Hello everyone and welcome to another Something's Brewing, our weekly update on all things Ale Abbey, the one monastery brewery tycoon you kinda knew you needed in your life (or Steam library, YMMV).
This was a slower-than-usual week for the team, but it still didn't stop us from ticking off some tasks that have been pestering us for quite some time. Namely, the Ale Orders UI that we have been working on recently, as well as other longer-standing ones, like the sack and barrel stacks and the game's quests copy which needed some serious tweaking.
Onwards to this week's news!
-- Work on copy
We don't usually talk much about Ale Abbey's copy, be it for tasks or descriptions, but this week we went through retouching parts of it, primarily to make everything fit snuggly into their intended spaces. Another criterion for this rework was to make sure that even with fewer lines we can still keep some character in the text and not dryly send you off to something that feels like "work."
In general, reducing the word count came from two different perspectives, one being the limited space we have for it and the other being the players' attention span that we don't want to strain. We want the players to focus on the fun parts of brewing, not reading lines of text found on shampoo labels.
Fear not, there be no spoilers here, just a random Bishop task requiring you to bolster the number of brewers in your monastery ;)
A word your Maltiness.
We both know weathered brewers are the cornerstone of our craft. But younger brewlings keep those stoves burning ever brighter - plus, their backs complain a lot less!
A small swarm of eager, "fresher" potentials should soon make an appearance. Seize that opportunity, think of what we're lacking, and hire the one most suited for the task.
Not visually exciting, this is copy that has gone through a 30-50% reduction in character count, allowing for some flair to lighten the Bishop's demanding demeanor up a bit. The Bishop's tasks are quite peculiar, the first few are planned to guide the player into the experience of managing a monastery while the following ones are more focused on random asks (think quests) that add another layer to the gameplay.
-- Supply & production stacks update
A quick update on the barrels and sacks that will make your monastery work smoother around the clock (not really, there's no crunching in this here monastery!) and potentially make the inner workings of your Laymen and Laywomen much easier for us to deal with.
Raimo managed to whip up these latest versions, which not only account for the number in a stack but also the placement of individual units, making sure they line up perfectly with their surroundings in the Abbey. Remember, they will often be found sprawled on your Brewery's floor, so they have to look natural and nonchalant...
Barely (ba dum tssssss) any iterations left in either, we will start implementing their mechanics in the internal testing builds soon. Who knows, maybe a video or screenshot will surface somewhere, sometime soon-ish!
-- Ale Orders UI
Finally, following last week's work on the Ale Orders UI, our lead Emiliano started setting some full stops on the work as we've reached a satisfying version.
After many an iteration, this is the agreed-upon structure, so now we only have to throw a few brushstrokes here and there - think micro-corrections - to ensure it looks as good as the rest of the Abbey's UI.
Having said that, feedback is always welcome!
-- Actual ingredients' storage
Barrels and sacks for storing and transporting ingredients and ale, should work well in Ale Abbey. But we're talking about the 1500s here, so what did brewers use back then to safely store the 4 ingredients that produced our favorite drink?
- Water
The easiest one to deal with, water was almost always brought fresh from a source near the brewery. No need for storage. Barrel-stored water could be used, but would probably be boiled first to rid it of any pathogens. - Hops
In the 1500s hops were not yet used extensively. The cool crowd of brewers that did use them, would dry them immediately (in the sun or rudimentary kilns) after harvest and preferably use them within the first year of storage. - Barley
Upping the difficulty of storage a bit, barley was traditionally malted and kilned, which naturally increases its storage period. You still have to remember that killing back in the 1500s was not that efficient, so barley always had a much smokier scent (not necessarily a bad thing, just saying!). When stored for longer periods in granaries, sacks, or barrels it would almost exclusively be alongside natural pesticides like catmint and lavender. - Yeast
And we come to probably the toughest to deal with, especially since it was only fully understood a couple hundred years after the period Ale Abbey takes place. In the case that it would need to be safely stored (and yet again, for a very short period) it would be kept under a layer of beer, or in the form of yeast cakes (flour mixed with yeast), a more solid/stable form that could be stored for longer than its liquid counterpart!
With this, we'll let you enjoy your weekend responsibly, but remember to join us next week for some more Ale Abbey news!
-- Hammer & Ravens
EDIT AS OF AUGUST 17th: we changed the wording in Ale Orders UI to clarify this is a more final version than initially suggested.
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