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Further Amberlodge Playtest Post-Mortem

Today I thought I’d look more closely at one of the things I gleaned from my recent build-as-I-go playtest of Amberlodge.  Specifically, the input parameters for Processor cards, and how I need to tailor those to the outputs of the Producer cards.  My confirmation bias had me looking at the cards and continually returning a faulty confirmation of bad logic.


The big picture takeaway is that because I was thinking about the resource conversion chain from the standpoint of Ratios, I forgot that you need to divide out the common factors to get the least common denominator, because concentrating a solution (9Water1Sugar) only removes excess (Water), it doesn’t add the target resource (Sugar).  And, consequently, that I need to tailor the input requirements of the Processors, because I’d set them up based on that faulty logic.  A fermentation card that accepts water with a higher sugar concentration shouldn’t be set up to accept 10 units of a solution to which sugar has somehow been added (8Water2Sugar) but 5 units of a solution where water has been removed (4Water1Sugar).  That’s not to say there can’t be a large fermentor that for some reason accepts two 5-unit batches of (4Water1Sugar), but that can’t be the default, otherwise you can’t start fermenting until you have distilled two batches of Maple Sap.  Again, maybe I want to inject that challenge, but for proof of concept, that’s counter-effective.


This has also sparked a couple of other possibilities for me.  One is how these resources are tracked.  I’ve been loathe to reduce the granularity of resources, but I shouldn’t rule out lots as cards, perhaps with clips since they’ll move around so often.  So a maple tree produces a card that starts out with clips at the 1 hashmark for sugar, and the 9 hashmark for water.  Since I dislike clips in tabletop, I could also go bolder: Have each Lot be represented by A) a card in a fixed location, where tokens can be placed on tracks to indicate amounts and B) A token tied to that Lot which moves from card to card to represent that Lot’s progress in processing.  Worth examining, could greatly cut down on the number of components, even if it doesn’t chop down cost.


One last thought on Amberlodge I want to get out of my brain: Something I keep wishing for in Stardew is the ability to improve the things I build.  I loooooove that you can fertilize the soil for planting, and that your hives produce different kinds of honey based on what flowers they’re near.  But I’d also love to be able to improve or alter all the other resource converters in the game.  So why not build that into Amberlodge? I should look at actions that better automate the Processor cards, or change their output, or that improve/change the yield for Producer cards.  Go beyond the source material.


That’s enough words for now.  Until next week.

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