An incomplete information problem disguised as an unfolding game disguised as a civ-building card game.
Unfortunately, even after mastering the basic mechanics, you have no knowledge upon which to base your decisions. It's a deckbuilding game where you didn't actually build your deck. It's a strategy game where the concept of strategizing is alien. It's a micro-management game where there's only a tenuous relationship between the visible representations of your units on the screen and the areas covered by those units. Even on easy, you will earn spare gold from massive population satisfaction and still need to skip turns because you don't have enough gold.
The worst part is I'm 100% certain this isn't an accident. The game was obviously carefully designed, balanced and play-tested to capture the existential horror of managing a medieval sanitation project. On Normal, I suppose people would be dying of dysentery or sacrificing goats or whatever, and it would be my fault somehow for not putting cards on colored rectangles in the correct way.
Overall, it's the digital equivalent of a gilded, precision clockwork mechanism tasked with smacking you in the face with a dead fish for all eternity, or at least until the gearbox winds down and you run out of gold or stars or whatever and get a Game Over.
I'm only halfway through the second age, and I can already see where this is going. In the future, every possible structure and interface remains clogged with unusable components for permanently-stalled projects, while the deck keeps cycling and piling on new mechanics and fires keep breaking out and nothing works, all because I didn't somehow predict the need for three scribes and a foreman three turns in advance, and after I got the components together, I ran out of money to finish it that turn and had to sacrifice like three red cards at once.
Which is all a fancy way of saying I don't understand how the game works, even though I'm long past the tutorial and I remember everything it taught me. I've learned the mechanics, but the game flatly refuses to let you wrap your head around its dynamics during gameplay. You would need to lose multiple times just in order to know what cards appear in the late game so that you can attempt to make any meaningful decisions whatsoever about which cards to keep, use or discard at any given time.
So I give up. The quaint town of Grudziądz may keep its mysteries, for I will no longer play a hand in its people's suffering.
Seriously? If you keep running out of money, trade influence for income and money, don't buy jewelries, NEVER buy jewelries(BLUE card), it's a scam. For projects, keep 1 foremen and balance out the others, scribes only used on projects rarely, only some projects that uses 2 or more when the game introduces you the scribe. For predicting what cards will come out, well you can hover the discard pile. For placing the water carriers like you need to learn to maximize your placing and learn to sacrifice an angry house for other houses.
I honestly find the game quite easy on normal, maybe because I've played some management games before, I completed normal on 126 turns and got the achievement to complete the game before 150 turns. So, I think your management is a bit lacking, try to be patient and learn how each action contributes to what event comes after
Unfortunately, it only offered me the card that lets you sell influence and get money once or twice at the very start of the game, when I didn't need it.
The one time I did see it offered in the late game, I skipped it because it was literally a worse exchange rate than the "2 influence for 1 gold" you get from overflowing 100 influence.
Trust me, if your influence is in the positive, always sell influence for money.
And I think you misread the card or something, there are 3 donation cards that gives you money for influence (small = 10, common = 20, generous = 40) like their exchange rate is 1:1(unless in hard/impossible), I don't know any card that has worse exchange rate than the influence overflow.
I always use these red donation cards when I draw them. Due to this, I was very rich (300+ money) in normal, hard, and mid-game impossible mode. And with good water carrier placing, my influence never made it to negative in normal and hard mode.
I see. In that case, I suppose my real issue is I thought 100% approval was the goal. Like. It's water. If people in a certain block are only getting 50% of the water they need to survive, that's a problem that will literally kill townsfolk if it lasts for more than a day or so. Anything less than 100% is a failure state.
Or at least, that's the way water works in real life. It never occurred to me to treat overflow like a problem to be solved or a resource to be spent. I thought overflow meant nobody died this turn because we met quota and maybe went a little over. Sure, we could try bartering away some of the excess, but what if it makes us come up short? Too risky.
I feel like I'm starting to overstate the point, but if only 90% of the people have water, 10% of the people die of thirst. That's how water works. It's one of three core mechanics of IRL literally all of us learn during the tutorial level. The game's influence mechanic feels like a weird abstraction that doesn't make sense in the real world.
Influence and money are concepts in the real world, to be sure, but killing 10% of the population per day for money seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't be feasible for very long, even by medieval standards. If the peasants didn't revolt, at some point, you'd run out of peasants.
I really loved this game, Is there anyway you could make it downloadable(?) or at least able to save and load progress? This is such a unique game and not many are able to do what you do in both style and simplicity!
went in not knowing anything and had a "??!!!" moment when i saw the scriptwelder logo pop up. big fan of your old flash games, didn't know you had new(er) games and was not disappointed!
WOW, as both an engineer and someone who enjoys video games, I want to thank the creators for this game. This is an awesome way for students of engineering, and the general public at large, to learn more about the systems that created our modern world.
I've got to say, this game was very intriguing and unique. I like how satisfying it feels to complete a certain work- like filing up the requirements of the projects. In my first attempt, I managed to complete the game in 114 turns (it's pretty long). The gameplay is very unique and the art is just as amazing as ever. Keep up the good work!
I believe it is possible to win Impossible difficulty with 100% consistency if you really know what you're doing. I wonder, though, if it's possible to beat Impossible without ever dropping below 0 influence (the first time that happens you're given +50 influence as a "second chance")...
Love that game (on "easy" at least). Wish there was some source or more settings. Font is too tiny for me at places. Would be nice to skip intro (browser closed, cache cleared).
And would also be nice to be able to translate myself. I'm not so selfish to just ask "I want language XX_xx" - but any possibility here would be very welcome.
I think that this game lacks proper deck manipulation, storing cards is fine, but it is very passive, actual pulling and redirecting of cards (slay-the-spire-like "put on top of draw pile") early on would be insanely good. Also some draw amount manipulation would be great (for example famine that makes you draw less cards each turn, huge celebration that makes you draw more each turn)
Awesome game! Finished on normal, 135 days. Bad well placement early on really mess up the overall plan later.
Overall great mix of fun, strategy, history, and engineering. I'd love to see this become a sub-system in a city sim! Maybe a mini-series where you focus on different systems within a city?
This game is awesome :D I actually don't feel like I'm needed, because the game plays itself, I just put into right places stuff that comes randomly, but still it's fun to observe how the city evolves and changes through ages. Nice idle clicker with "puzzle" and "collect right items" elements.
But for all who come from Grudziądz - this is a really nice gift to play a game that is dedicated to our lovely city! Thank you!
Recently I have received a notification about this particular issue, and I'm more than delighted with the release! The whole concept of the game, how long the gameplay can last (which is really something unordinary in this type of release), and how levels are becoming more complex is something that needs awe of itself for sure. I have worked hard to make the popular saying in my hometown pass, and the saying is "Bo cały Grudziądz to zajebana wieś", no longer it is.
I've gotten worriedly addicted to this I'm worried about doing work for my job. Amazing concept and great gameplay. Sucks that I'm bad at it though lol.
I made an account just to say this: As much as I enjoyed the game, the fact that when it gets harder you're dependent on luck is very unfortunate. I used my resources wisely and carefully, however I didn't get pipes or water carts for a very long time, no matter how much I upgraded the system I couldn't get water carts, lost reputation which meant I couldn't buy money. I don't think that this system of randomized carts that come with luck is fitting for a management and strategy game.
There is a hard cap for water carriers, water carts, pipes, and sumps. The game isn't that dependent on luck as there is a set number of cards in a deck that is cycled every few turns and added depending on your advancements in the game. This means that you will always get all available types of cards every time you cycle the deck, you can see which cards you have the possibility of getting by hovering your mouse over the stack of cards on your left. You probably reached the cap for water carts and didn't upgrade your stables for a while or just reached the max amount of water carts, which is 3.
Would be nice if I could hold a key to highlight the state of every district, though (current and target water levels).
Would also be easier to select the water carrier by clicking the district instead of the character (seems more intuitive when you play the card on the district itself).
fun game I finished it on normal and hard before stopping. Only issues I had with it was if you are at the end of your deck and you normally draw 4 cards but your deck is only 2 left you only draw those 2 instead of the discard being shuffled and you draw up to your normal 4. Feels like it waste a lot of turns drawing only 1-2 cards. Would also like to see a way to pay to draw extra cards or a building you can make that lets you draw an extra card a round. If you go the pay route maybe have it have a raising cost the more you use it. Otherwise the game was a lot of fun and I got every achievement other than playing it on Impossible. Good luck and Hope you develop it more!
absolutely fantastic masterpiece such a fun little peaceful game with a unique concept literally blinked and then realised I had been played for 98 turns only one problem which was I started having to keep skipping turns towards the end to get any building projects I dunno maybe I was just very unlucky I mean I had to skip like 80 turns it was really annoying however from what I can tell no one else had this problem, I never got any new projects that I could actually finish till the point I was racking up money I had 700 gold and -70 influence I think my game was glitched or something still well worth playing a 10/10
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An incomplete information problem disguised as an unfolding game disguised as a civ-building card game.
Unfortunately, even after mastering the basic mechanics, you have no knowledge upon which to base your decisions. It's a deckbuilding game where you didn't actually build your deck. It's a strategy game where the concept of strategizing is alien. It's a micro-management game where there's only a tenuous relationship between the visible representations of your units on the screen and the areas covered by those units. Even on easy, you will earn spare gold from massive population satisfaction and still need to skip turns because you don't have enough gold.
The worst part is I'm 100% certain this isn't an accident. The game was obviously carefully designed, balanced and play-tested to capture the existential horror of managing a medieval sanitation project. On Normal, I suppose people would be dying of dysentery or sacrificing goats or whatever, and it would be my fault somehow for not putting cards on colored rectangles in the correct way.
Overall, it's the digital equivalent of a gilded, precision clockwork mechanism tasked with smacking you in the face with a dead fish for all eternity, or at least until the gearbox winds down and you run out of gold or stars or whatever and get a Game Over.
I'm only halfway through the second age, and I can already see where this is going. In the future, every possible structure and interface remains clogged with unusable components for permanently-stalled projects, while the deck keeps cycling and piling on new mechanics and fires keep breaking out and nothing works, all because I didn't somehow predict the need for three scribes and a foreman three turns in advance, and after I got the components together, I ran out of money to finish it that turn and had to sacrifice like three red cards at once.
Which is all a fancy way of saying I don't understand how the game works, even though I'm long past the tutorial and I remember everything it taught me. I've learned the mechanics, but the game flatly refuses to let you wrap your head around its dynamics during gameplay. You would need to lose multiple times just in order to know what cards appear in the late game so that you can attempt to make any meaningful decisions whatsoever about which cards to keep, use or discard at any given time.
So I give up. The quaint town of Grudziądz may keep its mysteries, for I will no longer play a hand in its people's suffering.
Seriously? If you keep running out of money, trade influence for income and money, don't buy jewelries, NEVER buy jewelries(BLUE card), it's a scam. For projects, keep 1 foremen and balance out the others, scribes only used on projects rarely, only some projects that uses 2 or more when the game introduces you the scribe. For predicting what cards will come out, well you can hover the discard pile. For placing the water carriers like you need to learn to maximize your placing and learn to sacrifice an angry house for other houses.
I honestly find the game quite easy on normal, maybe because I've played some management games before, I completed normal on 126 turns and got the achievement to complete the game before 150 turns. So, I think your management is a bit lacking, try to be patient and learn how each action contributes to what event comes after
Unfortunately, it only offered me the card that lets you sell influence and get money once or twice at the very start of the game, when I didn't need it.
The one time I did see it offered in the late game, I skipped it because it was literally a worse exchange rate than the "2 influence for 1 gold" you get from overflowing 100 influence.
Trust me, if your influence is in the positive, always sell influence for money.
And I think you misread the card or something, there are 3 donation cards that gives you money for influence (small = 10, common = 20, generous = 40) like their exchange rate is 1:1(unless in hard/impossible), I don't know any card that has worse exchange rate than the influence overflow.
I always use these red donation cards when I draw them. Due to this, I was very rich (300+ money) in normal, hard, and mid-game impossible mode. And with good water carrier placing, my influence never made it to negative in normal and hard mode.
I see. In that case, I suppose my real issue is I thought 100% approval was the goal. Like. It's water. If people in a certain block are only getting 50% of the water they need to survive, that's a problem that will literally kill townsfolk if it lasts for more than a day or so. Anything less than 100% is a failure state.
Or at least, that's the way water works in real life. It never occurred to me to treat overflow like a problem to be solved or a resource to be spent. I thought overflow meant nobody died this turn because we met quota and maybe went a little over. Sure, we could try bartering away some of the excess, but what if it makes us come up short? Too risky.
I feel like I'm starting to overstate the point, but if only 90% of the people have water, 10% of the people die of thirst. That's how water works. It's one of three core mechanics of IRL literally all of us learn during the tutorial level. The game's influence mechanic feels like a weird abstraction that doesn't make sense in the real world.
Influence and money are concepts in the real world, to be sure, but killing 10% of the population per day for money seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't be feasible for very long, even by medieval standards. If the peasants didn't revolt, at some point, you'd run out of peasants.
Remember the fact that the average human can live for 3 days without water. Use said days to amass scribes and craftsmen.
Did you ever use the "increase funding" card
I took "increase funding" literally every time it was offered, thinking "it's free money."
It is free money
UNLIKE certain blue cards
dude just build the sumps
I really loved this game, Is there anyway you could make it downloadable(?) or at least able to save and load progress? This is such a unique game and not many are able to do what you do in both style and simplicity!
went in not knowing anything and had a "??!!!" moment when i saw the scriptwelder logo pop up. big fan of your old flash games, didn't know you had new(er) games and was not disappointed!
WOW, as both an engineer and someone who enjoys video games, I want to thank the creators for this game. This is an awesome way for students of engineering, and the general public at large, to learn more about the systems that created our modern world.
I've got to say, this game was very intriguing and unique. I like how satisfying it feels to complete a certain work- like filing up the requirements of the projects. In my first attempt, I managed to complete the game in 114 turns (it's pretty long). The gameplay is very unique and the art is just as amazing as ever. Keep up the good work!
Really great chilled card game
This game is so fun!
I really really loved this game! Great mechanics and it was a really fun environment with cool facts and cute sprites.
Really enjoyed the game
Wonderful little game! Well done!
I was over the moon to find this and with updates. Used to play original on Armour Games
Love that game (on "easy" at least). Wish there was some source or more settings. Font is too tiny for me at places.
Would be nice to skip intro (browser closed, cache cleared).
And would also be nice to be able to translate myself. I'm not so selfish to just ask "I want language XX_xx" - but any possibility here would be very welcome.
can u make Chinese???
I think that this game lacks proper deck manipulation, storing cards is fine, but it is very passive, actual pulling and redirecting of cards (slay-the-spire-like "put on top of draw pile") early on would be insanely good. Also some draw amount manipulation would be great (for example famine that makes you draw less cards each turn, huge celebration that makes you draw more each turn)
Overall I really enjoyed this game :)
Entertaining and educational! Love the pixel art, but wish it was somehow easier to move the water carts and wagons.
Awesome game! Finished on normal, 135 days. Bad well placement early on really mess up the overall plan later.
Overall great mix of fun, strategy, history, and engineering. I'd love to see this become a sub-system in a city sim! Maybe a mini-series where you focus on different systems within a city?
This game is awesome :D I actually don't feel like I'm needed, because the game plays itself, I just put into right places stuff that comes randomly, but still it's fun to observe how the city evolves and changes through ages. Nice idle clicker with "puzzle" and "collect right items" elements.
But for all who come from Grudziądz - this is a really nice gift to play a game that is dedicated to our lovely city! Thank you!
Recently I have received a notification about this particular issue, and I'm more than delighted with the release! The whole concept of the game, how long the gameplay can last (which is really something unordinary in this type of release), and how levels are becoming more complex is something that needs awe of itself for sure. I have worked hard to make the popular saying in my hometown pass, and the saying is "Bo cały Grudziądz to zajebana wieś", no longer it is.
Best game 10/10
A very good game, that also teaches you something
I've gotten worriedly addicted to this I'm worried about doing work for my job. Amazing concept and great gameplay. Sucks that I'm bad at it though lol.
One of my favorite games on itch.io! love it! Beat the game in 123 turns, just thought that was funny.
I made an account just to say this: As much as I enjoyed the game, the fact that when it gets harder you're dependent on luck is very unfortunate. I used my resources wisely and carefully, however I didn't get pipes or water carts for a very long time, no matter how much I upgraded the system I couldn't get water carts, lost reputation which meant I couldn't buy money. I don't think that this system of randomized carts that come with luck is fitting for a management and strategy game.
There is a hard cap for water carriers, water carts, pipes, and sumps. The game isn't that dependent on luck as there is a set number of cards in a deck that is cycled every few turns and added depending on your advancements in the game. This means that you will always get all available types of cards every time you cycle the deck, you can see which cards you have the possibility of getting by hovering your mouse over the stack of cards on your left. You probably reached the cap for water carts and didn't upgrade your stables for a while or just reached the max amount of water carts, which is 3.
Cute, fun, challenging, and informative!
Great game!
love thisgame
Amazing game. I love it
Finally a game that isn't about gay or trans people and is actually fun. 'Bout time.
And what's wrong about gay or trans people? A drop from 99% to 95% being about straight white men makes people like you so insecure...
Reported.
His username is a big tell
also reported
kinda true dou..
He ain't lying thou...
Finished all the achievements except impossible difficulty, we'll see if I ever succeed there lol. solid game!
very good game, i love it
Bluetooth horse
Downloadable version?
Great game!
Nice Game !
This is really cool, great job!
Would be nice if I could hold a key to highlight the state of every district, though (current and target water levels).
Would also be easier to select the water carrier by clicking the district instead of the character (seems more intuitive when you play the card on the district itself).
fun game I finished it on normal and hard before stopping. Only issues I had with it was if you are at the end of your deck and you normally draw 4 cards but your deck is only 2 left you only draw those 2 instead of the discard being shuffled and you draw up to your normal 4. Feels like it waste a lot of turns drawing only 1-2 cards. Would also like to see a way to pay to draw extra cards or a building you can make that lets you draw an extra card a round. If you go the pay route maybe have it have a raising cost the more you use it. Otherwise the game was a lot of fun and I got every achievement other than playing it on Impossible. Good luck and Hope you develop it more!
absolutely fantastic masterpiece such a fun little peaceful game with a unique concept literally blinked and then realised I had been played for 98 turns only one problem which was I started having to keep skipping turns towards the end to get any building projects I dunno maybe I was just very unlucky I mean I had to skip like 80 turns it was really annoying however from what I can tell no one else had this problem, I never got any new projects that I could actually finish till the point I was racking up money I had 700 gold and -70 influence I think my game was glitched or something still well worth playing a 10/10
happened to me too. Maybe it's cause we had too much residents, causing a never ending loop of losing influence
sounds plausible but why no new projects only ones that are impossible to do without town sigil? which I never gotXD
no idea lol, maybe you just got unlucky