Farm Idle

Version History v0.1.0

Every version of the game, newest first, each gathering one round of work; open one to see every change. The Android game and the web version are built from the same code, so each version applies to both.

  • 9 versions
  • 51 added
  • 10 changed
  • 6 fixed
  • since Oct 23, 2026
  1. v0.1 Corn Walks to Market
    1. v0.1.0

      Corn Walks to Market

      Added

      • Trips take as long as the road. Norfolk is about 10 miles from a Madison County claim and over 50 from Knox, Cedar or Antelope; at an ox team's 15 miles a day a trip takes 2 to 8 days there and back. A popup before setting out says how far, how long, and when you'll be in town and home. The person, the oxen and the wagon are all gone that long.
      • Load the wagon before you go: shelled corn, corn on the ear or wheat. Ear corn takes 1.6 times the room of shelled, so the same wagon carries far fewer bushels of it. Whatever isn't sold comes home.
      • Things happen on the road, now and then, more often the longer the trip: a broken wheel, a slough, a lame ox, snow, a storm soaking the load, good dry going, news of better prices. Some ask you to choose (ford the swollen creek or go around, help a mired freighter, wait out a prairie fire). Nothing ends the game; some help and some hurt. Built to take more events later.
      • People: the Norfolk grain buyer you sell to, and people met on the road, introduce you to others as you get to know them: a blacksmith, a hog buyer, a freighter. The neighbors come calling after a while and know everyone who settles nearby. A People screen lists who you know, how well, and what they can do for you. (Hired hands are met the same way in 0.2.0.)
      • Hogs fatten on your corn. Shoats from Norfolk fed corn gain about 10 lb a bushel (an 1877 farm paper's rule) and are fat at 200 lb. Once you know the hog buyer he comes by about monthly and pays by the pound: Chicago's price for the year (1868-1885, from the NBER series) less his cost of driving them to the railroad. Hog cholera can sweep through, and hogs stray without a lot; a hog lot halves the sickness.
      • Shell Corn, a new chore for anyone: about 8 bushels a day by hand, 60 with a hand-cranked sheller from Norfolk.
      • Corn cribs: stored corn loses a share each month to rats and weather, a little in a crib and a lot piled outside one. Lumber for a crib is sold in Norfolk.
      • Cultivating corn: corn wants cultivating three times between June 1 and July 15, a week or more apart (it wasn't counted well tilled until then). Each pass missed lets the weeds take more of the crop, down to half with none. Sod corn and wheat aren't cultivated. A new row on the season calendar, a job on corn tiles, and the pass count in the tile panel.
      • Selling at the farm: once you know them, neighbors buy a few bushels now and then, and new settlers buy seed corn in spring for a little more than Norfolk pays. The family's two months of food is kept back. It can be turned off in Options.
      • The freighter hauls a big load to Norfolk for about $1 per 100 pounds per 100 miles and pays you what it fetches. From the far counties his fee is more than corn is worth, which is why corn rarely paid to haul.
      • Norfolk sells a milk cow, so a cow lost in a blizzard can be replaced.

      Changed

      • The town dialog sells what's in the wagon, and only on the day you reach town.
      • Butchering takes the fattest hog, and the pork it gives depends on its weight.
  2. v0.0.8 Queues and Headlines
    1. v0.0.8

      Queues and Headlines

      Added

      • Add to Queue: when someone is busy, the oxen are out, someone else is on the tile or a season hasn't opened, the work can go in that person's queue instead (up to five tasks). It starts as soon as it can; family cards show what's up next, and the queue dialog can clear it.
      • Headlines: a card flashes over the map when a work season opens (violet), when one is about to close with work undone (amber), and on the first day of spring, summer, fall and winter. It never blocks a click.
      • Happy New Year: every January 1 the card shows the new year and the year on the claim.
      • The Buffalo Hunters' Storm of January 1872, from the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains; in Wayne County it adds the county's own "great storm of 1872" from the 1882 county history.

      Changed

      • The early-winter blizzard of 1871 now tells of Major Frank North's buffalo hunt caught across the Platte from Grand Island, from History Nebraska, in place of a south-central Nebraska cattle count.

      Fixed

      • A "Paused" message no longer stays in the status bar once the clock is running again.
  3. v0.0.7 Learn More
    1. v0.0.7

      Learn More

      Added

      • Every history and season note ends with Learn More links that open in your browser: History Nebraska, the National Park Service, the National Archives, Nebraska Studies, Wikipedia and the 1882 Andreas county histories. Your county's note links to that county. Every link was checked to load.
      • Play in your browser: the game now runs on the web as well as on Windows.
      • The data check fails if an event has no links, or a link without a label or an https address.

      Fixed

      • The History Nebraska page on the Timber Culture Act moved; its source link is updated.
  4. v0.0.6 Your County
    1. v0.0.6

      Your County

      Added

      • Pick your county: a new game starts by choosing where to settle (Pierce, L'Eau Qui Court/Knox, Antelope, Madison, Wayne, Stanton or Cedar), with a confirmation. History notes follow your county; statewide history shows for everyone.
      • Regional history from the 1882 Andreas county histories: an opening note for each county, the Santee Agency, county elections in Wayne and Antelope, Neligh's founding, L'Eau Qui Court becoming Knox, the Oakdale courthouse fire, Madison winning its county seat by six votes, the Ponca removal, Standing Bear v. Crook, the railroad through Pierce County, the 1881 Missouri flood and the land office moving to Neligh. Every note about one county ends with today's county seat and largest city.
      • A region map beside the claim: your county highlighted, towns appearing as they're founded, railroads once built, and names as they were that year; hover for history. Labels never overlap.
      • First art: field tiles as seamless textures, the covered wagon or sod house with the garden, cow, hog and chickens, a yoke of oxen on breaking and plowing tiles, pictures for the prairie finds, and illustrations for four history notes. The app icon is the Prompted Pixel logo with a violet wheat-and-plow badge.
      • Walking the ground takes the walker's day (anyone 9 or older) while everyone else carries on. A land locator in Norfolk ($5) reports on every tile you haven't walked, and now and then in the first two years a neighbor tells you about one.
      • Ground quality you can see: walked tiles have a thin border in their quality's colour (green good, amber fair, pink poor) with a key under the claim, and the tile panel says what the ground does ("Crops yield 10% more").
      • Norfolk sells oxen and wagons: a second yoke of oxen ($102.50) lets two people break or plow at once; a Farm Wagon ($85) hauls 60 bushels a trip instead of 35, and a Top Box ($10) raises that to 85 behind two yokes. Sell a Load of Corn or Wheat fills the wagon in one click.
      • Practice pays: every five times someone gathers fuel, tends the stock or threshes, that chore brings in 5% more, up to 50%. Threshing and butchering can be assigned once someone has done them five times.
      • Pick who works a tile from the tile panel, as well as picking the person first; each name shows whether they're free or busy. Giving someone new work while they're busy asks first.
      • Keyboard: Space, Numpad 0 or Pause pauses and resumes; 1, 2 and 3 set 1×, 2× and 4×.
      • Options, with auto-pauses when a season opens, when one is about to close with work undone, and at each new year; each can be turned off.
      • A status bar above the chores bar shows the latest message, with recent ones on hover. It replaces the pop-up toasts.
      • The version number shows under the name in the top bar and in the window title.

      Changed

      • The game always opens paused, in a maximized window, and stays paused after the tutorial.
      • Next Steps ranks by urgency: emergencies first, then season-bound work by days left, then everything else. (A playtest missed corn planting two years running.)
      • Family cards only list the chores each person has started learning and is old enough for.

      Fixed

      • Notes that fall on the same day now show one after another instead of only the first.
  5. v0.0.5 Seasons You Can See
    1. v0.0.5

      Seasons You Can See

      Added

      • A season calendar above the map shows every working season across the year, today's place in it, and how many days are left or until it opens. Open seasons are violet; one in its last week with work undone turns amber.
      • Job buttons show days left (or when they open), ripe tiles carry a days-left pill, and Next Steps names the days left.
      • Season warnings: a heads-up three days before a season opens, the opening, and warnings 7 days, 3 days and on the last day before it closes while there's still work to do.
      • Next Steps suggests selling grain when cash runs low.

      Fixed

      • The family now eats from the corn crib and the wheat when store food runs out, and the food count includes that grain. (A playtest went hungry for 75 days with 256 bushels of corn in the crib.)
      • Messages no longer cover the season calendar; wild fruit leaves the map when its season ends.
  6. v0.0.4 Tutorial and Prairie Finds
    1. v0.0.4

      Tutorial and Prairie Finds

      Added

      • A click-through tutorial for new games: it highlights one part of the screen at a time and waits for you to try each thing. Skip it any time; replay it from the Tutorial button.
      • Prairie finds split into fuel and food: chips (amber rings), the dried buffalo and cow dung settlers burned for lack of trees, and wild fruit and prairie chickens (green rings) for food.

      Changed

      • The game starts on May 10, ten days before breaking season opens, so field work comes soon after arriving.
      • "Make Camp Here" is now "Set Up the Homestead Here".

      Fixed

      • Button text no longer gets cut off: the side columns scroll, panel buttons wrap long text, and a fit check warns about any button that doesn't fit.
  7. v0.0.3 Something to Do
    1. v0.0.3

      Something to Do

      Added

      • The map has a job from day one: choose a homesite, walk the claim to see which ground is good, click chips for fuel and catch prairie chickens for food.
      • Lend a hand: click a tile someone is working to add to the day's work, five times a day.
      • Next Steps with the proving-up checklist, and first-year notes for getting started, the garden, breaking season, harvest and winter.
      • Map feedback: workable tiles pulse, work creeps across a tile, changed tiles flash, ripe crops pulse, and the paper changes with the seasons.

      Changed

      • The early game, reworked after the first playtest (which reached July with no sod broken and nothing to do on the map). Chores take effect when clicked.
      • Family cards are more compact, so the whole screen fits in the window.
  8. v0.0.2 First Playable
    1. v0.0.2

      First Playable

      Added

      • First playable version of Milestone 1, "Proving Up", on Windows.
      • The plat map of the 160-acre claim: break sod, plant sod corn, plow and harrow, plant corn, sow wheat, husk corn, cut and bind wheat, at real work rates and in their real seasons.
      • The family of four: field work for anyone 12 or older, daily chores for everyone, and chores that can be assigned once someone has done them five times.
      • Food and fuel run down daily; running out means hunger or cold and slower work. The sod house cuts fuel use and is needed to prove up.
      • Norfolk trips: sell corn and wheat at 1870s Nebraska prices, buy rations and shoats.
      • History notes for the Homestead Act, Pierce County, the 1871 blizzard, the Timber Culture Act, the Easter Blizzard, the land office move, the 1874 grasshoppers and the relief oath.
      • Autosave, the offline clock with a welcome-back summary, proving up with an end screen, and Send to Pixel for diagnostics.
  9. v0.0.1 Planning and Research
    1. v0.0.1

      Planning and Research

      Added

      • The design: audience, time model, the 1870 northeast Nebraska start, the PLSS land map, agronomy, field work, the family and household, animals, markets, weather, art direction, the engine (Godot 4) and the "Proving Up" first milestone.
      • The data sheet: land law, places and dates, events, climate, work rates, yields, prices, wages and household needs, each value with its source and status, from USDA reports, History Nebraska and county histories.
      • The Godot project, the data files and a headless data check.

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