RANIOLAB

In development · Coming to Steam

Bitter Roots

As cozy as life.

Cozy come la vita

A farming life sim

Set in a rural Italian village: no monsters, just markets, gossip and generations.

Your father has died, the run-down farm is yours, and down in the village they think you won't last a season. You live a whole life on the farm, then your spouse and your children carry it on.

Four seasons of 28 days

Spring: the Wednesday market under the loggia, two villagers chatting.
SpringThe Wednesday market
Summer: rows of sunflowers and tomatoes in front of the farmhouse and the well.
SummerSunflowers, tomatoes, the well
Autumn: farmhouses and hay bales in the valley, a dog and villagers.
AutumnHay in the valley
Winter: snow falling on the square and the market.
WinterSnow on the square
  • 23 crops
  • 15 kinds of trees
  • 7 kinds of weather
  • 41 villagers
  • 8 festivals
  • 32 recipes
  • 56 nights to cure a prosciutto

A village that lives on its own

Forty-one villagers with their own days: they open their shops at set hours, walk the streets and go home to sleep. They like and dislike each other, gossip, marry each other, and judge what you do.

  • Luciagrows vegetables in the plot above the village
  • Gualtierofarms Podere Bellacosta, with the only tractor in the valley
  • Giuliathe hairdresser, who knows everything
  • Don Silvestrothe parish priest
  • Agneseworks at the Osteria
  • Severinokeeps the Emporio
  • Rosabakes the village bread
Giulia, by the stream, gossiping about her sister Lucia.
"Lucia's up before the birds and asleep before the hens. I live with a rooster." Giulia, about her sister

No monsters. The danger is the market.

Where other farming games send you down a mine, Bitter Roots gives you the market, your relationships and the black swans. It is tight, never grim: you always come through.

A living market
Prices move with the season and with what everyone sells. Rumours come before a crash. Haggle at your own stall on Wednesdays.
Weather that matters
Sun, rain, storms, hail, heatwaves, frost and snow, and each one does something to your crops.
Black swans
Floods, earthquakes and fires. Never a game over, never a total loss.
A hidden karma
From scoundrel to gentleman. You never see it, only what follows: prices, loans, and what people say behind your back.
Lucia and Gualtiero at the fence, with a crate of tomatoes and the hills behind them.

A whole life, then the next

Flirt, get engaged and marry, if the jilted single doesn't ruin the wedding. Raise your children. When you are gone, your spouse carries on, then your heir, with their own temperament. Your dynasty's hall of fame waits on the title screen.

Cook on the stove, cure prosciutto for 56 nights, make cheese and wine, keep bees and silkworms, and help the village pay for its square, its bell tower and its stone bridge.

Eight festivals, two each season

The Spring Fair, with the band on the bandstand
A summer night: lit windows, chimney smoke, fireflies

Blessing of the Fields · Spring Fair · Livestock Fair · Grape Treading · Cooking Contest · Bonfire · Hearth Vigil · Year's End

Coming to Steam

Follow the village as it grows

Bitter Roots is in development. There is no Steam page yet. The plan: the first season as a demo for Steam Next Fest.

Social accounts are on the way.

Made openly with AI

Bitter Roots is a farming life sim set in a rural Italian village, made by RanioLab (a solo dev). Made with AI tools, openly: character portraits generated with Grok from our own character sheets, sounds and music made with ElevenLabs, code written with Claude. Design, writing direction and every system: RanioLab.

Placeholder art: "Farm RPG - Tiny Asset Pack" by EmanuelleDev (the people and animals in these pictures). Engine: Godot. Fonts: Tiny5 and Jersey 10 (SIL OFL).