A New Production Chain | Chains – Devlog #3

Hi everyone,

Welcome back to my devlog for Chains — a rhythm-based building game inspired by The Settlers.

In this episode, I’m implementing a system that allows monsters (aka buildings) to receive, carry, and produce more than one good at a time. I also want them to be able to combine two different goods to create a new one — a classic mechanic in building games.

Refactoring the Inventory System

Up until now, each monster could only carry one item, stored in a current_good variable. I’ve now turned that into an array called current_goods, which makes it possible for monsters to hold multiple items. This is important for monsters like the worm cooker, which needs both worms and water to function.

After some trial and error, I got the system working. I also introduced a new variable, max_current_goods, which limits how many items a monster can carry. For example, carriers can only hold one item (though that might change with upgrades), while worm cookers can hold two.

Making It Work

Now that monsters can carry multiple goods, the next step is getting them to do something with those goods. Let’s take the worm cooker as an example. It needs both water and worms to produce cooked worms. So I added logic to compare the monster’s current_goods with its required receiving_goods.

After more debugging than I’d like to admit, production monsters can now correctly compare the two arrays. If all the required items are present, they’ll produce their assigned product — in this case, a cooked worm. Otherwise, they’ll just discard whatever they’ve received (for now).

But before I could test that, I had to actually create the cooked worm resource in the game. Fortunately, I had already built a goods_class, so creating the new item and assigning it to both the worm cooker and the center monster was pretty straightforward.

Now let’s test it out: First, I set up the carriers that connect the worm cooker to the center and adjust their direction. Then I place the worm cooker, followed by the water monster and the worm catcher. And there you go: The chain works! A cooked worm is created and delivered to the center. The rhythm isn’t perfect yet, but it’s functional.

Rhythm Optimization

Delivering a mushroom every measure was easy. But now that there are three monsters involved in producing a single cooked worm, timing becomes more complex. And that’s where the fun begins — syncing everything perfectly.

You haven’t seen this yet, but I’ve implemented the ability to change a monster’s note value from a quarter note to an eighth note. Eventually, the number of fast carriers will be limited, but for now, I can freely adjust their timing.  With the beat synced up correctly, a cooked worm is now produced every measure.

Thoughts on Production Chains

So, what’s the point of all this — monsters receiving and producing goods?

What I don’t want is for the player to gather generic resources like wood or tools. That works in games like The Settlers or Anno, but in Chains, I think waiting around for materials to build something would be boring. As I mentioned in Episode 1, the fun of Chains comes from optimizing the rhythm of your production chains. That’s why each production chain unlocks new buildings, effects, or technologies — and the better your timing, the better the results.

Here’s my unfinished list of the monsters and their effects:

For example: The mushroom collector increases the number of carriers you can build — but only if it’s working efficiently. A well-synced worm cooker, on the other hand, unlocks faster carriers — five eighth-note carriers, to be exact. If your production chains aren’t optimized, the effects will be weaker or may not happen at all. But that’s still to come — right now, I need to implement:

1. A system that tracks how often a good is delivered.
2. A way to trigger effects based on that data.

That’s it for now! I’m going on vacation for a few weeks, so the next devlog will be a little delayed.

Thanks for reading or watching my new devlog entry! If you’ve got ideas or feedback about Chains, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. See you soon!