All Our Winters

All Our Winters is a god game in which the player influences a procedurally generated wilderness rather than issuing orders to its inhabitants. Villagers interpret divine actions for themselves: setting fire to a rival’s forest may be read as a sign of favour, while burning their own land breeds fear. Actions have lasting consequences, with places touched by mercy becoming holy sites visited by pilgrims across generations and places struck by wrath remaining cursed and unsettled. If the player stays inactive for too long, the world forgets them. Powers include wildfire that spreads and jumps between trees, earthquakes, meteors, tornadoes, lightning, plague, blessings and bloom. The player can also alter terrain types such as water, grass, sand and forest floor, and place animals, plants, herbs and ore veins.

Settlements operate without direct control. Each villager has a name, a trade and personal needs, becoming hungry, cold, tired or ill. They marry, raise children, learn a craft over years and pass skills on before dying. Villages construct granaries, wells, mills, bakeries, forges, workshops, markets, libraries, shrines, taverns and Monuments, elect chiefs whose courage affects battles, send caravans, accept refugees and pay tribute when defeated. Seasons carry mechanical weight: drought and spring frost damage crops, summer heat spoils stored food unless grain is milled and baked into bread, herds require fodder, bonfires consume firewood, lakes freeze, wolves approach huts in deep cold and clothing wears out over time. Neighbouring settlements form and break alliances, fight wars in which warriors march out in column and retreat when losses mount, and defeated tribes sue for peace with tribute. The dead are buried where they fall, and once a year villages gather by candlelight to honour their ancestors.

Beyond the open sandbox there are six unlockable scenarios: a harsh winter, a race to build a Monument, barren soil, a flooded archipelago, endless night and a land consumed by fire. The game contains no image or sound files; all visuals are drawn from vector shapes at runtime and all audio is synthesised during play. Other features include a running chronicle of world events, end-of-game statistics covering wars, alliances, disasters, chiefs and Monuments, 18 achievements that persist across worlds and unlock scenarios, nine interface languages, and the ability to save anywhere alongside autosave.