Hi Dark, Those are some good points. I hadn't really thought about them before, but you are essentially correct. There are some essential jobs just missing from Castaways such as a cobbler for making shoes or a Taylor for making clothing. The problem is because Castaways is mission based all the jobs work towards a common goal such as building a ship to sail away or to fortify a settlement from monster hoards. What we need is something more like Sim City where we get to design a community from the ground up and watch it grow.
The more I think about it one possible good idea in this direction is a game where you get to buy land and start your own frontier town out in the American West. You would have to have lumberjacks cut wood for the houses and other buildings, have to have mills to cut and make the wooden boards for building, have to have builders, and then assemble a small town. From their you would assign jobs such as tailors to make clothing, have a blacksmith to make guns and ammunition, a bar tender to serve drinks in the saloon, have a cook at the village diner, a frontier doctor, and so on. All of this could work similar to Castaways but on a larger scale, and could be set in a different time and location. Plus the mediaeval fantasy setting is getting a bit old anyway. Instead of fighting goblins and such why don't we have a game that is based on a real historical time and place, and includes historical enemies such as the Blackfoot who were very resistant to white settlers from the east, and were not above raiding and burning the nearby frontier towns when they could. Besides the enemy raiders I could see a wide range of natural disasters that you'd have to prepare for and guard against. One of the most brutal are the winter snows. Things like a good blizzard could effectively shut down a frontier town for days, and the citizens of said town better have plenty of wood and food stores set aside or people will begin freezing or dying. As the towns overseer you'd be responsible to make sure everyone stays warm and is well fed through the winter months. So I do see where you are going. A Castaways II or something like it would be a nice idea. Maybe someday if I get free of my own projects I'll consider it. Lol. Cheers! On 3/26/13, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > to be honest my thinking of castaways was a little different. Rather than > thinking of the existing game but with some additions, I was myself > considdering essentially the same system, but with a more complex and > realistic setup. For example, in castaways all your farms produce food at a > > constant wrate, yet in reality we know that crops are planted in spring and > > then harvested in autumn, just in time for the winter. Similarly, in > castaways it was necessary to chop and prepare lumber for building houses or > > barrels, yet nobody ever needed a fire, ---- and while the taylers and > weavers made cloth for bandages or ship sales, nobody made cloth for clothes > > or leather for shoes. > > I'd love myself to really get to fully control a society, see it grow, > experience natural desasters like floods or attacks from bandits, nurse > people through the hard times and see them increase through the better > times. heck, dwarf fortress even had personalities for it's people by giving > > people a certain proclivity to do better at a given job, and making them get > > board if they didn't do that job, and even including a set of behaviours > that they would engage in if they got board or if they were satisfied. > > this is why I would so love to see a more complex castaways Ii with a full > scale civilization system. > > Beware the Grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
