It's the Weekend!

[SirAstrix]

After running some numbers with @coasterspaul when talking about children, and then reading something @MostlyLost said;

DesktopTuesday: UX Building Prototypes

they didn’t have citizens that stopped following orders to do things that they cared about.

it got me thinking. We have a calender in the game already with dates. What if we added days of the week to that, and then let the Hearthlings take a day off once a week. On that day off, have them socialize more, or play games, something. This would bring more life to the city, as well as make the Hearthlings more personal.

Soldiers would be the only exception to this, as Ogo doesn’t understand why we need to dedicate a day to rest in the name of the Bunny god.

[CrazyCandy]

Please, for the sake of the almighty Bunny… they already waste way too much time.

[YetiChow]

But that’s the flip-side of this suggestion – by adding weekends, the devs would be able to reduce the amount of time Hearthlings spend socializing and relaxing during weekdays, since the weekends (and possibly festivals) would make up for it.

I think the hearthlings actually have a lot of time available for relaxation already, but I view that as a good thing. Stonehearth isn’t, say, Caesar or Anno, where everything takes place in a bustling metropolis. It’s mostly set in a frontier town, and a relatively quiet one at that, at least for a good chunk of the gameplay. If you grow your town into a bustling metropolis, cool, but the core game is built around a smaller scale; and one which discourages that sense of urgency. It’s a chill, laid-back and cutesy game, so it doesn’t make sense to have the hearthlings running around frantically for the whole time. Sometimes, sure, they should be more active; but I think that being able to give your hearthlings plenty of leisure time is a marker of success in Stonehearth.

[MostlyLost]

I think that being able to give your hearthlings plenty of leisure time is a marker of success in Stonehearth.

I know it would be way outside the scope of the game as it is, but that sort of thing would make a huge difference in the atmosphere of the game. Being able to reach an equilibrium state where we don’t need quite all those workers/crafters any more, and switch some over to low-production fishers instead, so they’re hanging out in town and just running idling animations and chatting with each other? Yeah. Arranging outdoor festivals when your Hearthlings are in communal spaces, but having little feastdays with some little scripted home decoration when you’ve got a robust village with housing for everyone? Great. Have your crafters whip up flavor_item1 through 10 and store them in chests in each house so there are the necessary items to build up decorations, and a place to store them again when they’re taken down?

The really tight time budget I guess gives players a sense of urgency and a reason to stay involved, but all you’d need to do is take a few ticks off the cost of a step and you could spare a full minute each game day for flavor activities and still get all the work done you need to do. More leisure would be lovely, indeed, if it didn’t come at the cost of task completion.