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[Propman]

I must say lads, keep up the good work; each new entry in the blog is a delight to read, as per norm. Hearing about possible plans for a large naval/vehicle expansion tickles my interest keenly. With the amount of ways one can approach late 19th century naval warfare, such an expansion could prove to be lengthy indeed; perhaps even worthy of being a game all on its own.

[Citizen Daniel]

Regarding the fish people: definitely. We have to be pretty overt with the tone of the game right now where as we develop the complexity of the systems, we can be more subtle. We've got a bunch of mid-transformation character models for fish people that I can't wait to be able to use

We put up a new blog post today about creating depth in the economic system, and cleaning up some of the UI behavior for building creation. We also put up a hotfix to our patch from 2 weeks ago that cranked up the amount of cult behavior, which wasn't firing properly before.

https://www.gaslampgames.com/2014/10/01/its-the-economy-stupid-and-also-the-building-creator/

[rumpel]

I love DoD and I'd totally love to try out Clockwork Empires, but why does it have to be that expensive? Oh boy, seems like I have to starve a bit next month. :S

[Citizen Daniel]

Yeah, we've talked about this a fair bit since Dredmor was a pretty cheap game, especially at the time.

Pricing video games is a weird subject because when it comes down to it, eventually we price games at the amount we expect the game to be most profitable. The more niche a game is and the more long-form the playstyle is, generally the more expensive it has to be to be able to support the cost of developing it, and Clockwork Empires is a much more expensive game to build than Dungeons of Dredmor was.

There's a lot more nuance to it than that of course, and honestly the worst part of pricing video games is knowing that at any price you're keeping people from being able to afford it.

[Darkmere]

Another big update was folded into main today. I'm relinking here just for David's artwork, but the rest of it's probably a good read, too.

https://www.gaslampgames.com/2014/10/17/clockwork-empires-october-update-midnight-defence-at-skullswamp-arsenal/

[Citizen Daniel]

The title art for the update was done by both David and Joseph Nejat: Joseph does all of our character textures and most of the illustrations for Gaslamp.

This update (Midnight Defense at Skullswamp Arsenal) was big on stability and usability improvements. It's still a little rough around the edges, but it's drastically better than before. Tons of other little things, and some foundational work to build on now with some diversity in the economic system.

[Darkmere]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. My compliments to both fine gentlemen!

[Citizen Daniel]

New blog post up!

Lots of the subtext to the discussions going on in-office right now are really interesting, and they're at least somewhat reflected in the post. There are two systems that are basically at odds with each other right now that are causing a lot of player confusion, which is really bad.  The overarching concept of how the character simulation was designed was: if the characters were sufficiently happy and healthy and well-slept and whatnot, they'd basically do what the player wanted them to do, unless something weird happened.

But what's happening right now is that characters pick what they want to do *all the time*, so if they'd rather mine than build that thing you want, it's really frustrating. This (compounded with a couple of bugs in job assignment) makes the game feel a lot more clunky and unresponsive than it is, as there's always a reason that your characters aren't doing what you want, even though it seems like there isn't.

We're trying out a few different ways that we can give the player much more control over the work of the characters while they're happy. Obviously we're not going to mind-control them, and forcing them to change tasks might make them upset, but it's become clear that we need some more of this sort of control.

https://www.gaslampgames.com/2014/10/29/afflictions-jobs-religion/

[Puzzlemaker]

Maybe to make it more obvious, you could add a "Boredom" stat that could be made visible to the player.  Whenever the colonist does something he/she doesn't want to do, he/she gets boredom.  Eventually the colonist can alleviate it by doing something they enjoy (Rocks!) or drugs.

Just an idea.

[Citizen Daniel]

They've had a concept of loneliness for a while, but you're right, we could totally extend that to other systems.

One of the things we added in today's patch is the ability for the characters to be impacted in their decisions by time of day, which also gives a good pause for "social behavior". Night causing characters to be more social seems to be pretty clear to players, causing them to be less upset by it.

Oh hey! Today's patch! I mean, *cough* “BANDIT ATTACK ON FIGHTIN’ VICAR ZEDOCK WOODBURN’S FRONTIER CHAPEL” (Revision 33)

Probably for me the single coolest thing in the patch today is the ability to create standing orders. Suddenly the settlements can automate a lot of their work (to the player's specification) and there's a LOT less clicking. They're also somewhat less likely to interrupt each other from doing important work to talk about random stuff, so that's good too.

Huge changelog on the blog post, which is here:
https://www.gaslampgames.com/2014/11/19/clockwork-empires-november-update-bandit-attack-on-fightin-vicar-zedock-woodburns-frontier-chapel/

Been trying to cut back a little on forum lurking to actually get more stuff done, but feel free to ask questions if you've got 'em!

[Citizen Daniel]

The December update is done!


(not in-game footage)

Demolishing buildings is finally a thing! Also people turn into fishpeople and there are now artifacts of ancient power. LOTS of work left to do on these systems, but we have top men working on it.

Coincidentally this now marks half a year of monthly updates!

Other changes include a revamping of the military character behavior and their supply mechanic (no more counting bullets), and also a revamping of the Empire prestige system and how it works (which will need some balance because otherwise you'll just end up with a huge, starving military). New animal and character behaviors and tweaks too (hopefully we squashed the bug where characters would run to the edges of the map when spooked for good).

Full changelog is here

[Darkmere]

Man. Real life got in the way for a month or three and it sounds like a completely different game.

[Majestic7]

Played the new version a bit. Intersting as always, but the targeting priority is quite wonky.

I was assaulted by bandits and promptly drafted everyone into militia. My brave soldiers - regular and irregular - immediately spotted the worst threat. It was an Infernal Dodo pretending to be an innocent bird, while really it was the mastermind behind the bandit attack. All colonists started thus chasing the big duck while the bandits merrily looted the colony. This chase led them to the sea, revealing a dozen Deep Ones. They were promptly ignored while everyone concentrated on the birdy. Outrageously, the fishy ones were quite ungentlemanly and ate everyone.

[Ultimuh]

I think this is quite relevant for the current update.
The current season as well.

[inteuniso]

Congratulations on six months!