And now we present a Daniel Jacobsen News Update – delivered at the speed of one of those newfangled steam-trains! What an exciting Age of Progress!
Characters now form relationships with other characters! Right now it’s sort of like speed dating. When they talk to each other, they get a chance to compare their traits and determine whether they are compatible, and within the scope of about 5 seconds, they might just fall in love. Or they might hate each other. The frontier is a complicated place, charged with emotion.
Two conversations with rather different results.
Upon creating these relationships, characters tend to prioritize any task that will involve their partner, and they’ll be extremely upset if anything happens to them. And if something bad does happen, they actually have an option other than crying, waiting to starve to death, and being driven to a homicidal rage! Yes: they can drink ale to make themselves feel better. Sleep helps too, but they don’t know it yet. One day they may even be able to talk out their problems, but not today. Oh no. Not today.
Characters can also create rival relationships and they’re similarly extremely quick to judge, though they’re not actually nasty to each other just yet.
The barber foments rivalry with the NCO while other colonists discuss hats. And a labourer standing in the tools stockpile thinks about how very hungry she is because this colony has no food at all.
I was going to write about how difficult it is to actually implement other emotions than happiness and sadness, but… it’s not actually that hard, thanks to our design. Given any situation, such as a loved ones’ death, we simply say, yeah, that would make a character really sad, slightly mad, and quite angry! This affects the choices that they’ll make by increasing the utility of venting in various ways. Anger increases the likelihood that they’ll start a brawl (they’re frontier people, that’s how it’s done!), sadness increases the likelihood that they’ll need another pint at the pub and a good cry, and so forth. Things are going brilliantly, this is awesome.
You’re awesome too. Thanks for reading.
Technical Status Update: Empire Shutting Down, Whigs to Blame
Late breaking news from the Clockwork Empire, delivered by heliograph: The Empire is Shutting Down!
Yes, at the behest of the thrice-damnable Whig Party, the iron gates of the Panopticon are shuttered, the Lord Palmerstoke Institute for Structurally Interesting and Extremely Sensitive Science has turned off the fumic extractor, and the mysterious clicking noises at the Empire Times are getting louder as the Editorial Board reviews its position on the events of the day. The Prime Minister is furious – all of this over the new healthcare plan, which his political enemies decry as Novyrus-Style Medical And/Or Beard Care. False rumours abound that a stout worker cannot choose his or her barber/chirugeon any more, and that death panels have been instituted to ensure that people die by any means necessary. Big, steaming government, encumbered by needless machinery, is interfering in the relationship between a doctor, his patient, and his leeches.
Lies, we tell you! Lies!
This brings us nicely to a Technical Status Update – what’s new this month? And how are the brave folks of the Clockwork Empires handling this upheaval?
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