u/loulo88

Working on a medieval survival / fortify game (Forgebound — Amilcar Technologies). Early loop: you push farms past the palisade for food, then the first real night raid hits.

Design fork I'm stuck on:

• A) Raiders treat outside crops as free damage, so over-expanding is a real mistake.
• B) Farms can get hurt, but never fully wiped, so new players don't softlock into starvation.

Which reads fairer to you? How have other fort / settlement games handled "prosperity outside the walls"?

Store page if you want the broader pitch (not a wishlist ask): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3691400/

In stealth→chase games, a failed silent approach is often the interesting failure. What I'm still unsure about is how that failure should reshape the next two minutes of play.

Path A — remap the escape: a tunnel closes, a bridge locks, the safe route you scouted is gone. The botch becomes a spatial problem, not just a louder one.

Path B — same map, meaner pressure: same streets and exits stay readable, but response gets faster / attention tightens so the cost of the mistake rises without rewriting geography.

Which have you felt work better as a player — games that remapped the escape after you blew stealth, or ones that kept the map honest and just turned the screws? Curious about specific titles if they stuck with you.

I'm with Amilcar working on Heistfest (top-down heist / getaway, Early Access) and trying to pick a failure language that stays fair. Soft store page if useful: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1451220/