Devlog #3 · Rivers and lakes come to the map

Hello again! Devlog #3 is 28 October, the day water came to Hearthroad. Until then the map was all dry land with some painted streams for decoration. That day rivers and lakes became part of the land: you see them, you build around them, and your roads cross them. Everything below was filmed in the game as it was that night.

Rivers and lakes, part of the land

Every realm now lays its rivers and lakes once, when it's founded, from its own land. Rivers follow the river country and widen as they go downstream; lakes lie in the wet ground and the marsh. They never move, and old saves got their water the first time they opened, around whatever already stood there.

Pulling back from the bridge: the river runs on out of Ashford's land, past a lake, into the fog.

Ashford village with a river running across its land, a road crossing it on a wooden bridge to a Market Place and Storehouse on the far bank. — Ashford that night: a river across its land, and a road over it to the far bank.

Nothing is built on the water

A building has to keep a little bank between itself and the water. Hold one over a river and its ghost turns red and says so: Too close to the water. Every plot keeps dry room for its own resources, so a river never swallows a forest or a quarry.

Sound on. The Market Place won't go on the river, so it goes on the far bank, and the road to it gets a bridge.

Roads cross on bridges

Roads don't go around water, they cross it. Wherever one does, it gets a timber bridge, painted into the road, and it costs nothing extra. The carts just roll over.

A cart crossing the river on its bridge, at 4×.

Close up of a timber bridge carrying a road over a reed-lined river, the Market Place and Storehouse cards on the north bank. — The bridge up close: reeds, sandy banks and slow water.

The Hearth feeds its neighbours

The same day the Hearth, the hall your realm starts from, became a small market. It feeds the homes around it with food and warmth straight from your stock, no road and no stalls, up to a cap that grows with its level. Homes past the ring or the cap still need a Market Place. So a new realm eats from its first minutes, and the tutorial now teaches that loop first.

Research costs goods

Research stopped being coin only. Techs now ask for goods too, like timber, and some wait for the building that studies them. The whole tree got its painted icons the same day.

The Book of Knowledge: Village era research with painted icons, costs in bronze and goods, Roads under way and Writing waiting for a level 2 University. — The Book of Knowledge: costs in bronze and goods, Roads under way, Writing waiting for a level 2 University.

And the rest of the day

Standing orders came to the Money Changer: keep, say, 2,000 bronze and change the rest up into silver, even while you're away. The economy got a pass: your six founders stay, merchants only buy what you can spare, and porters carry three at a time. Advice got clearer, the away report got honest, and Show me lands on a free spot in view. Every change is in the patch notes below.

What's next

Devlog #4 is 29 October: roads that run from dot to dot, a soft fog that rolls back as you claim land, and cards that grow as you zoom. It's out tomorrow. The game isn't open to play yet: leave your email on the home page and we'll write when it is.

Patch notes · 28 October 2026

8 changes

Rivers and lakes become land on the map, painted, with bridges.
The Hearth works as a small market for the homes around it.
Standing orders change your coins up at the fee and keep a reserve, even while you're away.
The economy, tuned: your founders stay, merchants buy what the realm can spare, and goods need deeper inputs.
Research pays in goods and waits for its buildings, with art for the whole tree.
Raw materials come from sites on the land, which grow back.
Clearer advice, an honest report of what happened while you were away, and Show me lands on a free spot in view.
The tutorial's woodcutter chapter ends with its road to the Hearth, and build menus mark sites with no free land.

Behind the scenes: A tuning panel for testing the economy and the sounds.