TALES OF 4TH CENTURY BC MARKET

About

You play as a shopkeeper in late 4th century
BC India. You are a craftsman, who sells items of
need in the market.
A businessman in busy streets of ancient world of
hidden recipes and mysterious crafts.
The hustle and bustle of the bazaar throw you opportunities
to explore the bazaar through different lenses.
The game takes you through the main markets of Ashoka’s
dynasty.
You might get to do business with the various kings and philosophers
of the dynasty and who knows how big are the rewards.

Gameplay

You choose a profession from 4 options given in the beginning of the game.
[Cook, Potter, Blacksmith, Tailor]
Make products from the recipes you know using the resource items available.
Sell the products in market on highest profit possible.
Unlock new product recipes by doing objectives given by your special
customers.
In order to expand your business and gather more resources, list your
shop in Local Market Exchange.
Trade resources, money and products against the items of your needs.

Rules of play

Allot resources to the products you wanna make.
You have limited space to save your products so make according to that.
Profits are needed to get more resources.
Sell in the market at your own risk, make as much profit you think you can make.
In order to cook new recipes you might need new skills and machines.
The exchange market can timely expand from local to other lands based on your level.
Skills and machines can be acquired in market once unlocked.

Prototype Game

Shop Screen with panels for potter's wheel and clay oven

Storage screen with fixed space and count

You can change the number of products you wanna make in this panel.

This is the wheel panel

You can select which type of clay you wanna use. You can add any agent in the clay and select the product you wanna make. All through drop down lists.

This is the temperature slider that defines the value at which oven heats the raw product.

This panel gives you list of available raw products that you can heat and make them ready.

Intent

The intent of this project is to increase awareness about money management and methods of investing money. The project should focus on projecting the right image of money as ARTH.

“ Arth is not just to hoard but to be used as seed for itself”

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Concept Journey

The idea started with a thought of cultivating an habit of investment and saving in the age group of 18-22. The idea was to give a simulation platform to learn investment and finance through real time virtual experience.

The simulation required too much data and the lack of resources, resulted in shaping of original idea which resulted in rather mundane concept of a game.

The idea lost various elements of learning that it started with. There was a need of clearing the slate and starting again.

Final concept resulted in Arth an RPG which is situated in mid of 4th BC indian market when arthashastra was written. The game is based on simple concept of supply chain and demand. The exchange market in game is the additional feature which tries to push the idea of investment in game.

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Exchange Market

Go public to sell your products in the market.
List the resources and products in local market, where your shop exists.
The market model is based on the Foreign Exchange Market.
The market teaches you to invest in commodities which will fetch you more profit in future. Hence, the allotment of resources is in accordance to that.
The supply chain model pushes you to save and invest wisely.
Once you cross a desired level then you can expand to other markets and list your products in other lands.
The exchange market helps you in acquiring perks and machines which helps you to advance your shop production.
Sometimes you have to invest in market just to receive benefits in future.

Game Currency - PANA

Used in most states of Ashoka’s dynasty
It was among prominent currencies in 4th century.
Trails of this currency align with silk route

Game Mechanics

crafting

The mechanics allow you to craft products in the shop using different resources, like clays, agent and oven.

The crafting loop progress with game and game provides you steps to upgrade it through levels using different resources.

The craft mechanics is first step of managing supply in game world, hence runs on many game values.

INVENTORY

The inventory mechanics works on the data fetched through predefined data set in game, read through an .csv file.

The product are stored through dynamic structures and space is determined through progress level.

The inventory mechanics is responsible for the strategy of game that defines what should be produced.

MARKET

The market mechanics is the complex part where the values are calculated and projected through the players engagement.

The values in market are defined by the values set by players in it. Hence, it is an extension of multiplayer mode.

The market allows you to play and learn about direct stocks virtually.

PLAN

The game is still in progress, the current prototype has covered basic mechanics of crafting and inventory.

The plan is to complete the third mechanics of game Market.

After the basic mechanics are covered then the game choice and NPCs stories will be introduced in the gameplay.

The game sets will be made according to all four professions.

Art and sound are important for such RPG hence i have some good ideas of ancient aesthetics around them, which will be introduced later.

Finally the effects and animations will be added.