Residents’ needs and whims

Residents need a roof, water, food and their health before anything else. Once a house has those, it starts asking for extras called whims: you spot one by the exclamation mark over the house, click to see what the household wants, and usually fulfil it with a decoration, a pet or a service building. Each fulfilled whim raises that house’s satisfaction.

Family Wooden Cabin panel with a whim tooltip over one of five slots and a satisfaction meter — A Family Wooden Cabin panel: 9 of 9 residents, a satisfaction meter at 50/100, and a tooltip over one of five whim slots, some still locked. Screenshot: EmpireCraft Studios / Toplitz Productions, via the Steam store page.

The needs that come before any whim

The basics are water, food and health, and neglecting any of them has a cost: “Neglect any of these and you’ll see morale drop, work slow, and maybe even people leaving town.” (Said in Steam announcement: Life on the Frontier, Residents' Needs) Housing sits underneath all three. “Homeless residents can’t work, satisfaction drops”, so a new arrival with no bed is a mouth to feed and nothing more.

Every settlement has a satisfaction score, and it is what brings people in. During the demo the publisher put it this way: “New settlers will join your settlement if you keep your settlers' satisfaction high and ensure they have a roof over their head and enough food.” (Said by the publisher in Steam discussions: publisher reply on how new settlers arrive) In one pre-launch build a YouTube creator played, satisfaction started at zero with a penalty of 10 for homelessness. (Shown in Build Your Own FRONTIER TOWN (Surtr Plays, YouTube)) How to cover the three needs in your first hour is on the first two hours page, and food chains have their own page.

When whims start appearing

Not straight away. Since a playtest patch, whims don’t start until the Residents’ Needs objective is complete. (Changed in Steam announcement: Playtest Hotfix) The team’s description of the rule is simple: “Every house, once its occupants have water, food, and shelter, will eventually have some kind of personal desire: a Whim.” (Said in Steam announcement: The Pioneer's Journal #7, Wants & Whims)

How to find and fulfil a whim

The game doesn’t hand you a quest for it. A house shows an exclamation mark; click it and you find out what that household wants, for example a pet. (Described in Steam announcement: A Smarter Trail Guide (Dev Spotlight)) In the house panel the whim slots sit around the satisfaction meter, and the tooltip on an unrevealed slot reads (HOLD) to discover: press and hold it to see the wish.

What they ask for ranges widely. The team’s own examples are a cat for company, a fence around the yard, a visit to the saloon, a Sunday in church and a night at the brothel. Some are fulfilled on their own as the town grows; others need you. (Listed in Steam announcement: The Pioneer's Journal #7, Wants & Whims) The small ones are handled with decorations: the store page talks about fulfilling wishes “with amenities, pets, instruments and other personal touches”. (Said on the Steam store page) In the team’s let’s-play the presenter answers a run of them by placing a horse, a lamp post, some fence posts and a cat next to the right houses. (Shown in Let's Play With Marty (Toplitz Productions)) The bigger ones, the saloon and the church, mean building the service itself; see the Ideas tree for when those unlock.

A saloon lit up at night beside a lamp post and a fenced yard — A saloon lit up at night, with a lamp post and a fenced yard beside it. Screenshot: EmpireCraft Studios / Toplitz Productions, from the Steam announcement The Pioneer's Journal #5.

Animal Lover and the whims players have met

The one whim named in patch notes is Animal Lover, added during the playtest in two tiers, which lets you place any decoration from the animal category. (Added in Steam announcement: Playtest Hotfix) Creators have also recorded a cat lover, a wish for sturdy fences, and houses asking for a barber, the saloon or moonshine. Whether the cat lover is an early tier of Animal Lover is not stated anywhere official, so if a house wants an animal, any animal decoration is the safe bet. (Some shown in Wild West Pioneers Review (Born 2 Game, YouTube))

From tent to cabin to brick mansion

Housing grows in three steps: “A few logs raise a tent. A sawmill turns those logs into planks, and planks turn a tent into a wooden cabin. Keep at it, find some clay, and the cabin becomes a brick mansion.” (Said in Steam announcement: The Pioneer's Journal #8, From Tents to Cabins) Better houses matter for whims too: in the team’s let’s-play the presenter points out that each house upgrade brings more whims. (Heard in Let's Play With Marty (Toplitz Productions))

In a pre-launch build, tents also had their own upgrades in the Ideas tree, bought with money: one squeezes in two more residents, another widens the range over which whims are fulfilled. Cabins could go two ways: one version with five extra places, or a family cabin. (Shown in Wild West Pioneers - First Look (UnstableVoltage, YouTube)) Names and numbers may have changed for Early Access.

What happens if you ignore them

People drift away. “Ignore them and folks grow restless, then leave. Tend to them and the mood lifts, until outsiders start asking about your town.” (Said in Steam announcement: The Pioneer's Journal #8, From Tents to Cabins) Fulfilled whims also pay journey points in the builds creators have shown, so they are worth doing even when the town is calm.

Keep going with journey points and ideas, the food chains that keep the basics covered, and your first two hours if the whims have not started yet.