You can read about what Syphilisation is here and the manifesto for the game here.

Work Done

The big thing for this week was in the rework of currency. I’ve set it up so that the natural world is mostly raw currencies. The player can develop these into more broad derived currencies or can leave them as they are and adapt their paths according to what they have. I’m trying to strike a balance here and it will take a fair bit of additional work and playtesting.

I’m a little concerned about my schedule for the month. I will most likely have to spend the next week on further consolidating the eXpansion phase and I aim to put in the basis of the eXploitation phase as well by the end of the month, so I expect things to get a little tight. Still, there’s no point worrying about these things until they prove a problem. Also, I’m very excited about the new currency feature and I want to see if it puts in the space for elegance that I’m aiming for.

Interesting Fact

I read Tagore’s essay Nationalism last week and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in current politics anywhere in the world (Gutenberg link). His hope for Japan’s emergence as an Eastern answer to Western industrialization was very touching, even if ultimately ill-founded. A couple of strong quotes are “In the ancient days Sparta paid all her attention to becoming powerful; she did become so by crippling her humanity, and died of the amputation.” and “The tendency of mind is economical, it loves to form habits and move in grooves which save it the trouble of thinking anew at each of its steps. Ideals once formed make the mind lazy.” These are pieces that I need to fully digest and integrate into Syphilisation as they encompass what I believe will be the very core of what I’m trying to achieve. I’m going to think about this quite a bit more.

The fact of the week though is that today marks 100 years since the satyagraha against the Rowlatt act. If you’re familiar with Indian history, you should be able to guess what that means next week will hold, and if not, you certainly will be after playing this game.