• You can now travel around the world faster than ever before! Every now and again a speed-boosting plant will appear as you are sprinting, when you sprint over these plants and click the left mouse button you will get a speed boost, and if you can spot the next plant in the distance you can use this to travel really fast and quickly across the map.
  
  
• There are now four more Human houses in the forest.
  
  
• Caves! You can now find 6 caves some of which are connected to each other. Deeper caves will come in the Deeplands update, connecting Little Hats to my previous game Deeplands.
  
  
• There are now Wolves running around the forest!
  
  
• There is now an option to disable the leaf particles.
  
  
• You can now craft a torch from your mobile crafting inventory, the torch is cheap to make and works well when trying to see in the dark caves.
  
  
• You can now also craft bricks from the mobile crafting station, only at the cost of 2 stones, as well as some wooden planks!
  
  
• You now need to press Q to drop an item instead of E. Please let me know if you like this better, that way I will know if I should keep it Q or make it E again. Thank you! :D
  
  
• The third-person mode has been improved and should feel more realistic and smooth.
  
  
• The game now has cave music and cave ambient sounds.
  
  
• There is now one more gnome house hidden in stone...
  
  
• You can now change all buttons in mouse/keyboard settings.
  
  
• The player character's feet and legs align with the terrain.
  
  
• Player Character has better turn animations and effects now, also new animations for going uphill and downhill.
  
  
• When picked up by a human with dialogue, the camera gets placed correctly and rotates slowly.
  
  
• There is now fog on the mountains and in the swamp.
  

• Lamps and Candles will now turn on instantly when going into home or city, where before it took a while for them to turn on when it was dark, now they are immediately on giving the illusion that they have been on the whole night.
  
  
• Blurry textures should now be fixed for most people or appear less often for those with lower specs.
  
  
• The rocks which had glitches or holes in them have been fixed.
  
  
• Small items on the ground such as rocks and branches no longer block the fox or deer, and the player.
  
  
• Rain should no longer be heard or seen from inside a building or cave.
  
  
• WASD original inputs did not get removed on setting a new key, they now should.
  
  
• More plants should now disappear as you start moving faster to avoid seeing nothing.
  
  
• black planes in gnome entrances to human houses no longer block players.
  
  
• By quickly pressing E twice on the top part of the door, the top will open. Pressing E once on the top part will just open the door, making it easier to go in and out of gnome houses.
  
  
• Putting things in inventory has been made easier, you can now press any of the slots, and if it's already taken item will automatically go to the first available slot.
  
  
• When moving an object using demolish tool you can now put it in your inventory. Before it would put the demolish tool in the inventory and leave the placable item floating in the air as a ghost object.
  
  
• Humans no longer spin out of control when picking up players to talk with them or bring them to the cage.
  
  
• Bug where upon reloading the save, random placeable objects are placed in seemingly random locations or duplicated, should no longer appear.
  
  
• Upon finding a new area the ambient music will now be lowered instead of being killed. After the new-area-discovered-sound has played, the music volume raises to normal again.
  
  
• The player is no longer sometimes invisible when zooming out, nor is the camera able to view the inside of the player mesh.
  

• The game now has a map!
  
  
• There are now gnome camps and tents throughout the world.
  
  
• There are now spikes that do a lot of damage and are placed as obstacles in some places and will be used more in the future.
  
  
• Some big doors can now be opened with keys that can be found in the house, these doors will often look different or are made from red wood.
  
  
• A new small human castle has been added to the map.
  

• You can now exit the escape menu and other widgets by pressing ESC or the button you pressed to open them.
  
  
• The game has seen overall further optimizations.
  
  
• The main menu no longer has disappearing buttons when you press back directly after pressing the start game button.
  

The Plan:

• After having worked on Little Hats full-time for most of the last 3 years I plan to take a six-week break, starting tomorrow until July the 4th. During this time there won't be any updates or patches. During the break, I will think of and hopefully complete a great story for Little Hats, the time off will also allow me to fully regenerate all the passion with which I started this game, and also come up with good ideas to make the game more fun.
  
  
• Then in July, I plan to (hopefully finally) manage to complete and implement the map system, as well as more NPCs, more craftable items, and more items to craft with like flowers and other types of mushrooms, and recourses. I will also try to make a hunter system, meaning during the day there will be humans looking for gnomes and there will then also be traps for gnomes in the forest
  
  
• From August onward I will begin designing the low lands area of the map, specifically the snowy area. I will rejudge what else will be smart to add to make the game more fun in early August, this will be based on what at that time would be best to add.
  

• You can now find backpacks in a few locations, once you equip one of them you get 4 extra inventory slots!
  
  
• You can also find a few different types of clothes which you can put on, more will be added later, as well as certain benefits such as speed, more health, etc when wearing different clothes.
  
  
• You can now also pick up forks, knives, and spoons to fight against evil humans!
  
  
• You can now use the pickaxe and Axe as a weapon.
  
  
• You can now buy a poleaxe or sword to fight trolls and other evil NPCs.
  
  
• you can now kill and fight all evil NPCs.
  
  
• You can now hit all not evil NPCs and potentially kill them... Which, because you play a gnome will cause you to lose spirit points, and if you do it too many times you will become an evil gnome, then you won't be allowed to do certain things and your character will look evil!
  
  
• You can now find loose stones, logs, and metal ore lying around the ground, as well as more mushrooms spread across the map.
  
  
• There now is a Mobile Crafting Menu when you press f3, this will allow you to craft some basic items, such as a primitive Axe, pickaxe, and more!
  
  
• A primitive Axe has been added, a little less effective than the original Axe but it does the job.
  
  
• A primitive Pickaxe has also been added.
  
  
• There is now a Simple Work Bench that can be crafted from the mobile crafting menu, this simple workbench allows you to make a basic building and craft a normal workbench.
  
  
• Gnome towns now have their own ambient day and night music, and some other areas such as human towns, the swamp, and more, have new music as well, more will be added later.
  
  
• You will now get more recourses from saplings, rock, and metal, and they will count as more than 1 in the crafting menu, making it easier to craft more.
  

• The player's head looking weird when riding on the fox has been fixed.
  
  
• Player's head looking down while crouching has been fixed.
  
  
• Quil found in human and gnome homes should no longer be affected by outside wind.
  
  
• When the rain starts and the player is inside the rain no longer is visible inside.
  
  
• Players and NPCs should no longer get stuck in the trees.
  
  
• the big troll has had more optimization as well as the small one.
  
  
• Players should no longer spawn inside the big troll when picked up.
  
  
• The door of the shop wagon won't push you away anymore or cause you to get stuck.
  
  
• You can now enter the shop wagon again.
  
  
• Spirit points have been optimized, you will now no longer get fast leveling from mining. It should be more balanced now, but then again, depending on feedback it might change a few more times in the near future before a nice balance is found.
  
  
• When mining ore the ore will no longer fly all over the place.
  
  
• You can now mine stone with an Axe, or primitive Axe, you will however get much less stone that way.
  

• The game now has a weather system, there are now a variety of different types of weather that dynamically keep changing. There will now be rain, hard winds, storms, rainstorms, and a bunch of different types of fog.
  
  
• Some humans will now take out their umbrellas when it starts to rain.
  
  
• Guard AI now has new animations, including a ready-to-attack animation for when trolls and such are near.
  
  
• Dangerous NPCs can now be seen on the compass, to help prevent jump scares.
  
  
• The nearest rideable animal can now be seen on the compass, for the player to go around the map faster.
  
  
• The nearest gnome can now also be seen on the compass, to help the player find gnomes to talk to.
  
  
• And also the nearest normal animal can be seen on the compass, to help players discover new animals.
  
  
• The swamp area has some more puddles to make it feel a bit more interesting.
  
  
• The night troll now makes a sound when you've come near him, this should give you a heads up!
  
  
• The player stays on fire a little while longer after having stepped into a fire. You can put the fire out by running into the rain or into the water.
  
  
• Player mine and tree chop animations have been improved.
  
  
• There are now leaves falling from trees, and they get affected by the wind, adding more to the atmosphere of the game.
  
  
• The player character now has an animation when picked up to talk to a friendly human.
  
  
• The player character now has face animations.
  
  
• The player character now has a better sit animation.
  

• When you don't talk to Gerwini in the intro part, you didn't get a quest, now you will get the quest also without talking to Gerwini so the rest of the game works well.
  
  
• Save not loading, or rather loading screen not going away should be fixed.
  
  
• Guard Ai should no longer turn around and move randomly and has also been optimized.
  
  
• The oxygen bar not disappearing has been fixed, it will now disappear after being fully filled again when getting out of the water.
  
  
• The clothing glitch on some of the gnomes was fixed.
  
  
• Sings should no longer be falling to the ground or be floating halfway down from where they are supposed to be hanging, will require some more testing to make sure it doesn't happen again.
  
  
• Being picked up while holding a frog will now drop the frog, where before the frog would glitch to the player's right hand.
  
  
• The Deer at begin of the map have been replaced by a fox, as they are more easily ridable in the complex starting area and rarer to find elsewhere in the world.
  
  
• Gnome entrances into human houses should now all be visible and the player should no longer be able to look into the house before it's loaded.
  
  
• Right-click on berry bush spawning multiple berries has been fixed to where it now only spawns one.
  
  
• The infamous duck bug, where the player spawns upside down after being thrown off the duck, should be fixed, it will however require more players to test to make sure it's not still present.
  
  
• NPCs that disappeared after reloading should now be saved before respawn.
  
  
• Day and night last longer now, the day-night cycle is now less quick.
  
  
• When the third-person camera goes into the river the player no longer moves.
  
  
• Leaves now shine a little bit of light through them and are a bit transparent like real leaves.
  

• When sitting in a chair your stamina will regenerate very quickly.
  
  
• Window frame shutters on the windows that are built by the player now also open and close.
  
  
• invisible rock entrances have been added at the beginning of the Steyndike mazes, with sound to let the player know when they're near.
  
  
• Plants, leaves, and such now disappear when getting close to the camera.
  

• Lag spikes should be fixed for the most part, finally :)
  
  
• All Towns have had more optimization.
  
  
• Eye materials have been optimized.
  
  
• Min view distance is now medium instead of low, as low caused things to look too strange.
  
  
• The size of the game has been decreased by lots of optimization.
  
  
• Overall the game has had a lot of optimization in almost all areas.
  
  
• The loading system has had optimization.
  
  
• Randomly disappearing NPC's has been fixed.
  

• Player no longer falls through deer.
  
  
• Gnome closets no longer push players away when they're opened.
  
  
• Gnome doors no longer push players away when opened.
  
  
• Clicking yes on are you sure you want to place message, when placing food or item in human or gnome town, (no-build zone) no longer freezes the game.
  
  
• Player no longer without clothes after reloading game, and in the intro.
  
  
• Unable to enter the top floor of new Inn in Bolderberg has been fixed.
  
  
• Second-floor recourse trader building was invisible, same for the paint store, this has been fixed.
  
  
• Waterfall sounds have been added to the waterfalls in the HuyneHoles which previously didn't have any sound.
  
  
• Empty road sings along gnome roads no longer empty
  
  
• Ceiling inside house 1 in Hoogenbos was missing and is back now.
  
  
• All Towns have had more optimization.
  
  
• strange-looking legs on gnome stool and chair have been fixed.
  
  
• sometimes when spawning inside a house, the interior would not be visible, but the hitboxes would be there, this should now be fixed but will require some further testing to make sure it doesn't happen again.
  
  
• Overall the game has had a lot of optimization.
  

• The hidden gnome city of Bolderberg has been added!
  
  
• A new furniture store in Bolderberg with 6 new furniture items that the player can buy.
  
  
• An art store where the player can buy some paintings and tiles.
  
  
• A music store where the player can buy a trumpet and will be able to buy more instruments in the future.
  
  
• A blacksmith where the player will be able to buy weapons after the combat update.
  
  
• All nature assets have had changes in appearance to make everything fit and work together better.
  
  
• When looking at anything interactive a small text will appear right above the point dot in the HUD saying what button to press to interact with it.
  
  
• You can now enter some human houses through the chimney!
  
  
• All gnome assets have also been improved to work better with the world and fit better with each other.
  
  
• All human assets are also improved and now look and work better with the environment.
  
  
• The game has had some style changes making everything look a bit darker but more aligned with the vision for the game, and making most colors work together better.
  
  
• Human umbrella prop has been made, humans will take out their umbrella when it starts to rain, after the weather update.
  
  
• The birds are back! the veteran Little Hats players who bought the game back in September 2021 will likely know that the game had birds at that point, but due to lag they were temporarily removed. I've finally been able to optimize the bird system and they are back flying around the world of Little Hats!
  
  
• The game has seen further optimization in multiple areas.
  
  
• The player character has been improved, both his clothing and the character himself, now look a lot better.
  

• Random teleport back to the spawn area cave has been removed.
  
  
• The floating box in the windmill no longer floats.
  
  
• A missing part of the big building in Steynstadt has been placed back where it belonged.
  
  
• Ladybugs, butterflies, dragonflies, should now no longer land upside down, or on their side.
  

• The human city Steynstadt is finally available!
  
  
• Optimization, fewer things are loaded now at a time, further improving the game's performance, the game will still see a lot more optimization in the near future.
  

• NPC eyes are no longer completely black when in dark areas.
  
  
• Little gaps between some walls and floors in human buildings are now gone.
  
  
• The player no longer intervenes with the navigation of NPC's.
  
  
• Shop AI should no longer have floating heads.
  
  
• Squirrel textures have been optimized.
  
  
• Squirrel and Hare's footsteps now sound less loud.
  
  
• Tutorial messages UI has also been improved in this update.
  
  
• The tutorial bed now has sheets as it was supposed to have.
  
  
• Deer and other big animals, and trolls, no longer can get stuck on small objects such as a gnome fence. Allowing you to for example run more easily through the map when riding a Deer.
  
  
• Troll1 (biggest troll) now has clothing simulation making him even scarier.
  
  
• All wall glitches where the player could walk through windows or walls of human houses have been fixed, and this should no longer be possible.
  
  
• All human house long-distance models have been improved making them look better from a distance.
  
  
• All human settlements have had optimization.