Heard of the Story? News

The new anniversary update is finally here! (it’s a day late, but we appreciate your patience 🙂)

This patch introduces a range of new mechanics surrounding trading and markets, as well as a whole bunch of new goods, decorations, and buildings!

Let’s run through a list of all the changes you’ll see in this content update. If you want a more in-depth explanation and rationale behind these changes, you can also read the previous devblog.

[h2]⚖️ Markets[/h2]

• You can now build a new structure: market stall. This building is modular and has several varying elements, meaning that there are over a hundred possible variations for each market stall
  
• Every other day, a market will be held during the morning of the day. Villagers will flock to your market stalls and show their goods there
  
• There is also a new music track which plays whilst you’re in an ongoing market 🎶
  

[h2]💰 Merchants[/h2]

• As the population of your town grows, so will the number of interested merchants
  
• On market days (even if you don’t have any stalls built), merchants will visit your town to offer you goods you need
  
• After mid-day, merchants will make their way back home
  

[h2]🪙 Coins[/h2]

• You can now trade via currency instead of just items
  
• You and each villager start an adventure with a few coins
  
• Merchants will acrue wealth whilst they’re out of town (or lose it) and will provide you with a chance to bring more coins to your town when they visit
  

[h2]🏠 Modular houses[/h2]

We’ve completely rehauled the house building system to be based on modular designs that give raise to thousands of possible variations and much more customisability!

• You can now choose the size of the house through the building architecture menu: each can be 3 floors high and up to 3 measures wide
  
• You can also choose the type of material to make the roof out of: straw, wood, clay tiles, or new stone slate
  
• There are 8 variations for the ground floor design, 10 variations for the middle floors design, 19 variations for the roof design with additional 10s of variations of the roof material designs
  
• There are now 15 types of window designs, one of which is chosen across a new house
  
• Each house is now created with an assortment of unique decorations, window positions, and door position
  

Any houses you have in previous saves will be automatically moved to this new system and new design style.

[h2]🍇 New content[/h2]


Pottery:

• You can now build a new structure: pottery
• Here you’ll be able to turn your mud into clay pots and tiles for better roofing
  

Items:

• New accessories: wooden shield, bow, quiver, bycocket, backpack
  
• New food: apple, grapes, plum, carrot, cabbage, salmon, egg, cinnamon, parsley, pepper, apple pie, salmon pie
  
• New decorations: basket, square flower arch, round flower arch, small fountain, barrel planter, stone planter, ceramic pot, rosy basket, rosy barrel planter, rosy stone planter, rosy ceramic pot, rose, scarecrow, short stone table, stone table, chair, stone chair, bench, stone bench
  

[h2]🪓 Overhauled skill system[/h2]
The skill system has been rehauled in a few different ways based on all the feedback received since the release of the game.

• Items are now unlocked through the paths defined in skill trees rather than in a random order
  
• As you gather items and craft in a particular discipline, you will accrue experience and eventually unlock a new item in that tree
  
• The particular ideas you get are based upon which branches you specialise into during crafting
  

[h2]🎮 Status on controller support[/h2]
Unfortunately, we did not get time to complete controller support for this update. However, it remains the next priority and will be coming in the next couple of weeks!

[h2]🐛 Improvements & bug fixes[/h2]

• Improved the graphics for slate and clay tile roofs
  
• Added a lot of new personality-based dialogue relating to various buildings
  
• Added a new ‘remark’ action for villagers
  
• Fixed some villager small talk
  
• Existing food was rebalanced due to the new food
  
• Fixed fountain SFX not disappearing after picking up the decoration
  
• Tables now clear the grass around them
  

UPDATE: Hey all 👋 Coin & Spice is almost ready! We're still preparing the last bits and pieces so will push the release date to tomorrow (15/09). We hope this isn't too much of an inconvenience and hope that you are as excited as we are to share it with you! 🙂


The anniversary update Coin & Spice has been in the works for the last couple of months and will be the 4th major update to Heard of the Story? since the Early Access release. Today I’m finally excited to share what you can expect! :)

[h2]Markets[/h2]

The most important addition we’ll be introducing is a new mechanic which will allow you to hold regular markets in your town every few days. Rather than focusing on one market building as the epicentre, you will be able to build individual market stalls and organise markets however you like!

When the time comes, villagers will flock to the market both to show their wares, but also to browse themselves! The market will last until mid-day at which point villagers will pack up their things and return to their ordinary lives - likely somewhat embellished by their newfound treasures.

Fundamentally, the aim is to significantly improve trading and hence the culture of collaboration and specialisation. Currently it can be difficult to know who has what, and also finding the right person at the right time. With a market, you’ll instantly be able to see the most important tools and goods purchasable all in one place. Whether it’s through chit-chat or looking around at the unfinished projects, villagers will know what you’re looking for, and will prioritise showcasing that in their stalls to help you complete your goals - for a worthy price of course.

[h2]Currency[/h2]

To go along with the markets, we’ll be adding a coin system to ease trading. You’ll still be able to trade items for items, but you’ll also additionally be able to manage your wealth, and request payment in a simple currency. Unlike in some games, villagers will not have an endless supply of coins and will only earn more through business with others. Which leads us to the last point - where do more coins come from?

During markets, you may see craftsman and potential buyers from neighbouring towns visit. They may present you with new, and sometimes luxurious items not usually found in your environment. At the same time, they will give you and your villagers the chance to sell the items you’ve accrued over the week, and provide your town with a source of precious income.

[h2]New Content[/h2]



Coin & Spice will include a new Pottery building in which you’ll be able to craft and bake various clay-related items such as roof tiles and plant pots. Buildings which previously simply required extra mud for their roofs, will now properly require tiles instead.

Amongst the new items will be various tasty fruits, vegetables, fish, and enticing spices that merchants can bring to your town. With these, you’ll be able to bake more sophisticated recipes such as delicious pies which will go much farther in fulfilling your nourishment needs - and making your villagers happy of course.

As always, there will be lots of new decorations such as stone tables, a new fountain, chairs, as well as equippable accessories such as a wooden shield or a cool bow!

[h2]Procedural Houses[/h2]


Houses are by far the most commonly constructed building as you work to fill your town with new residents. As a result, we are working on procedurally generating the look of houses to have the most visual impact on your towns! This means that rather than having three options for houses as you have now, you will be able to select a house width and there will automatically be thousands of possible variations. Each villager will have a truly unique and interesting home, and the act of building new houses in itself will become much more rewarding.

Right now, you have one tiled-roof house option, but in Coin & Spice, each possible house shape will have a customisable roof where you’ll be able to choose from 4 different materials: straw, slate, tile, and wood. We’ll also be allowing houses to be built up to three floors high for the first time, giving you the ability to make your towns feel even more epic!

Additionally, a villager’s home customisation will extend from their gardens onto their house exteriors too. Each structure will now come with an assortment of different decoration spaces. As villagers find new items, they’ll personalise houses to their own liking - giving an extra touch of personality to all corners of the residence.

[h2]Controller Support[/h2]

Our aim is to complete the support for controllers with this update by adding the ability to use keys / buttons to navigate the inventory, book, and other parts of the interface. It has been a much requested feature for a long time, so it’s been near the top of our list!

[h2]Release Date[/h2]

We hope that all sounds exciting to you! As always, we’re always open to hearing suggestions or new ideas, so feel free to jump in the Discord and share your thoughts!

The currently planned date for this update is on the anniversary of the game’s release to Early Access: the 14th of September. We hope to see you there! :)

Another round of small features and changes based on our ideas and thanks to your reports and suggestions! At the same time, we are continuing work on the V0.10 release :)

• Added the ability to call over a villager. You can now head into the Townsfolk page and right-click on a villager to call them over (providing that they are close enough to hear you!)
  
• Added the ability for villagers to hang around each other if they are friends
  
• Added the ability to re-bind controls in-game
  
• Added a tutorial to open the villager journal
  
• Added the ability to use the scroll wheel in the trading menu
  
• Changed the camera to position slightly to the right of you when zoomed-in so that it is easier to see where and how exactly you will place a small item
  
• Changed ESC to first exit out of trading, rather than exit out of a conversation altogether
  
• Changed the building hint to be red (rather than the preliminary yellow) when a building is invalid during the architecture configuration
  
• Added an additional hint to explain building colouring in the construction tutorial
  
• Fixed camera spawning inside the player when starting a new game
  
• The camera position is now also saved from wherever it was previously
  
• Fixed villagers talking about cancelled constructions
  
• Fixed villagers talking about goals for constructions which were already completed
  
• Fixed hair clipping in some places
  
• Fixed some typos in villager small talk
  

Another round of small weekly changes based on some long-standings issues as well as your reports and suggestions. At the same time, we are continuing work on the V0.10 release :)

• Added the ability to rotate your character when starting a new game
  
• Added separate sliders for mouse X and Y sensitivity and renamed them to vertical and horizontal look sensitivities
  
• Added specific crafting icons for carpentry, smithing, baking, and tailoring
  
• Fixed some crafting pages getting filled with random items under some circumstances
  
• Fixed being unable to craft banners and flags properly in the tailor
  
• Fixed mannequin in tailor not showing previews of clothes
  
• Fixed the majority of cases where the skin of characters would clip through their clothes
  
• Fixed villager journal sometimes not aligning dialogue notes correctly when it’s opened for the first time and breaking if it had a goal or interest relating to a cancelled building
  
• Villagers will no longer consider contributions to cancelled buildings as noteworthy achievements
  
• Fixed a villager’s goal not appearing in the villager journal if they share more than one
  
• Fixed wheat and flax field not having blocky previews
  
• Changed the ESC key to prioritise closing the menu settings rather than exiting a house
  
• Improved clarity of the scissors icon
  
• Made the start adventure button in the new game configuration screen a little cooler
  

Whilst working on the next big content and feature update (V0.10), the plan is to continue to release weekly improvements, bug fixes, and quality of life things. If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear them and include them in these updates! The best place to discuss your ideas is in our Discord.

Changes:

• Added functionality to craftable signs: now, when you place them near a building, they will describe the name of that building (since previously, there was no way to keep track of building names after they were built)
  
• Added an extra tutorial step to help explain that you can click on the optional tutorials in your notebook
  
• You can now use a mine cart, even if a villager is on their way to use it (alleviating the issue of mines being hard to use in larger towns)
  
• Villagers now walk outside the cart rail area when they are done with the mine (to stop your cart from ramming into them as often)
  
• Villagers will now pick random seats at campfires and taverns, as opposed to always in the same order
  
• Changed tavern lights to come on only after someone sits down, rather than also if they are on their way
  
• Fixed villagers hitting their tankards with ghosts at taverns
  
• Fixed tools showing through windmill door when crafting
  
• Fixed being able to place houses from workspaces (such as the smithy or windmill) which could cause issues. Now, bookmarks relating to buildings and the town will appear disabled in such situations
  
• Fixed villager / player relocation not happening as soon as a construction was destroyed
  
• Slightly improved relationship icons and made them more consistent