Hello world!

It’s been a while since the last devlog, but for good reason! I’ve been doing more than stuffing my face with cozonac and sarmale (delicious romanian foods), albeit there was plenty of that too. Today we’re going to look at all the most recent developments: the new economy & reputation systems, the ability to switch between RTS and TBS, the new graphics, the beta challenge, and the launch of the public demo!

It’s not always 3 sacks of grain for a barrel of wine

High Seas was always meant to have a dynamic pricing system where prices for different goods differ both depending on cities (different stock, consumption and production rates) as well as your game’s seed. Different games, different prices! Previously, this was accomplished by having a core price for a good and then using the game seed to adjust that with a multiplier between 0.5x and 2x. Say if wine’s core price was 100 coins, you’d never get a game where the production cost of wine was outside the range 50-200. This worked, but it made prices fairly similar, they would in some sense clump together. Moreover, costs of producing things could be desynced from the price cities would buy / sell goods for.

The new economy system ties things together. The 21 goods have been split between 3 buckets, depending on what kind of pops they require to produce. Within the buckets, there are 7 pricing tiers. Through some slightly complex math (I only dare say ‘slightly’ now since it’s done, it did not seem that way when I first had to do it) the bucket, tier and seed lead to a new concept called base production cost. That’s basically what the good would cost to produce if no bonuses would be involved and any input goods would also be purchased at base production cost. Through this we can now calculate many things: what cities are willing to pay for goods when they need it & what they want for them when they sell them, what you have to pay your workers to produce goods, etc.

Overall the new economy seems a lot more fair & producing goods has a bit more predictability. It’s also now more apparent that some businesses become people-centric while others are input-good heavy. Depending on your game, which is which will change, and that ads a bit more complexity in understanding what to prioritize throughout the game.

Button mashing or cocktail sipping

A highly-requested feature was the ability to play the game in real time mode. Many players are familiar with the Port Royale series, Patrician 3 and Sid Meier’s: Pirates! These games have been the main inspiration for High Seas as well! One of the things they had in common while High Seas lacked, was that they were real time games. That changes today! In High Seas, High Profits! you can now switch between Real Time and Turn Based mode at any time!

Enjoy a high pace sim with multiple speed levels or switch to TBS and sip on a Martini. Or ale. You can sip on ale, right?

Power to the people!

The game’s demo is now public! I always intended for High Seas to have a public demo & limit the demo to some kind of predefined experience + period in time, but not to guard away mechanics. For now, this experience will be the Beta Challenge! This first step guides players through the basic mechanics & helps establish the first business + first convoys. If you want to dig deeper, you can! The sim runs for 4 in-game years, which should be plenty to complete the challenge and get a feel for the game. Two more campaigns will be release soon, giving even more insight into how different mechanics from the game work.

Waves, hills and godrays

I’ve been postponing the visual v3 update for a while, but the time for it is now. I love clean, almost vector art aesthetics and I hope I managed to capture that with the most recent changes. I really wanted there to be godrays and I managed to cobble up some pretty cool ones. They could be improved, but they’re still pretty fun.

There are a few more visual upgrades I had in mind, but this’ll have to do for now since there are more pressing things at hand.

I challenge you to a duel! (not really a duel)

The beta challenge was meant to be a fun little activity for the Discord community during the closed alpha+beta, but I decided to open it up and give more people a shot. In short: play the game, complete the beta challenges in-game (which acts like a mini-tutorial) and get a chance to win a copy of the game! Moreover, fastest to do it (in-game time) is guaranteed a copy!

The beta challenge will be improved and become the tutorial soon, so take your shot now, while it’s still active.

Oh, just so I don’t forget - if you ever get stuck during the challenge, fear not! I actually played through the entire challenge, and made a video! Here it is:

This is all on you

Lastly, I wanted to thank everyone who’s checked out the game, everyone who’s submitted even the tiniest piece of feedback, everyone who’s ever wishlisted the game. Your thoughts, struggles and awesome ideas have helped this little game grow so much! You’re awesome, and I can’t wait to show you all what I’ve planned next! No spoilers this time.

Happy trading,

Lexy.