Hello, Folks! 👋
We all that Giwis live the rule “can’t stop | won’t stop” and they’re constantly running from one place to another. In this issue of Gameplay Insight, we’ll take on a journey with three stops ahead of us. There’s a lot that needs to be told – put on your running gear and let’s get started! 🏃♂️
🚏 Stop no. 1:
Terraforming
In Scorchlands, you reshape the terrain instantly, and anywhere you want. Moreover, later you can relocate the biomes you've made at a whim and any time! You get total control over the terrain you build your cities on. Feel free to do whatever you feel like doing. 🤝
It’s good to think strategically when terraforming. Clever placement of biomes lets you benefit more from their characteristics. We wrote a lot about the bonuses in the second Gameplay Insight – you’ll find it 👉 here.
Let’s get straight to the point - as you develop your civilization, you can progress through multiple biomes, each with different advantages.
We wanted to make sure that instant terraforming remains fun and special regardless of how many times you do it. To accomplish this, we took a lot of effort to visually represent the process in an awe-inspiring way. Our team decided to choose a pastel color palette 🎨 to play a key role in the graphic design of Scorchlands. The sound plays a big part, too - when you hear the earth crumbling like it’s ready to rearrange itself, you know you’re dealing with a powerful and mysterious force.
We hope you’ll enjoy changing the landscape and making it your own. Time for the second stop! ✋
🚏 Stop no. 2:
Biomes
Everytime you start your game on a volcanic planet, the terrain surrounding you at the beginning of your journey is a wasteland of scorched land and lava 🔥. Besides this first biome, there are three more you can create later in your game. Just a reminder - each biome introduces a new set of resources, technologies, and a new type of combat equipment.
The placing of a new biome you want to create shouldn’t be random – look for the spot which will produce the best resource veins.
What’s more, you need to plan for the future of your colonies – you would want to place a biome to make the resource transportation much easier rather than more difficult. Keep in mind the already existing terrain. If your new biome overlaps with the one already there, it might destroy the old landscape.
Each new biome introduces a couple of new twists to the city building. You will have to plan around the shape of resource veins, the terrain itself, establish logistic connections between colonies in other biomes and master the production of newly unlocked types of products and finally scale up your infrastructure.
Creating new biomes is essential for gathering new resources and expanding your colony but it’s also fun to see how much you can transform a volcanic 🌋 wasteland!
We always have a lot of fun constantly reshaping the hexagons around our colonies – hope you like terraforming the biomes too! Adjust your laces, it’s time for…
🚏 Stop no. 3:
Resource management
To which our game has quite a unique approach. 👀
In Scorchlands, the standard gradual resource production was replaced with a supply and demand system. By producing resources, you simply increase its local availability. Whenever you use up a resource, its demand is increased. Resource deficits can limit the effectiveness of dependent production chains and having a surplus of production means that the resource can still be used for more stuff. 📈
The most interesting aspect of this system is that the player receives instant feedback for every action performed. You can see the changes in resource availability right away and don’t need to wait for anything to be produced.
This also eliminates other forms of waiting. For example, your technological advancement is achieved by continuously scaling up your empire and expanding your production. Any new technology discovered will increase the demand for the required resources. The same stands true whenever creating new biomes or making equipment for your combatants.
The final noteworthy advantage to having no resource storage in Scorchlands is the fact that it reduces the player's mental load. Apart from much faster and smoother gameplay, it lets you focus on other features focused on the supply and demand system that you can't usually find in other city builders or similar games.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1090100/Scorchlands/
This is the last stop. 🚏
See you around!
Keep calm and get ready for Gameplay Insight #4! 🍿
Developers from Ringlab ⚗️