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[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]

• 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
  

[h2]👥 Hanging around[/h2]
The 'walk up to person' action has been turned into a 'hang around' action. This means that villagers can now sometimes walk up to you, or other villagers, and linger around, vibing :)

Related to this action:

• Added new dialogue as villagers approach and decide to leave
  
• When hanging around, villagers will now be aware of what you're doing and can react to it with new phrases
  
• Allowed the three founding villagers to hang around with you or each other even if there's no friendship yet
  
• Added a minimum interval between hanging around to avoid villagers being too unproductive
  
• Fixed villagers hanging out with themselves
  

This was supposed to be a small thing but in my opinion might turn out to be quite a nifty big thing. Interested to hear what you think about it. I can see a lot of room for expansion here. For example, villagers giving you hints to make the tutorial / early-game easier, or them helping you with activities, or hanging around for longer when you have a better relationship.
[h2]🎨 Skin tones[/h2]
This feature should have long been in the game, sorry about the delay in getting it through! In fact, at a very early stage of the game, it had already existed, but it got left behind during the character re-design. So, to summarise:

• You can now customise your skin tone when starting a new adventure
  
• Villagers will now spawn with a random skin tone and, most of the time, a likely hair colour associated with that skin tone
  

[h2]🐛 Other improvements and bug fixes[/h2]

• Changed cursor to stay in the same inventory / storage slot when moving items with the controller
  
• Muted music and sound effects during sleeping
  
• Fixed villagers not having blinked in over 6 months
  

Here comes the first update of the year - hope you've all been enjoying 2026 so far! Just a few small, and some much needed things whilst I work on the bigger things! Also spent a fair bit of time creating some behind-the-scenes robust dialogue testing systems, so should make future bugs in this area less likely too :)
[h2]❤️ Relationships[/h2]

• Added visual reaction for villagers responding angrily to insults and bad gifts
  
• Added sound effect for giving a gift
  
• Limited relationship changes from insults to once per day
  
• Fixed gifting menu closing a bit glitchily
  
• Fixed relationships hearts reaction getting cut off too early
  

[h2]🪑 Seating[/h2]

• Added sitting hints to help with the placement of chairs, benches, and tables
  
• Fixed being able to connect benches to tables
  
• Fixed sitting on wooden benches
  

[h2]🪲 Other improvements and bug fixes[/h2]

• Added an icon for the 'throwing snowballs' interest to the journal
  
• Switched the workshop and tavern prosperity requirements around
  
• Fixed hint for interacting with fields
  
• Fixed sleeping screen sometimes getting stuck
  
• Fixed merchants getting stuck when celebrating new building completions
  
• Fixed villagers getting stuck in conversation if spoken to after remarking
  
• Fixed immediately leaving conversation if re-entering dialogue too quickly
  
• Fixed triggering special action when navigating menus via the controller's left trigger button
  
• Fixed market stall items showing interaction hints
  

With yet another winter comes another update, been busy these last few weeks rounding it off - I hope you enjoy! Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all those that celebrate :)

[h2]🌽 New fields[/h2]

This update allows you to grow carrots, oats, and cabbages with three new plantable fields. Each has its own distinct look and growth progression!

Related to this, the nourishment value and cost of all crops has been adjusted to be more balanced, so that each one is useful in its own way. Likewise, growth time is much longer for wheat and flax fields - counter-balanced by higher yields upon harvesting. Porridges can now be cooked without the bakery, and cabbage can no longer be eaten raw (what would do that anyway?)

Not really holidays-themed but something that I think will bring a lot of joy to farming in your towns or villages :)

[h2]🎁 Changed Relationships & Gifting[/h2]

This update also brings along a change in how relationships are built with villagers. Previously, you would generally only progress through quests - specifically completing two quests to reach the maximum. Now, you'll need to incrementally bond with villagers day-by-day via:

• Completing a quest
  
• Talking to a villager
  
• Giving them a gift
  

Gifting is a new mechanic and conversation option that allows you to pick one item to give to your villager, and depending on their likes and interests, this may result in a favourable or unfavourable reaction. Along with this comes plenty of new dialogue for all sorts of personality types.

Finally, each of these interactions will only increase your relationship once a day, so you'll have to make sure you chat with your fellows more often :)

Now you can give little presents to your villagers throughout this festive period too! 🎄

[h2]🧤 Gloves and Snowballs[/h2]

There is now a new binding "R" (or "Left trigger" on controller) for triggering an extra action. I would like to eventually turn this into a sort of action wheel, where you can pick from a variety of options, but for now it is simply a way to collect snowballs during winter without always having to see a tooltip above you all the time. Meanwhile, during spring, summer, and autumn, you can also use this button to lie down (no longer will villagers be the only ones who can!)

To be able to pick-up snowballs, you'll have to either tailor or purchase yourself a new accessory: gloves! It's sort of in the middle of the crafting tree and comes in two colours: brown and beige. Fret not though, merchants will be quite likely to bring it during winter time if you lack the skills.

And once you have snowballs, well, I'll let you figure it out ;)

[h2]🐜 Bug fixes and other improvements[/h2]

• Villagers will now in general react to being hit by any hurled object
  
• Fixed items not transferring instantly after finishing trading
  
• Fixed thrown items not landing correctly
  
• Fixed crop positions changing throughout their growth cycle
  
• Fixed LOD distances on wheat fields
  
• You can no longer trade for nothing or with nothing
  
• Fixed villagers being hyper-focused on harvesting only one field no matter how many you had
  

[h2]💬 Dialogue[/h2]

• Added a lot of new personality-based dialogue surrounding interests and disinterests rather than just "I like gathering". They will now see these as their favourite three and most hated three activities.
  
• This normal likes and dislikes remain and can still be conveyed about any activity, but these random spiels will no longer show up in the journal. Essentially, things now have to be a villager's important hobby to be marked down
  
• Improved grammar surroundings buildings, experiences, and expectations
  

[h2]🌾 Fields[/h2]

• Improved the visual progression of wheat and flax; there are now five distinct visual stages to each and flax has its own versions as opposed to looking just like wheat in its growing phases
  
• Changed field progression to be based on time rather than the number of nights
  
• Fixed watering effect moving with the player and abruptly stopping
  

[h2]🐞 Others[/h2]

• Added branches to pine tree forests for newly generated worlds
  
• Villagers can now read books and examine things whilst sitting down
  
• Shift and caps lock are now listened to in the previously updated fields of the new adventure screen
  
• Fixed transparency issues when decorating and placing certain things
  
• Fixed villagers getting stuck because of trying to complete goals whilst sitting down
  
• Fixed villagers repeating some long actions right after each other (for example, sitting at a tavern, getting up, and then immediately going for another drink damn drunkards!)