Idle Villagers WIP

This project is unfinished. It was made for the Vector Festival 2023 Game Jam by Katelyn Campbell and Paul Osinski. As we were unable to complete the game within the game jam, we are submitting our WIP.

We wanted to make a game that would challenge the level of god-like control given to players over game worlds in typical strategy and colonization games such as Age of Empires, Civilization, or Northgard.  While the User Interface would imply that the player can command complete control over this world and the virtual people who inhabit it, these virtual people would actually have complete free will and their own values. While they will build housing and farms, or collect resources, they refuse to do so in excess. They would reject any suggestions to build up a military as they do not see a need for one. They would instead value leisure - spending time with loved ones or reading when there is no crucial work to be done. The interface includes the “idle villager count” seen in games such as Age of Empires, usually meant to represent wasted potential resources, however in our game the player would be unable to “fix” the problem of idleness since the virtual people are essentially NPCs, not an extension of player control. In this world, leisure is re-valued, resources refuse to be exploited, and the looming, unknown threat of an enemy player's violence is eliminated.