Path to Prosperity · published
It’s been a while since the last post, but many things have happened in the development, and there are new versions of the game both on the regular and on the experimental branches.
First off, the game has been upgraded to a much newer version of Unity to address the Unity vulnerability recently found - I am sure by now you have read about this in the various blogs of half the games you play, so I won’t go further into it - but Path to Prosperity has also been updated in accordance. This version of the game is on the regular branch, but it is otherwise fairly unchanged.
Secondly, the version currently on the experimental branch now has the settlement development mechanics as well as research added to them. This means players now start off without access to all buildings, and have to unlock them as the game progresses. For now, I have only locked buildings behind research, but the plan is for additional recipes, building improvements, trade improvements, and player equipment to also be unlockable with research.
Research is done with a new currency, which exists per settlement. Settlement upgrades are done per settlement, but research unlocks happen for all settlements. The new currency, which I still called “development points” in my last post is now called “prosperity”, which I think works pretty well, as each settlement’s prosperity determines what can be built and researched in it - and it also works nicely with the game’s name itself ;).
You can gain prosperity by building the “general goods” store in range of as many villagers as possible, and providing it with different luxury goods. I have over 20 luxury goods planned for the end of 0.9, but for now, only furniture exists of the planned ones, so I have also added linen, stone, flour, iron and gold bars as goods to provide for the time being.
Finally, I have also added the commander’s house (today’s image) as a settlement's administrative hub. The house has a bed that allows the player to recover their health at no cost, and its inventory is save from villagers taking things away, so players can use it to store their medicine, ammo, foods, etc. Research can be done from the house’s office, though I will add additional management mechanics in the office in the future as well, e.g. seeing the current settlement’s production and consumption stats. Additionally, the house has 2 “garden” slots that can be unlocked with prosperity. Each slot can be set to bananas, vegetables, or flax, and can be harvested by the player only.
The research podium
The next step will be to balance the game for the new research mechanic, so any feedback will be appreciated. I will keep you updated.
Until next time!