Where it goes from here
The first part of Cinderdeep is nearly done, so I sat down and decided where the whole game goes after it.
Ashwell has been my test town for weeks. Guy Oakley and Florence Oakley keep watch at the guard post, the Ashpaws come out of the old shaft, Guy clubs them down, and in the morning the town gets on with its day. Watching that again this week, I noticed something I did not like: nothing serious ever happens. The Cinderkin come one by one, nibble at a field and are gone. Nobody in Ashwell would lose a night’s sleep over them.
That was not the only thing. The first part of the game is close to done, and I could not say what came after it. Every new building answered the question “what would be nice to have”, not “what is this game about”. So I stopped building for a day and wrote it down instead: where the whole game goes, from the first cabin to the end.
It starts at home. Right now every cabin in Ashwell looks the same, whether the family inside has a warm meal and a light in the window or is sitting in the dark. That changes. A home will show how its people live, and you will read a street by looking at it, not at a number. The people in it will want more, and what they want will pull the town forward.
Then the mine. The old shafts are not just a place the Cinderkin come from. The deeper the town digs, the more it finds, and the more it wakes. Going down is the way forward, and every step down has a price you pay at night. The nights will not stay as easy as they are in Ashwell now.
I also want you to see trouble coming. A threat that hits you out of nowhere is not fun, it is just unfair. When something is on its way, the game will tell you what, when, and why it is coming, so you have time to get ready.
The last part is distance. Florence walks a tile a second, which sounds quick until you count how far that gets her in a working day. A town that spreads out finds its people spending their days on the road, and roads that fill up at the shift change. How far your people can reach, and how you get them further, is going to matter.
None of this is built yet, and I am not going to tell you everything that is in the plan. But it is one plan now, not a pile of nice ideas, and the first part of the game will be built to point the same way as the rest. The first thing on the list is making the nights in Ashwell something Guy and Florence will remember.