#37 – ROOMS (1/3)
16 NOVEMBER -
QFASA
It’s been a while since we last spoke about the Spire itself – the different rooms, and their purposes. Over the last two weeks, this part of the game has been in our focus as we continue to implement different layers of game mechanics. Today, we’d like to bring you up to date to where we are, in terms of our current plans for this part of the game.
But before we dive in, we’d like to explain the approach of “
scoping” that we apply in our development efforts.
There’s the old truth that “
one can never really finish a book; one can only stop working on it”. True to this saying, we still regularly add new content and new features to our previous game Gremlins, Inc. that we released over three years ago: as long as we have time, we will continue to develop it further.
With a game like Spire of Sorcery, it’s the same story – the list of possible features and content is nearly endless. This presents a certain risk: as our plans become more ambitious, our release date may be pushed further and further; and this is where “scoping” saves us.
Whenever we talk about a particular part of the game, we never plan for “the final version”; rather, we plan only for the next stage – the Early Access version that we expect to launch in a few months. And when we plan, we ask ourselves three questions:
- Is this feature within the scope of the current part of the trilogy that we develop?
- Is this feature really necessary for the next stage of the game?
- Is there a way to make it in a simpler way at first?
Thus, for example, when we considered the opportunity to send and to receive gifts – including some that would be threatening or cursed – we all agreed that it’s a great fit for the
next part in the series, where politics and interaction with other Spires is at the core.
And when we recently reviewed
trading as a feature, we decided to move it to the “after Early Access” stage, because you can already finish the current main campaign without it.
Finally, when we went through the mechanics of
healing, we saw that we can release in Early Access even without a dedicated Hospital room in the Spire, starting at first with a simplified healing mechanics.
We hope that this explanation helps you to better understand our approach to development. We like to move in small steps, and we plan our work around the goal of releasing in Early Access as soon as we can. Who knows, what extra features Spire of Sorcery will have one year after launch? We prefer avoid distractions by staying focused on features and content that are absolutely critical to reach the next stage as early as we can, and then we’ll see!
And now, let’s talk about the rooms:
THE STRUCTURE
Throughout the game, you make a lot of decisions in different areas. Setting aside quests (that unfold beyond the walls of the Spire), there’s research, magic, alchemy and other areas that require your attention in order to advance the main campaign.
All the actions that belong to the same area, are organized as one “room” section – a separate part of the game’s interface that offers information, upgrade options and tasks to manage. Each such room offers you a particular perspective into the current state of your Spire, exposing problems and presenting opportunities.
BUILDING ROOMS AND ARRANGING ITEMS INSIDE OF THEM
Earlier in this blog, we shared our vision about building rooms and then arranging items inside of them: rather than add “5 efficiency” to a Library, we eventually want you to produce or acquire an actual candle-holder, and then to place it into the actual room, seeing it lit up as its efficiency increases.
Recently, we decided to push this feature back to the period after the Early Access launch: while this part of the game promises to be fun, the underlying mechanics can be done in a more basic form, helping us to release the game in Early Access earlier.
At the time of the Early Access launch, you are able to spend resources and magic energy on improving efficiency of rooms as well as their capacity – in a rather straightforward manner.
Then, at some point after the Early Access launch, we plan to add the opportunity to build the actual rooms. Thus, you will be able to have several rooms of the same type and manage these rooms separately. For example, you may want to have a small Library with very high efficiency – reserved for selected few among your disciples; and a larger Library for everyone else. As for now, we mark this advanced feature as being “out of scope” for the Early Access launch.
THE SCOPE
Overall, our game designer’s vision calls for 24 different rooms in the Spire. We plan to have 10 of the rooms available at the time of the Early Access launch, with the further 14 added along the way with major updates between the Early Access and the full release versions (plus the option to upgrade the Spire’s defense).
Rooms that we plan to finish
before we launch in Early Access:
- Mage Suite
- Living Quarters
- Classroom
- Library
- Laboratory
- Workshop
- Alchemic Studio
- Kitchen
- Warehouse
- Magic Energy Storage
Rooms that we plan to add
after we launch in Early Access:
- Mess Hall
- Hospital
- Prison
- Meditation Room
- Game Room
- Practice Hall
- Observatory
- Glasshouse
- Cavern
- Kennels
- Treasury
- Portal
- Distorted Room
- Slumber Chamber
In the same period we plan to add the option to manage the defense of the Spire (by building a moat, erecting a watchtower, adding animals and creatures outside the walls, etc.).
Let’s look at the first 3 rooms that we currently work on:
MAGE SUITE
This is the room where your mage works from.
Upgrades available:
Efficiency.
Because there can be only one mage in the Spire, there is no opportunity to increase the capacity of this room (even though I, personally, still hope that at some point we will be able to add the space for mage’s familiar creature).
Information:
(1) biographies of every disciple as revealed in interviews upon their arrival;
(2) personal notes that players can make about every disciple (for example, writing down suspicions of possible traits or skills);
(3) personal event logs of every disciple i.e. the short history of everything that happened to this character since their arrival to the Spire.
Actions:
This is where your mage can perform
magic rituals.
Policies:
(1) this is where you establish the Traditions of the Spire (a set of rules that apply to all disciples, such as whether they wear uniforms or not, whether they must give up all of their personal inventory items to the Spire upon arrival, and so on);
(2) this is where you set the mage’s personal and the Spire’s overall daily schedules.
LIVING QUARTERS
This is the room where disciples spend their time off.
Upgrades available:
Efficiency. Capacity.
Capacity of Living Quarters defines the number of disciples who can sleep comfortably in their beds. Any disciples whom you accept above that capacity will have to sleep on the floors until you expand the room further, which will affect their rest negatively.
As to efficiency, this determines how well do they rest while they sleep.
Resources:
Each disciple has their own “personal chest” with their private inventory. These chests are separate from the Spire’s main Warehouse. This screen also includes your own, mage’s, personal chest.
Actions:
This is where you can transfer inventory between the Spire’s Warehouse and personal chests of different characters, giving gifts or taking things away from specific disciples.
This is also where can expel disciples from the Spire.
Policies:
This is where you define the rules of what happens to personal items of characters that die or disappear. It may sound like a small matter, but it actually matters a lot to some your disciples, whether their chests will be “buried with them” or “looted by their peers”.
CLASSROOM
This is the room where disciples study. This is also where you examine disciples when you want to invest time and effort into uncovering their skill values.
Upgrades available:
Efficiency. Capacity.
Actions:
This is where you can assign the roles of teachers and students to various disciples.
To be effective as teachers, characters need a fully developed secondary skill of Teaching (it belongs to the primary skill of Social Magic) as well as a high level of the specific skill in which they plan to teach.
As to students, their progress is determined by their interest in the skill being taught (as you may recall, we have 5 levels of interest: from “very much interested” down to “very much not interested”) as well as their learning disposition for the particular skill (which is a value based on two primary stats responsible for this skill).