SnakewaySurfer

Alpha. This mod is in its early stages. I'm building it out into something complete as a fun hobby, coding it together with Claude, so expect rough edges, odd visuals and things that change from one version to the next. Your world is safe: nothing is placed in it, and the minigame only adds rewards to your own character.

Some evenings at the longhouse drag on. The fire's low, your friends are late, and a raven won't stop staring at you.

Then one day a portal shows up near you that you didn't build. Hugin seems to know something about it. He'll keep telling you that you look tired, and that you should get some sleep.

What waits on the other side is a road. It runs through every land you've fought for, and it doesn't stop for anyone.

How to start

• The story way: play as normal. After a few minutes a strange portal appears and the ravens come to talk. Do what Hugin says: find a bed and sleep.
• The builder's way: the hammer's Misc tab has a Strange Portal (10 ectoplasm, 10 feathers). Use it to choose where it leads.
• The quick way: open the console (F5) and type surfsup.

Either way your viking dreams. Keep your hands on A / D, W and S, keep your shield up (right mouse), and watch the ground for red, amber and blue marks. Hugin explains the rest as you go. Press Esc any time to wake up.

What it gives back is real: Run XP, food from the biomes you crossed, the spoils of the places you get through, and a little more for those who go far.

Spoilers ahead

Everything below gives the game away: what you'll meet, where, and how to beat it.

Your viking auto-runs down the Snakeway, a three-lane track through every biome in order: Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountains, Plains, Mistlands, Ashlands and Deep North (which never ends). You dodge each biome's monsters, jump over fallen logs, slide under hanging logs and flying monsters, and grab coins. You run a little faster with every biome, and the road rolls more and more. Monsters use their own attacks: fast ones charge at you, slow ones walk, and archers, mages and stone throwers shoot down the track toward your lane (slide under the shot or change lane). In the Swamp you splash through shallow water.

In the Black Forest, watch out for trolls: one beside the track swings at its lane just as you run past, and another jumps down straddling the track with its feet in both outer lanes, so you have to slide between its legs.

Once in each stretch of the Black Forest the track runs into a burial chamber: a stone gate with two torches burning outside, then dark stone halls seen from above, lit by the torch in your hand and a few sconces on the walls. The halls turn sharp corners: as you reach one, a torch burns on the wall ahead and the camera starts to swing round, so press A or D toward the opening to take it (you can still make it a moment late; leave it any later and you run into the wall, which costs a life). Skeletons crowd the halls, archers among them, bone piles raise more out of the floor as you come, ghosts drift in through the walls at head height (slide under them), and fallen pillars and stone beams block the lanes. The old chests are worth ten coins.

Once in each stretch of the Swamp it runs into a sunken crypt the same way, built from the game's own sunken crypt walls and floors, with green fire burning at its gate. Draugr and blobs fill its halls, grave mounds raise draugr as you come, and mud piles lie in the lanes to jump. Some of its halls are flooded: slower going, and leeches swim in the water. Iron gates hang over some halls and crash down as you come, with blue marks on the floor under them: roll under.

Once in each stretch of the Mountains it runs into a frost cave: rough rock walls from the game's own frost caves, lit by crystals glowing cold blue where the crypts have torches, with blue fire at the cave mouth. Ulvs hunt in packs, fenrings leap, cultists breathe fire down the lanes and bats flit under the roof (slide under them). As you come, icicles crack loose over the lane you're in and fall, with a mark on the floor: get out from under them or jump the spike they leave.

Once in each stretch of the Mistlands it runs into an infested mine: the dvergr's black marble halls, lit by their standing lanterns and overrun. Seekers and their soldiers fill the halls, egg sacs split open as you come and seekers crawl out, crates lie in the lanes to jump and old timber beams to slide under. Ticks wait in the roof: as one lets go a red mark shows on your lane, so get out from under it or jump it when it lands.

The Black Forest's burial chambers take turns with troll caves: shorter, of rough mossy rock lit only by blue cave mushrooms and your torch, with greydwarfs about and one troll waiting in the dark of the longest hall. As you come round into that hall it roars, the cave shakes and rocks come down over your lane (get out from under them or jump what lands); then it comes for you.

Once in each stretch of the Ashlands it runs into a charred fortress: grausten halls lit by lava lanterns, held by charred warriors, their archers and mages, and twitchers. Spawners raise more of them as you come, spiked beams hang across the lanes to slide under, flametal gates drop as you come (roll under them), and channels of glowing lava run across some halls: jump them. (The Ashlands come after the Mistlands, so set Loop Biomes to 7 or more to reach them.) Dungeons in the config turns them all off.

Now and then one of the game's traders stands at the edge of the track in front of their camp, lit by a lantern: Haldor in the Black Forest, the Bog Witch in the Swamp, and Hildir in the Meadows once you're on the 1-star lap or later. They greet you as you come, and a line of coins and a gold mark lead along the lane on their side. Run past them in that lane and they trade: your lives back to full, or one extra if you already have them all (the lives on the HUD glow gold). The lanes around them are kept clear. Traders in the config turns them off.

Each biome's own places stand beside the track now and then, the game's own locations as they are in the world: abandoned houses, stone circles and ruined towers in the Meadows; tower ruins, stone houses and greydwarf camps in the Black Forest; draugr huts and sunken ruins in the Swamp (with its crypt entrances and fire spouts); graves, drake nests and towers in the Mountains; standing stones, tar pits and fuling camps in the Plains; giant skeletons, dvergr towers and swords in stone in the Mistlands; charred ruins and morgen holes in the Ashlands. Some have one of their own waiting in the lane by them. Places in the config turns them off.

In the open Ashlands some rows are lava instead: a glowing channel across the track to jump, or a pool along one or two lanes to keep out of (jumping in only lands you in it), with glowing cracks running through the ash beside the track. Lava in the config turns it off.

Bosses and checkpoints

Each biome ends with its boss, but only bosses you've already beaten in this world: a new world's run stays in the Meadows (looping with stars), and each boss you kill in the real game opens the next biome. Some coins become the boss's summoning item, in the game's own amounts (2 deer trophies, 3 ancient seeds, 10 withered bones, 3 dragon eggs, 5 fuling totems, 3 sealbreaker fragments). You stay in the biome until you hold them all, then the boss fights you: every attack marks the lanes it will hit first. To hurt it, grab its weapon from the track (surtling cores, maces, frost arrows, bombs): the boss closes in and swings at your lane up to three times, and parrying a swing (block just before it lands) staggers it: you get a chain of blows in with the weapon in your hands, then roll back away. Eikthyr's spears you throw yourself (left mouse): the spear flies down your lane and he weaves between the lanes behind you, so throw when he's lined up. Moder flies ahead of you and spits shotgun volleys of ice that grow into crystals and burst a moment later (each row leaves a lane free), then lands to breathe frost down two lanes and rake the track with her claws. While she flies, grab the obsidian arrows: the run stops, the Draugr Fang is in your hand, and you aim with the mouse through the game's crosshair; hold to draw (the circle closes and turns yellow) and let go to loose. Arrows fly and drop as in the game and hit her wherever their path goes through her. When she's down, grab the silver atgeir and fight her up close. Three hits wins and saves a checkpoint for the next biome. surfsup starts at your latest checkpoint; surfsup swamp, surfsup 3 or surfsup plains 1 (biome, then stars) picks another one.

Eikthyr chases you: the camera swings round to look back at the boss running after you, and its attacks come up the lanes from behind or land where you are. A red band rides along in the lanes it's aiming at (at least a second's warning), then the blow lands with the boss's own effects and sounds: Eikthyr's lightning, the Elder's roots bursting from the road, Bonemass's poison, Moder's breath, Yagluth's fire and meteors. Waves and bars race up behind you, its creatures run past in two lanes, and Eikthyr lowers his antlers and charges right up your lane. Left and right follow the screen while it faces back. The Elder's roots even split the path into five lanes for a moment: find one without red before they burst up. Each fight starts like at the altar: the summoning items rise and circle, the altar's sparkles play, and the boss forms out of them. The arena takes on the weather of the boss's own place, from Eikthyr's thunderstorm (with lightning and thunder) to Moder's snowstorm.

Each arena has its boss's own place from the game looming on the horizon (Eikthyr's altar, the Elder's stones, Bonemass's sunken tomb, Moder's peak, Yagluth's ruins, the Queen's gate), rising out of the ground as you arrive. The path flattens, the land rises into walls on both sides, torches in the boss's colour line the way, and the light and fog take on its colour.

Fader waits at the end of the Ashlands, in a lap that reaches them (Loop Biomes 7 or more) and once you've beaten him in the world: collect three bell fragments, then dodge rocks falling from the burning sky, walls of flame, and lava he pours down your lane or across the track (keep out of the pools, jump the channels). Grab the blade on the track to strike him.

After the 3-star lap comes the boss rush: every boss in a row, with no items to collect and no checkpoints. Beat the usual six (Eikthyr to the Queen) in one rush for the Golden Surfer Shoes, a trinket with a winged emblem: +15% movement speed, and at full adrenaline another 5% plus 2.5x stamina regen. You only get them once per character, and only players with the mod can see them. Don't drop them on a shared server, because players without the mod can't load them.

The ocean crossing

Between the Mountains and the Plains you cross the sea. The track runs down a beach into the shallows, where a longship waits stern to the shore with open water either side; you leap aboard at the helm and the camera rises above and behind the ship, low enough to see the swell, ahead always up the screen. Steer with the rudder (A / D) and set the sail with W / S, as in the game: oars (slow but steady, and the tightest turns), half sail or full sail. The wind never stops, and now and then it turns (a gust, and the wind's icon swings round the gauge by the stamina bar). The gauge is a ring round the ship's wheel, as in the game: the wind's icon rides the ring on the side the wind comes from, in a dark arc that marks the headings a sail can't drive on, and a pale tick on the ring marks your bow. As in the game, a sail is fastest with the wind from the side, a little slower with it behind, and useless heading into it: keep the bow's tick out of the dark arc (it turns red there) and tack across a headwind. The icon is bright when the wind fills your sail and dark when it doesn't. Holding sprint puts the crew to the oars as well.

At sea the blows land on the ship, not on you: the planks over the gauge are her hull. A blow cracks one (a heavy one two), she sits lower and lists as the hull fails, and only when it gives way does it cost a life (the crew patches her up to half). Driftwood mends two planks. Three small islands lie at the channel's edge, the first a third of the way over, with a workbench on the shore and a golden ring on the water around it: steer into the ring and take in the sail (oars), and the ship moors while the hull is mended plank by plank. Raise the sail to go on.

The bow ballista (left mouse) fires along your heading. The first stretch off the Mountains coast is calm: sea stacks, loot and leviathans, and further out drakes come down from the peaks to spit at where you're going (a red ring on the water). Past the first island the serpents come, weaving in under the surface. A serpent either rears up beside the ship and lunges along a red streak (only a parry stops a lunge), or comes up well ahead, stops dead and rears while a wide red streak runs from its jaws toward you, then breathes freezing spray down it: steer out of the streak (a block takes the spray). It's open to the ballista while it rears. Leviathans drift across your way until a bolt makes them shake and dive, sea stacks stand in the channel, and barrels, chests and driftwood float by: sail through them for coins, and driftwood mends the hull (two planks, or a life back when she is whole). Gulls wheel overhead.

Past the second island the sky darkens into a storm. Big rolling waves come with the wind: meet them bow or stern first and you surf down their backs, but side on they roll the ship. A pale band on the water shows the safe way to meet the next one, and it turns red while you're side on. Lightning strikes on red rings. In the heart of the storm the serpent of the deep rises: it circles the ship, lunges, slams the sea into a wave at you, and comes up from under the keel (a red ring follows the ship; get off it), and stops to breathe a wide streak of spray. Hit it with the ballista while it's above the water. Once it's beaten the storm clears, the Plains' deathsquitos come out over the shallows, and the ship runs up the far beach; you run the length of the deck, leap off the bow and carry on.

Beating Moder saves a checkpoint at the crossing, and the start menu gets an Ocean button before the Plains; making the crossing opens the Plains themselves (surfsup ocean starts there too). Ocean Crossing in the config turns it off.

Beside the track you pass the biome's own things: greydwarf nests and bone piles near their creatures, fuling totems, Dvergr crates and lanterns, and the plants, mushrooms and stones you'd pick up there.

To everyone else, you're just running in place at the longhouse wearing a Dverger circlet. Friends without the mod see that too.

Controls

Stamina (the yellow bar at the bottom, shown when it isn't full) recharges after a second of not sprinting or blocking. Without enough for a blow, the guard breaks and the hit gets through. Logs, gas and tar can't be blocked.

The marks on the lanes tell you what to do without any text: red, get out of that lane; amber, jump it; blue, slide under it. The summoning item shows as its icon with a count at the top, and in a fight the boss's health bar takes its place. Getting hurt flashes the screen red with your character's own hurt sound, blocks and parries ring with your shield's sounds, and bats in the Swamp come in swarms that slow you and take some stamina but no life. The few messages there are (a new biome, a boss's items, lives left, a boss beaten) come from Hugin, the tutorial raven: he flies in at the top right of the screen, says it in the game's own speech popup, and flies off. (Popup Text in the config brings back the old big messages instead.)

Your character can't move or use hotkeys while you play. If something hurts you in the real world, the game stops straight away (health lost because food is wearing off doesn't count).

The minigame has its own sounds (countdown, footsteps, jumps, slides, coins, new biomes, crashes), borrowed from the game and heard only by you.

Runs load behind the game's own portal loading screen. Your very first run starts with a short dream on the dark, in the game's own dream text (Space wakes you early), and goes straight in. After that, surfsup opens the start menu once you have more than one checkpoint.

For testing, surfprogress shows your checkpoints, surfprogress wipe erases all of this character's SnakewaySurfer progress, surfprogress set <biome> [stars] sets the checkpoints reached (e.g. surfprogress set plains 1), and surfprogress dream sees the dream again.

Rewards

At the end of each run:

• Run XP: real Run XP, half of what running in the world for the same time gives (Run XP Per Second 0.5; at most 300 seconds count). Higher levels need more XP, as in vanilla.
• One food from each biome you ran through (a random one of that biome's foods), if the run lasted at least 30 seconds and you haven't had food from the minigame in the last 30 minutes (real time, saved on your character). With full bags, it drops at your feet. Unfortunately, even in a dream, you can't dual wield spears. You'll throw spears at Eikthyr, fire a ballista and parry trolls, but this mod never puts a spear in each hand.

Config

Everything is in BepInEx/config/com.snakesquad.snakewaysurfer.cfg (or Configuration Manager): biome length, speeds, jump and slide, camera, the reward amounts and cooldown, and for each biome its monsters, flyers, scenery, logs and foods. Monsters and foods are named by the game's own text keys (greydwarfbrute, carrotsoup), so you can add any creature or item. Names the game doesn't have are skipped and logged.

Multiplayer

Client-only. Nothing is spawned in the world: the track is built from lifeless copies of game objects that only your own camera can see. The running animation and the circlet go through the game's normal syncing, so they work on a vanilla dedicated server, with or without Valheim Plus, and for players without the mod.

Changelog (spoilers)

• 1.16.149: a dodge roll now gets you through most attacks and monsters, as in the game. Low foes like leeches, logs, and walls of roots or vines still get you.

• 1.16.140: the camp rest menu now comes up as soon as you sit by the fire, while you eat and drink behind it, instead of after the whole meal. Your lives and the boss drop come when you sit.

• 1.16.132: the Strange Portal now saves as a plain wooden portal for players and servers without the mod, so they no longer flood their log with "Missing prefab hash". With the mod it is still the Strange Portal. Portals built before this switch over the first time a modded player comes near.

• 1.16.128: Yagluth's gimmick: as his beam charges, a Fuling totem follows your mouse. Hold it over him when the beam lands to bounce it back and burn him. Miss, and the beam comes down your lane. You have five totems.

• 1.16.123: no more smoky corner gust; a dead end turns you back to the split instead of hurting you; some wrong passages are flooded instead, and you swim through and come out Wet (30 s of slower stamina regen and dearer rolls and blocks).

• 1.16.111: shop: coins go into a bank kept on your character. Traders stop you in any lane and open a dreamy store with three of their abilities (12 so far, from honey to Valkyrie's wings). An ability lasts until that biome's boss falls, and a checkpoint retry keeps it.

• 1.16.111: dungeons: dungeons about twice as long, with halls of very different lengths; some halls split into three walled passages and only the one with light at its end goes on; sunken crypts have up to five chambers behind mud banks you dig through (attack: left mouse, Space or E), with draugr rising behind most; a biome's summoning items only turn up after its dungeon, and the dungeon's exit is the checkpoint.

• 1.16.108: a gold ring closes in over your head and flashes when it's time to parry a boss's blow; Yagluth's frost arrows go to the bow, and his meteors fall from the sky as in the game; Moder only claws and bites while she's down on the track; boss fights use the boss's own shockwaves and beams (the Elder's vines) instead of logs and bars; Hugin and Munin are a flat portrait with a speech bubble in a fixed spot.

• 1.16.101: attack timings now read the game's "Hit" animation event too (bear, Eikthyr, Yagluth, greydwarfs, seekers, lox and more were being guessed).

• 1.16.95: you can't be hurt during a boss combo (plus a short blink after); a dreamy tombstone rises where you fall; Gentle / Normal / Hard picked in the run menu (Tab or click); the Elder's maze paths are full lanes on a wider track; attack wind-ups are learned by playing each creature's real animation at load, not guessed.

• 1.16.56 to 1.16.93: 1.16.93: the ripple copies the view at a safer moment (a possible crash fix). 1.16.92: the run's Hugin is small, flying and facing you too; every portal (the run's way in, the ravens' portal, the Strange Portal) ripples through the dream haze instead of a loading screen. 1.16.91: the campfire's two choices fit their boxes. 1.16.90: walking into a Strange Portal set to the dream starts the ravens' story over (once you've slept; before that Hugin just reminds you). 1.16.89: Hugin flies in the top right corner facing you, his words below him. 1.16.87: Hugin and Munin keep themselves in frame (no more giant talons in the corner). 1.16.84: the Strange Portal piece (hammer, Misc: 10 ectoplasm, 10 feathers). Use it to set it to one of your checkpoints and walk in to run from there, or leave it on the dream (the ravens' portal: sleep to dream). surfportal makes the ravens' portal appear right away. Also in 1.16.84: no more terrain flicker while Hugin is up, and Hugin stays gone for anyone who has already dreamt the run. 1.16.83: Hugin is about half the size. 1.16.82: Hugin sits lower on the right, clear of the buff icons, and has his own light so he shows at night. 1.16.81: you harpoon the serpent of the deep (the Abyssal Harpoon, roped to the ship) and tow its body to the Plains. After every boss you make camp: a fire, food and mead, a bigger camp each star, your lives back and the boss's crafting drop. Then keep dreaming, or open your eyes. The wind icon circles outside the wind ring. 1.16.79: mid-biome checkpoints. Ward stones light up halfway through each biome and again once you hold the boss's items, and island moorings count at sea; press C after a crash to start from one. Islands furl your sail for you. The ballista is aimed with the mouse. The sea is twice as wide with slower oars and clear air. A rippling dream takes you from the menu into the run. Boss arenas and dungeon halls are much bigger. Each dungeon gives its material (sunken crypt: iron, and so on; one more per star, every 30 minutes). 1.16.76 to 1.16.78: bigger hull planks, harmless faint wave crests, rocks ringed with foam; a wrecked ship sinks and cargo crates bob up; the start menu's hover breathes and sways. 1.16.71 to 1.16.75: the ravens' story (a strange portal, Hugin nagging you to sleep, Munin's episodes, and the run is your dream); fairer serpents that commit to their attacks, no more wave damage, the hammer's swing and sawdust when you mend the ship. 1.16.56 to 1.16.70: Hugin's messages, the dream intro and dreamy start menu, the portal loading screen, the dungeon corner gust, distance haze, rolls cost stamina, the Elder's maze.

• 1.16: the ocean crossing between the Mountains and the Plains: a longship seen from above, steered with the rudder and sailed by the wind as in the game (it turns now and then), a bow ballista, drakes, serpents, leviathans, sea stacks and floating loot, and in the middle a storm with rolling waves, lightning and the serpent of the deep. The beaches slope into the sea with surf washing up the sand and splashes in the shallows. An Ocean start in the menu. The dirt path is lighter. Also: holding block drains stamina and slows you, bats knock your guard down, slide is now the game's dodge roll, and good blocks, parries and dodges earn Blocking and Dodge XP at the game's own rates. Attacks land with their animations (troll logs and abomination sweeps cover two lanes), the Elder's fight is a maze of six paths, wraiths stalk you, leeches weave and swim up behind you with ripples, draugr archers shoot from the swamp's banks past sunken crypts and surtling fire vents, Bonemass's landmark faces you, the Mountains are snow, wolves can be jumped, boss summoning items come later in a biome, and lane marks in the Swamp sit on the water where you can see them. 1.16.2: Moder really flies, fires her ice volleys from the air (crystals that burst after a moment) and lands for her frost breath and claws; she's shot with the Draugr Fang and obsidian arrows, aimed with the mouse through the game's own crosshair, and arrows hit along their whole path; down on the track she's fought with a silver atgeir. A parried boss staggers, takes a chain of blows from the weapon in your hands, and you roll back away. Boss attacks show further down the track. The sea is drawn all the way to the coast again, the road is the game's lit dirt (Track Style "hoed" brings back the darker hoed look), and the abomination's marks show on the swamp water. 1.16.3: the ship has her own hull, mended by driftwood and at the workbenches on three small islands (moor in the golden ring under oars). The crossing starts calm: no serpents for the first third, and the storm gathers past the second island. Serpents weave as they swim, and stop to breathe freezing spray down a wide red streak; leeches swing their bodies as they swim. The sea camera sits lower so the swell reads, the wind gauge is a ring round the wheel with the wind's no-go arc and a tick for the bow, and there's open water either side of the beached ship. 1.16.4: burial chambers in the Black Forest, the first of the dungeons: dark stone halls seen from above with sharp corners to turn (A / D toward the opening), a torch in your hand, skeletons, bone piles that raise more, ghosts through the walls and old chests. 1.16.5: sunken crypts in the Swamp, the second dungeon: the game's own sunken crypt walls, draugr and blobs, grave mounds that raise draugr, mud piles to jump, flooded halls with leeches, and iron gates that crash down as you come (roll under). The config switch is now called Dungeons. 1.16.6: frost caves in the Mountains, the third dungeon: rough rock walls lit by glowing crystals, ulvs, fenrings, fire-breathing cultists, bats, and icicles that fall over your lane. 1.16.7: infested mines in the Mistlands, the fourth dungeon: black marble halls, dvergr lanterns, seekers, egg sacs that burst, crates and beams, and ticks dropping from the roof. 1.16.8: troll caves in the Black Forest, taking turns with the burial chambers: mossy rock, blue cave mushrooms, greydwarfs, one troll in the longest hall, and rocks falling from the roof. 1.16.9: charred fortresses in the Ashlands, the last of the dungeons: grausten halls, lava lanterns, charred warriors, archers, mages and twitchers, spawners, spiked beams, flametal gates to roll under, and lava channels across the halls to jump. 1.16.10: traders by the track, the first of the points of interest: Haldor (Black Forest), the Bog Witch (Swamp) and Hildir (Meadows, from the 1-star lap) in front of their camps. Pass them in their lane for your lives back, or one extra if you're full. 1.16.11: each biome's own places beside the track: houses, ruins, towers, stone circles, draugr huts, graves, drake nests, standing stones, tar pits, fuling camps, giant skeletons, dvergr towers, swords in stone, charred ruins and morgen holes, some with one of their own waiting in the lane. 1.16.12: lava in the open Ashlands: channels across the track to jump, pools along a lane or two to keep out of, glowing cracks beside the track; the fortresses' lava glows the same way. 1.16.13: Fader, the Ashlands' boss (Loop Biomes 7+, once beaten in the world): falling rocks, flame walls and lava pools down your lane; three bell fragments to summon him, a blade to strike him. The golden shoes still need only the usual six bosses. 1.16.14: the places' own creatures turn up even where the biome's spawns don't have them: growths at the Plains' tar pits, draugr at the Mountains' graves. 1.16.15: the run's messages come from Hugin, the tutorial raven: he flies in at the top right of the screen with the game's own animation, says it in the game's own speech popup, and flies off once it's said. Hugin Messages in the config turns him off. 1.16.18: the first-run dream has its own solid dark; Hugin is sized and placed by his real shape at the top right; the pause message fits; View Distance in the config (default 230 m, was 150 m). 1.16.19: the longer view is put to use: the fog thins to match it, the boss's place stands further off, the track ahead of a boss or the coast is closed off further away (so nothing vanishes in plain sight), and the ocean and its islands show from further. 1.16.20: the turn can be pressed about 1.6 s before a dungeon corner (was under a second), a press just before that still counts, and running in the lane on the opening's side takes the turn by itself. 1.16.21: boss landmarks are extra large: further off and towering over the skyline, the air clearing a little more as you near the arena. Boss Landmark Size in the config (1 to 3, default 2; 1 is the old size). 1.16.22: in the dungeons the camera only turns for a corner once you press for it, and a glowing arrow on the corner's floor beats as you come up to it (with a soft call when it's time to press), pointing the way on. 1.16.23: the food reward is one food from each biome you ran through, each from its own biome (a Meadows-to-Swamp run gives three). 1.16.24: the corner's arrow is now a gust of puffy, ink-edged cloud streaming up the hall and curling off toward the way on, swaying like a beckoning whoosh (with a whoosh to hear). 1.16.25: the gust now waits just ahead of you as flat, ink-edged cut-out shapes in a storybook style: a billowy cloud on the side away from the turn, spiky gusts leaning the way to go, puffs curling off toward the opening. Nearer the corner the cloud shrinks and the gusts grow; once you turn the cloud is squeezed against the wall and left behind. 1.16.26: the big boss landmarks keep their nearest side at the distance, so they no longer reach back over the track. 1.16.27: the boss's place is drawn once into a flat picture that stands far off on the skyline like part of the sky, so it can't reach into the track. Boss Landmark On Sky in the config (off: the 3D place, nearer, as before). 1.16.16: runs load behind the game's own portal loading screen. The very first run starts with a short dream in the game's own dream text instead of the start menu. The start menu drifts in like a dream (floating buttons, a glow on the one you're on, the others drifting apart when you pick). surfprogress shows, erases (wipe) or sets (set plains 1) your progress for testing.

• 1.15.2: Eikthyr's blows come down as real lightning bolts from the sky that light up the whole track; his antlers glow and spark while a blow winds up, and his shots carry their own light. 1.15.1: the summoning sounds are quieter.

• 1.15: surfsup opens a grid of the biomes and star laps you've reached; after a crash, R retries the biome you fell in and M goes back to the grid. Bosses other than Eikthyr and Moder are fought by parrying: grab the weapon, the boss closes in and swings at your lane (three tries); parry a swing and your blow lands. Heavy blows (trolls, smashes, shockwaves) can't be blocked, only parried. Grown trolls' logs can sweep two lanes. Gas is a drifting cloud, thrown early so it hangs in the lane. The Elder's split paths are divided by strips of ground overgrown with its vines, you duck under vines, and the torches burn. Beaten bosses stagger, topple over with their own death effects, then sink away.

• 1.14: no more pop-up text during a run: the summoning item's icon and count and the boss's health bar sit at the top, lane marks are coloured (red: leave the lane, amber: jump, blue: slide), and hits flash red with your character's hurt sound. Sprint (Shift), block (right mouse, stamina) and parry (block just before the hit, free). Eikthyr is hurt by spears you throw, timed as he weaves; Moder's ballista bolt flies. Run XP is real XP (half of running in the world) instead of a share of a level, which was a lot at high skill. Fairer timing: troll logs land just before you, the troll's leap and its red lanes come later, big creatures and shamans strike in time, fenrings wait and then leap further. Deer startle and light up their lanes before crossing, packs spread out instead of a conga line, the Swamp has far fewer abominations (and leeches), bats come in swarms, the Meadows lose the Black Forest's greydwarf nests, and your steps splash and ripple in the Swamp's water. Eikthyr's storm has thick fog and its rain.

• 1.13: the ground textures are really back: the game's terrain shader doesn't draw on the minigame's stage, so the land and the dirt path now use the game's own ground textures on a plain shader (Game Terrain Shader turns the old way back on for testing). Summoning items never turn up in the first part of a biome. Only Eikthyr chases you now; the other bosses wait for you ahead again, and the Elder and Yagluth no longer sink and rise on every move. The log now notes each attack's timing.

• 1.12: bosses chase you from behind, with the camera facing back (see above); their real effects, sounds and weather; the summoning sequence; the Elder's extra lanes. Attacks are timed from the creatures' own animations (the moment the blow lands in the game), so deer, trolls and the rest hit when they look like they do; brutes play their attacks. Clearer red warnings on troll, golem and other multi-lane attacks, later lox herds, a young troll for the log swing, and abominations at their real size on the ground. The ground textures are back in every biome. Pause works (P), summoning items start turning up later, the speed starts slow again on each star lap, and Run XP is lower (0.08 levels per biome, at most 0.75 a run). New settings: Boss Chase, Boss Summoning, Boss Weather, Max Run Levels Per Run.

• 1.11: the land beside the track is your world's real ground. Each biome borrows a ring of terrain from a spot in your world where that biome is, using the game's own height formulas: Meadows hills, Black Forest slopes, Swamp islands at the water line, mountain slopes, Plains flats, Mistlands cliffs. The game's paint mask gives the ground textures (the Mistlands rock), and the shores sit at the real sea level. The game's own grass and ground clutter grow by its rules and your grass quality. New settings: Game Terrain Shape and Game Grass. The track is still a hoe path (Track Style: dirt or paved).

• 1.10: boss landmarks (the boss's location on the horizon, a flatter path between rising walls, torches; Boss Landmarks config); the boss rush after the 3-star lap; Golden Surfer Shoes for beating all six in a row.

• 1.9: the Elder splits the path into branches (root walls between the lanes, so pick early; some branches end in roots, but a torch under a low root burns them if you slide under it); every star lap teaches each boss a new trick (charges down your lane, double shots, poison and fire walls, more creatures, branches for the Queen).

• 1.8: three strikes and you're out (Lives, default 3; you blink for a moment after a hit); Moder's bolts stop the run so you aim the ballista yourself (A/D/W/S, Space to fire; a miss wastes the bolt); boss arenas take on the boss's colour, fog and light; standing bosses rise out of the ground when they move on.

• 1.7: boss fights at the end of each biome (one fight per boss, three hits each) with the game's summoning items replacing some coins, checkpoints (surfsup [biome] [stars]), the run only reaches as far as the furthest boss beaten in the world (Ignore Boss Gate under Debug to bypass), and biome landmarks and pickables beside the track.

• 1.6: every creature has its own challenge (Creature Schemas, hand-picked creature by creature): boars, necks and greylings are hurdles, deer and lox herds bolt across the track, greydwarfs and fulings swarm, wolves and seekers weave between lanes, brutes, bears and seeker soldiers sweep two lanes, shamans and blobs fill lanes with gas (blob gas: jump or slide through), trolls lob rocks that land ahead of you, fuling shamans set lanes on fire, growths leave slowing tar, the fuling berserker slams lanes then sends a shockwave, Fenrings leap into your lane, stone golems wake and smash, wraiths and some deathsquitos come from behind, drakes and gjalls attack from the air (gjalls also drop ticks), and dvergr stand by the track, shout their lines and sometimes blast a threat ahead of you. Every lane about to be hit is marked bright orange on the ground first. The run now ends its lap at the Mistlands and loops back to the Meadows with 1-star creatures, then 2, then 3, in the game's own star looks (Loop Biomes).

• 1.5: creatures come from the game's own spawn tables for each biome (the right creatures, as common as they really are, in their real group sizes, so greydwarfs swarm); real sizes from each creature's collider (no more tiny abominations or stone golems); deathsquitos dive in from the side (slide under them); big creatures stomp in and shake the camera; slow attackers wind up earlier; waiting creatures may taunt; abominations burst out of the ground, and in the Swamp one rises straddling the track (slide between its legs); attack effects such as the blob's gas show and linger in the lane; lighting and fog follow each biome's real daytime weather, and the fog works now; surfprobe console command logs a spot's look for tuning; Allow Pause / Pause Key test settings. 1.5.x: event-only and everywhere-invasion creatures left out of the spawn tables. Later 1.5.x: the minigame is drawn through the game's own camera (its haze, bloom and colour grading; Use Game Camera off goes back to the old camera), and the land uses the game's real terrain shader with each biome's ground, with the track as a dirt path (Game Terrain, Track Style dirt/paved/stone). Creatures whose spawn entries are spread evenly over many biomes (mod and late-game anywhere spawns) and strays from a creature's home biome are left out; how common each is follows its spawn cap more than its spawn rate. Location Monsters per biome adds creatures that live at places rather than in the spawn tables (troll caves, crypts, villages), at modest weights. Brutes (Smashers) send shockwaves down all three lanes that you jump; the goblin brute's berserk smash sends three in a row. Creatures stand on their own feet and keep their real proportions (the straddling giant is no longer stretched), and their legs move at their real ground speed. surfcompare console command puts the minigame's version of the creature you're looking at beside the real one and logs both.

• 1.4: creatures play their real attack animations with their own weapons (the classic stiff troll log swing still turns up now and then); ranged monsters shoot at your lane; fast monsters charge, slow ones walk; the road rolls, more in each biome; hillier Swamp with water to run through; textured ground; Run XP lowered to 0.25 levels per biome (an untouched old setting of 1 is changed once). 1.4.7: the track was invisible (or glaring white); it now uses the floor piece's texture on a plain shader. 1.4.8: weapons in hands and shots are their real size (they took the bone's scale), lighter swamp water. 1.4.9: monsters are their real size (only giants are shrunk to fit a lane; before, everything was squeezed to 2.2 m), and they make their own alert sound when they notice you. They stand idle until then, then charge or walk at you with their own footstep sounds. 1.4.10: the land uses the game's own terrain textures when found; chat can't steal the keys any more; Invincible and Game Speed test settings (off by default). 1.4.11: short creatures (necks, blobs, ticks...) can be jumped over. 1.4.12: track no longer black.

• 1.3: rolling hills beside the track (tallest in the Mountains); rocks and trees never reach over the track; the legs troll leaps in from beside the track instead of hanging in the air; darker track; coin sound (with fallbacks) on its own channel apart from footsteps.

• 1.2: Black Forest troll set pieces (log slam, slide between the legs); darker lighting and thicker per-biome fog (Swamp and Mistlands thickest); fog strength and ambient light settings.

• 1.1: sounds; food wearing off no longer counts as being hit (the game stopped after a few seconds); no more "Can't remove Humanoid" errors in the log.

• 1.0: first version.

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