Alan.
The builder. Everything built in the game goes through Alan, every quote he gives is honest, and every final invoice is between nought and thirty-five per cent higher than the quote. This is the only place in the design where the player is deliberately, mildly and repeatedly ripped off.
- Overrun
- 0–35%, drawn per build
- Average
- ≈14%
- Disclosed
- At quote, in the interface
The mechanic, in full.
A construction mechanic where the number on the quote is the number on the invoice is a mechanic nobody has ever experienced. Alan quotes twelve thousand Coins for a grain store and it costs thirteen and a half, because the ground was wetter than anybody thought and the steel had gone up.
The overrun is drawn at the start of the build and revealed at the end, but the range is stated on the quote screen before you commit. That distinction matters: an undisclosed overrun is a dark pattern, and a disclosed one is a budgeting lesson. The player who keeps a reserve is playing correctly.
It is capped at thirty-five per cent and it can never destroy a build. There is no mechanic where the barn is abandoned half-built and the Coins are gone. That would be realistic and it would be miserable, and this is the point in the design where realism gets overruled.
The numbers.
Alan, specified
- Overrun
- 0–35%, drawn per build
- Average
- ≈14%
- Disclosed
- At quote, in the interface
- Cancellable
- Yes, up to the pour
The rules that apply to every character
- Can this system be bought outright?
- NoNothing in the design converts money into a better outcome. Money buys time and cosmetics.
- Can it punish an absent player?
- NoRelief cover covers up to 21 days, free, and nothing decays behind it.
- Is the person licensed?
- NoThis is an unsolicited design document. No agreement exists with anybody named on it.
Role in the game
The over-budget mechanic
Where it sits in the loop
Named on the loop page, stage by stage.
Purchasable?
No part of this system is for sale.
On the estate
A real person, described here without permission.
The other five.
Kaleb
Pay Kaleb and the job that was going to take four hours takes none. He is the game’s only time-skip, he is the…
Charlie
The agronomist and land agent, and the only character whose entire function is to tell you that you cannot do …
Gerald
The boundaries. Dry-stone walls by the metre, hedgerows laid rather than flailed, and a biodiversity score tha…
Lisa
The farm shop, and the multiplier that makes the whole economy work. Raw produce sold at the gate is worth one…
Harriet
Set relief cover before you close the game and the farm carries on without you. Stock is fed, windows that mus…
Alan, questioned.
It is a mechanic named after what they visibly do on screen, compressed into something a game can model. It is not a portrait and it is not endorsed by them.
No. The only things money buys anywhere in this design are Kaleb’s time-skips and cosmetics, and neither of those changes an outcome.
The whole loop this sits inside.
Six stages, and the third one is the interesting one.
First sight of every drop
The things that sell out do it in minutes. This is the only warning anyone gets.
