Grand Cru: The Wine Maker — v0.5.0 Update
Bonjour, winemakers!
Welcome to v0.5.0, "Your Own Brand." This update is about one thing — giving your wines an identity.
Until now, bottling a wine left you with numbers and scores. Now it's different. Pick a label frame, add an emblem, choose a font — and suddenly it's not just "Pomerol Merlot 2026." It's your Château.
A personal note: after a great deal of soul-searching — it truly took time — I've left my day job, and I can finally give Grand Cru my full attention. I'm sorry for the wait. The road to 1.0 starts now, and I'm running.
New Features
- Wine Label Brand System — When you bottle a wine, the label editor opens. Combine frames, emblems, colors, and fonts to create your own brand.
- 5 Label Frames — Classique, Minimal, Art Deco, Vendange, Élégance. Higher reputation unlocks new frames.
- 15 Emblems — Grape, leaf, château and lion, plus rose, fleur-de-lis, barrel, crown, sun, key, wine glass and star — and three pixel-art emblems.
- 4 Font Styles — Classic (Cormorant), Modern (Lora), Formal (uppercase), Script (calligraphy). Match the font to your wine's character.
- Winemaker's Chronicle Screen — View all your brands at a glance. Score trends per vintage, award history, and legacy badges.
- Label Thumbnails — Small labels appear in your cellar and wine profile cards. Your wines have faces now.
- First Brand Tutorial — A 3-step guide walks you through label creation on your first bottling.
- Unlock Notifications — Unlocking label frames, emblems, and cellar facilities is now celebrated with a toast and in your season report. Once unlocked, label designs stay yours — even if your reputation dips.
- Vintage Ledger — Brand details in Winemaker's Chronicle now keep a proper ledger: production, sales, average price and revenue per vintage. Your brand's history, in numbers.
- 4 Premium Export Events — A Christie's auction, a premium Asian importer, the Sommelier Association, a three-Michelin-star restaurant. Great wine no longer needs the bulk buyer.
Balance
- Inflation System — Local market prices rise 1–5% per year. The economy breathes over time.
- Chain Renegotiation — Re-approaching the same buyer is free up to twice; the third wine costs AP again.
- NPC Land Balance — NPCs no longer buy land aggressively. Only 30% of available plots.
- Father's Wine 120-Bottle Cap — Maximum 120 bottles per trade.
- Negotiation Tension — The longer you haggle, the tighter the buyer's purse. No more risk-free probing.
- Harvest Hands — In fall, every 4 planted parcels grant +1 AP. A growing estate can actually be harvested.
- Négociant Cap — Bulk sales are capped at 1,500 bottles per season, with more realistic clearance prices.
- Better Blends — Blend synergy is up across the board. A blend's aging window now follows its primary grape.
UI/UX
- Season Report Redesign — First-person reflections on the season. Count-up animations for sales.
- Reputation Milestone Banner — Star icon + glow effect when your reputation tier rises.
- Market Info Tutorial Fix — The close button tutorial now works correctly after purchasing market info.
- Bookshop Quick Access — Clicking the Skills sidebar button now opens the bookshop directly.
- Fullscreen Toggle — Toggle fullscreen mode in Settings.
Onboarding
- Lighter Tutorial Density — Early guidance is more relaxed. Season intros take priority.
- Monologues Added — The protagonist's inner voice appears at key moments.
- AP Guide — Your first spring now explains Action Points — and why hoarding them is a mistake.
- Tutorial Guide Chip — On action steps, 'Got it' folds the tooltip into a small chip: your screen stays free, the guidance never vanishes.
- First-Year Guidance Polish — The first planting now explains why Sauvignon Blanc, and first-summer market encounters no longer interrupt the tutorial.
Bug Fixes
- SVG Font Rendering — Script (calligraphy) font now displays correctly on wine labels.
- Award Medal Duplicate — Medal SVG replaced with wine-themed grape motif.
- Blind Tasting Alignment — Vertical centering fixed.
- Wine.communeId Loss — Commune data is now preserved throughout the entire winemaking pipeline.
- Inflation Retroactive Fix — Loading older saves now applies inflation for elapsed years.
- A Father's Trace — Fixed an old visitor who could never arrive. A story deep in the cellar now unfolds as intended. (no spoilers)
- Blind Tasting Producers — Your own wine now shows your winery's name in the producer round.
Technical
- Save Compatibility — Existing saves are auto-migrated. Wines without brands are auto-matched.
- 10 Save Slots — Expanded from 3 to 10 save slots.
- 155 Tests — 29 new tests for communeId, market, and inflation systems.
What's Next
v0.5.1 introduces Emotional Moments — visual novel scenes for the award ceremony and the birth of your first wine. We're giving your wines feelings.
Happy winemaking!
— The Grand Cru Team