More of Goodhaven and a longer memory

Hi everyone,

In the last written Game Log, I was trying to give the household a house it could actually use. The building grid floated, parts of the floor were not walkable, and a plausible-looking room could still leave someone with nowhere to stand.

Since then, I’ve been working further out into Goodhaven and further into the lives of the people who live there. There are more places taking shape beyond the Marin home, more ways to change the house, and more history behind a family connection or a broken promise. SimGoodie also has its new name: Goodies.

The new video shows the current household and some of those systems in action. For this written entry, I also want to show the work around it: the street and district captures, the changes between development builds, and the parts that still need another pass.

The Marin entrance in the ongoing Goodhaven work. Development capture showing the steps, planting and street frontage.

I like how this entrance is coming together. The steps, planting, low stone walls and pear-banner lamp give the house a relationship with the street. Now the people inside need to be at least as interesting as the hydrangeas.

The town beyond the front garden

Linden Rise already existed in the first log. The work now is in connecting and refining the place around it. The park crossing below gives the paths, stream, gardens and neighbouring houses a shared setting. I want going outside to mean entering a town with its own character.

The park crossing in the ongoing Goodhaven development work, with the stream, planting and neighbouring homes brought into the same view.

Hemlock Bend is taking a different shape. Its cabins sit among tall conifers, with rougher ground and much more distance between front doors. These early native views are useful alongside the town blueprint because they show what has actually been built, including the sparse verges and awkward ground transitions still needing attention.

An early Hemlock Bend development view. The cabins are taking shape; the surrounding ground and approaches still need work.

Making room for all that town

Putting more of Goodhaven into the game has also meant changing how it is drawn. The latest installed development build brings in the town with neighbourhood streaming, shared drawing for repeated plants, and simpler distant geometry. A house across the district should not cost the same to draw as the one you are standing beside.

There are now Low, Medium, High and Ultra graphics presets in the settings, with controls for things such as shadows, plants and view distance. This is still a balancing job. The wider world has exposed rough distant houses, camera clipping and grass that does not always move as it should. I’m working through those problems while keeping the soft, planted look.

Goodhaven’s early town blueprint, showing the districts and elevation bands. The coastline and district outlines are provisional.

A very important pear

The town’s civic pride has a particular shape. The Golden Pear is an oversized, gilded prize whose official explanation is prosperity. Its shape is unfortunate. The catalogue description is: “Hand-finished. Please stop asking.”

That is the sort of place I want Goodhaven to become: fond of its ceremonies, slightly defensive about its decisions, and full of people who have to live with the results. The pear already appears on lamps and fences. The wider civic story is still being developed.

A house that is easier to change

The building work has continued from the problems in Game Log 2. Doors and windows had a boundary check that could refuse a new opening because of an unrelated object elsewhere on the lot. I changed that handling, and placed doors and windows can now be moved along the walls.

Wall paint has smaller panels to work with, alongside the wall and room gestures. Curved foundation trim now follows the bend as a continuous run. Those are the changes I notice when I am trying to finish a house rather than admire it from the right angle.

Porch rails between columns in the build 69 development captures. Fences, gates and the porch tools have their own placement and saving work behind them.

Columns, porch rails, fences and gates add more ways to shape the edge of a home. There is still work to do where building meets uneven ground. The yard grid following the slope is a planned change; I am not treating that problem as solved.

The Autumn Door Wreath in build 68, and the Batwick Lantern’s on and off states in the build 66 captures.

The Little Haunts pieces have been joining the catalogue too. The wreath can hang on the outside of a door, and the Batwick Lantern remembers whether it was left on. Goodhaven can now be mildly unsettling on purpose.

Family is more than a line on a chart

The family tree now has saved relationships behind it. Parent and partner connections live with the household and feed the close-family romance checks. The chart makes those ties visible.

Tomas, Ada and Leo in the family tree at 13:30 in the recording. Leo is still using a placeholder character model; wider life stages and the creator need more work.

There is a conversation with dinner

Meals have needed plenty of practical work: getting everyone seated, bringing the food to the table, holding a spoon and getting back out of a chair. Cooking for everyone now has a working route to dinner, although a work shift can still interrupt it.

The build 69 Cook feeds everyone test. Ada is leaving for work while Tomas and Leo remain at the table, one of the timing problems still visible in the development build.

A chat can run alongside eating, or be queued to join a meal the Goodie is heading towards. I want those ordinary overlaps to make the household feel more alive.

Feelings with a reason

Wants and feelings were already in the game. This round has been about making them affect choices and making the explanation easier to read. A lonely Goodie has a stronger reason to seek company, and wants can help steer what they choose to do next.

In the video, Tomas’s “Fond of Leo” card names Leo and explains the effect: Tomas seeks him out more, their chats go better and their friendship grows faster. A bookish want can also become “Work through the bookshelf”, with reading and skill milestones that take longer than an afternoon.

The latest playtest also found feelings that do not add up properly, including hurt lingering despite positive current feelings. That needs fixing. A card should help explain the person, and it should agree with what the simulation is doing.

A promise can follow you

Promises now have an Ask flow, a visible card and badges, and a choice to make up after a breach. The current example asks another Goodie to keep clear of a particular person for seven sim days. The interesting part is what happens when that agreement breaks down.

Two details from the recording: Fond of Leo at 07:05, and A broken promise in Tomas’s long-term memory at 19:50.

When a breach is known, it can damage trust and closeness, produce a reaction and leave a long-term memory. Making up is a player choice and can repair some of the relationship. The history is still there afterwards.

This is one promise type with more work ahead. Gossip and rumours are the next direction I want to explore, so information can travel through the town and the person who tells a story can matter as much as what happened.

Autumn reaches the house

Weather was in the last log. The newer work gives the plants and houses more of a seasonal life: trees turn on different schedules, leaves fall and gather below them, and coastal planting changes through its stages. I have been adding those looks to the actual outdoor assets, as well as working on the system that chooses them.

Winter brings bare trees, ground frost, window ice and icicles that respond to temperature. A house can freeze overnight and thaw as the day warms up. There is still no snow in this build.

Window ice and roof icicles at 19:50 in the Game Log 3 recording. This is frost and ice, with snow still to come.

What I am working towards

The bigger test remains being able to sit down for a rags-to-riches run or a legacy challenge and keep playing for hours. Goodies is not there yet. The town needs smoother performance and more visual consistency, and the household still needs more reliable everyday behaviour.

Thank you to everyone supporting the game here, and to everyone joining the conversations. Thank you to Fantayzia for covering Goodies, and to Diana for the thoughtful comments on Game Log 2. It helps to know which details other life-sim players care about.

I’m keeping the longer community questions for a separate Q&A. For this log, I’d love to hear which small interaction makes a life-sim character feel alive to you. It could be something at the dinner table, a reaction to a friend, or a habit you start to recognise.

Alexander