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Clanfolk is intentionally challenging and is designed to test players as winter approaches. Food will initially be plentiful and the nights warm until the seasons change and resources begin to dwindle. With procedurally generated maps, players will need to find the perfect location to put down roots if their Clan is to thrive.

Each member of your Clan has their own behavior traits that directly impacts how each character lives their life in your colony. Some will be afraid of the dark, meaning that bedrooms should be well lit to get better sleep, while others will have a high metabolism so they’ll eat more food but also work and move faster. Managing this, alongside the maintenance of your homestead, is key to not only surviving but also building strong relations with neighboring Clans.

With fully simulated weather conditions and seasons, each day in the Scottish highlands is unique. As you clear the land and build your homestead exactly how you choose you’ll need to juggle a complex hierarchy of needs that governs how your Clanfolk live their lives. This will ultimately determine whether you last through the winter. Played across generations, from birth until death, Clanfolk’s depth and scope is vast, granting players complete control over their experience and how they manage their survival.

Will you survive the winter?

The suspiciously titled ‘Cats and Rats’ update is the seventh since Clanfolk launched into Steam early access in July, and brings plenty of new content, optimisations, and quality of life improvements. This update is so expansive, it had to be delayed because of the “complexity of the cat AI” and the fact that rats were present in “overwhelming numbers” in earlier versions.

This update took longer than expected due to the complexity of the cat AI. I am trying to simulate Cat behaviors and make them entertaining to watch, so it has taken time as there is a lot of new custom AI in there as well as new systems to handle pets and general wildlife populations. These new systems will make the addition of later Pets and Wildlife a lot easier as well.

Note: Strict skill priorities have been turned back on as default.

To turn off: Settings/Gameplay/

Strict priorities mean all tasks of higher priority skills are completed first, but in task priority order.

Non-Strict is a mixture of skill/task priority were used to determine task order.

First Off, let's talk about RATS

The Rats were the first to arrive on the testing branch, quite early on, and in overwhelming numbers, which have been cut back but will rise again in the future.

Rats spawn when you cut grasses (Hay, Oats, Flax, Reeds) You are destroying their habitat, so they will need to find a new place to live (your pantry.) Rats will not spawn until day 3 so no need to worry until then. Rats also will spawn based on your (days of food / 2) + 1. So you will not see a lot of rats unless you have a large food stockpile (and even then it is currently capped to 10) (It was once 30!)

Rats will spoil your food as they nibble and poop on it. It takes quite a few rats to make an impact though. But if you notice your frozen dried mushrooms losing quality, its the rat poop.

Rats can also pass UNDER doors. So there is no keeping them out. These are rats after all. They are scared of humans and will hide under various objects and disappear, but they are still there, nibbling and pooping. When everyone leaves a room, you will notice them poking their noses back out to cause trouble. They can be fun to watch actually.

To deal with the Rats, there are two options: Build the new Rat Traps, or... CATS!

Once the Rats have arrived, this will draw the attention of the Scottish Wildcat population. Unlike livestock, the Cats derive their max population based on the amount of prey available. It is 1 cat per 2 active rats.

There is not a notification when a Wildcat arrives, but you will start to notice a new type of den appearing on the map. This is where they will take shelter, and they place these dens when they find a decent hunting ground. The Wildcats prefer rats, BUT they will also eat Rabbits if they cannot find Rats nearby.

The Wildcats do not want to be around humans, but their hunger for Rats will lead them to approach the Homestead and sneak inside unoccupied rooms, under doors (cats are liquid and I have videos to prove it) When they go under a door, they even schooch down.

As the Wildcat spends time near humans (but not too near) its tameness bar will fill. Tameness increases by 1 point per second based on every human in range (about 12 tiles) but will decrease by every human within 4 tiles. It can take a long time to tame this way, but it will happen naturally and does not need to be micro managed. But there is a faster way.

Pet bowls have also been added. When these are placed outside, the Wildcats will use them and start to rely on the Humans more and more. This is a much quicker way to tame, but requires food and daily maintenance.

Eventually the Cat will pick a companion and it will be "Their Human"

Once a Cat has become Tamed, (or has been purchased from a trader) it will pick a companion. A Human can have many pets, but a pet can only have one (live) human.

The Tamed Cat has quite a few more AI behaviors than the Wildcat and this list will continue to grow. A Cat isn't a Cat without zoomies, which will be coming.

Tamed cats will try to hunt rats first, then they will use pet bowls,steal meat, and finally they will hunt far away rats or bunnies to keep themselves fed. So they are mostly hands off. Pet Bowls are recommended if you want to keep them away from the meat in the pantry when the rats run out.

Tamed Cats also have an Instinct Bar. Cats do not just hunt when hungry. They also hunt for entertainment. This Instinct bar is emptied as the Cat encounters Rats in its territory. The more rats, the faster the bar drains. Eventually the Cat will be unable to resist and will go hunting once again, slowly stalking its prey, hunching down, and then pouncing. (This is fun to watch as you never know if the rat will get away or the cat will succeed.)

Since the Cat is not hungry when it hunts to refill the Instinct bar, that is where "presents" come in. The Cat can become a decent Rat/Bunny retriever as it makes kills and delivers them to its Cat Bed or Companion's Bed or even the Companion's grave in some cases.

Cats are also social, but not too social. So if they detect their Human is in social distress, they will interact with them, but only a bit. If a Human really needs to talk, they may also find a pet Cat to talk to, but the Cat will only put up with this 5 times a day.

I will continue to work on the Cats, but right now they are definitely far enough along to be a great addition to Clanfolk.

Final note: If a pet dies of natural causes, it can be buried in a nice pet grave, but if you slaughter it, then it's food.

On Discord there is a very popular "Hermit Challenge." I figured what better combination for the Hermit than a whole clowder of cats. This is a very difficult mode and will take a lot of planning, but it is a great way to get Cats early on and the only way to start with kittens.

I have started to track the Clan bloodline now. This may eventually be used to determine the Clan Chief as more year 2+ content comes online. For now though it is used to keep the Family Tree logically intact.

So the rules are that anyone without a parent on the tree (the initial members) or without a partner will be of the Clan's bloodline. The partner who is from the Clan's bloodline is also always on the left side of the pair. Clan members with children cannot leave the Clan since that would prune a large part of the tree.

Ever wanted to get rid of some dead weight? Now you can Marry them Off!

When a worker wants to join the Clan, now you can either have them stay, OR have their potential partner leave with them. This helps keep the population under control, and also gives a hefty relationship bonus from the Worker's Clan.

When a partner dies, they can also now Remarry.

When the dead partner is of the Clan bloodline, then the new partner will take the old partner's place in the family tree (it is unceremonious and I will make this better)

When the dead partner was NOT of the Clan bloodline, they can remarry and leave if they do not have children, but if they do have children they are stuck with the Clan. This is all to keep the lineage intact.

There were even more system optimizations this update to gain CPU overhead and smooth out stuttering.

Large homesteads should run even better now and be a lot smoother when they do. My test case is an 80 person homestead (Please try to stay under 40, but this is a stress test) and it runs really well now, whereas in Update 6 it stuttered often, and in Update 5 was a slideshow.

Clanfolk is in development for PC (Steam).