Hello again! Devlog #4 is 29 October, a big day for how Hearthroad looks. The land got a fog, the cards learned to change with the zoom and with their level, and roads stopped running in straight lines across everything. Everything below was filmed in the game as it was that night.
The fog rolls back
Land you hold is clear right up to its white dashed border. Land you could claim next lies under a pale veil, and land nobody has mapped yet lies under a soft fog that thickens further out. Claim a plot and it clears from its sign outward while the crew works, and when they're done the veil and the fog roll back over it in about two seconds. The new claim signs fade in as the fog passes them.
Zoom in and the cards open up
From far out a building is a round emblem, with its roads ending on dots round its rim in the colour of what they carry. Roll in and it becomes a compact card, the same card in large print: its picture, its name, one headline number. Roll in further and you get the full card. A setting picks how soon each step comes, from More to Less.
Grown buildings look grown
Every building can now grow to twelve road dots a side, and its card grows with it. One step up, the picture becomes a banner across the card. Two steps, pennants fly from its corners. Three, it turns gold and becomes the Grand one, the Grand Farm, the Grand Sawmill.
Roads run dot to dot, at right angles
Every road now leaves a building from one dot and ends on another. It goes straight out, turns at right angles on the lanes between buildings, never through one, and takes the fewest bends among the shortest ways. Where roads meet you get real painted junctions. And M flips a building, for free, when its dots face the wrong way.
Pictures instead of words
Buildings now show their state in pictures. A working one moves: smoke from the ovens, chips at the woodcutter, a cog turning in the mill. Something wrong gets a plate whose shape says what kind of trouble it is. And every number has a tooltip you can lock and dig into, word by word, about 70 ideas in all.
And the rest of the day
The coin exchange opens from your coins, painted art filled in what was missing, and lakes and rivers became one water, with soft glints of light drifting down them. Every change is in the patch notes below.
What's next
Devlog #5 is 30 October: a new world every game, with rivers that join, lakes that drain on and the sea at its edge, plus river ports and the first production chains. 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 · 29 October 2026
8 changes- Every building can grow to twelve road dots a side, and a grown card gets a banner, pennants, then gold.
- Deep tooltips: nested and lockable, about 70 ideas explained, every number broken down. Every part of a card has one.
- Buildings show their state in pictures: plates by shape, working motion, and dots that point at the trouble.
- The coin exchange opens from your coins.
- A soft fog rolls back as you claim land, lakes shimmer, and claim signs are painted.
- A card detail setting, a compact card in between, and carts on the zoomed-out map.
- Roads run at right angles from dot to dot, around buildings, laid in painted pieces.
- Painted art for All buildings, Claim land, the stock crate, a Hall for each tier and the research marks.
Behind the scenes: Notes handed from one thread to the next.