Play Hedgerow Hamlet

How to play Hedgerow Hamlet

Stack cards to run a little hedgerow village: drop villagers on berry bushes and oak trees, build a campfire, a mill and an oven, feed everyone at supper and hold the Harvest Feast.

1. Press New hamlet on the title card, or Today’s hamlet for the table everyone gets that day. Continue brings back a hamlet you left.
2. Drag a card onto another card to stack them. A stack that matches a recipe starts working and shows a progress bar: a villager on a berry bush picks berries, a villager on an oak tree chops wood, a villager on two wood saws a plank. While you drag, a label over a stack names the recipe your drop would start.
3. Villagers do the work, and buildings work on their own: a campfire grills fish and bakes apples, a garden plot grows two carrots or two wheat from one, a mill grinds wheat into flour and an oven bakes bread, or a berry pie from flour and berries. Bushes, trees, rocks and meadows run out after a few uses (the dots on the card); ponds and sheep never do.
4. Drag spare cards onto the market stall to sell them for acorns, and tap a pack to buy it: the Forager’s Basket for 3 acorns, the Farmer’s Crate for 5 (it opens after your first campfire) and the Builder’s Bundle for 6 (after your first cottage).
5. Each day lasts 90 seconds at normal speed. At supper every villager eats two food, plainest food first, and the top bar shows the pantry against what supper needs. A villager who goes without goes to bed hungry, and eats first the next night; a second hungry night in a row and they go to stay with family until spring.
6. To finish, hold the Harvest Feast: build the Festival Green (a villager, three planks and two bunting) and set a berry pie, bread and grilled fish on it. Your record is the fewest days. The quest line under the top bar always names a next step, and tapping any card shows every recipe it is part of.

Controls

• Touch and mouse: drag a card to move it together with every card on top of it. On a pile, drag the card to take one, or drag the count badge to take the whole pile. Tap a card to see what it is for, with buttons to sell it or take it off its stack. Tidy lays the table out in rows.
• Keyboard: Tab to the table, then the arrow keys choose a stack. Enter picks up its top card and Enter on another stack drops it there (Enter on the same stack sets it down on its own). S sells, I describes, T tidies, P pauses time and Escape puts a carried card back. The shop buttons work with Tab and Enter, and with a card carried, Enter on the market stall sells it.
• Top bar: switch between normal and double speed, pause time (you can still move, sell and buy while it is paused) and open the notebook of recipes.
• Toolbar: pause, help, restart (opens the title card: your hamlet stays until you choose to start a new one), optional sound and fullscreen.