Today’s Mechanic Monday is a little different, because this mechanic is muuuuuch fuzzier than the last couple. It’s got a couple different directions it could go, but that potential is less fun than for the Action Wheel or the Conflict Chips because it’s actively getting in the way of my current design. So today’s post is as much about talking out the problem, as it is sharing something shiny and fun and new.
So I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley. As in, I bought a laptop this month specifically so that I could play Stardew, and so that my wife could play the Sims. This is my first time buying a computer in… 12 years. Games, they motivate us! Or something. My sister plays, and I first tried the game on her Switch when I visited her last month, and a couple of my friends play it, and something that stuck with me was someone describing a playthrough as “I’m just building a maple syrup farm” and honestly that sounded terrific to me. *I* wanted to build a maple syrup farm. All these years later, I have. Stardew’s very fun, and I like the amount of growing, crafting/development, and scaling up of your resource engine.
Two more little things. A few years back, Trader Joe’s sold cartons of “maple water”, supposedly the sap straight from a sugarmaple tree, the precursor to syrup. I liked the idea more than the product itself. Trader Joe’s discontinued it pretty quickly. A few years after that, a friend on FB shares photos of the syrup he made on his rural Illinois property. I thought about how maybe somewhere in between being water and syrup, the sap might be good for brewing beer. Can you brew beer from maple sap, I wondered? People make mead by adding honey to water, can you just cut out the middle man? And if you can make light alchohol, can you distill it into hard liquor?
That’s what’s been kicking around in my head for the last week or so. A solo game, about a guy who’s retreated to the woods, to a little log cabin, determined to farm and distill his way out of debt, and sort out his life after the chaotic upheaval of a rough couple of years.
All of which brings us to today’s mechanic: Refining!
Refining
The player acquires one lot, a set amount of mixed resources from a primary producing source, in a set ratio: 8 of x, 2 of y. They can take actions to remove x or y from this set; once the ratio of the lot has reached a particular recipe (2:1 x:y) all the remaining resources in the lot can be converted into a different product and sold off.
In Amber Lodge (extremely working title), the sap you pull from a maple tree is 9 water, 1 sugar. You can place this lot in an Evaporator, and spend actions to remove water from the Lot. Doing so reduces the ratio of water to sugar. Once it reaches a 1:1 ratio, you can replace all those waters and sugars with syrup, and sell that off. Or, prior to that, when the lot is at a 3:1 ratio, you can move the lot to a fermenter, and take actions to convert 1 sugar and 1 water into 2 alchohol. Perhaps you’ll then end up with a lot containing 2 water and 2 alchohol. You could sell that as beer, or move the lot to a still, then take actions to remove water from the lot until all that remains is pure alchohol, which you could sell as whisky
Here’s some pictures!
Does that help? I’ve been told gamers are visual people. Repeatedly.
Worth noting: I feel the need to say “Turns 1x1y into 1y” instead of “Remove 1x” because… otherwise what’s to stop you from putting beer in an evaporator to remove water? Which I need to prevent because, that’s not how alchohol works (it’s literally the opposite). It’s not a big wrench to throw into people’s understanding of how a function works, and it clarifies what you can and can’t use a function for.
Anyway. I’m a bit torn on whether this mechanic should use bags of cubes or decks of cards; I think the Evaporator and Still functions will always be cards, but that the resources can be either cubes (as pictured above) or cards (which allow for a lot more information and keywords). And the ratios have given me trouble, but actually typing all this up and making the pictures has clarified it for me. Anyway, lots of ways to use this refining mechanic. You could retheme it for mineral or data mining, you could use it in a game to catch and turn intelligence assets; in Amber Lodge, I picture that you can eventually add refined lots, or add pure water or sugar back into the process (if you have a surplus of sugar but need to make more beer for instance). Lots of room to do things.
Okay gonna go make some mockup cards now.
So I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley. As in, I bought a laptop this month specifically so that I could play Stardew, and so that my wife could play the Sims. This is my first time buying a computer in… 12 years. Games, they motivate us! Or something. My sister plays, and I first tried the game on her Switch when I visited her last month, and a couple of my friends play it, and something that stuck with me was someone describing a playthrough as “I’m just building a maple syrup farm” and honestly that sounded terrific to me. *I* wanted to build a maple syrup farm. All these years later, I have. Stardew’s very fun, and I like the amount of growing, crafting/development, and scaling up of your resource engine.
Two more little things. A few years back, Trader Joe’s sold cartons of “maple water”, supposedly the sap straight from a sugarmaple tree, the precursor to syrup. I liked the idea more than the product itself. Trader Joe’s discontinued it pretty quickly. A few years after that, a friend on FB shares photos of the syrup he made on his rural Illinois property. I thought about how maybe somewhere in between being water and syrup, the sap might be good for brewing beer. Can you brew beer from maple sap, I wondered? People make mead by adding honey to water, can you just cut out the middle man? And if you can make light alchohol, can you distill it into hard liquor?
That’s what’s been kicking around in my head for the last week or so. A solo game, about a guy who’s retreated to the woods, to a little log cabin, determined to farm and distill his way out of debt, and sort out his life after the chaotic upheaval of a rough couple of years.
All of which brings us to today’s mechanic: Refining!
Refining
The player acquires one lot, a set amount of mixed resources from a primary producing source, in a set ratio: 8 of x, 2 of y. They can take actions to remove x or y from this set; once the ratio of the lot has reached a particular recipe (2:1 x:y) all the remaining resources in the lot can be converted into a different product and sold off.
In Amber Lodge (extremely working title), the sap you pull from a maple tree is 9 water, 1 sugar. You can place this lot in an Evaporator, and spend actions to remove water from the Lot. Doing so reduces the ratio of water to sugar. Once it reaches a 1:1 ratio, you can replace all those waters and sugars with syrup, and sell that off. Or, prior to that, when the lot is at a 3:1 ratio, you can move the lot to a fermenter, and take actions to convert 1 sugar and 1 water into 2 alchohol. Perhaps you’ll then end up with a lot containing 2 water and 2 alchohol. You could sell that as beer, or move the lot to a still, then take actions to remove water from the lot until all that remains is pure alchohol, which you could sell as whisky
Here’s some pictures!
Does that help? I’ve been told gamers are visual people. Repeatedly.
Worth noting: I feel the need to say “Turns 1x1y into 1y” instead of “Remove 1x” because… otherwise what’s to stop you from putting beer in an evaporator to remove water? Which I need to prevent because, that’s not how alchohol works (it’s literally the opposite). It’s not a big wrench to throw into people’s understanding of how a function works, and it clarifies what you can and can’t use a function for.
Anyway. I’m a bit torn on whether this mechanic should use bags of cubes or decks of cards; I think the Evaporator and Still functions will always be cards, but that the resources can be either cubes (as pictured above) or cards (which allow for a lot more information and keywords). And the ratios have given me trouble, but actually typing all this up and making the pictures has clarified it for me. Anyway, lots of ways to use this refining mechanic. You could retheme it for mineral or data mining, you could use it in a game to catch and turn intelligence assets; in Amber Lodge, I picture that you can eventually add refined lots, or add pure water or sugar back into the process (if you have a surplus of sugar but need to make more beer for instance). Lots of room to do things.
Okay gonna go make some mockup cards now.
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