Needs¶

Needs


Kind	What pulls a person
Count	5 in Phase 1
Since	Phase 1
Status	designed · Phase 1
Technical	Option bus · HungerSystem

A need is a reason to do something. Every action a villager can take serves one need, and every tick the need that is pressing hardest, weighed by personality, decides what they do. There is no "idle": a villager with nothing pressing still has curiosity, and curiosity makes them wander.

Phase 1 has five. Later phases add more — hygiene, company, purpose — without changing how any of this works: a new need is just a new reason that new actions can serve.

Hunger¶

Rises steadily with time: a villager goes from fed to starving in one day without eating. A meal restores a quarter of the way back, so a villager needs about four meals a day. Hunger starts to win over curiosity well before it is desperate — at around a third of the way to starving, eating beats wandering. At the top of the scale the villager dies.

Served by: eating a berry bush that is in reach; walking toward the best food the villager knows of; picking up food.

Warmth¶

Rises when the villager's place is colder than a comfortable 15 °C, and the colder it gets the harder it pulls. Nights fall to about 5 °C outdoors; buildings hold their warmth; the campfire makes the fire pit the warmest place in the village. Warmth is felt only where a villager is or can see: a warm place two steps away is a reason to walk there, a warm place they cannot see is not.

Served by: moving toward warmth; adding wood to the campfire; going to fetch wood when the fire runs low.

Safety¶

Rises when the villager's place is hotter than 40 °C and reaches its maximum at an inferno. The campfire next door adds a few degrees and nobody minds; a burning building next door is terrifying. Safety is where personality shows most: for the cautious, the only answer is to leave; for the brave, fetching a bucket and fighting the fire serves the same need. Above 150 °C nobody can approach, and even the brave run.

Served by: moving away from danger; fetching water; dousing a fire; picking up a bucket.

Rest¶

Rises as energy runs down. A gentle need in Phase 1 — it fills quiet moments rather than overriding anything urgent.

Served by: resting.

Curiosity¶

Never urgent, never gone. When nothing else is pressing, curiosity sends the villager somewhere else — which is how the village's knowledge stays fresh and how a curious villager ends up at the deep forest in the afternoon. How strong it is depends on the person.

Served by: wandering to a neighbouring place.

How a decision is made¶

Every tick, everything the villager could do is laid out with a score — how much it serves its need right now, given what the villager sees and remembers. The score is tilted by personality: a cautious villager's "move away from the fire" scores higher than a brave one's. The highest score wins. If walking to the square both brings a villager closer to food and away from the heat, those pulls add up; the card will say which one mattered most.

This is why you never see a villager "choose" to starve beside a bush: hunger at that point outscores everything else in reach. And it is why the campfire crowd thins at dawn — warmth stops pulling as the sun comes up, and hunger takes over.

History¶

Phase	Change
1	Introduced: hunger, warmth, safety, rest, curiosity.