Solo developer Tim Venekamp has released the biggest update to his gnome survival game, Little Hats, to date. Having officially entered the beta stage, the game has received a lot of new features, reworks, and improvements.

Three brand-new gnome houses have been added to the map, located near the Jagerborg. Multiple new gnome roads have been added to the game to make traversing faster, most notably between Bolderberg and Middle Steyndike Maze and to the fairy settlement. The area around the new roads has been transformed to look a lot better than before.

To make exploration easier, some caves now have small mud paths leading to them and hard-to-find areas to make them a little more noticeable. These are not the only new ways to get around, in Ravenwood a gnome ladder has been added to get up and down more easily, according to the developer future areas will make more use of them.

Be careful, new challenges await you! The forest now has troll traps, which will randomly spawn and if you fall into one of these a troll will come to catch you. Additionally, the day troll will now also spawn away from its usual locations and got an AI overhaul in their stealth behavior, making them less predictable and even more dangerous while exploring. 

Little gnomes are not the only creatures that are targeted, hunters will lay out traps for bigger creatures. You can now tame foxes, and wild hares by healing trapped animals found in bear traps. Once healed, these animals can become your companions if you feed them carrots. They will either follow the player around or stay back at the base as you explore. By crafting the new hare back storage, you can store up to four items on your hare, making it easier to carry items on your journey! 

Some gnome doors are now locked, and players need to find the required key to enter the gnome house. If there is no key available, players can craft lockpicks to open locked doors. A small change has been made to interacting with chests, closets, and other objects. The player will now have to hold the interaction key to open them, this is done to make you feel more immersed in the action.

There is a new status effect that is obtained while mining, exploring caves, or swimming in filthy water. Doing any of these activities will make you dirty, and this will affect how the NPCs will react to the player. When you haven’t cleaned yourself for a long time they will even stop talking to you until you take a bath. You will be able to see how dirty you are as dirt will slowly cover the outline of your screen.

Your gnome has acquired a magical ability. By holding down the left mouse button while not holding any objects, the character will emit a bright light. Although this skill will be useless at the start of the game, you will learn its uses while exploring the lowlands. Until then, it serves as a source of light in the darkness, and it can unlock special dialogues and impress the locals.

The game has also been updated with new camera shake effects, making your adventure feel more realistic as you walk, run, sprint, and idle. The character now faces the direction that the player is walking.

A variety of animations have been added to the game to enhance immersion. Now, you can observe your character diving as you jump into the water, moving in a more realistic manner while traversing steep hills, and indicating when they are out of breath.

What do you like about this new update the most? Let me know in the comments.