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Exercise Results: Sucess! For Amberlodge

A short post today as it’s been a long-ass week and I’ve got a packed schedule for tomorrow so I’m trying to conserve energy.  EDIT: I didn’t get this written in time, and now it’s somehow Sunday again.  Hooray for Time, #1 Bastard Extraordinaire.

I did indeed attempt what I set out to do in my last post: I sat down (on the floor!) with my iPad hanging off a chair above me, all my utterly un-matching example components before me, and last month’s playlist in my ears, and I talked to myself and played, building as I went, for a couple of turns, which took about 40 minutes, though my attempt to record myself only captured about 23 minutes of that, because iPad stupid.  It was weird, it felt foolish, and it was still kind of fun, and definitely useful in terms of showing me where the gaps between presumption and reality were.  Some key takeaways:

  • Four actions per turn does not feel like a lot, particularly if you have to spend an action to move things, which feels profoundly unsexy.
  • On the flip side, 12 full months to every round feels very long.  Is there a world where I increase the length of each turn / decrease the breakdown? Four seasons is easy, but feels TOO simplified.  How about… Instead of the twelve months, do six two-month sections? Heart of Winter, Early Spring, Late Spring, Height of Summer, Early Autumn, Late Autumn
  • The processor cards need to have their [input accepted amounts] updated to accommodate the proper amounts.  Specifically, a brewing vat that requires 20% sugar needs to be able to accept a lot of 1 sugar and 4 water, because if it specifically requires 2 sugar and 8 water, but a maple tree only ever gives out 1 sugar and 9 water per production, you have to refine AND combine lots in order to meet the processing requirement.  Simplify the ratio, least common denominator.
  • Slots need to be further elaborated on.  Because time should be as much of a challenge as it currently is, but also more of an ally.  I need to have slots that can only be filled in by actions (this unexplored land won’t discover itself), slots that can only be filled in by time (you can’t make wine age faster), and slots that can be both (water evaporates slowly over time, but can be sped up if you expend the energy on an evaporator)

Not a bad amount of data to come out of such a simple exercise.  And I’m certainly glad that I didn’t build everything before making these realizations.  What a fuck in the face that would have been.  I need to adjust my to-do lists accordingly, and keep building as I go.  A very useful and fruitful reminder.

So much for a short post! That’s it for this week, see you in the week that starts in five and a third hours.

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