Heard of the Story? News

Just another small patch to address some key things and add some general improvements whilst we work on upcoming new content and features! 🙂

• Added an accessibility option to disable the depth of field effect
  
• Changed the ESC key to first close any open menus before opening the settings menu (upon popular demand)
  
• Improved continuous decoration by automatically equipping the next available item of that type after placing something
  
• Improved the look of the banner and flag icon
  
• Fixed the look of the lute when equipped and its icon
  
• Fixed lute sometimes disappearing when changing items too quickly
  
• Fixed the ‘well-nourished’ icon missing an image when re-loading the game with the effect active
  
• Fixed being able to place structures on top of the starting campfire
  
• Fixed being able to change equipped items whilst performing actions such as chopping a tree or mining stone
  

[h2]😄 Villager Expressiveness[/h2]



[h3]Outbursts[/h3]

When a villager is feeling an emotion, they now have a chance to express that through a small action:

• If they are happy, they can do a little dance
  
• If they are angry, they can rage
  
• If they are feeling sad, they can cry
  

[h3]More complex emotions[/h3]

Sadness is now directly linked to a villager’s personality, amount of social contact, and is also effected by food (happy tummy happy bunny). Meanwhile, anger is a separate emotion based on the current level of irritation from activities. This means villagers can now become happy when you simply catch-up with them - especially ones you are already friends with!

Some subtle details:

• Villagers that don’t like you will become irritated when talking to you
  
• Villagers’ emotional memory of conversations is now based on what happened during the conversation
  
• Added lots of new dialogue surrounding emotions
  
• All feelings are now saved and persisted between gameplay sessions
  

[h2]🗿 Monuments of Achievement[/h2]



To commemorate your hard work, there are now three special monuments you can be inspired to unlock upon fulfilling certain conditions. These are:

• A Monument of Benevolence
  
• A Monument of Craftsmanship
  
• A Monument of Establishment
  

[h2]🥐 Becoming Well-Nourished[/h2]



Before, food was mainly a luxury that provided comfort and happiness to villagers who really liked eating specific treats. However, now, you can eat food to gain an impactful productivity boost to chopping trees, mining rocks, and helping construct buildings. This finally gives the whole culinary section of items and buildings a new and real use!

Different foods give bonuses for different amounts of time. Redcurrants commonly found in forests will give a short-lived effect, but delicious beaked bread will last much longer!

Food here specifically gives a positive bonus, rather than a negative ‘hungry’ status as we want to emphasise that it’s an optional effect, rather than a stressful need you always have to fulfil.

[h2]📜 Work In Progress: Villager Chronicles[/h2]



We have also been working hard on lots of new content, as well as the new villager details page! These will arrive in the next update(s), in the meantime, here is a sneak peak of what our draft of the new book section looks like.

Feel free to give feedback if there’s something you like or don’t like on here! :)

[h2]🦗 Bug fixes and improvements[/h2]

• Allowed the camera to be used on top of the tower. When inside, you can now simply move your mouse to move the camera. You can use A and D to cycle between positions in the tower. Note, sometimes it may appear you can’t take certain positions, this is because a villager is on their way there, and of course, it would be rude to front-run them. So (for now), you will have to wait for your turn for the specific place :). When inside, the toolbar now hides (for nice screenshots).
  
• Changed item icons to have more standardised sizes
  
• Fixed icons moving in your toolbar based on the current camera angle
  
• Improved mastery icon positions in the Townsfolk page
  
• Improved the game selector’s resolution compatibility
  
• Improved the way tree chops are counted, and so also fixed axe hits occasionally not connecting properly and tree falling first
  
• Limited cows to be milked at most twice a day
  
• Fixed long-standing issue with villagers sometimes not hearing what you ask of them (some people thought the villagers were deaf)
  
• Fixed the act of crafting fountains not inspiring any ideas
  
• Fixed not being able to drag and drop from equipment slots for male characters
  

We’ve been working hard on some exciting things which are coming next week, from new villager actions, to some sweet new content! So stay tuned, and in the meantime, here is a small patch to address a few things and add a couple of helpful improvements 🙂

• Added variation to the forms of the rocks you pick up
  
• Added a "save and back to main menu” (upon popular demand)
  
• Changed the hammer cursor to only appear on valid building materials
  
• Fixed long-standing visual glitches when two people contributed to a building at the same time
  
• Fixed villagers only remembering and reacting to conversations with each other, and not the player
  
• Fixed outdated relationship level when villagers are deciding whether to praise you or slag you off in their own conversations
  
• Fixed tools not breaking correctly
  
• Fixed flowers in bush icons moving as you move the camera
  
• Fixed some objects not being thrown properly
  

Thought it would be fun to test the livestream feature on Steam for the first time! So I will be playing through a new world for fun, come check it out if you want to watch, ask questions, or just chill :)

Just a small hot-fix patch to address some issues found in the last update:

• Fixed villagers not wanting to trade some items
  
• Fixed icons of trees, bushes, and hedges slightly flickering when moving the camera
  
• Fixed right-click menu not appearing inside chests
  
• Fixed item order not being retained when dropped items into chests or house storage