Island Forge: An Update

Nyhm, the developer of Island Forge, was kind enough to give me a heads up on a change to core game he's pushed out today.


Previously, the economy looked something like this:

1. Go into the wilds, get materials.
2. Return to town, process materials at the Millworks.
3. Donate processed (or raw) materials at the healer to earn Hit Points (HP).
4. 100 HP convert into one Experience Point (XP).
5. Use XP to train or, combined with processed materials, to craft items.

The Market

The HP => XP system is a nice little feature, and it remains intact. The change? Now there's a Market structure in town. Here's how it works:

1. Go into the wilds, get materials.
2. Return to town, process materials at the Millworks.
3. Sell raw or processed materials on the Market for Gold Pieces (GP).
4. Donate GP to the Healer for HP, or spend them, along with processed materials, to craft items.
5. Use XP to train.

I like the change because it puts in place a discreet currency that can be tweaked and adjusted as needed for balance. It doesn't change the underlying mechanic of HP => XP and it means that Nyhm can add other buildings to the economy without touching the basic HP / XP math. It's an all around win to my mind.

I plan on revisiting Island Forge soon, right now there's still time in the Torchlight 2 beta weekend, so I'm concentrating on getting as much out of that as possible. I've already written about first impressions here.

Until later!