It’s been almost a year since Staxel’s release and to celebrate, Plukit have shared some details on the blocky farming sim’s upcoming update, as well as reflecting on the progress made so far.

In the latest issue of The Reporter (the developer’s way of unveiling new updates), assistant producer EGadd thanked players for their support while touching on what has been achieved since the game’s debut on January 23rd, which includes new tools, additional NPCs, a friendship system, improved world generation and much more. EGadd had this to say about the year:

“Back in January last year, we launched Staxel on Steam as an Early Access title, woohoo! This was our biggest moment to date, and we’re so pleased and grateful to be able to say that it was absolutely brilliant. Even at such an early stage of content development Staxel was received well and it was great to see so many people showing their support and leaving kind comments on what they thought about the game. It really gave us the motivation to continue developing Staxel over the past year.”

The post went on to talk about the upcoming magic update which focuses on bringing conjuration to the exploration farming sim, along with:

Changes to the crafting system

More of a progression-based experience

Villager quests and storyline (for the ones who are currently missing them)

Places to visit

Lots to look forward to but perhaps the most striking is ‘places to visit’, which EGadd promised will be talked about this week (accompanied by some screenshots). Perhaps this is a nod to some new buildings or something entirely different. Either way, we’ll find out in “a few days”.

Staxel was released in late January of last year; packaged as a Minecraft meets Harvest Moon gig, the game quickly found a playerbase while the devs continued to push out updates throughout the year, tweaking broken features while adding in new ones. The game’s last update, the 1.3 friendship update, released October and improved greatly on interactions with the NPCs that inhabit the island. 1.4 is expected to contain some major changes (as seen above).

Gamelust reviewed Staxel on its launch day, rating it a 90 for “procedural farming fun”.

Staxel is out now on PC.