Needs
Every NPC carries five needs, all starting at 100 and decaying over time.
| Need | What it drives |
|---|---|
 Hunger | Looking for food; at the bottom, it stops doing anything else. (The cake may be a lie, but it fills the bar) |
 Energy | Going to bed |
 Social | Seeking out other NPCs to talk to |
 Fun | Going off to do a hobby. (All work and no play makes the NPC a dull villager) |
 Hygiene | Getting into water to bathe. (Removing the pool ladder won't actually trap them) |
Traits change the rates. A LAZY NPC burns energy twice as fast; a FUNNY one loses fun at half
speed.
Hunger in detail
Hunger is the need with the sharpest consequences, so it has clear thresholds:
| Hunger | What happens |
|---|---|
| below 50 | looks for food when idle |
| below 25 | drops whatever it is doing to eat |
| below 5 | starts losing health |
The interruption at 25 exists because a busy NPC would otherwise starve next to a full pantry — hunger used to be checked only while idle.
Timeline
Starting from full hunger:
| Milestone | Hunger | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Looks for food when idle | 70 | ~4.2 h |
| Interrupts its task | 25 | ~10.4 h |
| Stops working and cries | 5 | ~13.2 h |
Hunger does not kill
An NPC that runs out of food does not die. It becomes miserable and useless: it drops its job, its hobby and its social life, and stays that way until someone feeds it. Death is reserved for aging and disease, which are not implemented yet.
It can still reach food on its own — being starving does not stop it from walking to a chest, and it does not interrupt sleep.
What food restores
Food is graded by the game's own item data into three tiers. Raw meat, ingredients and harvested crops are tier 1; anything cooked or assembled is tier 2 or 3.
| Tier | Hunger | Health |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (raw) | +25 | +6 |
| 2 | +45 | +14 |
| 3 (cooked) | +65 | +24 |
When choosing from a chest, tier wins over taste: a hated pie still beats a beloved slab of raw beef.
Feeding by hand
Give food to an NPC whose hunger is at 50 or below and she eats it on the spot instead of pocketing it — restoring hunger and health, and earning you far more goodwill than an ordinary gift.
Hated food still feeds her. She eats it complaining, with a smaller gain and a hit to her mood.
Seeing the numbers
Hunger and energy appear at the top of the interaction panel, colour-coded by severity. The colours follow the same thresholds the routine uses, so the panel and the behaviour never disagree.