I’ve been thinking a lot about resources in Necken, and it has been mentioned by playtesters as well (shoutout to Toad Racer), and I’ve collected the ideas and features that I’m thinking about adding to the game.

First off, resources today is a non brainer. There’s no challenge, and there’s no choice to be made. Or, the only choice rather, is to use a specific tool to increase the gathering from a single source or not. While gathering wood, you get 1 per time and with an axe you get 2 per time. Altogether 3 or 6 resources from a single source.

What if, instead of just gathering mindlessly, there’s a specific feature bound to each resource that make them more unique? The player will have to discover the features and have them in mind while playing.

Changing trees and gathering of wood
There are some trees (shown by an indicator, lets say a bird) that will spawn an enemy when you gather the first or the last charge of wood from it. The enemy pops up at one of the ends of the layer and you have to address it. The player can choose to gather the resources if needed and face the enemy, or simply ignore the tree if it’s not worth the challenge.
When the tree is empty there’s a chance a bonus is created in the layer. It could be something as simple as +1 heal, or an extra resource. The player will not get a choice here, and a new challenge will not present itself, but there’s something more than just gathering. A reward of some kind, even if it’s really small.

Changing stone and gathering of stone
Only 2 resources out of the 3 for a stone tile can be collected without the proper tool. The stone tile will not be removed, since it has a charge left, but the player can’t get it unless the player uses a pickaxe. If the player is using a pickaxe from the start, the total amount will be 6 resources, and if the player starts gathering by hand and then heads back to the stone tile left behind, the player will get 2 + 2 - 2 from each charge by hand, and 2 for the last charge with a pickaxe.
The stone tiles can reveal a secret area. Instead of breaking the tile and revealing an empty tile, in some specific places a hidden area, a bridge will appear instead. There might be a bonus, reward or something in the hidden area, who knows. This gives the player another reason to collect stone - there might be a hidden road underneath it.
Stone will not have a dangerous element to it. Collecting stone is always safe.

Gold will still have the unique properties already implemented: It requires a tool, and it does not yield extra resources when using a tool.

One of the 3 resources have a challenge, something that could potentially kill the player, but there is still something unique with every resource. There might be a reason to have a dangerous element to all the resources, who knows.
When looking at Magicite for example, only one of the resources (stone) have a dangerous element - there might be a mimic there.

The first feature that I planned for the gold was to make it into a ”physical” resource, just like coal. It’s not just a score in the hud, but an actual item. But then I thought, why is gold any different?

Instead, I’m considering making all resources physical. All the resources will take up space in the backpack, and have something like 10 stacks in each tile. This also leads to the next point that I want to add to the game.

Managing inventory space
So right now there’s some inventory management, if the player decides to buy all the items in the game. There are not that many items in the game yet, so this will probably never happen.

But, if inventory management was a thing only with items, it would be much more so with physical resources as well. The player cannot horde resources without sacrificing inventory space for precious items. The player suddenly gets a choice (or rather, the choice becomes much more apparent) - what items do I keep in the inventory for later?
Instead of hording, the player must make decisions pretty much all the time. The player wants more wood, but the inventory is full. Will the player spend resources first, to make space? Will the player upgrade the inventory to make it bigger? Will the player buy a market to convert one resource into another?

The inventory management mechanic is something that I’ve always found interesting - from Diablo 2 to Minecraft. The choice you have to make when the inventory is full and you just found that new awesome thing. What to throw away? Which item adds the least value?

Also, adding the ability to upgrade the inventory to make it bigger, will enable the players to choose their own play styles - upgrade fully, or nothing at all? This will also make it important to add some new items as well, and make some of them (cough binoculars cough) more useful.

Together with adding durability to the resource tools, I think these changes to the game might make it a lot better. The problem is that I still want to make a lot of other similar changes to the resources, but that will be a later post =)

Please let me know what you think of these changes, and if there are other features you wish to see along with, or instead of these. I still haven’t begun implementing any of these, so there’s still time to add your awesome feature instead!

Love,
J