winter is coming

families, cold, and the labor pool

today i was trying to turn a crowd of workers into something closer to a society, plus a second survival pressure to worry about alongside hunger. i really think that a game like this needs pressure and the real balance is trying to give the player actionable things to do without just having a giant resource tree (at least for my vision). this is the start of it all 'cause you need to have your population grow so you have workers for the labor pool.

villagers couple up

villagers can now pair off and have children. it grows on its own over time, families form, and there are now relationships to keep track of beyond who is chopping which tree. kids can also pitch in and gather materials rather than just being dependents (i basically stole this from Banished ((a common theme that i'm sure will repeat))).

cold

i added a cold system, so temperature is now a thing villagers have to deal with on top of being fed. this pairs with tailors, who make and hand out coats to keep people warm. the cold and tweaked settings around it give winter some bite and give the tailor a real reason to exist.

jobs from a labor pool

to get started jobs now get assigned out of a shared labor pool. this is a much better way to start to see what works with a growing colony, since labor can be pointed at what matters most without hand-assigning every single villager. but that is the goal. i expect this to change soon.

QoL tweaks

buildings can now be rotated when placing them. also added a debug menu, which is mostly for testing but makes it way easier to poke at systems and see what's happening under the hood.