Greetings fellow Vikings!
This part of the devlog will be devoted to the mechanics describing collection and processing of collected resources. From basic and vital resources to fancy and rarest materials like Damascus steel, our development team strives to reflect the real conditions and methods that the Vikings used to obtain and process their materials.
The design of each of the production chains is preceded by an in-depth historical research. Thanks to many hours spent with various historical sources, we can faithfully reproduce the entire process - of course, as much as the game mechanics allow us to ;)
From obtaining the resource to creation of the final product, the entire procedure has been carefully designed to reflect the spirit of a functioning Viking settlement as closely as possible.
All sources of the materials obtained during the game are based on the actual deposits that existed at that time. For example, bog iron, essential for the production of iron, is mined in swamps as it was in reality. Of course, all deposits have a limited amount of resources they contain, and their availability and abundance of minerals depends on the map on which the game is played. For example, a settlement built on the "Birka" map will offer easier access to water and more building space than the mountainous "Kaupang" area, which in turn is richer in stone deposits. Sometimes players aiming to gather specific resources will need to work in various ways like trading or plundering.
The player will be able to adapt his playstyle to the conditions on the map. The selection of appropriate production chains, control over the resource flow and use of available raw materials will allow for the effective utilization of the riches of each area.
The resources available in the game can be divided into several categories in terms of their purpose and rarity. The first category will be food, which includes both basic products obtained in the first stages of the game, such as mushrooms or blackberries, to items that require production, such as bread or mead. This category also includes all commodities required to produce food, such as wheat.
Building materials are another category of raw resources. Starting with the basic ones, such as clay, wood or stone, and ending with those requiring production, such as iron, which is also an industrial resource - used in the production of various goods.
Industrial items and resources, such as the aforementioned iron, will serve in the production chains as required elements to create a finished product.
Luxury goods and armaments, both weapons and armor, make up the bundle of end products on which the resource processing chain closes. Thus, in the simplest way, the production of goods can be represented in several steps: obtaining raw materials - processing raw materials - creating a product.
Introducing you to the whole range of developer tasks that make up the design of the above-mentioned production chains, the following stages of work are presented:
1. Research on historical sources - the first point of design. Here we check how the processing of a specific resource looked like in the times of the Vikings.
2. Next comes creating the basic logic simulation:
After that we implement the idea on the model and tweak the mechanics to fit in our game.
Thank you for your interest in seeing how the resource design process works! We hope that the material was interesting and brought you a little closer to the details of working on Viking City Builder.