Daytimes are here, and the torches finally matter
One of those features I kept postponing because I thought it would be a big deal: daytimes. A day/night cycle. And of course, once I sat down to it, it turned out to be one of the most satisfying things I have added to Buildom in weeks.
The sky moves on its own now
The game keeps a session clock, and the background crossfades through four themes as it goes: morning, noon, evening, night. No hard cuts, no loading, just the sky slowly shifting while you dig. It runs continuously, so if you leave the game open you will see the evening come in whether you are ready for it or not.
On top of the sky there is a world darkness layer. Toward evening and night the whole screen dims, like someone is slowly turning down the lights in the room. And this is where it gets fun: the darkness is a screen-space overlay, and the existing light sources punch through it. Your player has a soft aura around them, and every burning torch carves out its own warm circle in the dark.
Torches, finally earning their keep
That is the part I love most. Torch light existed before, but in a world where it was always daytime it was mostly decoration. Now it is the difference between seeing your base and staring into a black screen with vague shapes in it. Walking home at night with a torch in the ground every few tiles feels like an actual game mechanic.
The night is skipped in dev and build mode, by the way. Building a wall while you can barely see would be more atmospheric, but mostly just annoying.
Flickering flames
Right before the cycle landed I also added a small flame particle system for the torches: faint embers drifting up and a wisp of smoke, drawn from a fixed allocation-free pool, with the spawn rate scaling to how many torches are actually on screen. It sits under the fog layer, respects reduced motion settings, and the whole thing is tunable through config, like everything else in the render stack. I also fixed the player glow while I was in there, which had been bugging me for a bit.
What is next
Seeing the world change under my feet makes me want more atmosphere. Maybe stars at night. Maybe weather, at some point, in the no-plan sort of way where I have no idea when. For now I will just leave the game open and watch the sun go down over my dirt hut. Follow along here if you want to see where it goes.