The Mechanical Mind – Dev Blog 85
Trish had been acting strangely for days now. She had locked herself in the workshop, refusing meals and not sleeping. She was clearly building something, but we had no idea what. She had nearly died a week ago, when she had got lost in a very sudden snow storm. Thankfully, we had found her – her lips were blue and she was unconscious, but we brought her back home and gradually warmed her up. She had slept solidly for two days, recovering, before getting up and locking herself in the work shop.
Even though we couldn’t access the workshop, life still went on – the game of survival in this frozen place. We still had crops to harvest, resources to gather and watches that needed to be manned. As we were preparing the evening meal, she came out of the workshop – bleary eyed and exhausted.
“It’s done.”
We followed her into the workshop and collectively gasped as to what she had been working on. Sitting on a cabinet was, well, what can only be described as a life like human torso (lacking arms) and head made with exquisite craftsmanship. Out of the back this torso was a huge key, which now Trish started to turn as we watched. She was looking lovingly at her creation. After a few minutes of winding, she opened a panel on the bench, exposing us to the intricate clockwork inside. She flicked a switch and stood back.
Without warning, the machine actually blinked. Then, it started to speak, a lilting voice strangely musical in nature.
The things it started to say will haunt me forever…
The Mechanical Mind is another tech unlock item, that needs to be found or constructed (in a similar fashion to the Electromagical Vox Detector). It will allow for further study into the more advance machinery available to peons in the game.
Lore wise, the Mechanical Mind is a more advance version of the EVD – it can tap into the various signals that reach The Void, find patterns in them and speak it’s thoughts out loud. This is incredibly handy for any peon who is research nearby. Also the peons can ask it questions, which it will think about and allow the peons to focus the Mechanical Mind on different areas of research. Additionally (and not modeled or implemented yet) there is going to be quite the upgrade available for the Mechanical Mind – but I’ll tell you all about that once it is in game.
Model wise, this was an incredibly tricky one to put together – and actually took the longest of any model I’ve built for the game. It can be quite tricky working in such a low resolution. It actually had several iterations (which I posted on the Fringe Planet Discord).
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the model – and it’s considerably better than the neon purple cube I use as a place holder object!
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