The fact that BitCraft, Clockwork Labs’ upcoming investor-funded sandbox MMO, will feature player housing is something that one might take for granted. But what is not as assumed is how the studio is going to handle this. In a fascinating blog post, the team explains how its design for player villages went through a delicate seesaw balance between social interdependencies and private ownership.
“What we want to end up with is a world where players cooperate and join forces to rebuild civilization together,” the studio said. “With that north star in mind, we dramatically altered the game’s content to better motivate players to team up and specialize.”
The end result are small player villages with a handful of characters each who share a common space but have ownership of individual houses within that space: “Although this is a complicated feature to add, we believe this will give players the ability to build and create with dozens of players in the same town, while still providing a personal space for each player to customize. We think you’re going to love it.”
The team said that these houses will function as “pocket dimensions” in the same vein of Link’s Awakening, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing.
Alpha is on deck for early next year.
