Nested Lands News

Hello, Survivors! November was a month of exciting progress in Nested Lands! Here's what our team accomplished:

• The environment animal system expanded to include birds, which now indicate random event locations and add to the immersiveness and ambiance.
  
• Improved audio effects to enhance immersion, including forest sounds, animal calls, and the haunting stillness of nighttime.
  
• Battles just got more brutal with the addition of an enemy dismemberment system! Heads and arms can now be severed depending on your weapon and attack style.
  
• All building visuals were reworked for better performance and to prepare for level 2 upgrades in future builds.
  
• Made a major village system rework, focusing on Villagers' Traits, with animations and dialogues tailored to their personality and body type.
  
• Introduced a bleeding effect! Watch out – injuries now require bandages to heal, with animations to show the damage.
  
• New weapon recipes were added, along with improved tool and weapon behavior.
  
• Improved item spawning across the world for better pacing and less clutter.
  

Which updates are you most excited about? Let us know in #general-chat, and thank you for being part of our journey of building Norovellir! 🌟

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we shared our first Dev Diary with you!

Over the past twelve months, Nestled Lands has started looking like the game we always envisioned — one that blends survival, exploration, and community-building into a truly immersive experience. What began as a simple survival game has evolved into a unique settlement survival journey shaped by dynamic village management, the ever-looming threat of the plague, and memorable NPCs like your first assistant and companion Balder.

With many core mechanics already in place, we’re making steady progress toward the alpha test, shaping a realistic world where every decision counts.

In this special anniversary update, we’re revisiting the heart of Nestled Lands, a rich world of survival, exploration, and community-building.

[h2]The Death Plague
[/h2]
In Nested Lands, the Death Plague cannot be defeated or destroyed. It is an ever-present shadow across the islands, always renewing and reappearing. This relentless disease targets everyone — you, villagers, and enemies alike.

The plague progresses through three stages — spreading, advanced, and dying — each causing worsening symptoms. If untreated, the infected die, leaving behind contagious corpses. To prevent an outbreak, you must build crematoriums to destroy the remains of your former friends.



While you cannot eradicate the Plague, you can subdue and pacify it. Build Infirmaries and Plague Hospitals to slow the infection, and Bath Houses and Plague Masks to help prevent it. Make sure to build the Apothecary’s Hut to make medicine to ease plague victims’ symptoms, extending their lives enabling them to continue contributing to the settlement, and offering fragile hope to others.

Even your enemies aren't safe. Infected foes pose a physical threat as well as a contamination risk, with those too far gone known as Infected Savages.

This constant threat makes vigilance essential during exploration — you need to approach contaminated areas and infected enemies cautiously and keep an eye on your settlement’s hygiene and health to stave off outbreaks. And yet, even in the face of loss, death is not the end in Nested Lands…

[h2]Village Management
[/h2]
Developing and managing your village is more than just your key to survival — it's an important step toward your dream of reviving your native land after the devastating Plague. Within the walls of your village, you prepare for exploration, manage resources, and protect the people who look to you for safety.

Through mechanics such as Protection, Decoration, and Warmth, you create a home where your fellow villagers can feel secure, flourish, and build a thriving society together.



Your villagers are your responsibility. Assign them the profession that’s right for them, and they’ll do the rest. If an NPC with a certain crafting profession needs resources, another NPC with the appropriate gathering profession will bring them what they need. You could always do it yourself, but why would you if there’s someone to help?

This option adds automation elements of the automation genre, known to players from Factorio to traditional survival mechanics. If you take advantage of it, your village will thrive, but as it grows, it will attract envious enemies ready to strike.

Raids, scenarios where enemies attack your village, are a constant threat. Strong defenses are crucial to surviving these unpredictable events. If you’re away from the village, an alarm will call you back to defend your home.

[h2]Enemies[/h2]

You’ll encounter a variety of enemies in Norovellir, including Rogue Soldiers, Corrupted Priests, Mad Occultists, Infected Savages, Bandits, and Wild Peasants. Some, like you, are just trying to survive, while others have more sinister goals.

In the alpha, you'll primarily encounter Bandits and Wild Peasants.



Bandits are opportunistic thieves who often attack in groups. While weak on their own, they will call for reinforcements if they spot you.

Wild Peasants defend their land fiercely, attacking any trespassers on sight.

Both factions occupy the North Plains, but they'll appear in other regions too. As you progress, expect more complex challenges from these and other enemies in the full release.

[h2]Villagers[/h2]

Villagers are the heart of your settlement. They gather resources, craft items, care for the sick, and defend the village. To recruit and keep them, you have to meet their basic needs — food, warmth, hygiene, and happiness — or risk losing their loyalty.

Each villager brings unique skills and traits that make them ideal for specific roles. For example, a skilled cook will be a perfect fit for your Cookhouse, and a talented forester will make an excellent gatherer. Since our earlier diaries, we’ve streamlined and enhanced how these mechanics work, making them more intuitive and impactful. Matching tasks to villagers’ strengths is essential for your settlement’s success and growth.




What sets Nested Lands apart is dynamic interactions among villagers. They collaborate, communicate, and even solve challenges independently. For example, if a Builder needs planks, they’ll request them from a Carpenter, who in turn may rely on a Wood Chopper for logs. This teamwork ensures that your village will run smoothly even while you’re away.

However, if one link in this chain falters, it can disrupt the entire village. A well-oiled system thrives only when all your villagers are well fed, clothed, and content. You’ll guide them more actively at first, but as your settlement grows, maintaining their wellbeing and teamwork will be crucial to your success.

With over 60 unique traits influencing behavior and events, your village feels alive. It’s a thriving, interconnected community where every character plays a role.


Our team is working hard to make village management in Nested Lands the most lifelike and immersive survival experience possible. To stay up to date, join our Discord server, wishlist the game on Steam, and don't forget to sign up for the upcoming alpha, which is coming soon!

October brought some exciting new features, improvements, and polish to the world of Nested Lands. Here’s a look at what’s been added and enhanced this month:

- Redesigned interfaces for various features, and added status markers above NPCs’ heads.
- The player character has become more expressive with added eye animations, making interactions feel even more lively.
- Introduced a new village log system to help you keep track of everything happening in your settlement.
- Expanded tutorials for more features and points of interest (POIs) to make your journey through Norovellir smoother.
- A more detailed game map now includes marks to help you navigate and explore with ease.
- New quests have been added to support village growth and prosperity.
- A new tutorial board in the village includes notes to guide you as you develop your settlement.
- Balder now interacts more dynamically with players and villagers, with improved dialogue to enrich the story.
- A new status effect – Happiness- was added to keep your village thriving.
- Unique workwear has been added for different professions, allowing for a more immersive village experience.

Stay tuned as we continue expanding and refining Nested Lands! Let us know your thoughts on these updates, and keep an eye out for more as we get closer to alpha testing. 🌲

🎃 Nested Lands is joining Steam Scream Fest 2024! 🎃

Survivors, get ready to face the horrors of Norovellir during this spooky season! We're excited to announce that Nested Lands will be part of Steam Scream Fest 2024 among other amazing spooky projects!

You will get an opportunity to try out the alpha version of Nested Lands soon and experience the eerie Plague-infested world firsthand. Stay tuned! 

In the meantime, we've updated the Steam page and presented our new key art that's better reflecting the in-game changes.

💀 Don't forget to wishlist the game and stay updated on all upcoming features and content.
Prepare your settlement and your courage... danger lurks around every corner! See you in Norovellir! 

In Nested Lands, founding and running your own village is a task far too large to tackle alone. That’s why finding and recruiting villagers is not just helpful, it’s necessary.

We’ve now talked at length about the villagers in previous diaries. This is because Nested Lands is a management game at heart, so all of its features converge upon them. We have discussed previously how to recruit NPCs, as well as what makes them unique, like skills and traits, and the possibilities their uniqueness may bring to the village. Today we will focus on villagers' jobs, at least the ones that will be available on the upcoming Alpha.

For a village to thrive, certain needs must be met for its people. Villagers must have a place to sleep, just as they must have food, water, functional tools and weapons, and even laws and occupations that turn a simple place to live into a true bastion of civilization.

Today, we’ll discuss the occupations and jobs that players may entrust upon their villagers. They fall under three categories: Gathering, Crafting, and Service.




[h2]Gathering[/h2]

Gathering jobs are the cornerstone of your village. They are the simplest, yet most vital of jobs: collecting and storing raw materials to be used by other workers. In the early stages, most of the available jobs that the player may designate will be of this nature, which, in the alpha, will include roles like Gatherer, Wood Chopper, and Miner.

Wood Choppers and Miners are exactly what they sound like. They chop trees for wood and mine large rocks for ore, respectively. Gatherers on the other hand are more general, collecting a variety of simple resources from the grounds around the player’s village. Things like cotton, berries, plant and reed fibers, and even wooden logs and stones are some of the resources Gatherers can collect. As development progresses, we might add a larger assortment to their purview.



Looking for a moment beyond the Alpha and into the future, we also plan to add other Gathering jobs such as Hunter, Fisher, Forager and Water Gatherer to the full release.

[h2]Crafting[/h2]

Crafting jobs are more advanced. They are the occupations that will transform your settlement from a simple group of people living together into a self-sufficient village. As the name implies, Crafting jobs require using raw resources and transforming them into complex finished items. There are a large variety of Crafting jobs, and that’s where the Work-related traits we discussed in the last diary matter the most. In the alpha, Crafting jobs will include the Carpenter, Blacksmith, Apothecary, Cook, and Weaver. All of them produce certain types of specialized items:

• Carpenters turn wooden logs into planks and other wooden resources;
  
• Blacksmiths use mainly iron scraps to create tools, weapons and armor;
  
• Apothecaries turn herbs and plants into medicines to treat the Death Plague, making them particularly important;
  
• Cooks turn raw produce into proper meals, thus feeding your people for longer periods of time;
  
• Weavers turn cotton and linen into fabrics, which can then be used by other crafters, and create uniforms for all jobs, improving their efficacy.
  

We have many more jobs planned for the full release, like the Brewer, to create all manner of alcoholic beverages, the Potter, who creates clay and ceramic items, the Tanner, master of all leatherworkings, and the Butcher, who turns animal carcasses into meat-based resources.


Service

Finally, Service jobs offer different types of public service to your village, usually (though not always) through the use of a produced item made by the Crafters.

In the Alpha, there will be four Service jobs:

• Guards, who protect the village from raiders and other enemies,
  
• Builders, who take the necessary resources and finish planned buildings in your stead, as well as craft the simplest of resources, like turning Wooden Logs into Wood Pieces,
  
• Cremators, who burn the bodies of the dead, be they friend or foe, to stop the formation of Plague Foci within village grounds,
  
• Farmers, who use Plant Beds to produce vegetables and other food products.
  
• 
  

Meanwhile, the final release version will also include Nurses, who tend to the sick and may slowly treat those infected with the Death Plague, Priests, who improve the morale of any religious villagers, Animal Caretakers, who tend to the animals, and the Tavern Keeper, a friendly face to keep spirits high through merriment and drink.



[h2]Occupational Buildings
[/h2]

In total, there will be twelve jobs in the Nested Lands Alpha, as well as another twelve joining in the final release of the game, which makes twenty four possible occupations for your villagers. There will be a suitable job for every character! While Gatherers obviously work in and around all of the village grounds, Crafters and Servicers will require occupational buildings for their labor. These buildings are the initial requirement to unlock these jobs and serve as the workplace and source of materials they will use to complete their respective tasks.

For example, if a Builder needs to work on a new construction project, they will look for resources inside any of the village’s Crafter buildings. The same applies to Service occupations, who all work inside of specific buildings, like Priests in a Church or Guards in Watchtowers. But what happens if the Crafters find no resources at their workplace?



[h2]A Living Village
[/h2]

The vibrant feeling of life in the player’s village is one aspect of the game that our team has worked very hard on and is very proud of. Our team has worked very hard to create a vibrant sense that your village is alive when you play. We feel this sets our game apart and we take great pride in it. From engaging events, and ambient dialogue lines to even potential crimes, the interactions among villagers of different occupations will immerse you in the life of your village.

While the player can (and should) regularly check on any issues and requirements for the villagers to complete their tasks, the villagers can also cooperate to finish all necessary steps to complete a certain goal. For example, if the Builder needs more wooden planks to finish a new house, but there are no planks available, they can create a “request” for that material, which will automatically toggle the Carpenter to produce new Wooden Planks. In turn, if there are no Wooden Logs for the Carpenter to use, a new request will be sent to the Wood Chopper to collect more. Once they are ready, the Carpenter will take them so production can resume as usual. After the request is satisfied, all villagers return to their usual routine, whatever it may be.

Of course, if you make sure to leave your village well-supplied before going to explore, such measures may not be necessary, leading to a better rate of completion for villager tasks. Still, as we have said, managing a village can sometimes be too much for one person alone, so giving the villagers the ability to solve problems by themselves allows any overworked leaders to take a breather.



The team is hard at work making the village management experience in Nested Lands the best it can be! We've covered a lot about the villagers, but there's still much more to explore about village life — like Crime, Ordinances, Events, and even a special person who will be your right-hand in managing it all.

If you don’t want to miss any of it, remember to join our Discord server, wishlist the game on STEAM, and, especially, sign up for the UPCOMING ALPHA, which is coming soon.