Polish the Obvious, and first thing people see in your game

I have been looking over the VBHH game with a critical eye. Which means trying my hardest to be unbiased. It is an interesting task and one I quite like to be honest. Sort of taking the experience, knowledge and feelings about my game I have spent so many hours working on and moving them aside, then once aside I get to play the game and come away with some insights... or that is the hope anyway.

I always have a few questions ready in my mind when I do this.

1. what is my first impression
2. what is the first annoying thing I encounter
3. what is the first thing I feel is missing, or wrong about the game

My first impression of the game was good, in fact I am fine with what I see for the most part, BUT I made several notes on the starting area of the game, namely the Village. It just did not feel like a village. So I talked with Leilani and we came up with several things to add to the Village. That should make the Village more complete with proper shops and layout.
NOTE: Village needs to be more complete before we can show this game off.

Number 2 is interesting as I encountered one annoyance and that was only using the space bar for 'using' and jumping both.
NOTE: Use a different button for Use, (U key).

Number 3 was an easy one as it happens, and that is not always so. This time it was of course in the village and I really felt there was not enough animation. This does go along with making the Village more village like, but making more of an animated village is extra.
NOTE: Bring the Village to life through more animations.

I have already done some addressing of these points and now we have Chimney smoke out of the houses and also we have Clouds moving continually across the backdrop.

We will keep on this track until the Village looks good to my critical eye.

Have a great one,
Da Voodoochief