Project Sakura V2 — What's new since v1.4.1

🌸 First — thank you. We hit 1,000 downloads.

I built Project Sakura as the kind of quiet mod I'd want to install myself, and a thousand of you found it and gave it a home in your saves. That number hasn't really sunk in yet. Every comment, screenshot, and "I built a tea house there" message has shaped where V2 went. So before anything else: thank you for spending time in the Grove. ♥

V2 is here, and the realm is now permanent

The biggest change since you last updated:

🏠 Your builds in the Sakura Grove now stay forever. Every block you place, every path you carve, every shrine you decorate — saved across portal exits, save reloads, and full Hytale restarts. The Grove is now a real second realm in your save (like Minecraft's Nether), not a fresh copy each visit.

In v1.4.1, every portal use was a clean instance. That was an engine limit, not a design choice — and figuring out how to get around it took a while. V2 finally cracks it.

Five biomes instead of one

The Grove has grown. Walk far enough from your portal in any direction and you'll find:

• 🌸 Sakura Grove — the original, the heart of the realm
• 💜 Wisteria Court — lilac canopies cascading over a still pebble garden
• 🎋 Bamboo Glade — knee-high ferns under tall stalks
• 🤍 Hanami Pond — white plum trees ringing a koi pond, waterlilies on the surface
• 💐 Lavender Field — open prairie of waist-high purple lavender, no trees blocking the sky

Each biome has its own map color, ambient palette, and (in some cases) Slothian shrine variants.

New way to travel

🌸 The old Portal Key is replaced by two craftable Sakura Teleporter Pads — one for entry, one for return. Both 1 Iron Ingot at the Arcanebench (tier 1 — same bench you already use for vanilla teleporters). Place the Entry pad in your overworld, bring the Return pad with you, step on either one to travel. Pink-tinted to match the Grove's vibe.

New things to find

• 🍑 Plum trees with soft white-pink blossoms (also placeable as building blocks)
• 💜 Lilac wisteria leaves — vanilla wisteria stays green for normal builds; this is a new, separate block
• 🐟 Koi in the Hanami Pond water (clownfish-orange, golden, and catfish bottom-dwellers)

Polish

• Biome edges blend more smoothly
• Distinct map colors for each biome (you can navigate by the map now)
• Slothian villages show up more reliably in the right biomes
• Portal pad glow particles sit at pad level (no more floating glow over the pads)

⚠️ Heads up if you're upgrading

• Old Portal Key items in your inventory will become unrecognized — just craft a Sakura Teleporter (Entry) at the Arcanebench instead
• Anything you built in the v1.x ephemeral realm wasn't actually saved by the engine, so there's nothing to migrate. Fresh persistent realm starts on first portal use after upgrading.
• Your overworld and other worlds are completely untouched

What's next (roadmap peek)

V2 is feature-complete for the persistent realm vision. Coming sometime later:

• Per-player return points (so the Return pad sends you to where you actually entered, not just the main world spawn)
• Auto-spawned Return pad at the Grove's spawn so first-time visitors aren't stranded
• Custom ambient music for the Grove (cherry blossom day theme, deeper blue night theme)

🌸 Again — thank you for 1,000 downloads. The Grove is your second home now, and this time it'll be there when you come back.

— LordDionysus