Welcome to Ulverthwaite

🐺 Devlog #1 — Welcome to Ulverthwaite

I wanted to share a bit about the game I’ve been working on. It’s a procedural detective game set in a small, windswept village somewhere in northern England. You play as an investigator sent to observe a community where one person, though they don’t know it yet, will become a werewolf and start turning on their fellow neighbours.

Each time you arrive in Ulverthwaite, the faces are familiar, but the story is not. Who you can trust, who’s hiding something, who’s the beast — that changes every playthrough. It’s part Stardew Valley (routine, character relationships, a sense of place), part Obra Dinn (deductive gameplay, fixed timelines), with a dash of folk horror and grim fairy tale.

🕰️ What Makes It Tick

The core loop is simple:

• Observe the villagers over several days.

• Piece together their relationships, movements, and secrets.

• Figure out which of them is the werewolf.

• Decide what to do with that knowledge.

Every villager has a daily routine, secrets, and shifting social ties. Some might vanish into the woods at dusk. Some meet by candlelight. Some lie. All of them fear something — though few would admit it.

What makes it fun (and tricky) is that the game is procedural. Each playthrough, one person is randomly chosen to become the werewolf — and the game simulates how that transformation would ripple through the village: socially, emotionally, and physically. It’s not just a whodunnit, it’s a whythem.

🔮 What’s Next?

Right now I’m building the core systems:

• An in-world journal and deduction system

• Scheduling + villager routines

• Relationship modeling (grudges, trust, memory)

• Procedural werewolf assignment & logic ripple

The village is called Ulverthwaite, a fictional settlement in northern England.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be sharing more devlogs as I build out the village, start designing dialogue, and begin to add graphics. If you’ve got ideas, questions, or just wanna nerd out about procedural storytelling, I’m all ears.

— Spiruel 🌕