HearthDelve

You inherit a homestead on the frontier — a few tilled acres at the edge of Hollowmere Vale, a wide, half-wild valley. The heart of the game is making a life here: till and plant across the seasons, raise crops, craft them into goods worth far more than their parts, cook, build out your homestead, and get to know the villages down the road.

The Vale around you is a living region — plains and hills, deep woods, a river coast, a fog-fen, old ruins — dotted with small themed dungeons. They're optional. You go in for what you can't grow: ore, gems, rare mushrooms. Fighting is one way to get those things — never the point of the day.

Cozy and roguelike share one map. The cozy is the main course.

 Farm through the seasons

Hoe the soil, plant, water, and harvest across a full Spring / Summer / Fall / Winter cycle. Crops are season-bound; weather rolls each dawn (rain waters your fields for you). Raise quality with good soil and care, and unlock sprinklers to buy back your days for crafting and wandering.

 Craft the value ladder

Raw goods are cheap; crafted goods are the money and the upgrades. Smelt ore into bars at the furnace, ferment fruit into wine in the keg, put up jam and pickles, saw timber, press oil, churn cheese, keep bees. Cook dishes that restore energy and grant buffs. Selling raw is the trickle — processing is the river.

 Mine, smith & set gems — a deep crafting tree

Delve the mine for ore and gemstones that grow richer the deeper you dig.
- Fuel that matters: wood, charcoal, coal and coke each burn at a different heat. Deep metals need a hotter fire, and hotter fuel smelts faster — bake your own charcoal and coke at a kiln.
- Forge weapons and armour of any metal at the anvil; a skilled smith works bonus qualities into the steel.
- Cut rough gems into brilliant stones at a gemcutting station — and crack open geodes for the surprise inside.
- Jewellery: set a cut gem into a metal band at the jeweller's bench for a ring or amulet — rubies sharpen your strikes, emeralds enrich your harvests, amethysts ease your labour, diamonds do a little of everything. Finer metals and finer cuts make stronger charms.
- Socket gems straight into your weapons, armour, and tools for permanent bonuses.
- Grow nine skills through play — Farming, Foraging, Mining, Fishing, Cooking, Combat, Smithing, Gemcutting, and Jewelcrafting.

 Four villages, ~28 neighbours

Mossford the farming town, Cinderhope the miners' outpost, Saltmere the coastal fishing village, and Fenwick the fen hamlet — plus outlying spots like Thornwake Camp and a woodcutter's hut. Their residents keep daily schedules, linked by roads (and bridges) through your farm. Talk and gift your way to friendship hearts — your crops and crafts are the currency of friendship — unlocking recipes, discounts, and warmth. Bron the blacksmith upgrades your tools; Marda's store keeps the seeds coming.

 Fish, forage & explore

Cast for season-specific fish, gather wild mushrooms and berries, and discover procedurally-generated dungeon sites out in the wilds — each re-rolled fresh every day.

 Gentle, optional danger

A few slow, telegraphed monsters wander the dark; you can sneak, retreat, or mine around them. Craft a bomb to clear a group and shatter ore at once. Faint and you simply wake at home, a little poorer — no permadeath, no game over.

 No goal but the one you make

There's no boss, no score, no ending. Plant a spring garden or chase the deepest vein of mithril; deck yourself in gem-set jewellery or just get to know your neighbours. The Vale keeps its own time.

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Features at a glance

- A regional overworld — plains, hills, woods, a river coast and a fog-fen — generated fresh per save
- Full 4-season farming with weather, day/night, and crop quality
- A deep crafting tree: furnace, kiln, keg, jar, press, churn, sawmill, beehive, anvil, gemcutting station, jeweller's bench
- Mining → smelting (with a fuel-heat system) → forging → gem-cutting → jewellery & gem-socketing
- Nine skills that grow as you play
- Four villages, ~28 neighbours, gifting & friendship
- Light fishing, foraging, and optional dungeon delving
- Auto-save; play at your own pace, forever

Controls

Keyboard-driven. Arrows/numpad to move, Space to use the faced tool, g gather / load machines, c craft & build, b sell at the shipping bin, t talk, f gift, i inventory, e equipment, s sleep, ? for full help & an in-game encyclopedia.

Made with

Python 3 + tcod (https://python-tcod.readthedocs.io), SDL, and NumPy — a keyboard-driven, character-grid world in the classic roguelike tradition.

 Heads up — this is a rolling alpha

Full honesty, because you deserve it before you download:

Hearthdelve is "vibe coded." It's built fast and by feel — following what's fun rather than a rigid spec — with new features landing faster than I can properly test them. This is a rolling alpha: builds update continuously, so a fresh download can introduce new bugs at any time, including ones that weren't there yesterday.

What that means for you:
- Expect rough edges — janky interactions, unbalanced numbers, the odd crash or weird save.
- Back up your save (~/.hearthdelve_save.json) if you've got a run you love; a future build may not read an older save cleanly.
- Some features are half-finished or experimental, and things can change or break between versions without warning.

If that sounds like your kind of thing — a living game you're watching grow in real time — you're exactly who this is for. Bug reports, weird screenshots, and feedback are hugely welcome and genuinely shape what gets built next. If you'd rather wait for something stable, no hard feelings — check back down the road.

Github: https://github.com/Dinth/HearthDelve