- 0.5.10 - Tools in Hand and a Tidier Shop - 2 October 2026
Tools you can see A new row under your basket shows the tools you've earned - and the shadows of the ones still ahead. Upgrade your axe, pickaxe or knife and the one in your hands changes to match. The "A New Tool" moment now shows the tool itself, with a fuller description. At the bench Make Another repeats the remedy you just made. Lay It Again sets the same page back out. A bottle counter in the corner keeps count as you go. Pages that need a base (fat, honey or vinegar) now say so, and the bench shows what a page will make before you commit. Shops and the cabin Rowan's Furnishings and Petra's Clothes now list their sections down the side. Pick a piece, then Buy. Windows change to their night look on their own after dark. Grow close to a villager and they may have something for your cabin. Smaller things Menus fit smaller windows better. Plants you need for a request turn up more rel…
- 0.5.9 - The Oak Forest is in bloom again - 29 September 2026
A player on the Discord went looking for flowers in the Oak Forest and came back empty-handed. It turned out the forest had stopped growing most of its plants - the trees had filled in so thickly that the game couldn't find room for them. That's fixed, and the woods are full of things to pick again, in every season! Also new: A garden quest that could only be finished in spring now works all year round. The Field Guide tells you where a few hard-to-find plants come from. You'll bump into tree trunks now, not the empty air beside some of them. A couple of villagers' requests now accept the very remedy they're describing. Bug fixes and smaller things: Gifts, storage, save slots and item pickers all behave the way they should. Fixed a few things spoiling sooner than they should. A few skills and tools were rebalanced to match what they say they do. Pickups read "+2", and trashing an item s…
- Update v0.5.8 - 26 September 2026
A lot of small things in this one, and a few bigger ones.VillagersReach five hearts with a villager and they'll give you something of their own to wear.A few requests might be... darker in nature. Now the village notices. Wren and Fern hold their finds up to show you, and crates and baskets bob as they're carried.Villagers settle onto benches properly, and Wren no longer walks through her Experiment Bench.WardrobeOveralls and the suit are now full outfits, with their own tab in Petra's shop.New earrings: gold and silver studs and hoops.Staying out lateStaying out past midnight no longer costs energy. At midnight your feet carry you home, where Gabriel is already curled up on the bed.The clock turns amber at 10pm and glows softly after 11, instead of flashing red.Around the gameA new illustrated map.Big milestones, like finding every mushroom, now get a proper moment.What you pick up is…
- 0.5.7 - Little moments - 25 September 2026
A small update with a few new touches: - After a successful forage, you'll hold your find up for a moment before carrying on. - Naming a specimen at Gram's desk now gets a proper moment: a bigger "That's it! I'm sure of it." with a few sparkles. - Finishing a remedy at the Alchemy Bench has the same sparkle, and its name pops in. Fixes: - F12 no longer opens a developer window, so Steam's screenshot key works again. - Dangerous lookalikes you've named now show as found in the Field Guide. - A few achievement descriptions were updated, and First Find now counts plants as well as mushrooms. - The morning routine no longer gets skipped when you leave and come back to the cabin. Thank you to everyone reporting bugs in the Discord - two of these came straight from there. 🍄
- A new trailer for Under the Elm - 25 September 2026
There's a new trailer on the store page! 🍄She left you everything - her cabin, her cat, and the woods. This is the first trailer that shows the whole loop: forage real species of mushrooms and plants through all four seasons, work out what you've found at Gram's desk (and watch out for dangerous lookalikes), and brew her recipes, based on real herbalism, for a village that's relying on you now.Everything in it is the game as it looks today.The free demo is out now - if you've played it, thank you. If you haven't, it's right here on the page. 🌿
- Free demo out now! - 23 September 2026
The demo is out now You can play Under the Elm right now!!! The Download Demo button is on this page, and it lets you spend your first weeks in the valley: you inherit your grandmother's cabin, learn to name what you find, and start working out her recipes with the people who knew her. The game has grown an herbal layer Under the Elm started as a game about mushrooms, and the recipes were there - honestly -just to give the mushrooms somewhere to go. Then I got further into the herbalism, and it kept pulling. The more I read, the more it stopped looking like a crafting system and started looking like the actual subject! A body of knowledge built by people who paid close attention for a very long time, mostly women, mostly unwritten, which is the game's whole premise, and it had been sitting in front of me the entire time, so this update leans all the way in. Honey and vinegar opened a do…
- A warmer welcome to the valley - 21 September 2026
0.5.4 - A Warmer Welcome This update rebuilds the first days in the valley. A playtester (thanks Amanda!) told me in no uncertain terms that the quests could have reached her faster at the beginning, and she was right: most of what the village had to teach you was waiting behind letters that arrived days apart, so I rejiggered the beginning spine to make the speed of settling in match any play style. For those who want to settle in slowly, nothing rushes or overwhelms; for those who want something to do, there should be fewer lulls. Meet the neighbors and they'll have something for you straight away. Rowan wants to make you an axe. Petra wants your name in her ledger. Bram will show you how to get a meal out of that fire pit by the cabin. Fern will name what you can't, for a copper or two. From there, each person points you to the next - Rowan puts in a word with Silas, Silas sends you…
- Update 0.5.3 - The story now has an ending - 19 September 2026
The story now has an ending Under the Elm's main story now has a proper close! Help every villager with their final request, and the cabin has one last thing waiting for you. I won't say more than that - but I will say it's the part of this game I'm proudest of, and it wrecks me every time I play it. The credits are new too! Again, I want to keep this one a bit of a surprise, but I hope you enjoy the new format, and rest assured that when they're done, you're right back where you left off: the woods don't close just because the story does. Opening in a window The game now opens in a maximized window instead of fullscreen. On some PCs, launching straight into fullscreen could leave a white screen or cause freezes, so windowed is the safer start. If you prefer fullscreen, press F11 (or use Settings) and the game will remember your choice. Smoother movement Trees and bushes no longer bounc…
- 0.5.2 - The Lively Village - 16 September 2026
Until now, the village in Under the Elm was pretty quiet. Most folks stayed indoors through the day, and when you walked into town you'd find maybe a few people standing around. It never felt like a place people actually lived. This update (hopefully) changes that! Villagers have schedules now. Wren is out in her garden watering and weeding. Aldric works his field and keeps his chickens, and some evenings he's down on the bridge fishing. Rowan splits wood at the woodpile, and Elara goes looking for spores. They run errands. Maren draws water at the fountain and does her shopping at Petra's. Bram and Silas haul crates between the shop, the inn and Aldric's gate. Rowan carries planks out to the farm, and Fern comes home from the woods with a full basket. They visit each other. Wren takes a bench outside her garden in the morning, and neighbors stop by to chat. Aldric meets folks at his ga…
- Under the Elm 0.5.0 - The Alchemy Bench, Before and After - 13 September 2026
The alchemy bench used to be a (fairly boring) menu. You'd pick a recipe from a grid, the game would check you had the ingredients, and you'd press Make. It worked, but it meant every remedy was really a shopping list - and knowing what a plant actually does never mattered once you had the list, which isn't exactly what I wanted to bring to you. Not in a game whose whole purpose is to teach!So I've spent the past few weeks rebuilding it - along with everything else a rebuild of this magnitude touches - and I'm excited to share the new & improved Alchemy Bench!Recipes are built from components now.Her pages ask for what a remedy needs, not what goes in it - a cough remedy needs something soothing, a sleep draught needs something calming. Every plant and plant derivative now carries its own components, and any plant that carries the right ones will do. More than one answer works, and that…
- 0.4.0 - Identification, rebuilt - 1 September 2026
Identification, rebuiltIdentifying used to be one button. You'd bring an unknown mushroom back, press Identify, and the game would tell you what it was. It worked, but it wasn't really foraging - the mushroom in your basket was a lockbox and the button was the key. Worse, the mycologist skill tree ended with a perk that skipped it entirely, so the deeper you went, the less of the game you played.So it's gone, and grandmother's desk has taken its place.Now you lay a specimen out on the desk and look at it properly - the cap, the stem, the base - one at a time. Each part gives you a written observation in her hand. Then you open her field guide and go looking for the page that matches. When you find it, you say so. The book closes only when you're right.Her half of the guide is readable from the very first day. That felt important. A book that hides its contents can't help you identify an…
- A Discord & a Press Kit! - 30 August 2026
Under the Elm now has a Discord and a press kit!The Discord is the studio's home rather than any one game's - small and quiet on purpose. Come tell me what you found in the woods, ask about a mushroom you can't identify, report a bug or just come say hi! https://discord.gg/mcyUrKfNQK The press kit has screenshots, key art, the fact sheet, and blanket permission to record, stream, and monetize any video of the game. Review keys are available on request, whatever the size of your audience. https://under-the-elm-presskit.netlify.app Both are reachable from the pause menu in-game, as of today's build. Under the Elm arrives in Early Access on November 4!
