"The pit of doom" - Choices?

I just did some remoddeling on my Pit of Doom - I blocked off the path directly opposite the staircase, making the followers coming from "the north" and higher regions come in from the right side and all the followers coming from "the south" which is the sandy fields come in through the left side.

I'm still tweaking, but I've noticed significantly LESS blockage, as followers coming from opposite sides will happily queue ahead and occupy the same line into the Pit of Doom, whereas the one coming from a 90 degree angle will "block off" anyone coming from his left or right.

Effectively followers either need to come from completely opposite directions OR they need to follow the 'same' line else they will block eachother.

So, having now sacrificed a few of my own followers, there is the crazy 1hr timer, but when that runs down, and I then send out a builder from that abode, the timer is 1hr again... is that deliberate? That house now will repopulate extra slowly no matter where the followers are sent?

Or bug?

The timer depends on the size of the building. The larger the abode, the longer the timer.
Hint: size one abodes on beachfront property only have a 15 minute timer =P

Yeah, thanks for pointing it out - although I came back to post that I had realized that was what was happening. Very poor mechanic indeed - well, not a poor mechanic, just not well done; games like C&C, Starcraft, and good ol' Warcraft have been doing it better since the 90's... hell, even Dune II and Dune 2000 had better selecting and those games were buggy as heck.

As for targeting the destination, it's really terribly implemented; they need to actually make it select the target (e.g. place a selection circle and/or highlight  around the spot/structure) so you know you've properly selected it.

I've yet to find out the logic or reasoning behind this scaling.
All I do know is that this is the system used in mobile and facebook games.

You might have heard of Maffia Wars on facebook and mobile? (just one of the many examples that shows this aswell).
You get access to buildings producing resources on a timer. Smaller versions produce less per run, but tick by faster.
Larger versions produce more per run and tick by slower. Often the math is in favor of the smaller buildings.
Meaning the more often you collect, the more you end up getting for your time.

However, since most players can't collect every 15 minutes, but instead play in 15 min sessions every few hours (coffee breaks etc).
It becomes more favorable to go with a larger structure.
If you're someone that can only play at home, when you wake up, when you get home and right before you go to bed. The larger 8 hour or 12 hour timers become the best.

I can only assume that 22cans took over this method from their friendly advisors on DeNA, who happened to provide them with these suggestions out of their infinite wisdom of creating such wonderful games before.


Long story short - yes, you should not be punished. Instead you should not be playing the game at all. You should 'gently stroke it' every few hours.
I'm not sure if any of you have ever heard of 'zen gardens'? (I'm 100% certain that this is where his concept of 'zen-like' comes from and have been for quite a while.)
But this seems to be the concept that Peter is going for. A relaxing and slow engagement that supposedly brings peace and quiet to the mind and body.

Suffice it to say - in an attempt to create something like this:


Peter barely managed to create this instead:

Yea, pretty much - they come in a ton of shapes and sizes. And the principle behind them (aswell as the end result of some) is pretty interesting.
But its not something you can force onto people, especially not with ridiculously frustrating timers.

Thats like beating on someone with a spiked club and telling them to relax and not get so angry.

I think Peter is the empty bag of dorito's in an otherwise functional world. Out of place, and ruining things for his surroundings by not fitting in and not really understanding what is going on.

Monetization options for a temple of worship:
- Unique temple skins to be sold similar to flags.
- Temple has limited number of worship slots, additional slots/temples obtained through gems.
- Temple functions very slowly, can speed it up using gems.
- "Free" bonus temple(s) when buying larger gem packages.

The options are there if they want them to be.
There is no reason why this couldn't be monetized if they so desired.

The trick with monetization (the right way) is to do it in such a way that the player feels it isn't necessary, but that they choose to use it.
Monetization that is a hurdle that otherwise isn't really possible to overcome (and yes, waiting 48+ hours falls under that catagory) never works on the long run since most of your potential customers will give up and move on to another more friendly F2P/mobile title.

The only way to keep your players interested is to make sure the game is interested and the game SEEMS possible to do or even actually IS possible to do at a normal pace without the usage of gems.
The whole Candy Crush example is perfect. Candy Crush makes the player feel like they are able to do it, if only they had a FEW more seconds, if only they did it JUST THAT LITTLE BIT BETTER. Lacking that tiny sliver - instead of saying "No, you fail, you have to take hours now to continue unless you hand over your wallet."


What 22cans is doing here is the equivalent of a thug robbing every single person they see on the street. And sooner or later the people will know better than to walk through your alleyway.
Proper monetization is more like a hacker or fraudulent employee who nibbles a teeny-tiny fraction of money off of every single transfer.
Not visible on its own, but due to the large number of transfers you end up with a large amount of money at the end of the cycle.
By the time people realize what is going on, you're long gone enjoying your retirement fund on some tropical island.

Which is to say, the more abusive and in your face you are about it, the faster people will stop bothering with you.
But if you make them think you're not there and that they're actually enjoying themselves for real, they'll stick around and keep the engine running.

What we have looks pretty, but because of the inclusion of the Pit of Doom, the game now essentially revolves around ritual sacrifice. Good job, everyone...

Don't forget another difference in Minecraft Notch doesn't tell you what to do. You can build up, down sideways, and any other method you can think of aswell as in any possible combination.
On top of that Minecraft offers you a box of tools and toys to mess around with and when you're done with all of that Minecraft offers you the keys to the castle so you can modify the game to great lengths...

Godus on the other hand does its best to limit you in all ways, afraid that you might actually ENJOY yourself rather than focusing on the games main component. Timers.
Because timers put emphasis on the zen-like nature of Godus.