We put aside a couple days last week to come up with some ideas for Fun event sequences then implement them using the event arc structure managed by the Event Director feature (as discussed in the blog post on just that subject). So let’s have a look at an example of one such event – and how event arcs can lock buildings for Special Purposes.
So the colony’s carpenter has a problem. These things happen! There are various ways to solve it (and others problems like it). Determined Inaction is always an option, as is Making A Highly Inadvisable Decision. Sometimes you can call upon the services of one of the specialist offices to resolve the issue by doing a little work. Just so here with the Vicar.
Those of you enjoying Science on the experimental branch of the Clockwork Empires beta may have noticed certain radical changes in the operation of the Barracks. Let’s talk about it!
Shift Controls
To followup gently on last week’s post about the workshift system – and the theme of removing an unnecessary choice for which there was always a right answer – the Barracks has received a shift control button. Wait, you say, didn’t you want to remove shift controls because it was an unnecessary choice for which there was always a right answer? Yes! But the Barracks is the one case where shift controls are absolutely needed.
UI is meant to be functional at this point and will receive polish, so I don’t want to hear about it!
The work shift system started out life not even really being considered a “system” per se but rather just a basic set of controls for when people would work. Characters would work during the day and sleep at night.
Pepper Barnacle, skilled at cookery as well as science; leader of the aptly named Daring Culinarians. His eponymous dish is feared, loathed, and loved in equal measure.
Then we thought of a great way to increase game system interconnectedness by attaching the shift system to character happiness: The happier a character is, the more they’ll work. At this point, though, we also thought it would be a great idea since we’re now giving the shifts first class UI status by actually setting aside UI space to show the work shifts to allow the player to control them. Turns out this was not a great idea.
A society of Alphas couldn’t fail to be unstable and miserable. First off, hello new bureaucrats! We’re thrilled you could join us. For those of you new to the community and not in the know, here are some useful things to know:
We do a blog post here every Wednesday describing what we are working on this week and what we are thinking about. We even have a mailing list where we can send you this blog post, every week.
We post new, experimental builds of Clockwork Empires for testing and feedback to the “experimental” branch on Steam about once a week or so, and have a major release of Clockwork Empires pushed to the main branch on Steam about once a month.
We have forums, which are pretty awesome. If you have not yet discovered our forums, please do so! (Please also change your icon so that I do not have to look at a series of grinning, mustachio’ed men telling me that the game is broken. Seriously, it’s starting to haunt my dreams.)
Don’t own the game? Clockwork Empires can be purchased on ClockworkEmpires.com via Humble or from Steam. Our top bureaucrats assure us that the stars are right and we must use the correct number so: Clockwork Empires is on sale via Steam for exactly 34% off on May 21st only. Not until great Quag’gorath awakens is it going to get better than this.
What does this mean for you?
It starts with us: this is a shift in development. We have essentially finished all of the backend code required to complete the game. We can now switch entirely to mechanics integration, content implementation, UI/UX improvement, optimization, and stability. This also means that the countdown to release can be counted in months. This is an exciting threshold for us!
(There is a downside: the changelogs are going to get even longer, ugh. Stay strong, team! We can do this.)
Major player-facing additions this month
New Workshop order system: jobs are queued per work module (it’s super easy!)
New Event Arc system to chain interesting events together to produce Interesting Times
Colonists can now carry stacks of ingredients to workshop jobs that require lots of materials – much more efficient!
Tons of subtle UI usability improvements to make your life easier
Colonist Quality of Life system: good colonies produce happy, productive overseers
If you’re in a hurry, that should cover it. But if you find yourself with the inexplicable urge for more, you’re in luck, we’ve got the full changelog posted below — or the extra special annotated changelog in the Clockwork Empires Development Report.
What’s important to a colonist’s quality of life on the Frontier? Why, clearly: Food, safety, work conditions, and having a good place to sleep. We’ve been using the memory system to convey the importance of these factors but the results have been somewhat unsteady, prone to being thrown off by extreme, random factors. To be fair, it’s pretty upsetting when Fishpeople eat your friends, but that’s a difficult emotion to balance against something as simple as getting a good meal every day.
How do we make fulfilling the basics AND memories of extreme events both remain important throughout? So glad you asked: The Quality Of Life System! This somewhat resembles the old stub for personal desires, but generalizes them for all people, with allowances for social class and traits. Let’s have a look:
Possibly our random name generator’s finest work yet.
As part of the workshop->upgrade->Snoot->cover the world in progress cycle, we have an exciting series of new economics problems: how to make upgraded modules actually useful, and how to make workshops not terrible. The solution that we have elected to try, and which Daniel bullied me into writing (which took a week, and then I quite like the results so it’s not so bad) is to have workshop jobs assigned per-module, rather than per-building.
“Progress!”
For Revision 50D, we let you explicitly assign a task to a given module (“Make Planks”, “Make Cot”, etc.) The # of workshop modules indicates the # of tasks. A worker will do the task assigned to the first module in a row. If the first module is busy, they will move to the second module; and so on, and so forth. Modules are organized in the workshop in terms of priority, and can be moved up and down (i.e. if your power saw is first in the queue, if it is empty people will try to use it first.) So if you have:
The scripting capacity of Clockwork Empires is a funny thing. It gives us immense power, the ability to do amazing things. But it’s very easy to get lost in a mess of complexity. So, yes, we can script an event that essentially holds in itself an entire Twine-like narrative dialog sequence that pushes commands to the game world simulation, waits, then reads states from the game world simulation and thereby lets you interact with the world in abounding narrative scintillation.
But be warned: you may lose yourself in this power, and give in, and be plagued forever by spectral script errors.
