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Re: Improvements to fire mechanics, changes to smoking mechanics
I always found the mechanics of smoking meats in the game are bit odd to say the least, but since its been like this for a very long time, I guess I got used to this and never mentioned it. But now... Lets be honest here - if we want to do anything even remotely resembling proper smoking - this will not do. I guess the game is trying to simulate cold smoking, but as far as I know this method will not work with raw meat. In fact, it will not work so badly that if you'd try it, its almost certainly will lead to mid-level food poisoning at best and the brave food experimentator will need proper medical assistance. Sami, since you are taking a second look at this, maybe it would be a worthwhile effort to add a proper smoker building? Cold smoking does not need lots of heat, but it needs constant smoke source - aside from taste, it serves as natural anti-bacterial preserver. Fire source is not needed as such, as long as there are at least some embers under some moist wood shavings - its perfectly fine. So the smoke house can use a special fireplace with much longer burning fires (literally for days) that give almost no heat and cant be used for cooking or heating up. It's the cold smoking the game simulates, and it works for raw meat/fish too. And yes, the smoke is more important than the high temperatures, but those fireplaces are the very sources of smoke. There are no chimneys, so everytime you burn fire in the fireplace the smoke fills the rooms. So all the houses are "smoke houses" to begin with and there's no need for special fireplace or special building. It's ancient and traditional way to cold smoke foodstuff in saunas. It would work similarly in regular houses too as the smoke generation is the same with those fireplaces without chimneys. Actually, when the regular cottages were warmed up it gets (of course) so smoky in there that people rather stay outside for those few hours of active warming up, and then return when most of the smoke has been led out. The fireplace remains nicely warm still. This regular warming up process is yet to be simulated in the game because..well..very few would love it at first. 
May 21, 2020, 10:03:46 PM |
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Does BAC reduce realism?
I was reading through the wiki and my concerns that the mod would unbalance the game and make it less grounded in history seem justified. One dude in the forest couldn't mine iron ore and make steel surely, you'd need a village full of people to do that. Some of the stuff sounds cool and relevant (bone fish-hooks etc) but I'm worried it'll just become cheesy and unrealistic if there's a slew of unbalanced piecemeal additions. Any thoughts? EDIT by Erkka: I think JaxonThomas was a spambot, first posting a copypasted version of another topic, then later on editing the post to insert links to suspicious sites. I deleted the user account and removed the suspicious links from this post, but I kept the thread for there is some good discussion below. May 22, 2020, 12:25:30 PM |
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Re: Does BAC reduce realism?
Well, now. Didn't expect that question. Fair disclosure: I'm Brygun. The B in the BAC mod. Organizer of the mod from its various sources including my own addittions. So where to being: Q: Is play balance different with BAC? A: Yes Of course it does. There is many ways to get different tools or results other than the options in the vanilla game. Ways of generating wealth bundled up in ways of entertaining your self with role playing whittle a board game. Even if the game tracks how much of a different good is sold that there exists multiple new items means you could profit by selling them to a village. Q: Does it change realism? Well what is your reference for realism? Many, though not all, players are modern urbanites enjoying the game as a trip to the woods. I'm a bit urbanized but also grew up in the country side running around in forest was normal. It was a very safe wood without bears or lynxes or wolverines or Nerjpez to worry about. Q: Is there realism basis for items in the BAC? A: Yes In fact if you open up the diy_BAC_XXXX.txt files I specifically included references including links to youtube videos you can watch. Those certainly show there is realism is the mod. Q: Did item XXX exist in real world Iron Age Finland? Oh now there is a varied question. Item by item of all items would be too much so here is a few. Again many others have references in the .txt file comments. = As a Canadian with a tradition of birch bark canoes I put it in yet as Saami, maker of Unreal World and a native Finlander, pointed out is the sort of birch trees in Finland are different so they probably couldn't even made at all. = The largest of the boats, the clinkered punt, is a combination of the steamed open tree logs known to Finland plus the clinkering and caulking of what is known for sure in later ages but possible in that age. = The steps for making iron come from Rain's Ironworking mod and do indeed match up to my own studies of blacksmithing in that period. I was surprised to find that lake ore is a real thing. I thought it was a quirky gamey thing but low and behold if one looked into it this actually is realism. Secret: Finland has/had so much surface and near-surface iron ore that it flowed down with the rains into rivers into lakes. In the lakes, like the bogs, biological processes pulled it out and tended to make it into clumps mixed with non-iron. Thus you did need to roast the lump of lake ore (or bog ore) and process. = Back strap weaving is a real world thing. I believe there is a video for that in the .txt files. = Cordage is easier to make in BAC through various real world ways. Only the recent 3.60 ish (IIRC) added the withe making. Prior to that it took capturing animals to get leather to get the cords to hang meat to dry in the winter. A rather recursive if you have it (an animal kill) you can do it but if don't have it you can't do it (if that makes sense). In my own research I looked into real world ways for making cordage, like digging up spruce roots, and added them in. Real = yes. Changing the play balance = yes. Part of the BAC goals was to include things that were known or plausible to teach woodland survival skills. Thats why the Shaman mod was excluded, that is well researched but deals with a metaphysical. If you are new to UnReal World you might want to give a few goes at playing without the mod. It can be added mid-play or removed. The way Unrweal World recipes work once an item is created its properties are assigned to the instance thus not needing an ongoing reference. IF there is a graphic custom that might end up being empty but it should still show up in the list if you stand on a tile to pick it up. Of course without the mod you don't need a Ball Hammer. Good question. Think I will add the answers to the BAC forum and the text files. May 23, 2020, 04:27:46 AM |
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Re: Improvements to fire mechanics, changes to smoking mechanics
Allfather, I crave for animal husbandry. Anyways, I liked that fire mechanics improvementsIt’s on the dev.plans already May 25, 2020, 04:07:35 AM |
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Jutta's Tales: The Bog Mother. (A URW Horror Story.)
Hi, I want to try something different. Instead of a character story, I tried to write a horror story based in the URW. There might be more. I think Jutta has a few stories to tell. This is a little dark, and based on true things. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jutta was my mother's mother. She came from the far north, away from the coast we call home now. Mother told me that she came from the Owl Tribe, before settling down with her husband, a Seal Tribe man in his homeland, our homeland. He had been killed before I was born and Jutta had moved in with us. Father, was a Seal Tribe man through and through, and didn't like Jutta. On good days, he said she had the touch of the Spirits. On his bad days, he would say she drank too much of them instead. But she seemed so ancient, so wise to me, I was just a little boy at the time. I took her word as law much to my practical father's annoyance. I was forever panicking over spilled salt, casting the expensive substance over my shoulders, refusing to whistle indoors for our dogs and all sorts of old Spirit ways. It seemed for beings who didn't care for humans, they certainly cared a lot about all sorts of things we do according to Jutta. Even though it has been many long winters since she left us, I still remember her sitting in front of the hearth. A broken net over her lap, her curled and swollen fingers deftly passing the bone shuttle needle through the cords, stitching it. The little clicks of bone, almost lost with the wind whirring past the window, sending snow against the sides of the cabin we were in. My job was to hold the lengths of cord taut as she worked. An important job she always told me. Fixing Father's fishing nets was my favourite job, not just because I get to stay in the warmth, curled against Jutta's leg, but because Jutta would tell me stories. Now I sit in front of the fire now, my children's children around me, watching me whittle, I still remember her stories or was they more warnings? I clear my throat, the children looked up expectantly. They were waiting for the next tale, as I did when I was their age. The wind howled and made them jump and look around skittish like deer and I smiled. “Have you ever heard the Bog Mother?” I started, echoing Jutta's words from so many moons ago... Winters on the coast are cold but with the sea air keeping the worst of the snow out, it is nothing like the far north. There was a village that was on the tip of the world it seemed, so far north and so cold. But nothing was colder than the people. Hunger and death was a constant companion to the people, Nothing would grow in the stony frozen soil for most of the year. The kept reindeer was scraggly starving beasts but the people made do. Yet they didn't move on. Some say they were cursed, banished to the far frozen north for some evil deeds, land and bloodlines cursed. All I say is that when the milk of a doe was ending, they often mixed it with the does' blood, bleeding the beast slowly keeping it alive and the hot blood mixed in with the thinning milk was their favourite treat. In the leaner years, when the villagers, deep into the dark months felt their stomachs ache with hunger, what little food there was, was shared out to the village hunters, trappers and crafters first. The men eating what they could as they needed to find more. The scraps was given to the womenfolk to pick whatever they could from the lean bones, breaking them for marrow like starving wolves. Whatever, if ever, anything was left it was scraped into the pot and boiled, the thin soup dished out to the elderly. There was one year though, it seemed the Spirits was plaguing the village, traps were sprung but lay empty and half the reindeer does lost their calf, the other half just didn't carry. The villagers already was gaunt from one bad winter but a worst spring? Followed by a tragic summer since the hunters was bringing barely any food in, just enough to keep them all from dying. The Summer Solstice brought the village leaders and the Sage, to the middle of the village. The old Sage, was barely able to stand but still chanted and cast a few bones into the fire and watched them burn. A sharp snap from the bones made him fall back. “A bad winter!” Was declared, the omens black. Worry filled the village far faster than food in the stores. Was it worse to die slow starvation or quick? People muttered as they walked past the storerooms again and again, looking at the small amount of food as if it would change. In the midst of summer, a young outsider housewife, who married into the Tribe but a year ago gave birth. The first one in many years. However births was not celebrated like yours. They marked another mouth to feed, another drain on scarce supplies they had. The other women, the ones who hasn't bared in years talked in hushed tones about it, how not right it was, how did she bare when even the does were barren. Even the Sage couldn't answer. The babe, seemed not quite right; small, pale and silent. The Tribe women whispered about it, how it wouldn't survive the night. Summer ended, and so did Autumn, the hunger and whispers grew as the child survived. Curses, and promises with Spirits was muttered, why else this year was so barren when the mother wasn't so? Didn't all the trouble start when she arrived? When winter began to creep into the village, one of the village women who lost her only child years ago began to tell the others about the unnatural sickly looking child who had weaned. Eating food. Even though it wouldn't survive till Spring. A waste. It's portion of food could feed her husband who brought that seal in. At the start of winter, it was just hot words in the cold air but as winter continued, and the hunger sank deeper in their bones, she wasn't the only one saying it any more. Winter is bad time to get a head full of bad ideas. No one had the energy to shake them off or think, all they kept hearing is how they could get more food for them, for their family. The mother hid herself and her son away, while her husband a crafter, unskilled was low in the village so kept quiet. He was already distrusted for marrying outside the Tribe. So he wasn't told when the leaders went to have a meeting on a nearby hill, out of eyeshot and earshot of the village. Hunger was a desperate beast that day, it's growls echoing in all the leaders' stomachs, the wicked anger clawing through them as they decided. In the older times, in leaner times, ones they thought they had passed, they would send the elderly off, into the woods with no supplies. One less mouth to feed. The outsider's child should be banished first, not one of the elderly. It was decided in harsh but quiet tones. They waited till the next full moon on the solstice, the Sage had said it would be best. The Spirits could snatch up the child before it's soul was left to howling void. The next words was heavy on his tongue, blood ritual offering are best on the solstice. One of the leaders jumped in his skin and admonished the man for his crude words. Blood rituals hadn't been done in generations, though they still drained the does when hunger set in. The mother found out only when the Sage knocked on the door of their cabin as night fell that evening. The leaders were just behind and with a glance into their solemn gaunt faces, she knew what they were here for. She screamed, cried as her husband held her. She tried offering them anything but her son. Food, valuables but in the end she offered her life up. Surely an adult's portion was far greater than what a babe would eat? The leaders accepted it with a jerky nod. Better on their soul, a woman give herself up then condemn an infant. She followed them out into the night, each of the men holding a burning torch, the guttering flickering lights surrounding her leading her deep into the marsh. The frozen ground crunching under her leather boots. She was sobbing to herself, the icy cold night freezing the tears on her face. The moon came out from behind a cloud, bathing them in the silvery light. She was handed a torch and ordered to walk away into the bog away from the village, away from her child, sobbing. The babe didn't survive long, neither did the husband who followed within a week. The woman was never seen again, but she was heard. The next full moon, an eerie call came from the bog. The village's best hunter grabbed his bow and arrow and crept out. He was shaking as the cold wind blew across him and a thin woman's sob drifted over him. He raised his bow and arrow thinking the outsider had returned, but there was nothing. He approached slowly and carefully thinking she must have been hiding behind a tree. He scurried home terrified. Again, the next full moon, the sobbing was closer now, the edge of the marsh now. The leaders gathered up as many men as he could arm, and marched them out to see what was happening. He heard the thin sobs and spun around, the noise seemingly surrounded them. They scattered, fleeing in haste away from the painful wretched sobs. They thought they were safe in the village, the cries moon after moon, never left the bog. The village learnt to live with it, the Sage drumming on full moons to banish the evil and stop the sobs. Maybe it was that, and not the offering which made the game plentiful, the traps full and the nets bursting with food. The village recovered even, the next winter easy to get through, even the bog was silent. Years past, the old Sage passing on, and drumming stopped. It was waking up the children who soon filled the yards of the village, horrors forgotten. It was after that winter solstice, when the children first mentioned her. The Bog Mother. The lady in the marsh, who called to them to play who promised them that she would be their mother. The children told the adults fled, all of them except one. One who had argued with his mother that morning, one who didn't know the dangers of the bog, one they found the body of face down in the mud, dead. They told the children never to play near the bog, to ignore any voices, any lights. It didn't stop there, a child woke up next full moon to a voice outside his window, calling for him. His brother sleepily awoke to see the boy leave the room and never return. Another child, and another, soon they were gone. The village died out but they still say she is out there, the Bog Mother, looking for her child every winter. If you sit quietly you can still hear her calling, or sobbing for her child she lost. I finish my story and look at the spell bound children, just then the wind blew past the window, a thin almost wail, sending the children to tears and screams. You know, it did almost sound like a distraught woman calling out. May 26, 2020, 09:12:49 PM |
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Summer and sales, and a new patch in horizon
It's summer, and Summer Sales have been launched both on Steam and Itch.Io. So it's two options for you to get UnReal World for discounted price. And we should also let you know that before the sales period is over, a new patch will be released. Something to consider and look forward to. Summery greetings from a mighty birch tree!  Sami - UnReal World developer June 28, 2020, 05:00:00 PM |
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Born in a barn, were ya?
Please, teach my Companions to CLOSE THE DOOR behind them. 
July 09, 2020, 07:04:20 AM |
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Traditional Roguelikes Bundle and Daily Deal on Steam
For a short period of time a pathway has opened to get into the realms of certain traditional roguelikes for discounted price. Steam offers Awesome Traditional Roguelikes bundle - with UnReal World naturally included - until 13th of August. We, and all the games included, also offer individual Daily Deals so you can decide whether you wish to pick a good fistful roguelikes, or just a selected one. You can take a look at the bundle here: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15790/The_Traditional_Roguelikes_Bundle/ And UnReal World store page is here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/351700 August 11, 2020, 07:33:17 PM |
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Additional historically accurate cordage: "Lime Bast Cordage"
I was trying to understand what would have been the most historically accurate plants Iron Age Finns would have used to make cordage (for a modding project) and stumbled across this fascinating (to me) article: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2a6d/ff8587122250da93e1c4367ce588185f9f78.pdf?_ga=2.76018320.40765779.1602115062-546477513.1602115062 In case anyone else was slightly confused like me, "lime" is apparently an alternative name for the Linden tree, which is found all over Europe including at least the southern half of Finland. I had no idea that such cordage was such a prevalent trade good across the region or that it was used and in demand well into the 20th century! I think it would be neat to add Linden trees to the game and allow players to gather the bark and prepare it by one of the methods described in the article (either by peeling in summer and then soaking in water for 4 weeks or by gathering in winter and smoking it). Alternatively, perhaps a process to gather bark from a variety of trees beyond what's currently permitted and prepare into cordage by soaking, peeling, and twisting? October 08, 2020, 02:07:27 AM |
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Basic emblems for the individual cultures, to tell them apart quicker ?
Hello. Just a minor suggestion: Could the individual cultures have simple, stylised emblems that player characters could use to tell them apart quickly ? I think the fact that the game portrays the cultures in a more anonymous way at the moment, largely through their lifestyles and the tools they use, is actually better for immersion purposes. Furthermore, given that this is a late Iron Age civilization, with more scattered populations, no real towns, no cities whatsoever, no stone structures and institutions yet, no nobility or peasants/serfs, etc., that it is good the individual cultures do not have any flags or coats of arms or more standardized symbols. Again, it's better for verisimilitude and immersion. All the above said, I still think it could be beneficial for gameplay purposes if a few menus occassionally featured a simple, stylized emblem that would represent one of the 9 (10 ?) cultures. For example, the northern tribes would have a silhouette/outline of their totemic animal, from which they derive their monikers. The other cultures could have simple emblems that would reflect their typical economic and cultural strengths, and so on. Due to the more primordial feel of the setting, I think the background texture of these emblems could imply they are painted onto or burnt onto a decorative piece of leather, or painted on a smooth enough piece of bark (specifically, the inner side of the bark). Why would emblems be needed ? Because, as much as I like that more anonymous approach, sometimes I wish I could just look at a conversation screen and see that the other character has more than just a boring text description there, saying they are from this or that culture. Ergo, I would find it nice if they also had a little emblem representing what culture they are from, situated in some empty part of the conversation screen. I think a game mechanic that should stay in place is that an unknown individual or unknown village would not have its corresponding culture's emblem shown to the player until he or she met with them, they introduced each other, and gained at least some basic familiarity. Then it would appear somewhere in the corner when talking with an individual. It would also not appear in the player character menu, other than the player overview screen, showing the stats. The fact that the characters already have "surnames" based on which culture their character belongs to is more than enough during usual gameplay. Finally, I feel that different simple emblems could give the cultures further distinct personalities, beyond what in-game behaviour patterns they use while creating their settlements, or hunting or trading, etc. Just a thought.
October 11, 2020, 10:12:19 PM |
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