Exciting Things Ahead!
Hi Everyone,
Hearth and Home is a very important update for Clanfolk as it completes the "Day To Day Life" focus and allows me to finally start concentrating on what we have been calling "Year 2+"
"Year 2+" is about making each play through feel unique.
The goal with Clanfolk has always been to make day to day life interesting. I wanted the "in between times" to be engaging, and I think that with Hearth and Home we are finally there. It feels like a little real life Scottish Homestead to me, one that is even able to evolve into a community.
I will continue to add items and crafting stations as needed (Bee Keeping for example,) but the main focus going forward will be on "Year 2+" elements.
This will be a mixture of greater focus on the Clanfolk themselves, their attributes and quirks, combined with external factors such as Plagues, Famines, Cold Snaps, Taxation, Conscription, and Theft to name a few.
Another key component will be selectable difficulty levels and challenges. This could involve settings as simple as non permanent Ice Jugs, Unlimited Rats, or Longer Winters, or LOTS of rain.
The main goal is going to be to maintain the feel of family life on the Homestead while also making each game evolve differently based on internal and external factors.
So that is what is coming, and I am very excited to get started, but Hearth and Home is also very cool and we finally have some Haggis, so lets dive into that!
Hearth and Home has Arrived!
The goal was to use traditional foods and farming to deliver even more on the 1300's Scottish homestead experience.
Hearth and Home features new historically accurate Crops, requiring new map generation, new advanced recipes, a pottage station that can make stew out of anything on hand, as well as a long list of improvements and bug fixes,
New Crops
So first off, there are no potatoes. They did not arrive in Scotland until around the 1700s, so 400 years too late. In fact potatoes come from Peru! Clanfolk has been great for me learning new things :)
The new crops are Kale (Kail), Onions, Turnips (Neeps), and Broad Beans. In the 1300's, apparently these were the main staples of the peasant folk. Kale was so popular that there were multiple poems about it.
The new crops will spawn in small patches on new maps. They look quite different than the normal grasses and are hopefully not too hard to find.
When drawing the crops, I tried to make them look as close to how they do in nature as possible. They even have the right flowers when they are ready to be picked. (Note; In the real world usually you want to pick a plant before it flowers, but flowers are a great done-ness indicator for a game)
For people who want to continue their current save, each Trader Biome has a chance to bring one type of seeds at Reputation level 2. They will start bringing the actual plants for eating/cooking at Reputation 0.
Another note on planting crops. There was an issue with planting at the very end of Summer wasting seeds because even in optimal conditions it was not possible to get a full crop before winter. Now if tilled soil is kept watered and fertilized, it will be possible to get 1 full crop out in time, so the seeds will not be lost.
Seeds and Storage
When the new crops are harvested, they will drop both the seeds and the food plant.
There is a new Seed Shelf and Seed Stockpile. Beware, herbivores and especially Rats find the seeds very attractive.
New Basic Foods
The new crops will generate basic food, Pottage ingredients, and are all used in the new High Tier Recipes.
Kale (Kail), Onions, Turnips can be eaten raw, but are not highly desirable.
Broad Beans need to be cooked before eating, unless the Clanfolk is starving.
Onions and Neeps can be roasted at the Cooking Fire, Fireplace, or Kitchen to make a much tastier meal.
Pluck is literally the organ meat that is Plucked out when butchering (Heart, Lungs, Liver) and is different than Offal which is what “falls off/out” (hence the word) I had heard of Offal, but never Pluck, so once again Clanfolk has taught me something new :) Pluck is the main ingredient in Haggis, so it of course had to be included.
Now when large animals are butchered, there will also be some Pluck produced alongside the Meat and Hide. This can be roasted, or added to Pottage Stew, but its main use is the Haggis.
Pottage Stew
Hearth and Home introduces Pottage Stew (Hunter's Stew/Perpetual Stew.) Traditionally there was a large cooking pot that was kept filled and simmering with whatever meats and vegetables were on hand. The new Cooking Pot fulfills this role.
The Cooking Pot will cook the new crops and Berries or Mushrooms as well as any type of Meat. It is meant to work just like Pottage Stew and cook anything on hand.
One of the huge benefits of Pottage Stew is that it is always warm and ready to go, simmering in the corner.
The Cooking Pot is probably the most advanced crafting station now as it combines pieces of kitchens, beds, and even the compost to be able to service up to 6 Clanfolk at once using a variety of items. It has 13 art states that change as each Clanfolk takes their bowl of Stew. Please watch it at least once to make all the pixel pushing worth it :)
The Clanfolk will also form a very orderly queue as they line up for Stew.
High Tier Kitchen Recipes
The Kitchen is now the home of the best food recipes.
These complex recipes are very difficult to make, will require multiple ingredients, and clean dishes, but they also give long term Buffs!
Vegetable Soup will increase Movement Speed.
Hearty Stew will increase Work Speed and Warmth (great for Winter)
Fish Stew is Brain Food. It will give a 2x Bonus to many Skill Experience Types
Brose is still made at the Tiled Peat Stove, but it will now give a small Warmth Boost early on
Haggis is finally here. Haggis will naturally improve Mood and will also give a Work Bonus.
Haggis and Neeps is the King of meals. One plate of this will last a Clanfolk an entire day, but it is the hardest meal to make. It even requires Butter and Milk!
Haggis and Neeps will improve, Work, Mood, Warmth, and Satisfaction of Guests. It is the Ultimate Food.
New Food Desirability Setting
With all the ingredients required for the High Tier Foods, it has become important to have control over what foods the Clanfolk will eat. If making Haggis and Neeps, we don't want the Clanfolk to eat all the Haggis beforehand.
The Food Desirability is set in the Inventory Menu. The setting can go from 0% where the food will only be eaten if the Clanfolk is starving up to 10,000% where they will try to eat it even if it is on the moon.
One thing to note alongside the desirability in the Inventory panel is the Cooking Pot. Since it is a crafting station, it does not have a desirability, but it does have priority, which is used to determine how attractive the Pottage is.
A priority of 0 works like a desirability of 0% and a priority of 5 is 100%, and 10 is 200%. A Boosted Cooking Pot will have 10,000% desirability.
There is also the Serving Table to consider here as it gives a 2x desirability modifier to anything placed on it. That means a food that is 80% desirable, is 160% on the Serving Table. This can be used to get Clanfolk to eat certain items in specific areas. The Serving Table can have its Allowed Foods defined in the same way as a Stockpile.
A final note on Food Desirability. The choice to eat a certain food is also Distance based, so a less desirable, but very close food can also be picked. Distance plays less of a role than Desirability in the decision of what to eat.
Tile Table
The Tile Table has been added to give an early Decoration Table to house Rush Lights. This will allow the early homes to be decorated with a little light.
Bookmark Dragging / Upgrades
This one has been a request for a long time. You can now sort your Inventory Bookmarks as well as have their position saved!
The Bookmarks now also support a second Row instead of the slider to allow more items to be visible on screen at once. The font size for the counts was also increased as this was a common request.
Unit Bar Dragging / Auto Sorting
This one has been a request for even longer. The Units Bar members can now be dragged around and organized into families.
While building this new dragging system, I also implemented an auto sort that should place the units in fairly optimal positions. The rules work such that the older Clan members will stay on the left, and the newer families will be on the right. Children sort with their family, until they partner up and are then moved to the right.
What this means is that if someone is single they sort next to their parents (if the parents are alive) This system seems to keep everyone organized in an easy to understand way.
28 New Historic Clans!
- Gordon
- Stuart of Bute
- McCormack
- MacAlister
- Sinclair
- Bell
- Muirhead
- MacNicol
- Kerr
- Gray
- MacCallum
- McCulloch
- Lamont
- MacAulay
- MacTavish
- Paisley
- Eliot
- MacPherson
- Hamilton
- Grant
- Johnston
- Leslie
- Logan
- MacLaren
- MacLachlan
- Shaw of Tordarroch
- Macfie
- Pringle
- Note: There are now 73 Clans available in Clanfolk! (Apparently the perfect number by coincidence)
- Adding Clans is quite intensive time wise with building the art and researching the correct Tartan/Motto to use. Going forward I am planning on making an override directory where people can put in their own Clan art/info.
Other Stuff
For those interested in detailed change logs, following this link and starting at V0.405 will give you a listing of all the changes since Update 11 (Zones and Decorations)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1700870/discussions/0/3183488858470509508/?ctp=18
Road Map
There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666
Diving back into the code now.
Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!
Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.
p.s. I would also like to give a shout out to my Friend and Partner (Narlak's) game "No Creeps Were Harmed." It just released into Early Access a few days ago and is a great 3D Tower Defense Game.
While I have been working away on Clanfolk for 6+ years, he has made Golftopia, and now No Creeps Were Harmed.
Just as back Story, Narlak and I have been working together now for 19 years, 5 years in AAA development and now 14 years at MinMax. We made Space Pirates and Zombies 1 and 2 together, and are now working on our own personal titles, but support each other where we can.
I hope you will take a look!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1932260/No_Creeps_Were_Harmed_TD/