Beta Thyme

Beta Thyme was a potential alternate version of Thyme that was eventually scrapped. Note that the following information is based upon the Steam thread related to the 1.2.0 Patch, which can be seen here.

General Description
Beta Thyme was a reworked version of Thyme that was first implemented during the 1.2.0 Patch on November 23, 2020. They never made it into the main branch of any versions of the game on any platforms due to being removed. During their limited appearance they featured a complete overhaul to Thyme's character.

Upside
Beta Thyme featured a system based around the player's maximum health. For each full unit, the player would gain two additional seconds at the start of each day, 1% more Luck, and 1% Bark Skin. The amount gained could be increased through increasing the player's maximum health by harvesting fertilized Heart Beets. Because of how playing on earlier Years provides the player with more starting maximum health, Beta Thyme was especially strong during them. However, due to how as the Years progress players lose more and more maximum health, Beta Thyme was not nearly as strong in later Years compared to earlier ones. This meant that Beta Thyme primarily focused on a ramp-up playstyle instead of Thyme's current risk/reward playstyle, marking a drastic change in her design. Thyme's original downside of losing 20 seconds per hit was also removed, making Beta Thyme have no downsides at all. Despite the other changes, Beta Thyme still retained their starting Pig.

Reasons For Rework
There were a couple main reasons for the changes to Thyme. As stated by the developer, "The reason for the change is that I was never happy with the double punishment for taking damage. Taking damage is already very punishing (you die if you don't have any health!), so the player is heavily [incentivized] to avoid damage." (Sourced here). This idea prompted the developer to rework Thyme into a less punishing Character as opposed to their current version, which makes taking damage extra decimating.

Reasons For Removal
The decision for Beta Thyme's removal was likely made due to feedback from the community. As a whole, the rework was disliked for numerous reasons. In general, the rework was seen as too far distracting from Thyme's main appeal of rewarding experienced players with extra time. In addition, Thyme's pun in their name was mostly lost in this rework, as they were no longer entirely centered around time. There is also the matter of the playstyle Beta Thyme was trying to promote being too ramp-up in focus as opposed to risk/reward. It is likely due to these various reasons that Beta Thyme was eventually pulled from the game. This meant that once the Invasive Species Update was added Thyme did not undergo any changes in the main branch at all.

Bugs

 * At one point Beta Thyme unintentionally still retained Thyme's upside of 50% more time and losing 20 seconds when damaged. It is unknown if these were ever fixed before Beta Thyme was pulled.

Trivia

 * There were other purposed changes to Thyme, one of which featured a damage-incentivized playstyle where the player would gain time for each unit of damage they took throughout the run. This idea was never fleshed out into a full rework however.
 * Thyme may be one of, if not the only, Characters that has received a reworked version that never appeared in the main game.