Apparently the creators of the Yogscast read this blog. Hello! They didn’t like the fact that we made it a bit harder to get to a thousand colonists. So we’ve thought about it… and we’re going to make it A LOT harder to recruit 1000 colonists! :)
Our idea to add copper, bronze and steel to the game received a very enthusiastic response. We wanted to use the new metals to add some small items like cups, plates and jewellery. But we didn’t want to make them just be cosmetic – they needed to serve some purpose. We’ve thought about adding “happiness” to the game but we couldn’t think of a way to make it fun and easily understandable.
What we’re probably going to do is add these new small items to the cost of recruiting colonists. To prevent the game from becoming too complicated in the first phase of the game, the cost will increase when you reach certain amounts of colonists. And to prepare people for the increasing costs, we will add new ‘researchables’ that increase the colonist limit. So imagine something like this:
Colonist Limit I – Increases colonist limit from 30 to 50, adds copper tools to the colonist recruitment cost
Items required to complete research: 30 copper tools
Colonist Limit II – Increases the limit to 75, adds tin tableware to the cost
Required items: 50 sets of tin tableware
Colonist Limit III – Increases the limit to 100, adds clothing to the cost
Required items: 75 pieces of clothing
Edit: These numbers for the researches are much WIP - we haven't tested it yet so we have no proper idea of what would be balanced limits. It may be 30-50-100-200-infinite, it may be 80-250-500-infinite. There definitely will be a 'Remove limit' research.
Server hosts will be able to disable some of these researchables to limit the amount of colonists per player.
Currently, the game suffers from rapid exponential expansion. Setting up a colony can be slow in the beginning, but when people have lots of farmers and use new colonists as extra farmers, the growth can become very quick. The increasing recruitment costs should slow down this growth, increase the diversity of required jobs and add to the depth, content and complexity of the game.
How we choose what to work on
We’ve received a lot of suggestions, and we definitely want to implement a lot of them. But while people are asking us to add stairs, doors and PVP, we’re working on adding bronze and scientists. Why?!
When an emergency or a war happens, a concept called "triage" is used. There are often more injured persons than medical personnel and resources. Doctors have to decide who gets treated first and who will have to wait. They try to determine where their efforts get the most results. People who will probably live, whether they receive medical care or not, are not a high priority. But those who are very likely to die aren’t a priority either. Patients that have problems where quick medical assistance makes a huge positive difference are the highest priority.
While game development is very different from medical care, we do feel like we're using some kind of "triage". We’re just two developers, and only one of us can program. And there are way more things that would be good to add to the game than can be created by us in a couple of months. Steam Workshop support, a Mac port, improved multiplayer, new monsters, new cosmetic blocks, new guards, extra banners to extend the area where monsters don’t spawn, stairs, windows, doors, more jobs, more interesting biomes, controller support, splitscreen, console releases, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
We have to determine what features we will work on first. And like doctors, we start where we can have the biggest positive difference in the shortest time. There are four criteria that we use to choose which features have priority:
How much gameplay does it add?
Adding scientists and increasing the recruitment cost of colonists for big colonies adds a lot of things you will have to produce before you’ve seen all content. Adding doors will make a minor cosmetic difference, but doesn’t really extend gameplay.
How long will we have to work to add it?
Adding new metals requires me, the non-programmer, to make some extra textures and icons, and doesn’t require lots of effort from our programmer. Doors that can be properly opened by both players and colonists, making sure they work in multiplayer too and that they’re saved properly, requires a lot more effort.
How will it affect performance?
Stronger monsters will actually improve performance, because rendering a smaller amount of strong monsters is easier than rendering a bigger amount of weak monsters. Growing crops use a lot more resources than static ores.
How will it affect future updates?
The recent science-update might not mean much by itself, but it will be used a lot in other updates. It will be used to unlock new jobs, new options and new items. The gradual unlocking will also improve the experience for new players, by not overwhelming them with unnecessary options, and giving them a way to explore the game step by step.
Something like first person animations will actually make future game development slower. When all items and blocks have first person animations, players will expect them for new updates like crossbows and rifles as well.
If your suggestion is simple to add, provides a lot of extra gameplay, doesn’t negatively impact the performance and works well with future updates, we’re very likely to add it soon.
If your suggestion takes a lot of development time, has mainly cosmetic benefits, significantly hampers the performance and makes future development harder, it’s very low on our priority list…
Features that have been demanded by the community that we’re currently working on:
- New, stronger monsters
- Making mazes less effective
- New guards
- More content, depth and complexity
Features that are often demanded and that we definitely want to add in future updates:
- Secondary banners to extend the area where monsters don’t spawn
- Stairs
- A menu where players have more control over which jobs should be done and which shouldn’t
- PVP
- More advanced multiplayer / anti griefing measures
- Mac/console port
Now you know what we’re working on, what we’re going to work on, and why we’re doing it this way. Perhaps it has inspired you to think of new suggestions – we’d love to hear them!
Thanks for reading this – we think it’s the longest blog post until now!