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.

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.

I have been enjoying working on the setting for “Dwarf King” with Ashton recently. It is interesting work, because having to build a game around Dwarves means that we have to figure out how their society fits into the game mechanics and the story setting. And it is hard work, because Dwarves sometimes seem like something of a “joke race” in fantasy. Once you think a little bit about how they live, many of the things which are “classically Dwarven” don’t really make much sense.

For instance, why would an underground race used to fighting goblins arm themselves with massive axes and warhammers? Both weapons would be highly impractical in constrained tunnels, and neither of them are particularly superior to other weapons against unarmored opponents. If the Dwarves of the deep tunnels had any military sense, they would be arming themselves with short swords to supplement pole arms and spears (a shieldwall of armored men presenting a hedge of spearpoints would make for a very difficult opponent in a narrow tunnel).

Fortunately, we do have the freedom to build our world how we feel like, and in this case, our Dwarves don’t fight much underground (although they still live there – underground based cities are good for protection). In this case, we have chosen to go for an (approximated) late iron-age level of technology and a Norse style of warfare. Obviously, the latter fits well with the common imagination of Dwarves, seeing as how many of the tropes are fetched from Norse roots in the first place.

In our world, then, the core of the Dwarf army, then, becomes the class of professional soldiers – paid for and maintained by the player (monarch) and nobles. These are heavily armored men; covered with in mail armor from head to foot, as illustrated in our concept image for a typical warrior to the right. Good mail armor is an excellent protection; it is not a coincidence that mail was used for almost two millennia, despite the significant cost of producing it. The armament is a mix of swords and battle axes (of both the one-handed and two-handed variety). In above ground fighting, battle axes clearly have their place, particularly as an effective anti-cavalry weapon (as the Normans and Franks discovered when they came up against them). Having that capability is convenient when your own forces have no effective cavalry component. Swords are a versatile weapon eminently suited to a well-armored soldier expecting to fight in a shield wall. Both weapons have their place in the hird of the Dwarf King.

The professional soldiers are supplemented by a small force of rangers and/or scouts. These are the Dwarfs who patrol the countryside surrounding the Dwarfheald for you, keeping an eye out for ogres and goblins and pesky elves sneaking around. Being reliant on mobility, they tend to wear little or no armor. Their primary weaponry is a crossbow; supplemented by a small light axe or sword.

Combined with the talents of your nobles, the warriors and the scouts form the core of the player’s force when going out on adventures and provides you with both devastating offensive force (warriors with two-handed axes are forced to sacrifice the protection of their shields), a powerful defensive component (well-armored warriors capable of forming a shieldwall ), as well as ranged support (crossbows).

If your Dwarves go to war, however, you’ll need to call out the levy. Given that we are dealing with a society that doesn’t practice slavery, the vast majority of your people will be peasants: farmers, miners, and craftsmen. These are not professional soldiers, and are consequently neither as well armed or well trained as your warrior core. In a more established Dwarfheald, a larger proportion of the levy might be able to afford or have inherited an old set of mail armor, but your people are refugees and the vast majority will have left such unessential weight behind as they fled. Consequently, the levy will generally be unarmored, with a helmet, shield, and long spear making up their main armament.

As a player, one of the decisions you will need to make is the balance between expensive professional warriors in your settlement and the extent to which you rely on the levy for safety, as well as the extent you spend resources on strengthening the levy (by purchasing/constructing better arms and armor) versus spending the fortifications of your home. Finally, when facing an external threat or a dangerous situation, whether to hide in your fortifications, march out to meet them with the full muster, or attempt to strike surgically with your elite forces.

In my New Year’s post, I teased two new projects, one of which is a game with the working title of “Dwarf King”, so what is it? Well – one of the things I have been wanting to do, is to reuse the choose-your-own adventure/RPG system I’ve built in other projects, and “Dwarf King” is the first attempt to do so. As in “Pirates and Traders”, you as the player will generate a character with three stats, multiple skills (though only 9 – I’ve streamlined the system further compared to the one in P&T), and buy, sell and craft items. The setting, however, is a fantasy world, your resources workers and soldiers, and your enemies goblins, men, and elves.

In “Dwarf King”, you play a young Dwarf Prince (or Princess) forced to take the crown after the fall of their ancestral home. Assisted by a motley collection of nobles, warriors, and artificers, you will lead the remnants of your people south over the mountains to try and found a new Dwarf Hall, recover the prosperity of your people, and maybe even in time strike back at your foe.

It will not be easy, of course. In addition to the ever-present threat of the Goblins menace that wiped out your home and family, the player will have to contend with the dangers of an unexplored new country and the other races that live in it. The game itself mixes strategy game mechanics with role-playing. The strategy gameplay allows you to allocate your scarce resources; determining the balance of warriors, craft-dwarves and peasants in your kingdom, buying and selling resources, and constructing buildings and fortifications. You will also need to conduct diplomacy and try to forge alliances against the ever-present goblin threat. The role-playing segments allow you to take your character out on adventures: exploring the land, raiding with a small party of warriors, or waging all out war with the entire fyrd of your Dwarfheald. The non-combat sections play out as small Choose-Your-Own-Adventures, with the player’s skills, reputation, and the history of your Kingdom having a significant impact on the result. Combat is intended to be resolved using the Small Battles system. As a player, you will have multiple ways to meet the existential threat to your people, whether you chose the path of a builder and diplomat or as a general and warrior.

Unlike with my previous projects, for “Dwarf King” I will be focusing almost exclusively on the game design and development, and leaving the creative writing to someone else. My partner in this project, and the main writer for “Dwarf King”, is Ashton Saylor. Ashton is a gamebook writer, and a winner of the Windhammer Prize merit award for three consecutive years (2010 – 2012). The story of “Dwarf King” is loosely based on his gamebook “Peledgathol – the Last Fortress“, expanded and extended to take full advantage of dynamic story-telling possible in the digital format. This is an exciting challenge for us both, as we explore the story-telling potential of narrative strategy games.

“Dwarf King” is a big project, but as with “Pirates and Traders”, the plan is to start small and – with your help and support – develop the project to its full potential. I have other projects planned as well for the Story Engine, and in the long-term perspective, I hope to take the mechanisms and ideas developed here to implement other ideas that share some of the same features; perhaps even a bigger and better “Pirates and Traders” sometime in the future.

To keep up to date with development on Dwarf King, like the Facebook page or follow us on Twitter.