Hello everyone and welcome to the development diaries In the beginning
Over the past time, we managed to get out on early access on Steam, although it took a lot more time than we expected. But now I see that the players have an interest in the project and many supported us by purchasing the game now, despite the fact that this is still a prototype.
Thanks to you, we can now continue to work on the project. Therefore, I want to share with you the nearest development plans.
We focus on the direct gameplay, for which we postponed the connection of the save-load system. Specifically, the first moves and related story events.
Recently, I tried to solve the problem: how to make entering the game economy easier. Indeed, the current model implies that tribal labor points are scattered across many interdependent vacancies. It is difficult to understand such relationships, and the control window requires some manipulations from the player from the first move.
The logical decision: to reduce the complexity of interactions (at least at an early stage of the game) and reduce the number of manipulations required by the player.

But how to do that?
The answer was found in the study of anthropology. Specifically, in the time that people devote to themselves and work. It is no secret that ancient people worked much less than we do. But few people know that even today, many primitive tribes (for example, the aborigines of Australia) consciously refuse to move to a higher level of development of society precisely because it requires heavy systematic work.
In other words, this is an important factor in the development of society, which cannot be ignored in the simulation, but how to objectively reflect it in the economy?
Having broken all human activities into categories of work - rest. And reflecting such a parameter of your people as "industriousness." It is a historical habit of people to devote their time to systematic work. Without increasing this parameter, it will be practically impossible to switch to a producing economy. And historically, it has changed either by profound changes in the way of society, or, more often, by natural disasters that forced people to switch to eating food that requires more time to process.
Already in the Mesolithic, that is, before the start of agriculture, people knew how to cook cereals. They made bread, cooked cereals, even made beer. It is possible that gardening in some primitive form could exist somewhere. But they did not proceed to systematic agricultural work.
In the game, if a player increases the load on his people in excess of the permissible limits, a penalty modifier will appear and a chain of events can be initiated dedicated to such an abnormal activity.
How now to connect this mechanics with the complexity of the starting interactions, which the player has to understand?
Through a basic vacation vacancy. This is free time when your people disperse in the district: individually or in groups. During it, they do not do anything. Most likely they communicate, examine the territory, train. They, on their own initiative, collect berries and fruits, prey on small animals.
In terms of the gaming economy, this becomes a vacancy that does not require any content, but at the same time gives a stable profit in the form of the necessary basic resources: meat, berries, brushwood.
Thus, the starting economy becomes like this: most of the labor points are focused on recreation, while the working part is on hunting and gathering, as well as the necessary cooking.
The brushwood is enough only to maintain the first bonfire, and the cumulatively obtained food - only to live from hand to mouth. If you want to eat, go hunting, or across the river for berries, where the glades are still untouched.
Food production is an obligatory minimum of work that tribal members must perform. At the beginning of the game, events will prompt the player to engage in the production of clothing, copies, and inventory.
But the further expansion of production and work becomes an interesting task, as vacancies begin to compete with each other for labor points that a player can spend on them. An increase in workload bodes unpleasant fines, and the number of methods of using forces is becoming more and more. You need to choose what to spend them on and try to raise the parameter of hard work in order to spend more labor points without penalties.
At the same time, it is necessary to reduce the number of manipulations required from the player. The most obvious problem is eating food. Since the number of people changes every turn, the amount of food needed will change. To do this, a locker is installed on the consumption of food, showing how many percent of what is needed should be consumed. By default, this metric is 100%.
Changing it upwards makes sense if the player wants to increase the physical mass of the people of his tribe, and it will also be useful for the development of cooking and improving people's health, but, of course, it will require the extraction of more food. The decrease in consumption may be due to the onset of bad times when the tribe loses an important source of food. Long-term hunger not only brings negative effects, but also develops resistance to it, and in terms of selection it reduces the growth and weight of your people.
Game mechanics will automatically set the required number of labor points for the consumption of food from rest (while the balance of labor is not disturbed, since food for people is also a form of rest). At the same time, if the warehouse does not have the required number of products (processed food, presented as a kk resource - millions of calories), the number of labor points will decrease automatically (by going back to rest) and will return when the products in the warehouse appear.

The implementation of these mechanics, together with the mentioned events, is our main layer of tasks for the near future and the content of the first major update.
In addition, our main programmer, who implemented the current mechanics, refactors the system of conditions and effects. Their number has grown so that it already requires a certain reorganization.
And, of course, our favorite demography: balancing numbers and events.

So, what about guardian spirits?
After all, these are the same game characters who meet the player from the first screen. The concept of such characters is not something new, advisers are used in almost every strategic game. But I tried to make them part of the overall plot.
It would seem, what plot can be in an economic strategy spanning millennia? However, it can. After all, the player himself is a spirit or deity controlling his people.
Together with him there are other spirits, they serve as assistants and observers. And, during the game, voicing their opinions, sometimes arguing with each other. And as the game progresses, new characters will appear that are responsible for a particular activity.
The inspiration for this approach was the good old RPGs: the trilogy Baldur’s Gate and Wizardry 8, where the presence of such characters introduced a fair amount of variety and liveliness into the gameplay. I think here, where the gameplay is largely tied to management and numbers, the presence of live characters will make the game more fun.
And they really can be useful. Technically, they are events, so they can respond to all the same game processes as any other events. So, they can respond to events, give tips, share opinions.

That's all for today. And thanks to you, we are switching to regular updates.

I remind you that you can help develop this game by becoming patrons on this page: https://www.patreon.com/Gene_Sol