Grid Town v0.3 — Release Notes

A warmer welcome

• "Welcome to Grid Town!" comes first — the opening modal now leads with a plain-language welcome card (with an honest Alpha tag) before any mechanics, so the first thing you read is what the game is, not how to operate it.
• One set of type — the intro's typography now matches the in-game build guide, so the modal and the game read as the same product.
• Slides that fit — fixed a whitespace and layout issue so each intro slide sizes cleanly to its content instead of stretching.

Construction you can see

• Plants under construction no longer vanish — the build animation used to dissolve a plant all the way to invisible on a loop, which read as your new plant disappearing from the map. The foundation pad now stays visible and the silhouette never fully fades, so a plant being built always reads as present on its plot.

A feedback line inside the game

• A quiet feedback pill — a small persistent "feedback" button opens a short composer: free text, an optional email if you'd like a reply, and a bug-report toggle that attaches your game state so problems can actually be reproduced.
• A word on the way out — the win and loss end screens now carry a warm one-line ask for feedback, right when you have an opinion.

The Gazette prints your victory

• A special edition for your Sustainable City — reach the win and the Grid Town Gazette now prints a shareable card: a photo of your final town, your day, homes powered, and clean-percentage stats, and a playful archetype for how you ran your grid.
• Take it with you — download the card, copy it, or send it with your device's native share.

Honest progress

• The Sustainable City bar actually moves — goal progress now climbs with your powered-home count instead of sitting at 0% and snapping to 100% at the win.

A town that comes to life

The map used to be houses and power plants sitting on bare ground. Now a small town grows around them on its own, with the same cel-shaded look as the rest of the game.

• Roads that lay themselves out. A dirt road network threads between the homes as they appear, with smooth curves, and little stone stairs where a road has to climb a steep hill.
• A bridge across the river. Once houses sit on both banks, a wooden bridge appears to connect them.
• Town squares. As the town grows, small squares with string lights appear and stay put, so the place keeps a sense of where its center is.
• Street lanterns. Lanterns line the roads and glow after dark.
• Townsfolk. People stroll the roads between houses and gather in the squares.
• Evenings that settle in. At dusk the powered homes warm up in a wave, chimneys smoke through the night (from 10pm to 4am), and fireflies drift near a few of the houses.

More music

• Twelve new tracks. The calm lo-fi rotation gained twelve more tunes, brighter ones during the day and mellower ones at night, and the playlist is now shuffled so it mixes differently each time.

Mobile is much better

A full pass on the touch experience. It is still best on desktop, but it is far more playable on a phone now.

• The build tray shows everything. All five power sources are visible at once instead of hidden behind scrolling.
• Bigger touch targets. Buttons now meet touch-size minimums, so they are easy to hit with a thumb.
• A touch-correct tutorial. The tutorial gives instructions written for tapping, not clicking.
• Nothing gets cut off. The top bar and your money stay on screen on small phones.
• No accidental zoom. A stray pinch no longer zooms the whole page.
• A calmer control room. The control-room sheet is cleaner and pauses the game while it is open.
• Quieter defaults on phones. Camera rotation and music start off by default on a phone.

Smaller fixes

• Full game starts in the valley. "Full game" mode now always uses the classic starting valley.
• The control room fits its panel. It no longer clips the goals panel.
• Hover to identify. Hover a road or a town square to see what it is.
• A pans left again. The A key pans the camera left.

A home of its own

• gridtowngame.com — the game now lives at its own domain (and stays reachable at gridtown.vercel.app).

Play the alpha at gridtowngame.com, or read what changed in v0.2.

These release notes are written by Claude, based on direction from Trevor Hinkle.