So, version 2.6.6 of Pirates and Traders has gone out, and no serious new bugs seem to have been introduced beyond the troubles with the locale settings. I’m still seeing reports of OutOfMemory errors in my dashboard though, which is disappointing – I was hoping to put a bigger dent into that problem with a small fix in 2.6.5. We’ll see if that improves over the next couple of weeks, while I prepare the next release.

Work this week has otherwise been focused entirely on Dwarf King. I built up the Fortress UI, decided I didn’t like it, and will soon tear most of the code down to rebuild it in a simpler format. The problem here is that we (Ashton and I) have a lot of ideas that we’d like to put into the resource-management game, but keeping all of the information and decisions visible in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the player is difficult. Think of the trade goods in Pirates and Traders, and imagine that you now also need to administrate the production and consumption of all those goods, as well as build the facilities to produce them, and you’ll get an idea of the difficulty of doing a good interface to this.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to hear what new developments turn up at Google I/O. Something I’ve been hoping for to happen for several years now is the release of GameCenter-like service by Google for Android; that development seems to finally be happening this year, judging from the rumors. There are also strong rumors – supported by a Google I/O session on the topic – that this new service will support multi-player gaming. That would be very good news for Small Battles, which I really consider to be more of a multi-player game than single player. It also means I might dust off some of my old multi-player designs, and see how they fit into my development schedule.

Actually, on second thought, that’s not really positive – I have way more things to do than I have time to do them in. Why does converting an idea to an actual product have to take so much work?

Whew… time passes fast when you’re busy like crazy. I’ve been sharing the past couple of weeks between completing the write-up for the “Hunt for the Treasure Fleet” story line (including testing it – and killing off an innumerable number of pirates), and working on the game framework for my next game(s).

The storyline is completed now, and the game update should be making its way to your phones/tablets. Hope you enjoy it, and may you have better luck against the fleet than I did. Having gone up against them several times, I have some thoughts on how they can be handled, but it requires a lot of luck and a perfect ship and crew. If anyone – ever – manages to take down the entire fleet, please send me an e-mail to let me know. With screenshot evidence.

On the coding front, I’ve been working on the game and user interface code for Dwarf King, as well as testing out a few things on an old design that I’ve had lying around. The latter is necessary, because it lets me see how things work in a slightly different context from the main project, and thus allows me to catch some bugs that I would otherwise not notice. Though I have to say that I am tempted to do something with that spin-off code – perhaps if I get a little free-time after the user interface code for Dwarf King is done. But then again, I have another couple of stories for Pirates and Traders to write too…

Time to get back to work.

With my attention turning towards Dwarf King (and the Small Battle system), I will – of necessity, since I’m only one person – be doing less work on Pirates and Traders in the future. Some of you who have contacted me in the past weeks may already have noticed this – as there have been one or two blips in my responsiveness (though part of that is also simply due to having a newborn in the house again… ). I won’t stop updating Pirates and Traders, but the pace of updates will slow down somewhat (as it already has, to some extent).

One of the sad things about working on Android, is how difficult it is to create modifiable apps. On a PC, it is easy because one can simply place the data files in plain text, and anyone can then modify them as they like and run the game off them. Gaining access to Android resource files, on the other hand, is quite difficult. I have some ideas that I’d like to pursue for future games (perhaps have players enter URIs to new content?), but adding to the existing game… not so easy. However, packaging and releasing new versions is not that time consuming, so in the absence of the time required to rebuild the app, I’m considering another option.

Do you have a starting character background that you would love to see in Pirates and Traders: Gold?  A short adventure idea that you’d like to write? Specific player items or ship modifications that you think would be cool (and which do not unbalance the game)? If you’re  willing to do the work involved in writing them up  and testing them, you’re welcome to pitch your idea on the Facebook page or on the forums and we can take it from there (ideally, prefix the title with [Mod Idea]). If the idea is practical to add (and doesn’t contain objectionable content), and the resulting writing can be wrapped up in story script without too much work, I’ll package it and put it into the game as optional content in whatever update comes next.

Note that I’ll require you to release any writing done in this context as Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (or similar). Any contributions (except player backgrounds), will go into both the free and Gold versions; for player backgrounds we’ll have to see. Any mods will be attributed/credited on the credits page.

So that’s basically it. TLDR; if you’re interested in doing some modding on Pirates and Traders, contact me and let’s see what happens.

No – Dwarf King really doesn’t have a lot to do with Dwarf Fortress. I never managed to get into the game when I had the time, and these days I don’t have the time. But there is an overlap in themes, of course, even though the game play itself has little in common. In terms of inspiration, Dwarf King comes closer to the one of my all-time, favorite games King of Dragon Pass (KODP), with its blend of interactive fiction and resource management.

In Dwarf King (as in KODP), your job is settle the survivors of your Kingdom in a new and dangerous land after a great calamity befalls your people. You will need to overcome predictable obstacles: hostile neighbors, natural disasters, and internal unrest, while leading your people to prosperity and glory. Ultimately, the threat that destroyed your home is still out there, though; and you will have to meet and defeat that threat, or see your new home suffer the same fate as your old.

The player is represented as a character in Dwarf King, defined using a more streamlined version of the role-playing system used in Pirates and Traders. The player’s skill will impact not only the interactive fiction sections, in that the skills of your King will dictate to what extent diplomacy, brute force or cunning are viable solutions to the challenges you face, but also the resource management side of things. Combat in the game will directly involve your player character and can be terminal; get killed in battle, and your game will end along with the life of your character.

Surrounding the player character are his privy council selected from among the most influential and notable Dwarfs – both nobles and peasants. These will help (and sometimes hinder) the player in the work of saving the Kingdom, and can be used to delegate authority (such as being sent out on diplomatic or exploration missions), fill out official government positions, and can be brought along on the missions your character goes out on. In many ways, the latter is not too dissimilar from an adventuring party in an RPG. The only difference is that as the King, you are the one deciding which missions are the most important, so presumably if you send your party out on a rat stomp, you have a good reason.

The game itself is turn-based, with a game year broken down into weekly turns (at least per the current implementation). Each turn that the player character is available, the player can select an action. Different actions takes a variable number of turns, but the player will also have to balance their decisions around the rhythm of the seasons: spring (sowing crops), summer (ideal for mining, quarrying and construction work), autumn (harvest), and winter (the time for crafting, repairs, and preparing for the next year).

In addition to taking direct actions with the player character, the player also gets to adjust how the division of labor between the different activities is managed in the Kingdom. Ideally, the resource model should function in a pretty hands-off manner, as long as the player has sufficient manpower (i.e., doesn’t call out the fyrd in the middle of the sowing season). Where the player decisions really come in is in terms of how to exploit the land (mining, quarrying or farms?), what buildings to construct (defenses or palaces?), and which direction to focus production (weapons or trade goods?). The choices will (or should) depend on what your player character looks like, as well as how the game map (which will be randomly seeded with resources) ends up looking.

I’m working on Dwarf King again at the moment, after a long stint of almost uninterrupted work on Small Battles, so hopefully in the next blog post on the fortress management, I can go a bit more into details on the subject as well as show some in-game screenshots.

Well, I promised to talk about the game mechanics, so I better deliver.

Small Battles is a pretty stylized game, mechanically. It has to be – with each side typically fielding 15 to 20 units. In most ancient battles, that will probably see the standard infantry unit averaging 2000 or 4000 troops. The battlefield will typically be a 5 x 6 grid, meaning that movement is strictly limited. Battles will tend to be over in somewhere between 10 to 15 turns.

The game system itself is a simultaneous turn-based system. Each turn, the player receives a number of command points. The number received is random and varies from turn to turn, but depends on the quality of the army and the ability of the commander. These command points can then be used to issue orders to individual or groups of units. The game provides essentially five ways to spend your commands: to attack, to maneuver, to inspire, to rally, and to issue special orders.

The attack order is pretty straightforward; it essentially orders your forces to attack their highest priority opponent. If a unit doesn’t receive an attack command, it won’t inflict any damage on the enemy even if attacked (they are assumed to be fighting defensively or so ineffectively as to have negligible effect on their opponents). Running out of commands enough to order all your units to attack is probably a bad idea.

The maneuver order is used to order your units to move. Although there will be major variations dependent on unit type, scale, and so on, in general, it is always easy to move units straight ahead, less easy to retreat, and very difficult to move laterally. There is also the option of “force-marching”, trading resilience and commands for speed. Useful, if you just have to seize that hill first. In general, troop redeployment is hard (i.e., expensive) as was the case for much of this period. Pulling off a Cannae or Ilippa is the kind of thing that will only be doable by the great commanders.

The inspire order is essentially a command that allows a player to bestow a combat bonus on an attacking unit. It costs – of course – additional commands – which you may not have that many of to begin with. The effectiveness is also not guaranteed – it depends heavily on the attributes of the leader, as well as the distance the unit is from him (the greater the distance, the less likely the unit is to gain any benefits). Where you place your general matters a great deal in this game.

The rally order is the mechanism that can be used to allow your units to recover some of their resilience and perhaps even attempt to rally routed units. Useful if you have enough units and commands to pull exhausted units out of the battle line, but difficult to use effectively.

The special orders are things like changing formations (e.g., from and to skirmish order), unique unit abilities and similar things that one would tend to use very rarely.

And that’s basically it.

The combat system is pretty straightforward in theory. Each unit gets a number of “dice” to hit its opponents. Differences between unit types, terrain and situation (outflanking, charging, etc) affect the to-hit number, and the number of hits are subtracted from the enemy’s resilience. When a unit’s resilience hits 0, it disintegrates, causing all nearby units to test their morale. The more damaged your army is, the more likely your army is to simply turn and run. Fans of Lost Battles will recognize the basic ideas, although the implementation is different (the older Conquerors and Kings actually has pretty similar mechanics, which arguably are closer to what I’m doing).

The trick with the game mechanics will be to hit that sweet spot where you have six things you absolutely must do, and (often) only three things you can do. Difficult; but that is what tweaking and testing is for. And – of course – adding just enough chrome to the units/game mechanics to make people feel that the system captures the essentials of period warfare.

In the next post, I’ll go over how I distinguish between the different types of units in the game.