongoing and it hasn't been forgotten.

Hunting Visual Spoiler

Explore Overhaul

We do have the explore overhaul planned, and it has been planned for some time, to add more zones, more karma encounters, and indeed more enemies. That will come as more of a package, and again, isn't a small update, and will take a lot of time. We think this will be most reasonable to come out with the recode, so rather than recoding explore as it is now with the new changes, and then doing so *again* on the recode, it will be a quicker situation to do it at the same time as the recode.

Explore Spoiler

Mutations

New mutations are always planned. It's an area of the game we're all excited about, and as we all love breeding/genetics and everything associated with that, it's a passion to add new mutations and watch as they spread throughout the game, and as players figure out how to obtain them. Unfortunately, a lot of mutations, particularly the ones that require full lineart redraws, take a *huge* amount of time to get ready. This is something we're hoping to speed up as we definitely want more mutations out as soon as possible, as well as trying to address the balance of mutation art with existing decors.

Since we originally announced some of these plans back in October 2020, we as a team have faced various challenges (as has the whole world, for example, in terms of the Coronavirus pandemic) and we are still overcoming those. We have hired more artists (and each new artist hire requires training to adapt to Lioden's style and workload) and more staff members and are working tirelessly to try and get everything done. We haven't achieved it as quickly as we (and of course you as players) would have liked, and we are sorry for that. It's frustrating as hell for us, and it must be disheartening to you guys as players too. Sadly, one of our biggest mistakes was to provide a timeline, which we did in the post, with 'upcoming months/year', as obviously that hasn't happened. Things unfortunately get out of our control and are unavoidable, and things have to be reshuffled.

Having new decors, bases and markings and other body components as we have been updating is unlikely to stop, as we are committed to still delivering content updates to you all each month, including the event updates, so that the game stays reasonably fresh while everyone is waiting for the rest. We have a big group of artists and many of them focus on decors only to help with the workload, as an example, and many of the artists are unable to work on the actual lion art. We have separate artists that do work on the lion art, too, so it doesn't mean that by adding a new base or decor, work is pushed further back for the male pose. Equally, adding in some new event updates doesn't mean the recode is pushed back, or that if those things weren't put in, that either the recode or the new art updates would come any faster.

Mutation Art & Decors for Muties

We are planning to speed up the process of mutation art by adding in a new tool that utilises coding and allows us to drag and reposition decors for new mutations, which will make it dramatically faster for easier decors (that do not require a full redraw for the mutation or stage they are put on) without having to manually position each one in photoshop. This means some of this work can be given to our admins and assistants, freeing up artists for other work. We are also changing some of the file system to make it easier for mutation decors to be added.

However, since some of the polls we have released to gather feedback, we have unfortunately come to a realisation that making every single decor entirely compatible for every single stage in the game, including all mutations, is ambitious at best, and completely impossible at worst.

Even if we manage to get every single decor drawn and compatible for all stages, going forward from there, and adding more decors, and more mutations, male poses, etc. - it's going to be an absolute exponentially growing workload that will delay and drag down progress for all art related areas of the site. The amount of different art stages required for redraws will only grow and spread more, and we'll be faced with a difficult decision of: do we add new mutations to the game, or do we add more decors? Eventually it will come to bite us that it will HAVE to be one or the other, so we have finally come to a firm decision on this.

We are currently developing a tool that some of you may have seen on one of our Twitch streams, that will enable us to take the majority of decors that just require small bits of repositioning, resizing etc., and do that via the coding in a way that automates the process, and takes up much less time than editing the files multiple times across photoshop. This means a lot of decors we will be able to make compatible. There are still many that will require full redraws no matter what, and we will make it a mission to tackle as many of these as we can. However, going forward, we propose a system whereby:

- Decors will be listed with their full compatibility for what stages etc. they work on.
- If a decor is not compatible for your lion's pose, mutation or age stage, you won't be able to apply it (so you won't lose any uses). If the mutation, age stage or pose changes when the lion already has it equipped, it will be unequipped automatically and the use that was lost previously will be replenished.
- We will setup a system where players can vote on specific decors and specific mutation/pose/age stages that they desire to see realised, and look to get these added in each month as much as possible.
- All new decors, going forward, will be compatible with typical lion art, age stages, and poses, with mutations excluded unless they are easily repositionable decors. If not, these can be added into the pool of popular decors to be voted for.

We think this is the only way that realistically we can achieve what we have set out to do. We don't want to be in a situation where we end up restricted from adding more mutations because the decor workload gets too big, and neither do we want to get into a situation where we can't add new decors because there are far too many mutations to apply them to, and we might be able to achieve 1 or 2 decors a year at most.

This way, we can continue as we are with decor updates, and still utilise the most popular ones for mutations. They might take a bit longer, but at least it will be clear which ones are compatible and which aren't, and having mutation specific ones drawn is never out of the equation, and something that will come in time if enough players vote for it.

We love Lioden, we love all of you guys as players. We want this game to be the best game ever, and for all of you to have the best time when you're here playing. We are working constantly to try and achieve this, and we're really sorry it's been taking as long as it has. We hear your frustrations, and we acknowledge them and in-fact share them too. We will get this done, and we'll try to be as fast as we can, while still delivering a quality result at the end.

Dwarfism Lineart Adjustment

The Dwarfism mutation has had a retouch on lineart for all age stages and genders. The lineart is now a bit less dark to allow white markings to appear in proper brightness. We also added a bit more visible outline to prevent marking bleeding.

Art Bug Fixes

Decor Files
* Fixed Purring Japanese Bobtail decor layering
* Fixed Eldritch Wing decors not covering paws properly on many poses
* Fixed Glorious Manes not having whiskers
* Fixed stray smudge issues with Crawling Gold/Silver Beetle decors
* Fixed stray smudge issues with Big Cat Bodywear for Teen Males
* Fixed stray smudge issues with Limestone Rocky Arch, Dolomite Rocky Arch, and Sandstone Rocky Arch
* Fixed Bearded Vulture Bodywear not showing up a mane-adjusted version for Adult Males
* Fixed Bearded Vulture Bodywear having odd cutout on Neutral pose
* Fixed Tiny Piercings issue with Orange and Red colourings being too similar on some poses
* Fixed Beetle Chitin Neck Chain [Brown] not showing up on Good pose
* Fixed mane cutout issues with Screaming Rabbit Relic
* Fixed some issues with Scarlet Pimpernel decors
* Fixed Cream Goatee and Cream Fluffy Sideburns shift for Kind pose
* Fixed cutout issues with Cape Cobra for Cub Young and added an extra shadow
* Updated Moth Wing decors to have fuller artwork show up
* Fixed stretched Crawling Gold Beetles for Jolly portraits
* Fixed Small Croc Ornaments [Legs] for Evil pose not being coloured fully
* Fixed Sculpted Ice Armour [Back] not showing up for Adult Males
* Butterfly decors in Monkey Business had their item images changed to match the old style of the icons with the orange glow. It will be now more consistent and it will be easier to notice non-butterfly decors in there!

Lion Files
* Fixed the April mane bases not showing up on some males
* Fixed the newest Hetero eyes not showing up for Kind and Jolly pose - thanks, typos!
* Fixed extra lines on some colours of Heavy and Soft Rosettes for Adult Male Dwarfism
* Fixed Classic Coral/Royal Front and Classic Half Coral/Royal mane markings not having Folded Ear cutout on Adult Male Regal
* Fixed Noctis Tips mane marking using the wrong file on Adult Male and Teen Male stages
* Fixed Teen Male Draconid eyes for portraits
* Fixed Maneless Male Mottled Rosette marking for portraits
* Fixed Echo skin for cubs and Ferus/Felis females
* Fixed Atlas and Nacre mane bases not showing up for Ferus male
* Fixed Celsian base not showing up for Mane Feathery and Mane Fuzzy
* Fixed Decennial base not showing up for Mane Fluffy
* Fixed newer skins conflicting with tails on Polycaudal males
* Fixed Decennial markings showing up wrong file for Kind/Neutral portraits
* Fixed Pearl eyes missing for Female Felis
* Fixed Neutron eyes giving file errors on Pregnant and Cub Newborn stages

Miscellaneous
* Fixed Angry Ghaurvan encounter being fucking lorge

Notes
* Blemish markings should be fully updated for some final cub and teen mutations during the weekend (probably Saturday).
* We had to regenerate lion portraits due to all the updates today, sorry for the artwork being temporarily disabled!
* We will continue working on more complex art bugs between each community update!

Coding Bug Fixes

* Mass moving lions from one cave to another would display the name of the cave they were moved from, instead of the name of the cave they were being moved to. Not only does it show the correct name now, it also links to the cave (or the Unsorted page if that's where you move your lions to)!
* A bug where beetle clutches would sometimes hang around even after they ran away due to not being claimed has been fixed. This issue caused duplicate beetle birth notifications if that same mother beetle was bred again later on. There may still be some lingering clutches that will be cleared out the next time those mothers are bred.

Punk Breeding Challenge

Just a reminder that the Punk Breeding Challenge returns, starting May 16th at 12am Lioden time! For more information, check out the Punk Breeding Challenge wiki page.

We wanted to provide some additional clarity following a bug fix released in Community Update #187. The Dorsal Fur mutation only forces a lion's mane shape to be Crested when using the Dorsal Fur breeding guarantee, and when choosing to keep the appearance of a previous king while using a Dorsal Fur lion as your heir. While Dorsal Fur does naturally pass down from lions with this mutation, it will only have a chance to pass down onto cubs that are born with the Crested mane shape. For reassurance, this is how the mutation has always functioned, and was referenced in the Dorsal Fur's introductory news post where it states the mutation displays and passes only with the Crested mane shape. The Visible Mutations page on the Lioden Wiki has been updated to include this detail.

Raffle Lioness

Congrats to the winner of last week's raffle lioness!
A new Citrine lady with Bushveld Siamese (NEW!), Saffron Pelage, and the tenth Great Rift Valley background is up for impressing in the Special Lioness area linked here!

Marking Note: Goridhe Siamese is now possible to apply via RMAs/Total Shuffle!

There are no new tags this month! Stay tuned for next months development update!

Poll Results - Thank you all for voting on last week's poll! Abyssinian has absolutely dominated as the favourite groupie-exclusive base colour, but it looks like Wine isn't too far behind as the second favourite. We're glad to see that a lot of you like them all, too!

NEW POLL - With certain poses and stages, layering bright markings causes pixels to expand outside of the lineart. We have provided visual examples of these from reports made to the Art Bugs below. Would you like outline lineart to be a bit thicker for other older stages as well? Don't worry, it won't be stylised, just a bit more visible! Let us know in this week's poll!

Pixel Bleed Examples

Next Update: Community Update - May 19th!
Next Development Update: June 9th!!



Where's the official raffle and Friday comic?
Community raffles and Friday doodles are only released on community updates. This is a development update, so no raffle or doodle will be released this week, sorry!