Game Mechanics

The game world is separated into a grid, with each square being 100x100px.  Different colonies are slightly different base colors, so that the player will know when they are moving between colony borders. 

Major terrain formations are represented static icons and modify the player's movement speed.  Roads increase the player movement rate by 30%.  Mountains and Swamps decrease movement speed by 60%, and Forest decrease speed by 30%.  The player will not be able to walk over large bodies of water. 

Player movement is mapped to the Up, Down, Left and Right arrows [UP - North, DOWN - South, LEFT - West, RIGHT - East].  The spacebar is used as a general action button. 

Every four seconds and encounter is picked randomly from a weighted list.  The uses a weighted frequency to account for the availability of each good in the player's current region.  When the player move his/her avatar over the Encounter Sprite and presses the action button, the player will either receive a random amount of resources (between one and five units) or start a mini-game.  The specifics of the various encounters are given in the "Encounters" section.

The GUI includes the name of the colony the player is currently visiting, and a mini-map that shown the player current location.

Capitals and/or major towns will be used as trading posts and be represented with a town icon.  Moving over the town icon and pressing the action button will trigger the Town Menu.  Areas outside the 13 colonies have an increased chance of a hostile encounter.

At the beginning of the game the player will be introduced to the core elements of gameplay (Trapping, Harvesting, and Fishing) and given a detailed map.  Ideally the map would have lines of latitude and longitude, a compass, and colony borders but not colony names.  The GUI will also display the player current location in Latitude and Longitude and give the name in which the player is currently located once the player has visited that colonies capital.  The colony names and capitals would fill in after those areas where visited, making exploration of the colonies a goal unto itself and reiterating the names and locations of places throughout gameplay.

Game Beginning

At the start of the game the player is given 50 pounds sterling and no other goods in inventory.  Player starts the game on the map screen near Dover, Delaware Colony.   All of the activities are available from the start of the game.  From there the player can move over land or visit a port.    

Game Ending

The game is over when the player earns enough money to start a small farm (1500 shillings).  This event triggers the Victory Screen which shows the player celebrating.  From the victory screen the player can press the action button to continue playing.

Main View

The Main View screen is 800x600 pixels.  Any other screens (hunting game, town menu, etc.) pop-over the main screen at 600x400 pixels.  A portion of the screen is reserved for continuous status updates.  This includes the current map position, and current colony.  Colonies that have been visited will be display their names in a banner above the town.

Town Menu

The town menu will allow the player to buy/selling goods, talk to town's people, and take a fishing trip.  It is accessed when the player moves his/her avatar over the Town Icon in the Main View and presses the action button.  The options within this menu are accessed by the player navigating his/her sprite to the sign that corresponds to his/her specific objective. 

Activating the Store or Fishing sign will open the corresponding sub menu. 

Activating the Town's Person displays a speech bubble with a randomly selected hint.  Only one hint will be available during each town visit.

The player exits the menu by moving over the exit sign and pressing the action button.

Buying and selling goods will be the primary action of the game.  This menu is triggered when the player-sprite is moved to the front of the Store and the action button is pressed.  This action will trigger a text based store menu where goods can be selected and bought into, or sold out of the player's inventory.  In this menu the available goods are selected using the up and down arrows, then either sold with the left arrow or bought with the right.  The dollar amount in the player's inventory is updated after every transaction.

Colonies will offer different prices on goods based what is produced in that area.  (i.e. A town in a wheat producing area would give the player less money for wheat than a town in a fur producing area.)  Prices will be more closely related among towns in the same colony group (i.e. Middle Colonies or Southern Colonies).  Town sales follow a similar pattern with goods that are produce in the area being sold to the player at lower prices.  This pattern of relative scarcity and abundance, combined with regional similarities should reinforce the elements that make each colony unique.

There are 4 available goods (fish, fur, crops, and lumber).  Specifics types within a given category (i.e. "beaver" in the "fur" category) will yield a certain amount of one of the major types of goods.  So, if the player trapped a beaver, they would receive 3 units of fur.

The stores have different base amounts of goods based on their region.  Those values are:

Fishing Trips are the only way to harvest fish in the game.  A fishing trip cast 16 shillings which is the base price of two fish in the game.  Activating a fishing trip triggers the fishing trip animation and awards the player between one and five units of fish.

Town's people will are the main source of info in the game.  They will give info about the current town, lucrative areas for trading goods, and dangerous areas.  The info will vary in terms of specifics and accuracy.  Historic info about the colony will be given by the town's people.

The specific town's person in any given instance of the Town Menu is chosen when the menu is activated for a list of all possible town's people.  Once selected that person remain persistent for the duration of the town visit.  The town's person delivers a helpful, informative, or humorous phrase when activated with the action button (space bar).

The exact phase delivered by the town's person is selected when the Town Menu is activated.  Once the phrase is selected it is the only phrase available until the town is re-entered.  This will prevent the player from gaining all of the hint/help information at one time, while allowing all of that information to be located in one location to ease future edits/additions.

Encounters

Every Four seconds the game generates a random number. That number is compared to a list of all possible encounters (Hostile, Lumber, or Trapping), including no encounter. When an encounter is picked from the list, the game checks for player's current location and spawns the corresponding sprite 1-2 spaces from the player. After a 1-2 second animation, the sprite acts in accordance to its individual AI (i.e. the tree stays in its original space). If the player and the sprite are ever in the same square and the player presses the action button, the sprite performs an action (i.e. the tree adds lumber to player inventory), plays an exit animation and is removed from the screen. If 5-15 seconds pass without the player and encounter sprite entering the same square, the sprite plays an exit animation and is removed from the screen.

There are different lists for the three major areas of Colonial America (New England, Middle, and Southern), which are use to adjust the frequency of encounters based on player location.

Hostile Encounters

When a Hostile Encounter is generated from the encounter list, a Hostile Encounter Sprite (HES) spawns 1-2 space away from the player.  The HES looks the same as the other Encounter Sprites, but causes a loss of money or goods when triggered.  The HES removes itself as outlined in the Encounters section if it is not activated.  These encounters result in the player losing a random amount of goods and/or money.  These encounters can be either natural of human.  Human Hostile Encounters should cost the player 10-15% (rounded up) of money or other goods.  The category of the loss should be chosen randomly, then the amount of the loss should be randomly chosen (still between the given max/min percentages).  These events are intending to mirror actual hardship colonist endured during the period. 

Hostile Encounters can occur anywhere in the colonies, but the chance of Hostile Encounters occurring will be greater than usual outside of British colonial borders.

Lumber Encounters

Certain trees on in the Main View are harvestable.  Moving over and pressing action button on one of these trees will give the player a random amount of lumber [minimum: 1, maximum: 5].

Lumber Encounters are located mostly in the Middle Colonies.

Lumbering mini-game (not currently implemented).  In this game the player cuts the tree trunk at a certain angle so that is falls into a carriage.  The angle is chosen by pressing and holding up (W) or down(S) on the keyboard while tapping the left mouse button.  A certain number of mouse clicks with up held results in the tree falling to the right, the same number of clicks while holding down will result in the tree falling to the left.  Clicking the mouse without holding up or down allows the tree to fall in a random direction.

The player chooses the direction the tree will fall so that it will land in a wagon that appears on either the left or right edge on the screen.  As the wagon exits the screen the player is awarded and amount of Lumber.  With each tree cut, the amount of time the wagon waits decreases.  As the amount of time the wagon will wait decreases, the amount of Lumber the tree is worth increases.

Trapping Encounters

Functions the same as Lumber encounters.

Trapping mini-game (not currently implemented).  Catching the TES spawns the Trapping mini-game yields a fixed amount of fur based on the specific TES that was spawned.

Trapping encounters are located mostly in the New England and Middle Colonies.

Harvesting Encounters

Functions the same as Lumber Encounters.