V0.11.18 - Needs overhaul and improvements
[h2]👩🦰 Needs & Utility[/h2]
In this update, how villagers choose to spend their time has been pretty much entirely overhauled. Beforehand, villagers would primarily pick activities based on their interests. Now, villagers will consider their current emotions: whether they are hungry, whether they are irritated, or cold, or unhappy - these factors will have a strong influence over what they choose to do and when.
Villagers now have the equivalent of a social need, which drives them towards social actions when they get lonely during the day. When motivated, they will have the courage to try harder tasks, whereas, when irritated, they will just want to relax and cool off. Hunger will influence trading, stirring villagers to always keep a supply of food on them, meanwhile setting goals to find food if they're hungry. Also new, during colder times such as during winter and the night, villagers will be more inclined to sit down at a campfire to enjoy the warmth of the embers. In total, there were probably 20+ other small related tweaks and changes across the board.
This update took longer than expected because it required a lot of testing and iteration get the balance just right. However, overall, I feel like towns now look a lot more lively and social, villagers feel more reactive and varied, and mood has a real impact. Most interestingly, this should have an interesting feedback loop with other actions and I plan on expanding this by better linking it to other mechanics in the future - for example, villagers crafting their best, highest quality, work if they're in a good mood. Let me know what you think when you try it :)
[h2]❤️ Relationships[/h2]
[h2]🪳 Other improvements and bug fixes[/h2]
In this update, how villagers choose to spend their time has been pretty much entirely overhauled. Beforehand, villagers would primarily pick activities based on their interests. Now, villagers will consider their current emotions: whether they are hungry, whether they are irritated, or cold, or unhappy - these factors will have a strong influence over what they choose to do and when.
Villagers now have the equivalent of a social need, which drives them towards social actions when they get lonely during the day. When motivated, they will have the courage to try harder tasks, whereas, when irritated, they will just want to relax and cool off. Hunger will influence trading, stirring villagers to always keep a supply of food on them, meanwhile setting goals to find food if they're hungry. Also new, during colder times such as during winter and the night, villagers will be more inclined to sit down at a campfire to enjoy the warmth of the embers. In total, there were probably 20+ other small related tweaks and changes across the board.
This update took longer than expected because it required a lot of testing and iteration get the balance just right. However, overall, I feel like towns now look a lot more lively and social, villagers feel more reactive and varied, and mood has a real impact. Most interestingly, this should have an interesting feedback loop with other actions and I plan on expanding this by better linking it to other mechanics in the future - for example, villagers crafting their best, highest quality, work if they're in a good mood. Let me know what you think when you try it :)
[h2]❤️ Relationships[/h2]
- While a relationship is in its early stages, effects will show stars rather than hearts to imply friendship rather than romance
- Hanging out with someone now increases your relationship, limited to once a day
- Unfriendly villagers will now only insult others if they're in bad mood (finally learnt to behave!)
[h2]🪳 Other improvements and bug fixes[/h2]
- Made the start of the game more fun by folding infrastructure requirements earlier. Rather than having to build 5 houses first to get a new villager, you build a house & a field, then for the second villager a house & a workshop, etc.
- Improved the way goals and actions are picked to create more variation in activities
- Fixed villagers trying to throw snowballs when they ain't got any!
- ...and fixed villagers being able to infinitely throw snowballs!
- Fixed villagers always experiencing something the same way
- Fixed villagers never gathering vegetation that re-grew during a session
- Fixed villagers sitting down at table and then immediately going to sit down on a decoration afterwards - these actions will now use a unified cooldown
- When hanging out with someone, villagers will now run if the other person is running too
- Added a cooldown to examining items as villagers loved spamming this