- Gamiversary Devblog - 14 September 2026
Heard of the Story? released three years ago on this date, happy gamiversary everyone! I really wanted to release the Autonomy & Governance update today to celebrate, but, life always has other plans! Instead, I'll at least tease the update and give you all a progress review! :) You may have noticed the lack of smaller patches, which is intentional! At some point, I made a decision to just focus all my development energy on the major update to get it finished. Unfortunately (and as always), it is taking much longer than expected. However! It is almost there, and right now I'm mainly focusing on finishing the content and art for it whilst polishing up the other mechanics. In summary: 🧭 Autonomy mechanic: 80% done 👑 Governance mechanic: 90% done 🏦 New buildings and items content: 50% done 🎶 New music content: 100% done Of course, I'll share some details and juicy new screenshots with…
- V0.11.21 - Custom fields, quick-trades, and emotions - 25 June 2026
🌾 Custom fields This update brings a major change to how fields are placed. Unlike structures such as taverns or workshops, areas for farming can vary in size and can be customised to your liking! This was always the intention from the beginning of the game. Now finally, there's a special area-drawing interface after you choose the location of a new field, with which you can either easily quick place a circular shape of varying size, or draw your own custom shape. Sorry for the delay with this update! It ended up taking longer to implement than expected because of various related issues such as polygon-to-polygon collisions, easy-to-read visualisation, controller support (and the list goes on). It was however, a fundamental step required for the upcoming Autonomy & Governance update. Additionally, I imagine that in the future, this sort of area tool will be used to declare villager plo…
- V0.11.20 - Improvements to proficiency, hanging around, and other things - 22 April 2026
I decided to include new building signs in this update as a little something for Steam's current Medieval Fest. To me, they're one of the most iconic little features from the middle ages (which you can still see on many old English houses today). Hope you like them! :) ✨ Item quality and proficiency improvements Added 3 additional types of house signs for villagers to show off their skills. There is now one for each level of proficiency. Each type of sign can show off any competancy (they will have the related item icon embedded into them) Upon achieving a higher proficiency tier: Added a small visual effect to the book You and villagers will now remark your accomplishment Also: Fixed villagers sometimes pretending to be proficient at activities they've barely tried 🫂 Hanging around improvements When villagers observe your activities whilst they are following you around: They can now c…
- V0.11.19 - Proficiency & Quality - 19 March 2026
Here comes a bigger, quarterly post, aimed for those who only read the big posts every now and then :) Included is the combination of the new feature introduced in this update, recap of progress so far this year, and a progress update on V0.12! ⛏️ Proficiency & Item Quality You and other villagers now have a proficiency level in all activities, though this update specifically focuses on crafting and gathering expertise. Becoming better at an activity will increase your likelihood to either find or craft higher quality items. The latter has a woven nature such that many things are considered when determining your success. For example, when baking, are you using a strong peel, and, what is the quality of the ingredients you're cooking with? For villagers, their mood will also play a key role. Now, when a villager places a little house sign, the aim is to show off their unique strength or…
- V0.11.18 - Needs overhaul and improvements - 4 March 2026
👩🦰 Needs & Utility 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 wil…
- V0.11.17 - Hanging out, skin tones, and improvements - 9 February 2026
👥 Hanging around 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-ga…
- V0.11.16 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 24 January 2026
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 :) ❤️ Relationships 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 🪑 Seating 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 🪲 Other improvements and bug fixes Added an icon for the 'throwing snowballs' interest to the journal Switched th…
- V0.11.15 - Winter Update ❄️ - 18 December 2025
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 :) 🌽 New fields 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 :) 🎁 Changed Relationships & Gifting This update also brings along a…
- V0.11.14 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 21 November 2025
💬 Dialogue 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 🌾 Fields 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 🐞 Others Added branches to pine tre…
- V0.11.13 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 3 November 2025
🍂 Seasonal changes Villagers now make various new season-specific remarks You will now see a cosy warm drink when visiting the tavern during autumn and winter Birds will no longer sing during the winter season in forests 🚶Improved start adventure screen Controller movement is now much better supported The keyboard is now automatically shown in Steam's Big Picture mode and on the SteamDeck Added a randomise button for your appearance to the new game screen 🐛 Other improvements and bug fixes Improved the sleep screen with a loading bar and some other extra cute pieces Updated the bakery and smithy oven to be more artistically consistent and fix floating issues Villagers are now able to make remarks while sitting down on decorations too Added sounds to villager card games Villagers witnessing a building completion will now feel good from it (depending on their personality) Fixed smoke i…
- V0.11.12 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 17 October 2025
Sitting Added the ability for villagers to sit on chairs, benches, and anything sittable :) You can now sit on the decorations other villagers place When sitting down, you now sit-up in the same place as you sat down in Fields Added a use for watering pots! You can now water fields to increase growth rate (finally giving watering pots a use), and made fields take 4 days to fully grow instead of 3 (if unwatered) Fixed fields still growing in the winter Fixed fields not loading at their correct growth phase Other improvements and fixes Added villager stories for reading Improved construction placement and finishing effects Fixed not being able to craft specific variants and colours in the tailor Fixed villagers getting stuck in the depths of mines Fixed villager speech bubble text overflowing when longer than 3 lines Fixed occasionally not being able to enter your house Fixed some parts o…
- V0.11.11 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 23 September 2025
Added some new dialogue to the "What tidings?" option surrounding villagers describing their activities throughout the day Buckets of milk will no longer be baked entirely into cakes, only the milk from them When placing multiple decorations in a row, the rotation of the previous decoration will be carried over, making it easier to build things like fenced areas Updated the wording of some sentences to be less offensive Fixed "the The Building" in some dialogue Fixed some items being free during trading Fixed rose being clunky to decorate with Fixed villagers not opening up about their goals Fixed not seeing hand-held versions of some objects such as wooden chests Fixed dialogue overflowing during quest descriptions Fixed very rare bug where a villager could get stuck because of a failed action Villagers will no longer talk about having contributed to cancelled or destroyed buildings Fi…
- V0.11.10 - Bug Fixes & Improvements - 11 September 2025
Villagers will now equip and wear any clothing or accessories you give them :) Added leafy sounds for some horticulture items and fixed basket sounding wooden Items are now handed over to a villager immediately upon quest completion Fixed construction not showing the new number of contributed items if you have the panel open while someone else contributes Fixed villagers writing book names in 'wingdings' Fixed thinking you can bake any new crafting idea Fixed rare situations where villagers would collectively stop doing stuff Fixed villagers throwing the book on the ground when writing in an uncomfortable position
- V0.11.9 - Hot Fixes - 8 September 2025
Just a small patch to address some player feedback :) Fixed not writing down what villagers say in your journal Fixed tailoring hats wrecking havoc upon the world by infinitely creating them Fixed player not smiling Fixed not being able to drag belts into the right slot Fixed villagers getting stuck when trying to call over other villagers Made villagers in general less likely to get stuck
- V0.11.8 - Refactor, Goals, & Improvements - 3 September 2025
First of all, I apologise for the (very) long time since the previous update! To summarise, I've been working on a major code overhaul (explained in more detail below) which ended up taking much longer than expected to implement and finalise. This update is not directly related to the major one centered around villager agency and governance, but rather mainly behind-the-scenes changes which were long overdue to improve development speed and game quality overall. Fortunately, this is a sort of once-in-a-gametime overhaul, so there will definitely not be anything nearly as big and delayed as this in the future, and I expect the development timeline to resume with a more regular schedule from this point on! To be honest, I'm actually really hyped that this is now out of the way and I get back to the more exciting stuff - stay tuned! 🔧 The Refactor Since the main change took so much time,…
- Devblog: Autonomy & Governance - 27 June 2025
Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates recently, the summer holidays are upon us so I have been taking some time off to see family and old friends, but development progress should be returning to normal soon and you can expected regular updates in the coming weeks. In this blog post, I'd like to give you an update on the progress for the next major update.👑 Autonomy & GovernanceCounting the votes across the Steam and Discord, it seems that Autonomy & Governance is by far the most preferred option from the last feature poll, so that will be the focus for the next major release! Thanks to everyone that chipped in and gave their feedback :)For full autonomy (and for the town to actually look good), the town layout planning is the most important step and something I've been recently tackling. This is essentially the villager's decision-making process behind the zoning and the placemen…
- V0.11.7 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 30 May 2025
Lots of behind the scenes work these last couple of weeks to improve the quality of updates and dialogue management. Expect less bugs in the future and villagers to be saying many more things in the coming updates! :) Overhauled asking for help: there's now a small dialogue tree so that you can choose exactly what you want to know. I've also added a lot of new dialogue explaining how exactly all the important parts of the game work, based on commonly asked questions Changed some existing dialogue lines and what villagers consider a large town Improved performance by adding LODs for the most common decorations Added the ability to skip the intro tutorial with F1 or Select Added an icon for the game when shown in your taskbar (finally!) Added a back button to the new game screen and improved transitions on that screen Added a small sound when you begin a new game Improved visibility of fi…
- V0.11.6 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 14 May 2025
I've recently gotten around to watching a couple of full streams of the V11 update (including from the amazing Nookrium and RedToxon) and I've learnt a lot about what could be done to improve the early game and tutorialisation. In the coming weeks, I'll be addressing those things whilst working on the next big thing™️ in the background. Fixed changing the window mode using an old settings file breaking the game Allowed swords to be equipped as back accessories Allowed interrupting and taking over any equipment villagers are about to use (like the anvil, tailor table, and bakery oven) Made merchants always bring storage chests if you have not yet unlocked them Fixed interaction indicators overlapping with with the player speaking Fixed fields not showing an interaction hint when not holding a scythe Fixed wrong crafting animation playing if you craft outside of a workspace with a tool eq…
- Which major feature would you most like to see next? - 10 May 2025
Hey everyone 👋 I have an important poll for you all! I'd like to hear your thoughts on what should be the next major update for Heard of the Story? I've laid out a few of the key features which I think would be the most fun and make the most sense given the game's current state. But I want to leave it up to you all to decide! 😄 To cast your votes, please head to the Discord where you can react to this poll with emojis of the relevant features. ⚒️ Guilds & Fame: as you specialise into your favourite craft, find others with like-minded interests and establish your own guild. Likewise watch your villagers forge their own across different disciplines. Construct a guildhall and develop your collective experience to improve the items you produce. Rise to fame by developing your town's unique hallmark trade craft. 🌹 Romance & Marriage: connect on a much deeper level with more dialogue, gift…
- V0.11.5 - Improvements & Bug Fixes - 5 May 2025
Added resolution options to the settings Added borderless and windowed mode (finally right?!) Improved UI adaptability for different resolutions such as the SteamDeck Trades will now show all written books and unwritten books Books now have colours and will be bound in a colour corresponding to the category of the book's content Fixed crafting panel partly blocking clicks on the prosperity bookmark Saved and loaded some additional state to prevent villagers from talking and remarking as soon as you launch the game Fixed merchants disappearing when re-loading the game after the market is over Fixed markets starting on wrong days A merchant will no longer arrive on your first day Fixed being able to walk through tailor beams Fixed and adjusted animations of the craft and sleep buttons Fixed getting stuck in the mine if opening inventory and using an action button Fixed banner being shiny…
