A pixel-art village game where the real resource is people. Clear a claim in the wild,
farm it, feed everyone, trade by boat, and keep the raiders out.
Android Nothing leaves your phone One price, no ads
20 minOne day in the village, dawn to dawn
9 tradesFarmer, logger, miner, fisher, cook and more
OfflineNo account and no internet needed
No adsOne price, no in-app purchases
The game
Every villager counts
You start with a claim at the edge of a wood: a few turned beds, a handful of villagers and
very little else. Fell the trees, dig out the stumps, break the boulders and turn the ground.
The farm grows exactly as fast as your people can work it.
People are the resource
Give each villager a trade: farmer, logger, miner, builder, fisher, cook, trader or explorer, or swear them to the Thornguard. They are born, grow up, grow old and die, each with a name, a mood and traits of their own.
One tool, one worker
Two axes means two loggers, however many people are waiting. Tools are real things in your chests, made at the workbench and the forge, and they wear out.
Farm, cook and store
Every crop wants its own soil. Sow it, water it and bring the harvest in before it spoils. A cooked dish feeds more people than the raw food that went into it, and the larder counts food that will spoil as already gone.
Trade by boat
Nothing sells at the gate. Load your trader's boat with produce, fish or timber and send it to a market across the water, then wait to see what it brings home.
Defend the village
Raiders come at night. The Thornguard, swordsmen and archers, meet them on the road blow by blow, and when a raid breaks through, a window counts out exactly what it took.
Explore the world
Send a party past the wood with food, bags and a lamp. Hunt, gather fruit, mine ore and gems, and find the camps the raiders come from. Or take a villager in hand and walk them yourself.
A game that waits for you
A day lasts twenty minutes, with night, weather and music that changes when the sun goes down. The village rests while the game is closed, and reminders, which you can switch off, tell you when it needs you.
Room to grow, and to crowd
Beds are limited. Crowd too many people into too few houses and the village turns on itself. Earn titles like Well Fed and Prosperous, or ones nobody wants, like Famine.
The art
The look of the village
Every sprite here is the game's own file, frame for frame, shown two or three times its
size with its pixels kept sharp. This is the set the game draws as of
. When the art changes, the change is
logged in the updates below.
This page opens with the game's art as it stands today. From here on, every change to the look of the game is logged on this page, with the old art next to the new.
Release
Getting ready for Google Play
Village Roots will be a paid game on Google Play: you pay once and get the whole game, with no ads and no in-app purchases. Your village is saved on your phone, and the game sends nothing anywhere.
Art
One look for every person
The old placeholder people are gone. Villagers, the Thornguard and every kind of raider now share one pixel-art style, and each raider band wears its own cloak colour, so you can tell a warchief from a torchbearer at a glance.
VillagerThornguardWarchiefTorchbearer
Art
A logo and an icon
The game has a face: a cutthroat raider at dusk under the cherry tree, with the village's lights behind him. It is the logo, the app icon and the Google Play banner.
It is being prepared for Google Play now. This page will say so, with a link, on the day it arrives.
Does it need the internet?
No. The whole game runs on your phone, with no account and no connection needed.
Are there ads or in-app purchases?
No. You pay once on Google Play and get the whole game.
Which phones can run it?
Android 8.0 or newer on a 64-bit phone, which covers most phones from the last several years. The game plays in landscape.
Does my village keep going when I close the game?
No, it waits for you. Nothing grows, spoils or dies while the game is closed. If you like, the game can remind you when the village needs you, and you can switch the reminders off in its settings.
