Colony

Learning goal

The primary goal is to show the human impact on the environment and on the air, together with the point that pollution can be fought. The Encyclopedia states the first half plainly, that factories and power plants destroy forests and harm the environment, and a tutorial tip warns that demolishing a building takes back only a quarter of the pollution it created, so where you build matters permanently. The second half sits in the tech tree: Solar Panels, Parks and Greenhouses are all there to be built. A secondary goal came out of the concept itself: practice in logical thinking and resource management. The lesson's own closing text covers both: “You've learned how to run a colony; constructing and upgrading buildings, managing resources, looking out for the environment, and keeping your citizens happy.”

My role

• The logic, the mechanics, the transitions between scenes and the balancing were all mine; text and the 2D and 3D art were done by others.
• Designed the seven-resource economy (money, food, wood, minerals, metal, energy, chips) with a per-turn income model and a dependency chain that stands later buildings on earlier industry: chips need a Factory, and Solar Panels are then priced in chips.
• Wrote the building roster as a cost/benefit table: tile footprint, a price in several resources at once, and signed happiness and pollution modifiers, so placing a building is a trade-off and not a purchase.
• Built the event system: dilemmas with three costed responses, one of them a gamble carrying an explicit 50% chance, which makes the choice an expected-value call weighed against a happiness penalty.
• Structured progression around one main goal (Town Hall to level 4) with a side-quest chain behind it and the Laboratory gating further upgrades, then tuned the dirty-versus-clean numbers inside that tree: Coal Power Plant against Solar Panel, with Park and Greenhouse as offsets.

Systems I designed

• A seven-resource economy — money, food, wood, minerals, metal, energy and chips — each shown as current value with its per-turn income in brackets, e.g. 406(170), with a dependency chain running through it: chips need a Factory, and Solar Panels are then priced in chips.
• A building roster written as a cost/benefit table: tile footprint, multi-resource price and explicit happiness/pollution deltas per structure. The Coal Power Plant reads 3 tiles, happiness −2, pollution +8, for 50 money / 40 food / 20 wood / 20 minerals / 5 metal.
• A deliberate dirty-versus-clean tension inside the tech tree: the Coal Power Plant is “Highly-polluting, but highly effective”, the Solar Panel is “Eco-friendly, but less efficient” and location-dependent, with Park (+10 happiness, −5 pollution) and Greenhouse (−2 pollution) available as offsets.
• Terrain-dependent yields (Fertile Soil, Forest, Rocks) that make placement a decision rather than a formality — and the rule is taught openly in an Encyclopedia entry instead of being hidden in the maths.
• Progression built as one main goal (“Upgrade Townhall to level 4”) plus a side-quest chain — Laboratory, Foundry, Coal Power Plant, Factory — with the Laboratory gating building upgrades and the Town Hall in turn gating the Laboratory.
• Upgrade curves stated up front with before/after income: Town Hall level 2 moves money 15→20, food 15→20, wood 5→10, minerals 0→5, priced at 120 money / 110 food / 50 wood / 40 minerals / 15 metal / 100 energy.
• An event layer of costed dilemmas, each with three responses and at least one gamble carrying an explicit probability (50% chance), so the choice is an expected-value call weighed against a happiness penalty.
• Economic transparency tooling: a Resource Log that itemises every construction cost and each turn's income, so a player can trace exactly why a number moved.

Core mechanics

• Turn-based loop: build and upgrade freely during a round, then advance with the next-round button and collect income — the captured session runs past turn 19.
• Two views of the same colony: a blueprint Map for placing, upgrading and demolishing on a tile grid, and the 3D world, where a walk mode lets the player explore the settlement in third person (with Unstuck and Back to menu controls).
• Tile-based placement with footprints of one to three tiles, where the terrain under the building boosts specific producers and some structures are explicitly location-dependent.
• Two colony-wide meters with tiered labels — pollution (PRISTINE → CLEAN) and happiness (CONTENT → HAPPY → JOYFUL) — with every building applying its own signed modifier to both.
• Upgrade economy: most buildings have three levels and the Town Hall four; the Town Hall cannot be demolished, and taking it to level 4 is what ends the lesson.
• Demolition rules with real consequences: 50% of the initial cost comes back, but only a quarter of the pollution the building created is removed.
• Tech gating through the Laboratory, which “gradually unlocks new upgrades for other buildings” with each of its own levels — and can itself only be upgraded after the Town Hall.
• Requirements surfaced as inline blockers on the upgrade screen — “You need Laboratory level 2”, “Not enough resources” — so a locked action explains itself where it is attempted.

Tracked values

• Money — displayed as value with per-turn income in brackets, e.g. 406(170)
• Food
• Wood
• Minerals
• Metal
• Energy
• Chips — gated behind a Factory, and spent on Solar Panels
• Happiness — colony meter with tiers CONTENT / HAPPY / JOYFUL
• Pollution — colony meter with tiers PRISTINE / CLEAN

Example events

• Workers' protest. “Your citizens are protesting for better working conditions! How do you respond?” — 1) Raise wages: −50 cash, +8 happiness. 2) Replace the workers with machines: −5 chips, −10 metal. 3) Do nothing: −10 happiness.
• Bandit raid, with a gamble. “A group of bandits has stolen materials from your storage!” — 1) Fortify your defenses: −30 cash, −10 metal, +5 happiness. 2) Let it go: lose this round's cash & food, −5 happiness. 3) Send scouts to recover supplies: a 50% chance of +20 metal, otherwise the round's cash & food are lost and happiness drops 15.
• Laboratory milestone. Upgrading the Laboratory reports that it “gradually unlocks new upgrades for other buildings” and adds: “You have also unlocked new buildings!”
• Happiness threshold at 85, JOYFUL. “Amazing! Your citizens are full of joy and love living here. You're making the colony a wonderful place!” — the meter's top tier is acknowledged rather than left as a silent number.
• Placement warning during the tutorial. “Demolishing this building will only reduce the pollution by a quarter it created, so be careful where you place the buildings!”
• Side-quest chain closed out on turn 18. “Well done! Your colony has grown, and you've unlocked every building in the menu. All side quests are now complete.”