Walk with the keys, follow a friend, and watch out for Jimothy
Move with the arrow keys, W A S D or a slide of your finger, follow a friend around town, and keep a light handy at night: the raccoons are after the trash cans. VIP members can pick where they come into town and show their name on a plate.
Getting around:
On a computer, hold the arrow keys or W A S D to walk; press two together to go diagonally. Tapping where to go still works.
On a phone, press and slide your finger the way you want to go, and keep it there to keep walking. A tap is still a tap.
The town's rules still hold: only rides go on the road, and everyone else crosses at the crossings.
Tap someone and choose Follow to walk after them without tapping. You'll go through the same doors, wherever you're allowed in. Tap anywhere yourself to stop.
In town:
After dark, Jimothy and his gang of raccoons, and the odd opossum, come out to tip over the park's trash cans. They'll hiss you away if you're on foot. Ride up to them, or shine a flashlight, and they'll scurry off.
A street sweeper comes round in the autumn for the leaf piles nobody's raked, and a snow plough in the winter for the drifts, so the streets never stay buried.
If you keep running into the same car at a crossroads on your ride, the light changes to get the traffic moving.
For VIP members:
A $ by your name in town and in the chat.
Menu, Name plate: your name always shown over you, on a plate in the colour you choose.
Menu, Spawn: come into town where you left off, at your apartment, at City Hall or in the VIP Club.
The team: Ambassadors (who help and look after the town), staff and admins now have their own mark and title by their name, and a sash only they can wear.
Toys sit in your hands properly now, held out in front as you walk. A lit flashlight shows what's behind a wall.
In the arcade: Ogeechee Eel has a wall round its river, Crosswalk's cars are slower, Rock Blaster fires from the nose and steers, Memory Lights shows the pattern again if you take too long, Air Hockey's mallet goes anywhere on your half, Mini Golf putts from 1%, Duck Pond keeps its ducks coming, Maze Chase has a cup of coffee to catch, High Striker and Balloon Darts have power bars, and the Dance Pad cabinet plays Beat Street.
Chess, checkers and pool at home, and shopping at your own shop
A chess table in your home now plays chess or checkers, a pool table plays 8-ball, and the arcade pieces you've furnished with play their games. Shop owners can buy from their own shops.
The furniture in your home has things to do now. Walk up to a piece and tap it:
Chess tables play chess or checkers. Two of you sit down, anyone else in the room can watch, and the town checks every move.
A pool table plays 8-ball, just like the tables at Vanilla Arcade & Billiards.
Arcade cabinets, pinball machines, the claw machine, a dartboard, an air hockey table and a ping-pong table each play their own games, for free.
Shop owners can now buy from their own shop like any customer, from the Shop here button on the counter. Your own purchases never earn the shop VanillaBucks, and staff are told when a price is dropped for a sale and put straight back up.
The game, your citizen page and the Clubs are now all at vanillacity.me. Play in your browser at vanillacity.me/game.
Everything is at one address now. The website is vanillacity.me, and the game in your browser is vanillacity.me/game. Your citizen, your home, your money and your friends are exactly where you left them.
Updates load faster and arrive all at once: once you've played, your browser keeps the game's files, and when we update the town it fetches only what's new. You'll never need to clear your cache.
New Windows and Android builds sign in at the new address. Grab them from the Download page.
A gated residential district of houses you can buy: The Cottage, The Craftsman and The Manor. Head up Hill Street, or east along Second Street over the tracks.
Vanilla Heights is open. Head up Hill Street past the edge of town, or follow Second Street east over the railroad and through the woods.
Marjorie at the sales office by the gate sells three houses: The Cottage, The Craftsman and The Manor. Each has rooms of its own, and the bigger ones have an upstairs. Choose your house's outside color, and it stands on the street with your name on it whenever you're in town.
Officer Grant keeps the gate. Residents go in, and so do their friends while they're home. New streets open as the first ones fill up.
Over a thousand new pieces of furniture, and Furniture stores
Sofas, beds, kitchens, lamps, rugs, paintings and much more, most of it in several colors. You can now open a Furniture store of your own.
Ken's showroom has a new wing set out as rooms: a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a dining room, a den and a study. Stand by one to shop that department.
Small things stand on tables, desks and counters, and TVs play YouTube for everyone in the room.
Open a Furniture store with a licence from the Chamber of Commerce: buy pieces in at wholesale, set your own prices, and sell the designs you can't get anywhere else.
