Merchant of the Skies News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIuwy4cL4sM
As you know, you'll have to travel quite a lot in Merchant of the Skies. On your travels, you'll get to encounter different sorts of islands. One of those is going to have this. Nothing out of ordinary, just a singing carrot.

Appease it by playing the notes properly and get your hands on its gifts!

Hello Merchants!

The launch date is approaching, so I want to give more updates on what to expect in the initial version. Since I've covered the goal structure here, I wanted to introduce another goal into the line-up: this goal is going to be selected by default and actually involves rebuilding an ancient lighthouse used for airship navigation. Woo!



Rebuilding a lighthouse is done in 5 different stages. Stages one and two, you can simply gather resources if you don't want to expand your base.



Here's how the first two steps look like:
For stage one, you need sand and wood.

For stage two, you need rocks.

But afterwards, you'll need to purchase your own islands to establish brick, glass, lumber and gear production. Here's one of the built resource chains for glass production:



After that is done, you can safely upgrade the lighthouse further.
Stage three looks trickier, it needs both lumber and bricks. Lumber is produced by cutting wood at the lumber mill while bricks are produced from stone and sand in the oven.

Stage four requires bricks and glass. The bricks (ideally) you already have, but to get the glass, you will need to establish the sand digging and build a forge

Finally, the last stage requires tier 3 production of gears (iron -> ingots -> gears). You'll also need to buy dyes and gems (those can also be mined, but good luck finding them).

Congratulations, you've built a lighthouse! Overall, this goal playthrough takes 5-7 hours of trading, building, exploring and establishing logistics.

As usual, if you have any questions - feel free to comment here or join our discord channel. See you at the launch!

Hello Merchants!

As the game early access launch is nearing, I think it's a good time to give a glimpse how trade and resource gathering in Merchant of the Skies works.

First of all, you start the game small. Really small. A boat and a few gold coins is all you have.



So how do you start? You fly around and search for valuable resources. Normally, your ship requires special tools (modules) to gather specific resource types. But whenever you discover a new island with natural resources, you can scout it to gather what you can. All you need is time.



You can also do quests: either bring basic resources or deliver letters, both give OKish amount of gold.

Taking on a quest

Of course, don't forget about the actual trade :) You'll need to buy low and sell high in order to survive. After you've revealed most of the map, it becomes quite a lucrative thing to do.



As you accumulate more money, you can purchase resource producing islands:



And then build buildings on them:


This starts the automatic production: as the in-game calendar runs, your warehouses keep stockpiling gathered resources. You can either sell them or invest into building advanced production chains:



The advanced production buildings create second and third tier resources that are used for quests and further base building, so you can't easily trade them in at the trade posts.

That's when bazaar comes into play (pun probably intended):


Bazaar is a special island where you can sell even the most advanced resources. There's a catch though: you are not guaranteed to sell them as you set your own prices. There are also a limited amount of visitors per day.



In the end, you might end up not selling anything. But that's usually not the case! Just trade wisely and don't be too greedy and you'll succeed. :)



Thanks for reading and make sure to follow the page for more in-game updates. Do you think this system will be enough for the trade mechanics? Let us know what you think!

Best,
Vladimir

Hey! As you might have noticed, we did a full page overhaul :) In addition to that, we've made a new trailer that shows the essence of the game much better.

With that, we also felt the need to postpone the early access launch for two months. Here's why:

https://youtu.be/_kFgsqW_YP4

We have the core gameplay, but we want to polish the game a bit more before early access launch. We enjoy both working on it and playing it, so we want to give much more content at early access launch. The new release date is July 30, it is set in stone and won't be delayed. We'll keep you updated.

If you want to keep a closer eye on development, join our discord channel.

Hello Merchants!

Just wanted to give you an update on what I've been working on: this week has been spent on setting up the game objectives and working on the game map.

Here's how the normal game of Merchant of the Skies can go:



1) When you start a new game, you can pick an objective that you want to reach. This is going to be your winning condition. You can choose "no objectives" too for the infinite mode, but I like it when there are global goals. These will give you a purpose and alter your gameplay strategies over the gaming sessions. The goals vary by length which you can often customize (right now the estimates shall be about 20 / 40 / 60 / 90 minutes) - these estimates should give you an idea of how long the game can take. Of course it mostly depends on how you play the game, there is no hard limit as we want the game to feel relaxing :)



Afterwards, the game map is being generated with multiple points of interests and (depending on the goals) different islands. In the beginning, you don't know what these islands contain so you have to visit them. After your first visit, you'll get full information about the island (as shown on screenshot). This will help you navigate the map better and improve your trade route planning further on.

If you have any questions - feel free to ask them here or join our discord channel!