Short Game Summary
You start your journey with a small number of settlers. They are lost somewhere with nothing but some tools, the clothes on their backs and some food in their backpacks. Your task is to guide them and keep them alive in a world that changes with the seasons and the weather. You can:
- Gather edible plants; fish in rivers and lakes; plant crops and hunt for game
- Cut down trees and break rocks to get building materials
- Build simple shelters or more permanent structures such as cabins and barns
- Explore the world to find new resources or suitable places to settle
- Set policies that affect the behavior and interaction of your settlers
- Setup the production of tools, clothing, fuel and other materials
Your settlers are individuals. They have personal preferences for work and leisure. They have different sensitivities for hot and cold weather, different stamina levels and different calorie needs.
The world of Homestead features:
- A large open world that contains different types of physical geography
- A day/night cycle that affects the settlers, in terms of darkness and sleep cycle
- Weather that changes with the time of the day and the seasons
- A dynamic ecosystem in which plants and animals affect each other
- AI:s that you can trade and interact with
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The Team
Homestead is developed by a two man team with a passion for city-building and strategy games. We wanted a settler simulation game with a small number of detailed individuals in a large open world that has a simulated ecosystem. We felt that such a game was missing and decided to create it. Homestead is the result.
Development Status
We have completed most of the core functionality of the game, but need your help to finish it. Developing a game of this complexity is time consuming. All donations would go into development of the game. If fully funded, we expect to deliver an Early Access Alpha version of the game for Windows and Mac during the first quarter 2017. The full game depends on the success of this Early Access version.
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Game Features
The World
The game takes place in a large open world that contains different types of physical geography. The main types of regions are:
- Coastal regions, that features good fishing opportunities, mild winters, but lots of rain and snow
- Mountain regions, with harsh winters and short summers, limited farming, but plenty of mineral resources
- Forest regions, that offers natural protection from harsh weather, plenty of wood and hunting opportunities
- Plains, that offers excellent agriculture, but limited wood and mineral resources, and mild winters
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Where you decide to start your settlement matters, in terms of climate, available resources and logistics. Each region has its own local flora and fauna. Some examples of common resources are:
- Edible plants (e.g berries, fruits, roots, etc)
- Rocks and minerals (stone for construction and tools, iron ore, gold, silver, etc)
- Wood (various types of trees, used in construction, tool making, fuel and more)
- Herbs (used in cooking and medicine)
- Fibers (used as insulation and to make rope, etc)
- Seeds and seedlings from various plants that can be planted and grown
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Settlers
Each member of your group is an individual, with different needs, attitudes and abilities. They all share the basic need for food, rest, shelter and companionship. But differ in the choice of activities, the amount of food required and so on. They will do the work you assign them to do as long as their basic needs are met.
Each settlers well-being is determined by many factors, and it is up to you to provide the means for them to live long and happy lives. For example, you could provide work and leisure activities they enjoy or invest time and resources in building proper houses and giving them warmer clothing. They will tell you what ails them and what you could do to remedy it.
Settlers fall in two broad categories when it comes to work. Laborers are general workers that, for example, deliver materials to where it is needed, prepares firewood, makes roads and so on. Other settlers have assigned professions and work in dedicated areas.
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Your settlers are your main resource, so taking care of their needs will be your top priority.
Ecosystem
The game features a simulated ecosystem. That is, an environment where settlers, plants and animals interact and affect each other. Plants grow dynamically with the seasons. This means that you need to plan and be careful in order to get maximum yield and not deplete the resources you depend on. For example:
- Deer populations require food and forests to hide in, thus you can force a deer population to relocate due to heavy deforestation or harvesting the plants they eat.
- Berries, for example, starts to grow during the early summer and will be ripe in the fall. Each year they will provide more, unless disturbed.
- Extensive and careless overfishing of a lake may completely wipe out the fish population in that lake.
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The Homestead
A homestead is a collection of buildings, structures, fields, roads and more, together with the surrounding area. The homestead is where your settlers live, and where wildlife is somewhat held back.
The homestead follows the homesteading principle by which one can claim ownership of unknown land by performing work on it. Thus, your homestead cannot be used by AI:s, and vice versa. However, structures and (owned) land can be lost if they remain unused over long periods of time, after which they can be claimed by someone else.
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You can build many different kinds of buildings or structures, e.g. houses, production buildings, storages, social buildings, camps, and utilities. All structures deteriorate over time, thus maintenance is needed. Also, storms may come and destroy already built structures so you may have to rebuild.
Production
Production is performed in production buildings. One such example is the woodcutter, where settlers can chop logs into firewood. Another is the blacksmith building, which utilizes various materials to construct tools such as axes, scythes and hammers. The flow of materials required to produce one axe is shown schematically below, where raw materials (e.g trees, iron rich ore) are harvested and refined (e.g firewood from logs, charcoal from slowly burning wood) before being used by the blacksmith.
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Wild Animals
There are many animals that roam in the wild. For example:
Animals are individuals belonging to populations spread out in the wilderness. The size of these populations, the existence of food, natural enemies, human settlements, etc, determine the growth and decline of these populations.
Your settlers can interact with the animals, both on purpose and involuntarily, i.e. they can be hunted or they can attack the settlers in some circumstances. You can create teams of settlers to find and hunt the animals, yielding meat and possibly other materials such as leather.
Agriculture
When a homestead matures, the possibilities of agriculture increase. By constructing fields and orchards your settlers can grow various crops. Examples of crops are:
- Wheat
- Barley
- Corn
- Garlic
- Potatoes
- Carrots
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The sowing and reaping of crops is done by the farmer, a specific settler profession. The farmer will tend to the crops, and do other things when he or she has to wait for them to grow.
The settlers can also make use of domesticated animals that can provide food, material and fertilizer to improve the production of crops. Animal husbandry is done by the herder, another agriculture profession, which takes care of the animals in pastures.
Trade
Trading is done via bargaining, that is, you trade one item for another directly. For example, you can trade an axe for some chickens or some iron ore for cabbage seeds. In order to trade, you have to visit another homestead or have a merchant visit you. Another possibility is via annual markets where representatives from homesteads across the land can meet each other to trade goods.
Trading is limited to what your settlers can carry. Since there are very few roads in the world of Homestead, and lots of wilderness, trading can be quite challenging, depending on where you choose to settle.
Game modes
Customization of the game is possible in various ways, for example by playing as a group or as a solo adventurer. The game can be played in sandbox mode where you decide the objectives, but also in different scenarios where the game is challenging you in various ways. A scenario editor, where you can create your own scenarios, will also be available.
Other Ways You Can Help
Whether you decide to support the campaign or not, you can still help us out by sharing this with friends and family. You can also help by voting for us on Steam Greenlight!
You can also find us on twitter, facebook, and youtube.
Contact
You can check our homepage for more material, or contact us at support@homesteadgame.com.