Something like this.
(Dear Reader: In order to supply high-quality content to you, the Reader, in this age of the Internet, we bring you one of those wacky Choose-Your-Own-Adventure blogs in a style that the kids love.)
You are MURIEL COGSPROCKET. You are an OVERSEER for the colony of GREATER MUSHROOMHOOD. You enjoy HATS, BEETLES, and LOOKING INTO THE SEA. Your job is to attempt to SERVE THE EMPIRE and THE QUEEN while not GETTING STUCK or CRASHING.
Do you…
- Attempt to gossip with your neighbour? (If so, please turn to Page 2.)
- Attempt to do Overseer work? (If so, please turn to Page 3.)
- Go home? (If so, please turn to Page 4.)
- Walk into the sea, never to return? (If so, please turn to Page 5.)
PAGE 2. (Attempt to Gossip With Your Neighbour)
Nothing like this.
You attempt to GOSSIP with THEOBOLD CRUMP. He is a POET and therefore prone to FLIGHTS.
THEOBOLD CRUMP is not currently available for gossiping, due to having gossiped with somebody earlier, having been interrupted while doing so, and prevented due to PROGRAMMER BUGS from having THE POWER OF SPEECH.
You now cannot find anybody to talk to in the colony of GREATER MUSHROOMHOOD because everybody has now suffered from BUGS and the rest of your life is spent walking from person to person and failing to engage them in conversation.
*GAME OVER*
That way!
PAGE 3. (Attempt to do Overseer Work)
There are two Overseer jobs available to you: CHOPPING TREES, or FARMING. Which do you choose?
1. Chopping Trees! (Page 6.)
2. Farming! (Page 7.)
Gone home?
PAGE 4. (Attempt to Go Home)
You impale your head on the jagged spikes of this BADLY MADE BUILDING, and cannot access your belongings due to the fact that the SIMPLE DOOR was not placed on the building, despite it being a REQUIRED MODULE.
*GAME OVER*
(This is where David was on vacation two weeks ago.)
PAGE 5. (Walk into the Sea, never to return.)
Congratulations! This is the ONLY RIGHT ANSWER.
*GAME OVER*
(The disconnect, as it were, between chopping trees with an axe and the icon displaying a saw has been observed and reported to our Loyal Bureaucracy.)
PAGE 6. (Attempting to Chop Trees)
You walk up to the tree in order to organize A MERRY CHOPPING-PARTY, but find that you are unable to move due to the terrain by the tree having previously been walked on by SOMEBODY ELSE, POSSIBLY A FOREIGNER. You are now stuck in an INFINITE PATH-FINDING LOOP.
*GAME OVER*
But for that cabbage! Alas.
PAGE 7. (Attempt to Farm)
You farm, but the farm that you are overseeing is TOO BIG and your work party cannot farm it in time before you DIE OF STARVATION.
*GAME OVER*
A Very Special Addition
The Editorial Board has determined that this would be a good opportunity to remind our Dear Readers that they can sign up for the Gaslamp Games Aetheric Mailing List to receive Notices of Import & The Semifortnightly Aethergraph of Amusement & Folly which features terrible & allegedly humorous happenings of the Clockwork Empires.
This is hilarious. I have never seen any similar blogpost for any game site. Thanks for the pictures.
As for the FSM, would your citizens actually try and complete a job before eating, if the job they were doing was harvesting food? Can jobs not be partially completed, interrupted for food, and then continued?
Best. Blog. Ever.
Thanks all! 😀
You guys are a kick, thanks much! Just remember that most humor has roots in pain.
Also unobtainable due to pathfinding errors: pumpkins
Not only was this blogpost hilarious, but the Editorial board sent to email subscribers was the best piece of Lovecraftian-like litterature i’ve seen in eons.
That was awesome !…
Oh — it’s our first Free To Play game.
We just need a ‘to turn the page please recharge your Cog Energy for $.99’.
Guys? I kind of get the feeling you’re feeling a little beset-on-all-sides by an endless horde of bugs. I can only tell you that we, your loyal and ernest fandom, are perfectly willing to wait as long as it takes for you to deal with all the crazy bugs you’re having problems with. Don’t panic or despair.
Actually – bugs are fun to talk about. Especially from a systems point of view. But I’m consistently impressed with how solid a base we have. ( the fact that we’ve hardly had to spend any time debugging determinism errors says something ).
I’d say that while we’re not feature complete – we have less bugs than certain release day AAA games I could name.
We have a lot of work to do – but I’m excited!
I feel like the author is trying to tell us something, possible relating to his failing sanity.
Oye Nick? Question please? Do the colony have a police force to supress cultists and those colonists who don’t want to toil on 16 hours workday, aye?
Steampunk London metropolitain bobby with those clubs and helmets? Oh buck yea
Sounds like you guys took all the bugs out of your bodies and put them in the game. Progress!
Starving to death while farming reminds me of a game called Towns I played a while ago. People would routinely fall dead and taint the world with their foul corpse rot, while in the kitchen, the fields, and the dining room, steps away from delicious Meat Pies.
Of course this was one of those ‘early access’ games which is code for releasing an alpha, getting what money you can, and then stopping work.
best blog thank you for so many bugs
Hah! Picked the right answer off the bat. I knew all those years growing up playing these things would pay off some day!
Yup this sums build 27c up just fine. I build a mill to get planks but to finish the mill you need planks which in the last build was fine you just manually tell your colonists to chop logs into planks but nope bug found. No more manual log chopping it just hangs in jobs because my colonists don’t like chopping logs up or something. So I’m like ill just play without planks still love the game by the way. Just to be clear you cant do much without planks. I am on day 50 and my job list is filled to max with furniture that needs planks so none of my buildings are working and my colonists are on super lazy mode due to them having a full job list of furniture that needs materials that are no longer in the game. Small bug that makes my colonists farm eat and that’s it. Well they do gossip still.