One Hour One Life Forums

Jason has basically said he's skipping that stage of history.
Steel tools are basically the intermediary between stone tools and either farming with animals or automation.
I've not read if he is going to skip oxen for tractors, but we do have minecarts that work on springs.

Maybe just load the minecart with baskets of soils and it deposits soil going one way,
put a hoe on it and it tills the soil going the other,
load it with seeds and it plants them through some sort of spring loaded mechanism,
then it does the same with water.

Later the same minecart harvests the crops and deposits them near a bakery or composting area and the whole process starts over.

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I wanted more metals. I wanted copper because of it's role in human history as well as it's chemical properties, specifically it's lower melting point than iron. It makes sense to introduce copper to the game if we are going to have electronics, batteries and electrical transmission.

I was basically told Jason doesn't want to be seen as copying Minecraft. Which is just a stupid, lazy excuse not to add an element to a game, if you ask me. Someday I want to play a game like this, an MMO, that includes 100 elements, that people can choose to employ for different purposes. This way we can have batteries in the bronze age if we like, or steam engines in the stone age. But better yet, so that we can make mines for rare earth metals long before they were used IRL and have those elements and the technologies employing them, abundant and widespread so that, say, we have have lithium batteries 100 years before nickel metal hydride or lead acid batteries.

The fun of these types of civilization building games is we know ahead of time, what resources are going to be useful. So, when you are playing Sid Meier's Civilization, and you discover a region with Uranium, just because it's not valuable to you at the time, you know it will be highly valuable when you have the technology to use it and can, if you so choose, rush that branch of the tech tree.

This planet is entirely composed of elements and the electrons and photons that flow between them. Seeing it as such and knowing how best to utilize those elements to maximize prosperity, is the hallmark of every great civilization; every great species. Species that experiment with their chemical and kinetic potentials, reach above and beyond their competitors. They catch the gazelle and live to reproduce, they stand above the grass and see the lions first. They transform the world around them by utilizing the potential they have inside.

Reality is absolutely, fucking amazing! I just wish we could fit it all in a 250 MB executable file and run it all; sex, science and sentiments included.

https://www.stuffbydavid.com/textcolorizer
https://morgh.us/pixelate/

Do a search for Bulletin Board Code, or, BBCode.

You can do some pretty cool things with it.

This game is supposed to be us vs nature.
Us being our family.
Nature being all the other life on this planet that is either with us, or against us.
Nature also being the elements that all life uses without discrimination.
The physics, chemistry and biology that makes life possible, whether it's benign or dominant.

This is, despite what we may feel (or not feel) when immersed, not nature however.
This is not real life.
This is Jason's World.

If Jason's wife gets mauled by a dog, it makes it into the game.
If Jason's mother likes butterflies, milkweed makes it into the game.
Jason has children, Jason makes a game about raising children.

Everything in this game has some source of inspiration in Jason's past.

Jason lives in the southwest, Mexican and Native American foods make it into the game.

Jason was poor, for awhile, and realized the value of warmth; his dependence on clothing, shelter and the furnace.
Temperature made it into the game.

Everything has to be filtered through his past to be a part of our world.

This is also not Jason's simulation of present day, anywhere.

Saying "X doesn't do this in reality" is pointless when your reality is present day reality, present conditions reality. We are not, in any way in this game, confined by present day. Present day was a street sign on a road about 500 turns back, and we didn't take it. Though we are attracted to it's direction, the same way we are attracted to our home; it's what we know, and it's ours.

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Why am I typing all this to discredit your objections when I just want to make my own references reality, past and present? Ah well.

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Despite what cougars or bobcats do today, there was most certainly a time on this planet when big cats were far more dominant. The problem with life though, is you have to survive your trials prior to reproduction, or you don't reproduce. Any of those cats with the tendency to attack people would have quickly found itself hunted, and in so being hunted, it's family and all the species like it in the area would have been culled, if not brought to extinction. Nature however, continues to test us. There are still bear attacks, wolf attacks, tiger attacks, lion attacks, shark attacks, and every time one of those predators kills one of us, it, and hundreds of it's species are threatened and downgraded on the disgusting-to-beautiful nature scale.

Wives become a little less objective to their husbands killing them for sport. Protection agencies agents, look the other way when they catch a hunter, hunting out of season. A trophy of the species remains, goes up in value.

We still get tested by nature.

Of a thousand grizzly bears, we may kill then 10 most aggressive ones (along with 90 others in the process) but that will just leave the next 10 most aggressive grizzle bears to go on to reproduce a range of offspring that will fill those roles.

Today's real life bobcats and cougars could easily evolve in Jason's Mind, to become the Lions, Tigers and Sabers of Jason's World.

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Neither nature, nor imagination, are confined by our definitions.

(i don't like editing posts, but I want people to see the picture without having to click the link)

Yeah, the timing on that moment seemed pretty nice.

I was just going out to look for some iron or milkweed the first time you saw me and asked if I was the hunter. I'd found that basket with two snares and a rabbit in it and figured that was worth returning home.

Then I noticed the boar darting around near town after dropping off the basket of snares, figured I'd put it down before it hurt someone, and you just happened to be walking towards it.

It was kind of rude of me not to respond to you when you asked me the first time, but I was hungry and knew home was a long walk away and didn't want to stand there typing in the cold. When I saw you on the other side of the boar, and my stomach was a little fuller, I figured I'd give you your answer.

Truth was though, I was not the hunter. The only thing I hunted was iron and milkweed, until I started having children. It was either one of my brothers or my sons that were the ones doing the snaring, and that bow only being used for the muflon and the goose was just going to waste when there were wolves and swine roaming the lands.

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To all my children, Mercury, Venus, Terra, Luna, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Rhea, and all the rest of you, Castor and Pollux, my twins, Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Europa, Ganymede, and any other astronomical names I may have given, I want you to know this here and now, because life is short, and I can't justify a lot of chit chat when work is so much more valuable to our family, but know this now; I will always love you. I feel bad sometimes because other people stand around and gossip to their children, or coddle them, when I know there is so much to be done, and my children are often left waiting for me to return. I won't ever leave you in the cold. I will always return to the warm spot I asked you to wait for me. I will always get you home, if it means juggling between you and a wild horse, a basket of ropes, or a cart full of iron. I will get you, and the goods, home, for our family.

If I die working, and did not get to say goodbye to you before we parted ways, know that I left my message in my labors. That I wanted the best for you and your children that I could possibly provide in our time together. And if you are in a family where there are not children with these astronomical names, I am very likely there as well. I am your son who runs for iron. I am your brother who makes backpacks. I am the man who makes the horse corral and wrangles all the wild horses in the land. I am the skeleton at the end of the road, stone in hand, who died pounding in his last stakes.

I am obsessed with giving my lives to you; my children, my family, my community. Through these labors, our towns stand the test of time. Family after family, from famine to feast. Our work brings our homes alive. For your work, for these homes, you have in return, my deepest respects and utmost thanks. No matter how good I feel at the end of a life, many of you make me feel ashamed I didn't work harder, seeing the things you create. You make the sheep pens rise up from the ground faster than an erupting volcanoes. You make so many pies you put Pillsbury out of business. You haul more soil than Hercules could dream.
Because of your work, these towns work.

Sometimes I come home, old and grey, to give my body a rest in the last minute of my life. Long hunts for iron, and years spent at the end of the road, pounding stakes, I long for one last glimpse of my family before everything goes black. I find the perfect balance of pleasant temperature and an abundance of berries, as if I would be there forever, when I know that the first one, is likely to be my last. In that moment I look around, and I see you all so busy, and the smells, oh all the delightful smells. The wool of the sheep. The pots of stew. The smoke from the forge. The pies, oh the pies. And even the fresh compost. All so earthy, rich and sweet. I take a deep breath and my eyes delight as you're all running about, making it work. And I rest, satisfied, in that moment.

One deep breath, then I'm back home.

I love you all,
for real.

In the last three days, it's been said to me three times, and my response has always been the same: Are you a Twitch streamer?
To which they have replied: No
Well, you aren't a professional unless you get paid to do the job.

This has been said to me many times in the past, whether it's the true, or most widely accepted, definition of professional or not, I'm just repeating what was said to me. I know what they mean when they say they are pro, I just find it funny that this person, or people, choose to use the word pro, in a game like this.

This isn't a challenge to those people who would call themselves "pro" exclusively.

This is a challenge to everyone. Everyone who is willing to accept it, and the consequences, however dire they may be.

The harder starting situation the game throws at us, the harder we will work to survive, and the more rewarding our triumphs over nature will be.

Good people will work, no matter what. They will haul a basket of soil 100 meters, if that is the nearest soil deposit. They will run a bowl of water 100 meters if it means feeding their family for another season. And those berries will be the most delicious ones, they will ever taste.

Reserved for addenda for whiners, cheaters and people who find these challenges too easy.

Tip Number π

Maybe not so much a tip as it is information on the way I prefer to setup and work at the forge.

Ways you can help and places you can stand if you want to watch and learn.

When starting out as, or with, an Eve, the ideal place for the first kiln / forge is likely to be crowded by trees, rocks or have other obstacles nearby before the ax and shovel are available. Try to make due with the space you have and place the working area for the smith on the edge of desert tiles if possible. This will reduce the amount of food he or she needs to consume while working and allow them to make the most of the available kindling and charcoal. Regardless, it's always best to eat before you fire a kiln or forge, especially if it's not on the edge of a desert.

Also, don't place the kiln / forge too close to ponds early on. Be considerate of the farmers and give the farm space to grow. This will also cut down on the amount of clutter around the farm and the forge.

I'll often place the forge 20 - 30 meters (tiles) from the ponds. Leaving 10 - 20 meters for farms and 10 - 20 meters for an oven between the ponds and the forge. Results every life will vary with the arrangements of soil, ponds, and space, and whether that space is warm, desert, or not. If things are too close and cluttered initially, the farms can grow around the ponds, away from the forge, or the forge can be relocated where there is sufficient working space and temperatures.

When food is scarce, temperature is very important. Overtime, you should be able to visualize the heat by the density of the desert tiles, as well as whether there is a fire in the 5x5 area where heat is calculated by the game. It's always a good habit to have this 'imaginary heat map overlay' of the landscape in mind to conserve food, labor and resources, but it is crucial, crucial, before food production begins and whenever food is scarce. If you do not want your family to suffer from famine, stay warm when not working and place your working areas (farms, ovens, smithy, etc..) in the Goldilocks zones of the temperature map.

For now, a basket, backpack, a tamed horse and cart, for every man, woman and child.
The milkweed, woodworking and sheep infrastructure to produce the ropes, boards, shafts and wheels for lassos and carts.

Near future, maybe a shale mine for flat stones; I feel bad making all these roads if it means denying people gravestones for their family members. Maybe a workbench for a designated carpenter. Some saw horses for cutting wood and a variety of saws for different products. More efficient varieties of presently existing tools, for turning trees into more logs, and logs into more boards. Maybe a new plant, for the source of plant fiber to make ropes.

Things like these would be nice, but in asking for them I don't want to deny anyone else the time Jason would put into fulfilling their requests.

As long as things continue to be added, I'm happy. Even if it's mushrooms, roses and dogs.

Az, I've read through all your posts here, on this forum.

The clutter is frustrating you. The lack of organization.

It frustrates us all a little, but we live with it.

Why is the froe by the farm when it should be in the carpentry station?

Why are all these seeds so near the blacksmith?

Doesn't the baker know I need those plates to make this tool? Our whole civilization hinges on this tool, right now, and I don't have the time to get more clay!

March 20th you registered for this forum. You've been here awhile. Many of us have. But I don't get as frustrated as you. I don't find satisfaction, in ruining what people are still allowed to build.

In some games, the player has a ridiculous amount of inventory space, in this, at least for now, a carrot seed takes up a square meter of space.

That 1 seed can lead to 5 carrots or 7 seeds. In this I see the problem, and the solution, but, for now, the game is as it is. Jason has left a kind of volumetric importance to his representation of a seed. Or just decided that every object was going to take up a square meter, except the pile of rocks...

Things are getting better on that front.

What else is it that frustrates you?

The way the layout of towns emerges organically?

Everyone has a plan, for some it's just that they want to plant a few milkweed on a little patch of land in the middle of town, for others, they run around and take in the whole landscape for hundreds of square meters. Maybe they envision a town in the most complete sense of the current state of the game, complete with roads extending out to any other ideal location, but what good is all that planning if it remains in your imagination? What good would you do if you spend half your life planning and the other half telling everyone what to do so that they build what you imagine? What you have determined is best for them.

I make roads.

I farm too. I'll make tools if I can't find one. I might even help someone build the wall of a structure, if it's large enough that I don't feel the person working inside is going to feel cramped.

Let's focus on the roads though.

I don't make roads to confine things. Once I did, in a way. The 3x3 grid of wooden roads, that made sense to me at the time. It was square, it looked sharp, and it made sense with what I had considered. Now I may opt for 3x4 (four baskets of soil per cart) or, 3x5 if the person who is hauling soil is also using their backpack, as a good soil hauler should, if they plan their routes with the availability of food in mind.

Roads are nice for getting around and divisions can be as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as they are functionally effective.

Now I make roads to help people spread out. Roads that bring people in and out of city centers, roads the gatherers or lost players can follow to get back home, and roads that people with wanderlust, or the desire to begin anew, can use to aid them in the start of their journey.

My roads are as straight as practically possible. I generally don't put steps in them to connect places unless i run into a cactus, berry bush, rabbit hole  or snow bank. I try to keep them as clean as possible, for good reasons.

That road that you took to go south, when you took me down there to the bear cave. I brought dozens of those flat stones using a horse and cart in a previous life. I laid them out along that path. I didn't have time that life to also stake them all in lace, but I will often stake make flat stones I lay down if there is enough time.

I also am making horse corrals and wrangling horses for towns so that when ambitious children are born, they only need to farm 8 milkweed for a lasso, lasso a horse in the corral, feed it a carrot and put a saddle on it's back.

If all goes well, they can take a road out of town to gather more resources. Stations can be farther apart and they can each have their own clutter. Women can, if they like, stand around the town center, and gossip while juggling curious babies, or they can plan ahead in their youth and make packages to carry with them in a horse and cart to a new home.

If you are born a boy, the horse and cart is a part of you. You can take it with you every where you go, to and from every job. It's the pickup truck for the working man.

You see, there is always something to give to others. While I'm working, I'll also try to keep things organized. It's nice for all the clothes to be in one place. When the skinned rabbits are near the baker, when the eggs are all gathered into one place and omlettes are ready.

There is a lot of organizing to do for the sake of your family.
Every step in the right direction makes things easier for your mother. Easier for your brothers to do the job that they set out to do, for your family.

We're all a family, Az.
In this game, on this forum, IRL across this planet, and all life across time.
We're all a family.

You are my brother, my mother, my father and my son and I want the best for you as much as I want it for us all.
For all life, for the rest of time.

We don't need problems to imagine greater things, or to become greater.
Life grows by it's very nature.
While your roots may stem from the dirt, I implore you; always reach for the stars.

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I imagine you made a mistake allowing yourself to eaten by that bear.
I apologize for laughing at you for failing to stay alive.
I don't want you to be frustrated.
I want you to remain in this community.
You have your reasons for what you do.
I'd like you to tell me personally, but openly, what those reasons are.

I want to know where you are coming from,
and where you want this to go.