What is Hearthlane?

Hearthlane is an original life simulation sandbox. You look after a household of little townsfolk on Hearth Lane — a street of homes, a park with a bandstand, the Copper Kettle café with a weekend market, and Lantern Hall with a library and gym. Your residents and every neighbour live full lives on their own: they cook, nap, chat, argue, fall in love, go to work and grow older.

How to play

• Create a household of up to six people. Shape their body, face, hair, outfit and colours, pick three personality traits, a life aspiration, a voice and a walk.
• Choose a home: move into a furnished house or buy an empty lot and build your own.
• Give orders by tapping things. Tap the fridge to cook, the bed to sleep, a person to chat, flirt or joke. Orders queue up at the bottom of the screen; tap one to cancel it.
• Watch the needs: Hunger, Energy, Hygiene, Bladder, Comfort, Social, Fun and Surroundings. Low needs create negative feelings; good days create positive ones.
• Moods matter: feelings add up to an emotion — Joyful, Driven, Inspired, Playful, Smitten, Gloomy, Cross, Anxious, Bored, Awkward or Weary — and emotions change what people choose to do and how well they do it.
• Build relationships: familiarity, affection, trust, conflict and romance grow from each interaction. Big moments become memories that colour later conversations. Become sweethearts, get engaged, marry, move in together and grow your family by adoption.
• Learn skills and work: nine skills (cooking, fitness, logic, charisma, painting, music, writing, handiness, gardening) unlock recipes, careers and income. Eight careers pay hourly and promote when performance is high and skills are good enough.
• Earn and spend: wages, paintings, books with royalties, garden produce, busking tips. Bills arrive every Monday — pay them or the power goes out.
• Build and Buy: draw walls and rooms, add doors and windows, lay floors, paint walls and place over 100 objects. Better rooms lift everyone's spirits.

Strategy tips

• Put a bathroom near the bedrooms and a table near the kitchen — short walks save precious minutes.
• Match activities to moods: an Inspired painter makes better art, a Driven worker earns promotions faster.
• Wishes are small goals that pop up for each person; fulfilling them earns spark points for perks.
• Weekly events — the Saturday Farmers' Market, Friday Music Night, Wednesday Book Club and Sunday Picnic Day — are the easiest way to meet neighbours.

FAQ

Is there an ending? No. Hearthlane is a sandbox: residents age, children grow up, elders retire to the seaside and new families move in, so the lane keeps living as long as you play.

Can I control the neighbours? You can switch to playing any household from the menu; the one you leave carries on by itself.

Does my game save? Yes — there are three save slots plus a daily autosave, stored with your Summoned Games profile.

Can I play on a phone? Yes. Tap to select and give orders, drag to pan, pinch to zoom and twist with two fingers to rotate.

Where does the art come from? The 3D models are by Kenney and dedicated to the public domain (CC0), rebuilt and recoloured for this game; everything else was made for Hearthlane.