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While there isn’t romance in Village in the Shade, we can meet villagers and give them gifts to build relationships with them and see heart events. It’s a fairly simple process and isn’t too different from other farming sims, though there are some quality of life elements that make it easy to tell where people are, what they like best, and when an event is available.
Editor’s note: There will be no Village in the Shade spoilers below.
You can’t immediately start seeing heart events in Village in the Shade, though you can gradually build up the relationships with characters via talking with villagers, running errands, and giving gifts soon after you start. The gifting process is pretty typical fare. If you are holding an item that can be given to another person as a “gift,” then pressing the X button on Switch or Switch 2 and triangle on PS5 will allow you to give that to them. Talking to people also seems to help, as does taking their bulletin board requests or random ones they might ask about should you talk to them around town.
One thing to note is that once you full up the relationship bar enough to max out a heart and unlock an event, it seems progress in building the relationship pauses until you do witness that scene in town. From what I saw, the first heart event didn’t show up for any villagers until the second day of Summer. When one is available, it will show up on the map as a heart inside of a diamond. If it is green, you can walk over immediately to trigger a cutscene. If it is grey, that means you might need to wait for the time to change or a location to open.
Here’s how the map looks when Village in the Shade heart events that boost character relationships appear:
You don’t need to worry about building a relationship with your pet dog. That little friend already likes you. However, giving fish to the cats in town will bolster your relationships with them. Doing that means once they are comfortable with you, you can pet them to further build your relationship with them.
Building a relationship is to your benefit. It might mean gifts from folks when your birthday rolls around, for example.
Village in the Shade is available on the Switch, Switch 2, PS5, and PC.
