All posts tagged with "lord palmerstoke’s recent expedition just returned with an enormous crate with one of those keep calm and carry on posters stuck to it"

The State Of The Empire

So January!  Hello!  We’ve been working on Clockwork Empires for – I feel safe to say now – a fairly long time.  There’s a lot of code in there, and you guys haven’t been able to play it yet.  We all wish that weren’t the case, so I guess I should tell you what we’re doing about it.

THIS IS MY LIFE.

THIS IS MY LIFE NOW.

Mid-December to the present was mostly a write-off due to familial obligations, plague, and stress relief in various forms, but some secret work was undertaken on the dreaded UI.  It was sort of like that montage in the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf leaves in the middle of the battle to go read some dusty scrolls in Gondor, except that was David, and it was a copy of The Elements of User Experience.  Suffice it to say that things are looking much better in that department.  Our loose framework of “technically sufficient” programmer tools are starting to actually indicate what they’re for.  It’s pretty cool, and a surprisingly laborious and meticulous job.

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From The Humble Loading Bay All Things Follow

At some point last week we decided that what Clockwork Empires really needs is loading bays. You know, that bit of a building trucks back onto to load and unload goods. No, really. And it’s going to be great!

This is not some sign of utter mundanity, rather, it’s one intersection in a web of interlocking game systems which are forming in Clockwork Empires. And it’ll be key to so much more than a hole in the wall your labourers toss crates through; No, this is Exciting Logistics! This is how everything fits together through space and time, how the labour of your fickle characters is turned, by use of machines and production structures, into valuable commodities which may be improve the well-being of your colony, be used to construct massive factories — or weapons, or perhaps sold off for the greater glory of the Royal Charter Antipodean Trading Company and The Empire. (And that’s why I love Exciting Logistics so much!)

stockpile/logistics

Logistics! Excitement! (This is what happens if you put a lot of effort into cleaning up your concept art. And I admit, I’d totally play a game that looked like this, distribution arrows and all.)

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