New Housing System

While most glitchen look forward to a new housing system, there seems to be a common myopic opinion that houses are simply large glitchen drop boxes with resource nubs, and that an ideal abode would be a prettier 50k house with bog resources. But houses can be so much more; Tiny Speck has the chance to add a whole new level of game play with an update. What follows is my particular, delighted thoughts on a potential new system:

I think it would be wonderful to see a housing system that worked similar to the skill system. Rather than plunking down a lump sum for a certain class of housing, houses would begin small and bare. A glitch would then build out the house according to her fancy. Building would take time in addition to money and/or resources, with more complex structures taking more time and/or money to add.

As an example: I might start out with a tiny one acre hovel with just a trophy case and a backyard plot with enough room for one feature (a single tree patch, a four-plot garden, or a tiny pigpen to hold a single pig). I could choose to upgrade my hovel to a hermit's lair which includes a cupboard. Or instead, I could build out my backyard to two acres for a bigger pigpen or two tree patches, etc. After adding a few acres, and upgrading my domicile a few times, I might gain the option to dig out a basement for an herb garden, but I'd need Soil Appreciation VI to do so. Eventually, I could learn certain skills to improve my type of house. I could become a "Peater Patter" to build a bog-style shire home. I could learn "Plankster 1" to build basic wood homes. Or I could learn the "Mortartician" skill if I wanted to build brick homes or a castle. Of course, I would have to expand my land by a certain number of acres to fit bigger and better houses, with each acre expansion taking more time. Houses also might require blueprints for various rooms I might build. I'd pay 150k for a room with more cabinetry, but I'd also need to contribute 500 planks and 100 bricks before waiting the 18 hours (or however long) for the room to be built.

This type of system would be expandable in all directions. Property would be customizable. Some additions would be decorative and simply cost resources. Other additions would add various benefits to your property. A banquet hall might increase the amount of energy food gives you while munching it there. Or you might build a chapel to house your shrines, decreasing the amount of tithing necessary. You could then add a giant statue to that chapel to amplify shrine benefits given. Backyards could be expanded beyond pigpens, trees, and gardens. Use up one acre to add a catapult to fling yourself anywhere in Ur. Or clear away a tree patch and add a barbecue pit that could convert one piggy into a hundred meat instantaneously. Someone might own a simple house with a giant orchard. Another glitch might own a grand tower with no backyard at all. Want to paint your house? Learn the painting skill, and collect the right resources for the right color. Or top your many turret towers with collectible pennants of varying rarity, a perfect hobby for the obsessive compulsive vexillologist in us all. Potions could be brewed to augment housing development or tools built to speed up building time. A deconstructing skill could be learned to tear down walls to make way for expansion, and a moving van could even be hired to tranport your property to a new part of Ur. While any type of structure could be built in any neighborhood, certain zones might offer benefits according topography. A house in Chakra Phool might give a slight bonus to the time it takes for herbs to grow, while a house in Groddle Forest might yield slightly more harvest from trees.

The sky is the limit here. You could literally build a castle on a cloud. Or a moonbase. Or a pirate ship in a harbor. Add-ons and new designs can be piled on, without rocking the structure of the game.

But those were just possibilities, the build out could look completely different. My main point is that houses would no longer be static, but something a glitch would constantly be working on and improving, pouring time, money and resources into. And perhaps most importantly, a glitch could take real ownership of the property, creating a home that may be similar to, but not exactly like their neighbors'.

I realize my wishful thinking translates to hard, hard work and testing on the part of Tiny Speck. And in all likelihood, they've got something even better planned for the road ahead. This post is perhaps more of a veiled argument for a future reset. If Tiny Speck roles out a major new system like this, there may be some initial hiccups .For instance, they may discover every glitch has built up a Hearstian mega-mansion within a week of a housing reboot, or they may realize everyone abuses the new system by creating giant pigpen factories, pigs being such a cash cow. But I'd rather they take some risks and make some bold new changes in the hopes of a future version of Glitch that is even better and is truly infinitely expandable, even if us early glitch pioneers have to spend a couple months relearning the original skill set, and give up the hoarded resources we've been amassing.

Posted 12 years ago by Jessup | Permalink