Hi Everyone,

I just updated the Testing Branch with the new Clan Chief system, and I wanted to give some further details on how it works as well as future development plans that the Chiefs make possible.

The Clan Chief system also required some major improvements to the Family Tree panel, so I will describe those here as well.

Here are the details.

Note: Those who want to try this out now can join the Testing Branch under Steam/Clanfolk/Properties/Betas.

• The Clan Chief will be the central person through which all clan decision making flows.
  
• Currently players can select the Clan Chief via the Family Tree Menu.
  
• The Chief will remain the Chief until Death or being removed via the Clans Menu.
  
• Clan Chiefs have Support and Opposition values when being selected.
  
• The two most supported Chiefs are highlighted, but any hereditary member of the Clan who is not a baby can become Chief. (though they may not have any support)
  
• The Support/Opposition system will introduce a mechanism to promote some family strife as clans increase in size.
  
• Support tends to follow hereditary lines, but may factors are taken into consideration when picking the best replacement Chief.
  
• The support calculation factors in Persuasion/Intimidation Skill, Age (Adult being the best), Number of possible heirs, and hereditary lineage.
  
• The first born child gets the most hereditary support, but also the Sibling of the Dead/Removed Chief will also have a valid claim and this is where interesting dynamics may develop.
  
• If a Chief is removed, they will no longer be highly supported as they are seen as a failed Chief
  
• Negotiations will now be handled by the Chief as well.
  
• Going forward the plan is to make the Chief have a key role in decision making in the Clan. Chiefs/Story Elements will be very interconnected.

• The Chief selection takes place in the Family Tree. The Family tree needed an overhaul to make this a less frustrating experience. Here are the changes.
  
• The Family Tree now has a zoom function (+/-) at the top left
  
• The Family Tree now has a History of Chiefs on the left side panel. This is also ordered by Support when selecting the next Chief.
  
• There is also a Search function similar to the Ideas Panel, so it should be much easier to find people in there
  
• Finally connection LINES! Wow this ended up being fiddly, but there are now lines connecting family nodes in the tree. The Lines always point to the Clan member who is a blood relative

The final goal is to have the Clan Chief be a logical point from which conflict from within the Clan can develop. The Chief will make choices, and not all of the Clan members will approve of those choices. This will lead to cases where the Chief needs to appease certain sub families or risk further consequences.

Over time as Clans increase in size, faction may develop who feel that they have been left out. This would lead to more opposition towards a hereditary line. So a story develops based on the personality and family line of the Clan leader but also the decisions that have now made new allies or opposition.

This ties very well into the negotiation mechanic for dealing with disputes within the Clan and of course there is also potentially a brawling component if things get too far out of hand. The whole Clan Chief system is very fertile ground for new Story Element ideas, and most importantly, Story Elements that have long term consequences internally to the Clan itself.

So the Clan Chief system is very much still in development, and I would love to hear ideas from the community as well here on Steam or on Discord. Here are a few ideas that I am toying with currently to add some extra flavor to the system.

• Leadership Quirks such as "Born Leader" vs. "Follower." These could complicate who gets the support for example if someone outside the accepted family line is a much better candidate.
  
• Chiefs selecting the partners for workers vs the current "best guess" picking. This also could have long term consequences for those who feel passed over.
  
• Potential for Messengers from other Clans requesting Partners, also associated dowries.
  
• Members leaving the Clan due to high opposition to the leadership, perhaps even entire family branches if things get too far out of hand. This could be a good way to deal with oversized Clans as well where some family branches do not feel represented.
  
• Chief Funerals. Special events to commemorate a Chief's passing. (probably better tombs too)

So ideas and comments are very welcome! The Clan Chief groundwork is now in place, and I want to get right to building Story Element content for the system. I am very excited to see how this develops.

Note: I may also take a few days for bug fixing as I was very much "In The Zone" while working on this and the bug list got ahead of me again. So I should take a short divert into fixing the highest priority bugs and then back into Clan Chief related story events.

Thanks very much for your support!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Hi All,

I wanted to push this build now instead of having you all wait for Update 15. There are some bug fixes in here for Update 14, but also some new weather, Fog!

The fog was once again one of those experimental tasks that went way overboard but in the end turned out surprisingly well.

• Added Veggie Finder to the Growth Overlay. This makes it much easier to find veggies on the map. The veggies will show up brightly and are pretty easy to spot.
  
• Fog! (This is one of those 4 hour tasks that took 5 days, but the results were worth it I hope)
  
• So I went down a rabbit hole right after building the veggie finder because I was already tinkering with shaders. It ended up taking 4 different attempts in the end, but we now have Fog!
  
• The Fog will appear based on moisture levels in the ground and atmosphere. So you will tend to get more fog when it is wet/rainy.
  
• The Fog can vary from a haze to very thick pea soup type, but that should be somewhat rare.
  
• Fog has depth, so you should still be able to see Clanfolk somewhat even in thick fog, but it may be more of a silhouette in some cases. Wolves and Deer in Fog look great :)
  
• Fog is most common at sunrise and late night, but with enough moisture it can begin to form in the evening as the ground cools down.
  
• Fog will pick up atmospheric light, this means day fog and night fog will look different, and will have different amount of light scattering.
  
• Fog will also pick up the color of torch light. That can sometimes look pretty neat.
  
• Fog will obscure ground shadows, but will accept Cloud shadows since the clouds are above the fog. This will lead to the fog looking more grey in cloudy areas and white in sunny spots.
  
• Please let me know if the fog seems to happen too often/not often enough or is too think/thin etc. There is a lot of variation with the fog.
  
• Fog can be toggled in Settings/Video/Fog

• Fixed Crash when Baby is set to overwork mode via Multi Select and is needing to be taken care of.
  
• Fixed Babies being put in overwork mode via Multi Select as well.

• Fixed Bug that could cause Peat (and other tiles) to grow negatively if a new game was started after a game had been previously loaded. The plants were using the future time from the previously loaded game to determine their current growth. Nothing like a little time travel.
  
• Resized Negotiation Tutorial text in Thai to fix cutoff letters
  
• New Maps begin with a bit of Cloud and morning Fog.
  
• Increased Fog transition time by 30%

• Updated Demo from v0.403 -> v0.483
  
• Removed Day 1 starter fog as it is a better surprise when it happens in the morning.
  
• Blocked clicking new unlock images during tutorials. It skipped important flow.
  
• Updated the Demo complete text to be more current. Was from before Clanfolk entered Early Access.
  
• Note: This brings the Demo up to date with all the recent additions. Lots of nice new stuff in there!

• Fixed case where is a messenger was ignored until they left in the evening that their Story event would stay active, preventing future instances of the event from happening
  
• Fixed case where Story Elements with associated tasks could update when the task was not active, causing weird behavior (like outcast mother stuck at messenger post)
  
• Added some descriptive text for when the Outcast Mother sneaks back if starving and sent away multiple times
  
• Fixed Outcast Mother in thief mode going to the Messenger post. That is not effective thieving!

• Fixed Case in Outcast Father, and Outcast Father Returns that could lead to no available selection options.
  
• Fixed bug introduced in 0.484 causing messengers to sometimes be unable to leave
  
• Fixed Beavers planting reeds on Bridges
  
• Fixed fish jumping in the lakes going through bridges
  
• Fixed animals drinking through bridges

• Fixed Bug introduced in v0.484 that could cause the Outcast Father and company to hang around forever if no decision was made to deal with them before evening.
  
• Notes: Messengers leave in the evening, so if the Player does not make a choice before then, the fail condition will activate.
  
• In the case of a Negotiation, Patience will currently run out at Evening.
  
• In the case of Brawling, the Brawl is lost in the Evening if it goes on that long. It never should last until evening unless the player is trying to kite the other side.
  
• Making Father arrive earlier in the day so that there is more time for the events to unfold.
  
• I may also look into extending the states for Negotiation and Brawling past evening if they are in progress.

I also added a "Veggie Finder" This can be accessed by pressing the Growth Overlay button. It will make all those hard to find veggies a lot more visible while the overlay is active.

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Hi Everyone!

Update 14 is here! It is a big one.

The first half of my time was spent on the new Negotiation System which works with the Story Generator to deliver Year 2+ challenges.

The second half was because I added Beavers one afternoon for fun. One thing really led to another with those Beavers.

With this being such a large update, I will link the related "Progress Update" announcements for deeper details on the changes.

Those progress updates explain my thought processes and why/how the changes came about. I will need to stick to a higher-level overview here, or I will run out of text space. (it has happened before :)

Update 14 covers versions 0.457->0.479 from the Testing Branch.
(Note: anyone can join the testing branch under Clanfolk/Properties/Betas, and it is updated multiple times a week)

• The Negotiation System
  
  • Patience - How long a Negotiation lasts
    
  • Authority - How "in the right" the Negotiator is feeling
    
  • Courage - How brave the Negotiator is feeling
    
  • Persuasion - Skill at lowering opponent's Authority
    
  • Intimidation - Skill at lowering opponent Courage
    
  • Brawling - When all else fails (Player Initiated Only)
• Nature
  
  • Beavers
    
  • Swimming
    
  • New Better Shoreline System
    
  • Natural River Generation
    
  • Bridges
    
  • Piers that can be built on!
    
  • New Natural Terraformer (much nicer maps)
    
  • Riverbank Seeding (the rivers have life growing along their edges)
    
  • Undergrowth System (makes the forests, grasses, and rocks feel a lot more "there")
    
  • Clouds
    
  • Lightning

For those who want more detail, let's dive right in!

A Negotiation is a Live Event that progresses over time. The Negotiation will continue until an Outcome is picked or Patience runs out.

New Outcomes become available based on Courage and Authority thresholds being met.

The Negotiator can modify the Opponent's Courage and Authority by steering the conversation with their Persuasion or Intimidation skills. Depending on the strength of this steering, Patience will lower more quickly.

Environmental factors such as a grand meeting hall or having a backup at the ready will also change Courage and Authority over time, making other Outcomes available.

If an Outcome is not picked before Patience is exhausted, the Opponent will win the negotiation and be granted their original demand.

If Patience is about to run out, and the Player is unwilling to lose the Negotiation, the Player can choose to trigger a Brawl as a last chance to scare off the opponent.

The Brawl is only ever triggered by the Player faction. Brawls exist to not tie the player's hands when a Negotiation has failed. There is a cost to Brawling. Relations will suffer greatly, and permanent (But nonfatal) injuries may also occur. It is important to think carefully before abandoning Reason in favor of a Headbutt.

Currently, there is one Story Event Chain: The Outcast Mother. Some new events have been added to this chain and one of these will lead to a Negotiation. Many more story event chains will be added in the future, and the current Outcast Mother chain should be seen as an example.

For in-depth detail on the whole Negotiation System please see this (mostly still accurate) post:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/6089499397576415358

So, as mentioned above, this all started with adding some Beavers one afternoon after wrapping up the Outcast Mother story event.

There is a very detailed step by step process listed in the next two Progress Updates, and I suggest giving those a read if you are wondering exactly how Beavers lead to Rivers to Bridges to a New Terraformer all the way to Lightning. They should both be somewhat entertaining :)

Here are the Progress Update Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/4119176366789362099
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1700870/announcements/detail/4182229294562593636


It turns out that Beavers were quite common in 1300s Scotland, and Europe in general. The Beavers were hunted for their pelts as well as their castor sacs which used for medieval medical purposes and just about anything else you can imagine, even beekeeping.

Beavers will build Lodges in lakes, and their presence will cause reeds to be replanted along the shoreline. Beavers don't currently gnaw down trees, but that will also likely come.

Beavers looked really odd walking on water, so Swimming was added. Now, all humans and wildlife will swim and wade into the water from the shoreline.

To make Swimming work, it required a rethink of how the Shoreline worked. I needed the Idea of depth to allow me to figure out how much of the Beaver to draw. Snapping the Beaver from walking on the ground to being in the water looked terrible, so we needed a gradual transition.

This new wading transition looks good about 90% of the time, but will sometimes seem a bit odd. Just remember that a real beaver is bendy, so if the wading seems weird, well that is just the beaver bending :)

A long time Clanfolk player mentioned to me that Beavers were kind of lame without Rivers, so I groaned audibly and decided to give Rivers a quick try.

I *never* thought that Rivers would look right with square tiles. I expected straight lines and stair cases, but surprisingly, in the end (and a lot of iterations) they turned out really well!

Rivers will now connect Lakes and thin out as they travel through bogs. They wind around mountains and seek simulated natural low spots in the terrain. The rivers will also widen in areas and create crossings in others. There should be quite a bit of variety to the shape and paths of the rivers for each map.

The Rivers also slice the map up into zones quite well, requiring the player to think more about homestead placement. 100% love for the rivers now.

So now that we had rivers dividing the land into zones, we needed to be able to cross those rivers.

Bridges had to happen next. Bridges broke most of the rules I had created to keep the tile-based construction sane, but in the end, I got a road to span the water.

In running a few visual tests, it became apparent, even to me, that people were also going to want cover these bridges with roofs (yet another rule broken. roofs over water? inconceivable!)

Then my son started chanting "Lake House" and showed me jazz hands, annnnd I decided to make bridge tiles provide full build support.

This led to:

Now we can also have decks over water and piers to go fishing off of.

It is even possible to build walls and fences on bridges, so creating sealed animal pens that border lakes is now a reality.

Bridges also have span distances similar to roofs. Completely paving over lakes is not possible, but if there is a small island in a lake, it can provide support for a nice Lake House!

With how nice the Rivers and Bridges were looking, I felt empowered to try one more experiment.

The Terraformer wasn't exactly producing natural-looking results by randomly blasting trees and plants here and there. I had also seen some very nice pictures of hand-seeded forests. The new tech for river placement was also begging to be applied to forest seeding, so one more experiment couldn't hurt!

The end result was almost instant, beautiful forests. There were dense patches, little forest paths, and larger open areas on the map for building. The new forests looked natural and had some personality. So I decided to apply the Forest Seeding Algorithm to grasses and even rocks and the result was also a dramatic improvement.

We now had proper-looking forests, with paths, grass fields, open areas, and dense rocky areas, all placed naturally. The map was starting to look very convincing.

So, next, I decided to show this new tech off on Discord, and people were excited. One of the users also mentioned how the Rivers were empty on the edges. They were right! Rivers have life along their banks.

Tinker Tinker...

Riverbanks now generate trees or grasses or even sometimes rocky sections along their shoreline. This new plant life also extends around Lakes and Bogs tying everything together.

Back to Discord to show off the new Riverside a bit, and another pretty critical insight from that same player. The Trees were pretty bare underneath, and they just kind of popped out of the green grass. They said this in a lot nicer way, but my brain translated it to that.

I could not unsee it now.

There is a new Undergrowth layer that grows and shrinks over time as the Trees grow or are removed.

So if a forest is chopped down, expect to see the grass plains slowly take over the old forested area.

Also if a new forest grows, the undergrowth will slowly return along with the ferns and bluebells. It is quite gradual, but will happen even in older saves.

At first I just applied this new system to Forests, but have since also given Grasses and Rocks their own form of undergrowth.

It turns out Bluebells grow in Forests and are also tied with Thistle as the national flower of Scotland. There are some very nice pictures on Bluebell Forests in Scotland, and I suggest searching for them.

At this point we were getting pretty close to Update 14, and I knew there was not time for a new Story Element Chain, so I decided to try applying that River tech to one more thing that had been on my mind for a looooong time.

The Rivers and Natural Terraformer both sample a heightmap texture (think of a black and white picture of a bunch of clouds) to determine where to place tiles, buuuut You know what a cloud heightmap also look like? Clouds!

I decided to try panning that texture across the map in relation to the wind speed. The first few attempts were ugly, but it was pretty obvious that it was going to work. After enough tinkering with the shaders, there were light clouds on Sunny days that wandered across the landscape as well as "light holes" on very cloudy days that showed breaks in the clouds.

I think it is obvious to everyone what has to come next...

Lightning was originally to be a Friday afternoon task (like the Beavers.) But it turns out lightning is actually quite complicated lighting wise. I wanted to deliver on the experience of a Thunderstom slowly rolling past the homestead.

Thunderstorms do not happen very often, but you can expect at least a couple within a game year. They tend to be more likely with heavy rain, but can come at any time, even in the Summer.

You will know when one is coming by the sound. There is a set of sound for strikes off map and ones on map. The flashes will also become more intense as the lightning approaches.

Lightning will cause fires so beware. Currently I have it in "merciful" mode and it will not set roofs on fire, but there will be a toggle for that in the future. Lightning will set fields on fire though.

There are many more upgrades and changes in Update 14, but that covers the largest additions.

Please take a look at the Progress Updates linked above, or the Change Logs listed below for further info.

For those interested in detailed change logs, following this link and starting at V0.457 will give you a listing of all the changes since Update 13

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1700870/discussions/0/3183488858470509508/?ctp=21



There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666

Diving back into the code now.

Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Watch out for Beavers. They can send you places you never expected!

Hi Everyone,

The Testing Branch just got another big Update, and this one is all about the Environment.

The improvements brought about due to the Rivers, Beavers, and Bridges from my last Progress Update inspired me to divert from the Story Generator temporarily to see just how far these new atmospheric improvements could go.

Here are the details.

One important note right off the bat if that I am pushing the Testing Branch to the Default Branch in about 2 weeks (Probably April 20 or 21.) So those of you who have been waiting on all these changes, don't have much longer to wait!

Those who want to try this out now can join the Testing Branch under Steam/Clanfolk/Properties/Betas.

• New Natural Terraformer (much nicer maps)
  
• Riverbank Seeding (the rivers have life growing along their edges)
  
• Forest Undergrowth System (makes the forests feel a lot more "there")
  
• Clouds
  
• Added Heavy Rain/Snow mode to the New Game Options
  
• Lightning

For those who want the finer details, please once again, pull up a chair. :)

After the previous progress update, I had planned to jump right back onto the Story Generator, but the response to the surprise River's update was so positive, that I just wanted to do a bit more. This once again kind of compounded on itself, but this time instead of Beavers, it all started with a quick experiment on the Terraformer...

So for a very long while, I have not liked how the Terraformer literally shotgun seeded trees and grass on the map in blocks. The process was to fire a blast of seeds from orbit, then use a growth algorithm to spread them. It was functional but it did not look natural.

One of the very active Clanfolk players has been spending years in game cultivating natural looking forests by hand as well. This showed me that the forests in particular could look a lot better, but how...

The answer was a new piece of tech provided by the rivers. Rivers use a heightmap to figure out where to flow. (A heightmap is a black and white image where the brightness of the pixel determines its height) The heightmap gives the rivers their natural flow patterns, instead of looking like a grid.

I decided to apply that heightmap system to the fertility of the soil and to make MANY more planting passes with the now circular shotgun seeder to see what happened. Annnd the map looked amazing. The forests had dense spots and walking paths and were no longer amorphous blobs.

Thrilled, I applied the new seeding logic to... everything. Suddenly the map had well differentiated zones with personality!

As usual when looking for ideas/validation, I posted some progress pictures to Discord. (I work alone, from home, so an occasional external atta boy is great) The Discord group were all very supportive and excited, but there was also one really key suggestion. Essentially: "What about the river edges?"

So I was blind to this, but it made perfect sense as soon as I read it. These new rivers were mostly bare on their sides... Rivers just don't work like that!

Surely just one more tweak won't take too long. I set to work and started applying seeding logic to the Riverbanks, creating grassy fields, rocky areas, and thick tree lined edges.

The result here was a shocking improvement, making the Rivers feel like a part of the environment "and" influencing it. The same tech also encircled lakes and bogs with new life.

So now we have the map nicely delineated with the rivers and their growth on either size traversing the map, tying things together.

New open areas also appeared for building due to the natural seeding. Just like there were natural forests and fields of heather, clear patches developed, begging to be built on.

So "now" it was time to get back to work on the Story Generator. The map looked great! It was about a week of unexpected work in total, but well worth the effort in the end.

Then the same Discord user who mentioned the riverbanks meekly asked about Ferns/Moss in the Forest. Harumph.... hmmm... So I took a look, and of course once this was mentioned, it did feel weird that the trees just kind of sprang out of the green grass... Trees usually have a mess under them and especially in thick forests... thinking thinking...

I suppose it is worth a "short" experiment... just to see...

Undergrowth is an interesting problem, because trees come and go, as do whole forests. They can be planted and cut down. I couldn't just plop down a floor tile that looked like a clump of moss as it would be very jarring as trees were added and remoded.

My first experiments used the Desire Path system to create patchy ground under the trees over time. This sort of worked, but didn't really look right.

But, it then struck me that there WAS system that I could adapt. Most people have not seen this, but after fires, there can be very large ash areas that slowly wither away to nothing over time. I could potentially use this. So I tried applying ash over time under the forests and it worked! Better yet the ash density could grow and shrink over time with the forests, no popping!

So the density of the forest determined the density of the ash.

After a bit more work and yet another tile layer in the game, we had decent looking undergrowth. Undergrowth grew with forests, and diminished over time as a result of clear cuts, with the grass slowly reclaiming the land. We had decent looking ...flat... undergrowth. Time for some research!

So it turned out that Bluebells are just as iconic for Scotland as the Thistle, and guess where they grow!

I recommend searching for pictures of bluebell forests. They are delightful.

Bluebells are also really easy to make look nice. I love you Bluebells.
Looking at you Ferns...

So whereas the Bluebells took maybe an hour to make look nice, the Ferns, oh the Ferns. So many tries and when I finally had something decent, I posted it to Discord and one of the first comments was "why are they all pointing the same way" Oh no, they noticed the one thing I didn't want them to notice! Back to the drawing board....

Finally after many more attempts, the Ferns looked great, and much better than the original ones that all bent to the right.

One very interesting side effect of the new Natural Terraformer was that the forest undergrowth created Bluebell patches AND Fern patches and some border zones with a mixture. So part of the map was bluebell forests and others were dark forests with fern cover.

So this was great! Forests looked fantastic. About another week down, but again well worth it. Back to work on the Story Generator!

...Long time Clanfolk Discord superstar: "You know what would be great, if there were cloud shadows." Oh no, this had also been on my mind since forever, and it was brought up RIGHT when I was in the zone environment wise. Surely just one more experiment... For Science!

Once again the tech from the Rivers made something new possible. (Thank you again Beavers)

That same heightmap used for river pathing, and for tree seeding, could also kinds be used for cloud density... If I moved it with the wind, and hooked the results into the shadow system... Worth a try.

So right off the bat, it looked like the system was going to work. The quick experiment showed me dark patches moving across the landscape, and the terrain suddenly took on a more real 3D feel. There were holes where light got through and other very dark (too dark) spots that were ominous and it all panned across the map with the wind. Sigh. I am doing this aren't I?

Days of Shader work later, and the clouds felt real. You couldn't ever actually see them, but you knew that the clouds were there from the shadows.

The next step was to connect the weather system to the cloud system such that there was a gradual increase in cloud as rain approached as well as heavy cloud vs light cloud days.

Watching a single wandering cloud slowly cross the map on a calm day was also quite relaxing. I found myself zooming out on the map a lot more, just to look at it. That used to be a weak point, but over the last few weeks and particularly with the addition of the clouds, the zoomed out map was becoming appealing to look at.

We now had cloud shadows roaming across the map, reacting to wind, growing and dispersing naturally, as well as dark spots on sunny days, and what I have come to call "sky holes" on very cloudy days. I like these in particular where a bright patch moves across the land when it is overcast.

That was great. Clouds are awesome. Another week down. Lets have a nice long Easter weekend, then get on to that Story generator (rubs hands together)

It was Friday afternoon. Beautiful clouds, and no lightning. That is like Beavers without Rivers... Lightning will be quick, I just flash some light and draw a white wiggly line. I will do it in the afternoon, no problem...

So I finished Lightning Last night (7 Days Later)

It became apparent rather quickly that Lightning was going to be a bit of work. The real problem with light-ning is the light-ing. Lightning is not a light at a point in space. It is a line of light. Lightning creates VERY distinct shadows. I cannot just make the map bright for a second and be done with it.

This next bit may get a bit technical, but it is really quite interesting I think:

Where lightning strikes, there is a blinding flash from above. This means that there are also almost no shadows at the strike point since the light rays are pointing down. Far away from the lightning though, there are very long shadows, but not too long. Lightning is also high up. So we can't just create a huge light bulb at the strike point with infinite length shadows. We need to create a huge bulb "above" the strike point, way above. In a 2D world, with no up.

This was a problem. I do already have lights that can exist at virtual heights off the 2D plane and create shadow length based on that. So a Standing Torch creates shorter shadows than a campfire on an object of the same height at the same distance, but the problem is the light rays moving out from the source point. That just won't work. A Wall blocks torch light once a ray hits it, but the wall should not block the lightning light, not all of it.

I couldn't push light rays from the source pixel to the target pixel, instead I needed to pull shadows from the target pixel towards the source! So a new lighting system was born for Lightning. Instead of light travelling from the source to the target, shadows were sucked from the target to the source and would not block each other. If you pause the game during a lightning flash and look around the map, this will make a lot more sense. Imagine the difference if the lightning light was at a height of 0 vs 100 meters.

So after a few days, the flashing looked perfect. I could call lightning on demand and got the appropriate lighting effect. I did channel my inner Zeus for a while with that, zapping a great many things. I have mouthed so many "Kaboom","ChhkWhoosh" sounds over the last week while tuning the lightning bolt animation and effects.

Finally I added sound. Mouth can now rest.

The next phase was to hook the lightning system up to the weather manager to create storms, but not to many storms (please let me know if there are too many, I just don't know at this point, so much lightning, a lifetime of lightning)

Lightning will start far off the map and there will be slight flashes in the distance, then after a time, a low rumble. As the lightning approaches it gets louder and the flashes become brighter until it reaches the map. The lightning will traverse the map (but sometimes missing it entirely at the top or bottom) and then fade out again in the distance.

There are different storm intensities that are triggered based on atmospheric conditions. More clouds, wind, rain, and moisture mean bigger storms (in general) but Summer storms are possible and lightning can cause fires.

Lightning also lowers the moisture and create scorch marks at the point of impact (this is fun to watch.)

The color of the lightning will change based on the overall atmospheric color at the time, so at night it will tend to glow more blue, whereas at sunset it may glow a bit orange. This was a nice lighting side effect that I noticed in the pictures of real lightning as well.

For now, I have put the lightning in "kind mode" so strikes will not set roofs on fire, but a toggle is coming for that soon.

I got distracted by shiny things again. All in all though, it was definitely the right move.

I am very thankful that the community has been so supportive of me exploring these surprise additions.

The response to the Rivers and Beavers progress update was so overwhelmingly positive that I just wanted to do more.

The improvements to the atmosphere of the game have been enormous, and I think since those changes are ever present vs transient with the story events, this was probably the right time to tackle the additions.

So over the next two weeks I will get preparing for the Default Branch release of all this new content, going all the way back to the Negotiation system! There have been an enormous amount of additions, and I need to test it all and fix bugs. (As well as get it all translated)

Thanks very much for your support!

"ChhkWhoosh"

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Hello! From now until March 21st, you can save 35% on Clanfolk, and get great deals on all other games published by Hooded Horse during the Steam Spring Sale.

Hi Everyone,

It has been a very busy two weeks, and the Testing Branch just got a Big Update.
Note: Anyone can join the Testing Branch under Clanfolk/Properties/Betas on Steam.

Here are the details.

Before I go into the tale of the last two weeks, for those of you who just want the high level info, here it is:

• Beavers
  
• Swimming
  
• New Better Shoreline System
  
• Natural River Generation
  
• Bridges
  
• Piers that can be built on!

For those who want to know how this all came about, please pull up a chair.

This is the tale of how one thing lead to another and two weeks of unplanned work was born.

So two weeks ago, after working intensely on the Story Generator systems for the previous few months, I decided, "Hey, I should add something cool for players for the weekend!"

It all started with a Beaver.

I decided, Beavers are cool, lets add them as that weekend surprise. I got to work modifying the Bunny template, then made some AI tweaks and there were Beavers in the game. Woohoo. I set up the art, then made a Beaver Lodge and things were going quite smoothly and all in time for the weekend. (two weeks ago)

Then it struck me when I saw the Beavers... walking on water... Oh no. Beavers must swim! But how can beavers swim on a 2d plane!?! Soo... That lead to me having to create the concept of Water Depth. To have Water Depth, I needed to add a new camera to the game that could write depth data that the other cameras could use to determine what to draw and what not to draw. So after a few more days, tada! Beavers were swimming, and it looked pretty good! So I tried a few more animals and they swam mostly sensibly, but sometimes floated a little high or low, nothing to serious. It was all cool.

Then I put a person in the water... Annnnnnnd their clothing went semi transparent and their bits were showing... Originally water was semi transparent, but Humans have a dozen layers of clothing on them, that all went semi transparent and suddenly you could see through the cloak, jacket, shirt, and braises. Oh no. So after banging my head on the keyboard, I reworked the water and converted it to opaque (which in the end does look better) Crisis averted, and now Everyone Swims with their modesty intact!

Now we have swimming Beavers and Water Depth. The Water Depth had a very interesting side effect in that the shoreline got a LOT more realistic where the terrain leading up the the shore was now visible and would appear an disappear with the waves. So this was a big win as well. I was feeling pretty great.

I decided to show a preview pic of the new changes to one of my go to players/friends on Discord, and to paraphrase the response. "Cool!, but Beavers are kind of lame without Rivers." My triumphant unveiling was properly crushed and a brain worm was now loose in my head. I had worked so hard on this new feature, but if players first response was going to be "Where are the Rivers?" this was going to be a problem. I mean Beavers need highways too I suppose...

So, I got to thinking and thinking and grumbling and thinking. I never thought natural looking Rivers would work with square tiles, but I set out to at least make an attempt to see for sure. I owed Beavers that much for giving me Swimming and Water Depth.

After the first day of experiments, Rivers were functional. They looked like ruler drawn lines between Lakes, but they did work. There was enough there to keep a grip on, so I continued. The next day, I started applying noise textures to the river flow, and the hard lines started getting natural and wavy, then I started varying their width in places, and finally I created some narrows for animal crossings and unbelievably, Rivers looked great! I was thrilled.

Ok, so a week had now passed since Beavers, but there was lots of good new stuff so it was all worth it. Time to generate a testing build... (this was about a week ago)

Animal crossings... Oh no. What about "People Crossings"... So now that there was swimming, do people really want to take a dip to cross a River 10x a day. I needed Bridges too! That meant building on water and breaking a bunch of very specific "Never On Water" rules everywhere in the game. So back to experimenting.

After a couple more days and a few tears, simple bridges started to work. As a side note, for a while people were swimming in the stone of the bridges instead of walking on them, which was a sight to behold. And by early this week, Bridges were functional, but they did not feel "Bridgey."

Next I did an experiment with the shaders to generate some railings on the bridges, and much to my surprise, they looked amazing. They even rounded off the ends. I was thrilled. Then I realized that they ALSO rounded off then ends whenever not connected to a path. So that looked terrible, especially with double wide bridges. A bunch of rules later and the bridges were open in the right spots and railed in the right spots and things were finally looking done.

By now I had some pretty nice looking bridges and was planning on writing some rules to enforce that bridges be 1 lane. I didn't want people paving lakes for example. On a whim, I tried to make one last Mega Wide Bridge before enforcing the single lane, just to see how it looked. For whatever reason, I decided to roof the path to the bridge, then it happened. I could roof the path, BUT not the bridge... There was still a "Don't Even Think About Building Here" rule for Water that was heavily bent for Floors to become Bridges, but what about Walls and Roofs!?!?! That was getting nuts because then bridges support walls which support roofs or decorations. What about other Objects built on the bridge. What if the Bridge Deck was removed? It was best to avoid this insanity.

So I asked my Son's opinion of my big wide unroofed test bridge. Would people "really" want roofs on their bridges thaaaat badly? He just kept chanting "Lake House, Lake House" and then made some jazz hands. The decision was made... Not only would we need to Roof the bridges, but we needed Piers and Decks to allow that lakeside house. I can't resist Jazz Hands accompanying an idea.

So another couple days of breaking rules that were never meant to be broken, and it was done. I built a beautiful deck coming off of a bedroom next to a lake. I also added some decorations to the floor and placed a roof over it. I was thrilled. Tomorrow would be the big day where I unveil this secret project!

So it was Thursday now (Yesterday,) and I was going through some final tests and just looking at the bridges, feeling pretty happy with them, but something was bothering me. They were STILL flat. they had rails, but no lighting. They weren't "there" like all the other world objects. It was time for one last experiment.

So since I had the data that was used to produce the railings, I tried sending that info along to the lighting engine, and sure enough the Bridges popped right off of the ground and suddenly began creating shadows like everything else. Yes!

Then the race was on to get the build out yesterday, but the Beavers had one final trick up their sleeve. In my final tests of the build, I thought: "You know, I really should test the beavers one last time since they started all this," and sure enough, they were moonwalking. This turned out to be a new pathfinding issue due to them being aquatic and not having the usual water slowdown with movement. It is never a good idea to push a build in the evening, so that got us to this morning and here we are.

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the crazy adventure started by just wanting to add a Beaver for fun.

Please note: It is highly likely the Testing Branch will have a few issues because of the amount of new material in there over such a short time. I will try to get these fixed as quickly as possible.

I will also be going back to fixing bugs and reading emails etc. I have been very much "in the zone" again over the last couple weeks so I am just coming up for air again now.

Thanks very much for your support!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

From now until March 10th, you can get Clanfolk at 25% off! Come check the game out!

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Hi Everyone,

The Negotiation System now has a working Story Element in the Testing Branch! It will still be a while until this reaches the Default Branch as it needs more testing, but it now works and anyone can opt in to try it today.

The Testing Branch is open to everyone and is available via Steam/Clanfolk/Properties/Betas

The Negotiation System turned out be be quite complex due to the interaction of so many game systems to make Negotiation work as a live event vs a traditional instant dialogue tree, but that is the cool part so I think it is worth the extra time.

As part of v0.457 there are many other new mechanics to be aware of as well (part of why this update took a while)

Note: There is a single prototype Negotiation Event right now. It is triggered by denying the Outcast Father when he arrives looking for the Outcast Mother. Wait a few days and it will happen.

Lets dive into all the new stuff!

The Negotiation System is a Live Event that is triggered by a Messenger. In this case, Lauchlan wants Janat and Keneth to come with him. Lauchlan has also brought backup after being turned away the first time.

The Player has the option to Send them Away or start a Brawl at any time, but the options to keep Janat and Keneth are gated behind Authority and Courage Thresholds. This is where the Live Negotiation happens. The Player needs to finesse the Courage and Authority bars to unlock the options they desire before patience runs out.

Note: Though always available, brawling is a very dangerous option and should be considered a failure case. More on that below.

Patience will lower over time as the Negotiation progresses. When Patience runs out, a failure case will trigger. In this example the failure case would be a Brawl. Tempers got to hot.

Patience can decrease more quickly if the Opponent feels threatened and more slowly if they are in a dominant position.

The major factor in Patience reduction is the conversation flow. When the flow is left on Natural, this can be seen as the conversation topics flowing logically from one to the next. On the other hand, imagine moving the slider all the way to Intimidation. This means your Clan Leader will ONLY pick intimidating topics, and the Opponents patience will go down much more quickly.

Opponent: "Wow looks like rain"
Clan Leader: "You have a very punchable face"

Opponent: "What a nice rug"
Clan Leader: "You really do have a very punchable face"

Listening to that would get tiring quickly, which is what I am trying to model here.

Another important piece of the puzzle are two new skills Intimidation and Persuasion. I will go into more detail on these below, but someone who is very persuasive will do much more Authority "damage" to the Opponent when a Persuasion topic is picked. This is the same for Courage and Intimidation.

Authority is the Opponent's sense of being "in the right" and conversely the Clan Leader's sense of being "in the wrong." When Authority is maxed, the Opponent will choose an outcome and the Clan Leader will have to agree because they have been out debated.

On the other hand, if the Clan Leader moved the Authority bar to zero, the Opponent will give up their argument and leave.

Authority changes based on both sides Persuasion skills. So trying to out talk a very smooth talking messenger could be difficult. There are ways to help with this though.

Authority can be influenced by the Environment. As seen in the Picture above, Jon lead Lachlan into the Clan Hall, which is very large and also richly appointed. Lachlan has gotten the affliction "Such Luxury" from the surrounding area. Lachlan is very impressed and as such, his Authority constantly takes a small decrease every second.

So WHERE the argument takes place really matters. Talking to a Tax collector in a Grand Hall would not be a good idea.

Courage is the Opponent's will to fight. When the Opponent's Courage Bar reached zero, they will flee, but if it reaches the Maximum, the Clan will surrender and give in to the Opponent's demands.

An important note on Courage is that if a Brawl does break out, the Initial Courage values of the Opponent's side will be determined by the Courage Bar location when the negotiation ended. Low courage opponents are quite easy to scare off with a show of force or knocking a few down.

The Player Clan's Courage will be the inverse of the Opponent's Courage. So if the Opponent is at 20%, the Player Clan will be at 80%. So handling a Negotiation well can put you in a much better position in a Brawl!

Signal For Backup can also be a very powerful option. In some cases, it it smart to let the Opponent think that they are in a much stronger position. Having greater numbers than the Clan Leader will make the Opponent lose patience more slowly. This can give the Clan Leader time to make more convincing arguments and win via Authority.

In the picture above, Lachlan has the "Overwhelming" affliction. This is because he has 3 guards with him, all glaring at Jon while they Negotiate. Lachlan's Courage increases quickly, but his Patience decreases more slowly, which can be used to the Player's advantage.

On the other hand, if the Player wants to Scare Off Lachlan and his cronies, then a full show of force should do the trick as well. In some cases, sacring off the Opponent would be a very bad idea, so again the Negotiation flow needs to be tailored to the outcomes that the Player wants to unlock.

Since the Negotiation flows over time, the Player has some control over its outcome based on the Conversation topics chosen, the Environment, as well as the amount of Backup they have.

As a Negotiation progresses, it is important to adapt to the flow of the conversation. If it turns out that Intimidation just is not working, then perhaps a compromise option unlocked with Persuasion could give a good enough compromise.


To make all this work, two new Skill have been added, Persuasion, and Intimidation.

Persuasion will directly modify Authority changes in Negotiation, but the addition of this new skill also may have some other cool side effects. Since Persuasion is a Skill, it can have a priority. This means that it could potentially be some Clanfolk's job to "Cheer People Up" when they are not working on higher priority tasks.

So imagine guests who were close to leaving due to low satisfaction having someone look after them a bit. This opens the door to more hospitality options that I am excited about.

Currently, the Persuasion Skill is levelled up via Talking. So the Clanfolk with high Social needs will tend to be the best at Persuasion over time because they talk the most :)

Intimidation will directly modify Courage changes in a Negotiation, but it also increases the damage done in Brawls.

Intimidation values increase via hard labor. Things like Hauling and Chopping Trees create the biggest gains.

Intimidation Skill Priority determines WHEN a Clanfolk will provide backup in a Negotiation. If the skill is at the bottom of the list, they will only come during free time. If it is at the top of the list, they will come as soon as they finish their current task.

When a Brawl erupts, everyone with the Intimidation Skill active will drop their current task and participate. (Babies don't Brawl though)

Those with the Intimidation Skill Disabled will Hide during a Brawl.


When a Negotiation fails, sometimes the outcome may be a Brawl. Brawling does not use weapons and is not meant to be fatal. It is a failure case in a Negotiation where long term injuries are possible.

I struggled with the idea of Combat in Clanfolk quite a bit. Initially, when Negotiations were a normal Dialog Tree instead of a Live Event as they are now, I considered making the Brawl Injuries a dice roll as part of the Dialog tree, but once the Live Negotiation happened, the Brawling had to be Live to feel right.

The Important outcome of Brawls is the threat of Injuries and Avoiding them. The Player should consider less optimal compromises in a Negotiation to prevent a Brawl from happening. In some cases it is better to compromise than risk an injury.

Brawls track two forms of "Health." There is the Health Bar, which will get knocked down as the fighting progresses, leading to a Knock Out state. There is also the Courage Bar. It is possible to Scare away opponents in a Brawl. As an Opponent is surrounded or sees their ally Knocked Out, their Courage goes down and eventually they will flee.

As a Brawl progresses, people get Knocked Out as their health gets low. The Higher the Intimidation Skill, the more damage done during a Brawl, and the less likely Damage will be taken.

When a Knockout does happen, there is a change of Injury. These new Injuries are the most important part of the system, and I think will add a lot of flavor to the personal stories of each Clanfolk.

I will be writing an Injury Manager System to handle distributing a wide variety of these afflictions in the future, but for now the test case is a broken left or right arm. This will lower work efficiently drastically until healed and should make the player thing twice about throwing punches.

I have put quite a lot of thought into making the Brawling fit into the peaceful but also historically accurate atmosphere of Clanfolk, but in the case where players just do not want to have it ever happen, there will be an option to bypass this stage in a Negotiation as well.

Currently the Clan Leader comes up a lot in the descriptions above. The Clan Leader is currently auto picked as the oldest Clan Member, but I plan to add a new system to choose them as well as have story outcomes to this selection in the future.

I am very excited to hear your thoughts on the Negotiation System.

Thanks again everyone!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.