Page 1 of 1

Introduction & Status

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 10:51 am
by Mit
A tractor & The Universal have a long history that is somewhat difficult to summarise. Suffice to say these related games have been the bulk of the Old Man's spare-time work for the past 15+ years (!!), and hence they're .. mm.. multi-faceted. Despite the time spent on them they're still far from complete ; a combination of many factors, including my obstinate desire to avoid completing them and the nature of these particular beasts.

The goals and motivations behind these games have varied a bit over time, but the current intentions for them are :

A tractor : To provide a serious, social, economic simulation game, set in a world of trees, hills, farms and tractors, where (over the course of many weeks) the player gets to build a little house, a little farm, maybe a shop or a workshop, and drive about a bit in a tractor. When idling online the player can sit about and chat to other players, and then shoot them with remote-control drones. And maybe play hornball.

The Universal : A collection of player-created worlds spread across a vast galaxy. Players can explore the galaxy or create their own world, through a combination of generation settings, embedded game mechanics and a built-in scripting language.

Ancient History : The player starts out as a primitive caveman, progressing through phases of technological development and joining in with a semi-social civilisation until they reach the point of launching into space and/or destroying the world or something.

Right now, 'A tractor' is basically closed, waiting for me to build up the particular game-world I have in mind, and to re-factor some of the tech behind it in so that it can be done in a scalable way. Ancient History (which some players may recognise as an updated version of the previous history chapters, including 'Aramathea') is available to play, but very much under-construction, with a fair chance that things currently don't work at all and will likely be reset often. The Universal - as well as forming the global engine that is used by the other sub-games - is being re-made in a slightly different form and will be made available again towards the end of the year.

Forum Archive 2003 - 2015
The link above is for the previous forums hosted at theuniversal.net, which contain lots of info for those interested in the development of worlds (and 'TU' more generally).