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The Bronze Age

v9 · Unreleased

Summary

Our first post Game Jam update! A full Bronze Age is now live - smelt copper and tin sand into Bronze Ingots, then forge Bronze tools (Axe, Pickaxe, Shovel, Scyth) as a new tier between your starter tools and the iron versions. The tool upgrade chain is now Starter → Bronze → Iron, stacking multiplicatively at every step.

Four new pieces of mid-game machinery round out production: the Sawmill mills logs into Planks (required for all tool handles going forward), the Mixer blends sand alloys, the Anvil hammers Iron into Nails, and the Brick Kiln upgrade doubles kiln throughput and halves firing times. Building upgrades now live directly in the Build panel alongside the building they enhance.

The Anvil is also the new gateway to the iron tier. Every Iron tool now needs one, and the Mineshaft is built with 50 Iron Nails rather than raw Iron - the same 5 Iron either way, but it has to go through the Anvil first. Smelting iron is no longer the last step before iron gear; setting up a forge is.

The game also gets sound for the first time - ambient background music plus per-node gather effects - and a new Settings menu to control volume independently.

Two changes give your character a reason to be somewhere in particular. The Hut's upgrade is now the Cabin: stand on it to bank Rested, a timed +1 to every gathering action that runs down while you're out working, replacing the old permanent Gatherer's Loft bonus. And the Grinder, Sawmill and Mixer are now hands-on machines - they only turn while you're standing on them, while the Kiln and Smelter keep running on their own. Dig Sites are now proper buildings you can put down as many of as you have room for.

Keeping track of all that machinery got easier too: your crafters now report from their own tiles, and the Crafting panel's walls of queue text are gone, replaced by a compact row of slots that shows what's cooking and how long is left. And you no longer have to click a craft button twenty times - hold Ctrl or Shift while clicking to make or queue up to 25 at once.

New

Resources

  • Plank - milled from 2 Wood at the Sawmill (10s each). Used in bronze and iron tools.
  • Copper Sand - 25% bonus drop when grinding at the Grinder.
  • Tin Sand - 25% bonus drop when grinding at the Grinder.
  • Bronze Sand - mix 1 Copper Sand + 1 Tin Sand in the Mixer to get 2 Bronze Sand.
  • Bronze Ingot - smelt 2 Bronze Sand + 1 Charcoal at the Smelter (15s each).
  • Iron Nails - hammer 1 Iron into 10 Nails at the Anvil (30s a batch). What the Mineshaft is built from.

Buildings

  • Sawmill - costs Wood/Rope/Stone; unlocks Plank recipe, queue up to 5 batches. Has its own saw-cutting sound effect.
  • Mixer - costs Dorodango/Wood (requires Grinder); blends copper and tin sand into Bronze Sand, queue up to 5 batches.
  • Anvil - costs 3 Iron (requires Smelter); hammers Iron into Nails, queue up to 5 batches. Required for every Iron tool upgrade, and the Mineshaft is built on top of it. Takes 2 minutes to set up.

Building Upgrades (Construction)

  • Brick Kiln (Kiln upgrade) - costs 20 Brick + 10 Charcoal; doubles kiln capacity and halves all firing times. Takes 2 minutes to install.
  • Cabin (Hut upgrade) - glaze in a window and lay a proper bed. Turns the Hut into a place to rest (see below). Replaces the Gatherer's Loft at the same cost and build time.

Resting

  • Rested - your first timed bonus. Stand on the Cabin and every second banks 30 seconds of Rested, up to a 30 minute reserve. While it lasts you get +1 to every gathering action; it counts down whenever you're away from the Cabin, so a full reserve is about half an hour of work before you need to head home for a nap.
  • Closing the game pauses Rested rather than burning it - you'll come back with whatever you had.
  • Buff badge - a small countdown chip appears in the corner of the island showing how much Rested you're holding. It also shows up the moment you step onto the Cabin, marked "resting" while it fills and "full" once capped.

Tool Upgrades - Bronze tier

  • Bronze Axe - requires Axe + Smelter; costs 2 Bronze Ingots, 5 Rope, 1 Plank. Doubles wood per chop, stacks with Axe.
  • Bronze Pickaxe - requires Pickaxe + Smelter; same cost. Doubles Iron Ore per dig, stacks with Pickaxe.
  • Bronze Shovel - requires Shovel + Smelter; same cost. Doubles clay per dig, stacks with Shovel.
  • Bronze Scyth - requires Scyth + Smelter; same cost. Doubles fiber per cut, stacks with Scyth.

Recipes

  • Sawdust - Grind variant - feed 1 Wood into the Grinder for 2 Sawdust in 5s (vs. shaving 2 Wood by hand for 1 Sawdust).
  • Bronze Sand (Mixer) - 1 Copper Sand + 1 Tin Sand → 2 Bronze Sand in 1s.
  • Bronze Ingot (Smelter) - 2 Bronze Sand + 1 Charcoal → 1 Bronze Ingot in 15s.
  • Plank (Sawmill) - 2 Wood → 1 Plank in 10s.
  • Iron Nails (Anvil) - 1 Iron → 10 Iron Nails in 30s.

Quests

  • Build a Sawmill - guides the player to build the Sawmill before attempting the Well (which requires planks).
  • Mill Some Planks - prompts the player to run their first Sawmill job.
  • Install the Brick Kiln - guides the player to upgrade the Kiln once they have bricks and charcoal.
  • Build a Mixer - introduces the Mixer as the entry point to the bronze material chain.
  • Mix Some Bronze Sand - prompts the player to blend their first copper + tin sand batch.
  • Smelt Some Bronze - guides the player to their first bronze ingot.
  • Forge a Bronze Tool - introduces the Bronze tool tier and its 2× stacking bonus.
  • Set Up an Anvil - points the player at the Anvil once they've smelted their first iron, before anything starts asking for it.
  • Hammer Out Some Nails - prompts the first Anvil job, and flags that the Mineshaft wants 50 of them.
  • Get a Pickaxe - directs the player to the Pickaxe upgrade now that the Mineshaft gives it a purpose.
  • Forge an Iron Tool - caps the tool upgrade chain and highlights the 8× total yield when all three tiers are owned.

Sound

  • Background music - ambient loop that plays while you're on the island.
  • Gather sound effects - per-node sounds for chopping trees, cutting reeds, scooping water, digging clay, and mining the Mineshaft.
  • Building sound effects - Sawmill plays a saw-cutting sound while processing; Mineshaft plays a mining sound while active; Mixer plays a mortar-and-pestle sound while blending.
  • Crafting sound effects - audio feedback when starting or completing a craft.
  • Shave sawdust sound - the Shave variant of the Sawdust recipe plays a shaving sound effect when crafted.
  • Settings modal - new ⚙ Settings button; control master volume, background music volume, and SFX volume independently. Each has a mute toggle. Includes an Enable in background toggle to keep music playing when the tab loses focus (off by default).

UI

  • Batch crafting - hold Ctrl while clicking a craft button to make or queue 5 at once, Shift for 10, or both together for 25. (On a Mac, use ⌘ instead of Ctrl.) You'll always get as many as you can actually pay for and the machine has room for, and nothing is spent on the ones that don't fit - so hitting Shift at a Kiln with three free slots simply fires three. The whole batch reads as one line in the log rather than twenty.
  • Batch counter - the Crafting panel header shows how many one click would make right now, sitting after the station tabs. It reads x1 until you hold a modifier, then lights up and counts along with you.
  • Click to move - clicking any walkable tile on the island moves the player character to that tile. WASD/arrow keys still work as before.
  • Responsive layout - the game layout adapts to different window/screen sizes. The resource bar switches between column counts based on available width.
  • Crafting station tabs - once you have two or more crafting buildings, tab buttons appear in the Crafting panel to filter by station (Workbench, Kiln, Grinder, Sawmill, Smelter, Mixer, Anvil).
  • Crafter status on the island - a working crafting building now shows how busy it is on its own tile: how many of its slots are in use, over a bar that fills as it fills up. It turns red when there's no room for another job and shows a ⚙ while it's being upgraded, so you can see at a glance whether the Kiln is worth walking back to. A crafter that's sitting idle stays clean. Hands-on machines (Grinder, Sawmill, Mixer) also show a ⏸ when they're holding work you've walked away from.
  • Island background - tiling sky texture behind the island grid.
  • Building upgrades in Build panel - after a building is constructed, its available upgrades appear inline beneath it. No longer in the Upgrades panel.
  • Demolish button in Build panel - built buildings now show a Demolish button directly on their card, as a shortcut into Clear mode for that building.
  • Upgrade busy state - building upgrade buttons show a red "Busy" overlay when the building has an active craft job or is mid-upgrade, preventing the upgrade from starting while the building is occupied.
  • Quests completed in Statistics - the Statistics modal now shows quests completed as an "X / Y" fraction alongside the other lifetime counters.
  • Fullscreen mode - Enter and exit fullscreen using the new fullscreen toggle.
  • Inventory grid view - the Inventory panel can now be shown as a grid of item slots, with the icon in the middle of each square and the stack count in the corner - the classic game-inventory look. Use the buttons at the top right of the panel to switch between grid and the original list; the game remembers your choice. Grid is the new default, and hovering a slot still shows the item name and how close it is to your storage cap.
  • Updated art - new sprites for the Anvil, Dorodango and Dig Site.

Changed

Hands-on crafting

  • The Grinder, Sawmill and Mixer only run while you're standing on them. Walk away and their jobs pause where they are, picking up again the moment you come back. The Crafting panel marks a paused machine and tells you where to go.
  • The Kiln and Smelter are unchanged - they keep firing and smelting on their own, including while the game is closed. The split is now the point: two machines you leave to work, three you work yourself.
  • Because a paused job isn't running, the Grinder, Sawmill and Mixer no longer make progress while the game is closed.

Dig Sites

  • The Dig Site is now a building, not a recipe. You'll find it in the Construction panel instead of at the Workbench, for the same 2 Wood + 2 Rope, and it takes 5 seconds to dig out.
  • Build as many as you like. It's the first building with no limit - put one on every free tile if you want, and start several at once. The card shows a running count of how many you've built.
  • Dig Sites can now be demolished like any other building, refunding half their cost.
  • Your starting island still opens with one Dig Site ready to dig.

Balance

  • Island expansion costs - expansion costs now change material the further you expand. Costs are Dorodango (2/4), Brick (8/16), and Iron (32/64). Further expansion is unavailable until a future update.
  • Grind Sand recipe - inputs changed from 5 Stone → 2 Dorodango. Output is now Sand + 25% Copper Sand + 25% Tin Sand + 5% Iron Sand (previously Sand + 25% Iron Sand).
  • Glass recipe - cost reduced from 10 Sand + 1 Wood → 5 Sand + 1 Wood.
  • Grinder queue - increased from 1 slot to 5 slots.
  • Mixer queue - increased from a single job with no queue to 5 slots, matching the Grinder and Sawmill. Bronze Sand takes a second to mix, so lining up a batch beats standing there clicking.
  • Tool upgrade costs - base Axe/Pickaxe/Shovel/Scyth now cost Dorodango instead of Stone. Iron-tier tools now require Planks instead of Wood for handles.
  • Iron tool upgrade chain - Iron tools now require the Bronze version of the same tool (e.g. Iron Axe now requires Bronze Axe, not just Axe). Owning both a Bronze and an Iron tool quadruples that node's yield (stacks multiplicatively).
  • Iron tools need an Anvil - all four Iron upgrades (Axe, Pickaxe, Shovel, Scyth) now list the Anvil as a requirement on top of the Smelter and their Bronze counterpart. It's the one thing the whole Iron tier shares and the Bronze tier doesn't, so stepping up is a building you commit to rather than only a question of having smelted enough.
  • Mineshaft costs Nails, and needs the Anvil - the build cost changes from 5 Iron to 50 Iron Nails, and the Mineshaft now requires the Anvil instead of the Grinder. It's the same 5 Iron in raw terms (1 Iron makes 10 Nails), but it has to be hammered out first - five Anvil batches, two and a half minutes of work. Worth knowing: 50 Nails fills your entire inventory at a 50 cap, so it's easier if you've taken the Shed Expansion first.
  • Progressive reveal - buildings and upgrades now only appear once you've collected all cost ingredients (previously just one).
  • Gatherer's Loft replaced by the Cabin - the old upgrade handed you +1 gathering forever the moment it finished. The same +1 is now the Rested bonus you top up at the Cabin, so it has to be maintained rather than bought once. The Build the Gatherer's Loft quest is now Build the Cabin.

UI

  • Crafting panel job status - every crafter used to list its queue as a block of text below the recipes, all five stacked on top of each other, so the panel grew and shrank as jobs came and went and towered over the Construction panel beside it. Now picking a station tab shows that station's slots as a row of squares between the tabs and the recipes: each working slot shows what's being made, fills up as it cooks, and counts down over the top of it. Free slots sit empty, work waiting its turn at the hands-on machines sits dimmed behind the job being worked, and the row is the same size whatever's happening in it - so nothing on the page jumps around any more. Hover a slot for the recipe name, or for a waiting one, its place in line.
  • Smoother progress - a cooking slot's fill bar and countdown now move continuously instead of ticking forward in two-second jumps.
  • Cleaner queues - queued slots no longer carry a number in the corner. One square is one job, so a "2" sitting on a pile of sawdust read like two sawdust waiting rather than second in line. Where it sits in the row tells you the order, and hovering still gives you the exact position.
  • Inventory values - resource counts in the top bar are now right-aligned and monospace, making numbers easier to scan as they change.
  • Build panel - building cards are slightly larger (48px icons vs. 36px) and use a two-column layout for cost chips + button. Built buildings stay visible if they have discoverable upgrades left. The Cabin and Shed Expansion upgrades now appear inline here rather than in the Upgrades panel.
  • Upgrades panel - upgrade cards match the Build panel's new two-column layout with 48px icons.
  • Expand tile button - restyled to a dark overlay with white border for better contrast against the new background texture.
  • Escape exits Clear mode - pressing Escape while in Clear (bomb) mode now cancels it, consistent with how Escape cancels pending builds and placements.

Gathering - walking into water

  • Pond - walking into the pond now gathers water once on the spot instead of blocking movement. The tutorial hint text has been updated to reflect this. You can now gather everything by moving your character!

Gather logs

  • Gathering now writes a descriptive message to the log with the action verb and yield (e.g. "You chop the tree and gather 4 wood.").