Brunelleschi has been Greenlit by the Community!

Thanks, Community!

First things first: 'Thank You's
Thank You so much to all our supporters, both casual and dedicated, for helping us get here.

Thanks to the elusory Steam employees who approved us to join the business end of Steam. :D

Finally, Thanks to GamerGate. Y'all were friendly and supportive when we were just getting started. You brought many of the votes and a lot of the support these last 39 days and we haven't forgotten. Thanks.


The developers here at Aesop Games are ecstatic.
This literally happened over night for us, the discovery occurring as we sleepily checked our emails after waking. Last night we were another small indie studio making free / experimental games. Today we're looking down a route toward paying customers and studio expansion... and we can't wait. We haven't even had time for celebratory tacos.

What Does This Change?
Being greenlit suddenly opens up the possibility of Steamworks integration much sooner on the Alph 3D client. We've also been preparing for the addition of achievements and maybe even trading cards!

We know all you Steam players are excited to hear this, and we hope any players who haven't joined Steam are motivated to do so knowing you can (in the near future) play our awesome game and get steam points at the same time.

Looking Forward
There's still many tasks between now and Brunelleschi's completion, but we'll be offering players access and opportunities at every point. Brunelleschi is also not the only game Aesop Games plans to develop. If this goes very, very well, we have a few more clever ideas to put into development. We might even expand the team.

Hey Countless Masses with Steam Accounts!

We know you're out there. Whether pro or casual, two games or thousands, we need your eyes and button pressing enthusiasm.

For a game to get big, a lot of eyes must look upon it. For a game to get greenlit, many times must the "Yes" button be pressed. If individual dedication to button pressing was all that is required, we'd already be finished, but this is one of those multi-player things. As of today, we've reached 75% (of the way to vague top) and over 1,000 of those necessary "Yes" votes. We only need a few hundred more votes and we know you, the players, are out there!

Why should I vote for BruneGame?

If you like

• Role Playing
• City Building
• Robust Economic Systems
• Magic and the Renaissance
• History and Education
• Upholding / Breaking Laws
• Waging War

If you have

• Mad dreams of power
• Become a button pressing obsessive and need something new to press (follow & favorite!)
• Nothing better to do for the next couple seconds

If you haven't already, Follow This Link to our Greenlight page. Check us out and hit some buttons! Leave a comment if you have something to say.



Thank you for your time! :D

Brunelleschi In the Public Eye

Since we launched the Greenlight campaign, the team here at Aesop Games has been working hard to break out of our shells and get BruneGame into the public eye. With the help of active players and receptive media sources, we've begun seeking friendly web-venues and gaining exposure.

A big part of this process has been our lead programmer, Margaret aka @dead_lugosi, taking interviews and involving the web-dev community. Margaret has recently begun taking speaker positions at php conferences and has been talking live and on the web about developing Brunelleschi in a php framework. Her first major webisodal exposure was an Episode of /dev/hell in which she discussed some of the challenges of game development.

Her second featured interview on the web took place through the LadyLovesCode Podcast, and Margaret talks a little about what brought her to game dev and how Brune reflects aspects of the much respected Civlization games.

Another huge moment for Brunelleschi's exposure was short but positive Massively OP article highlighting our efforts to support a huge diversity of play styles within the renaissance theme. Again, we'd like to thank our dedicated player Calren for suggesting our game to Massively OP.

The Aesop Games team is excited about our growing exposure and is on the look out for more interviews and podcasts to be a part of.

New Age of Gaming Press

The celebration here at Aesop Games is continuous and taco-flavored. An independent gaming journalist wrote an article about Brunelleschi.... and we didn't ask for it! 

When the Brune team discovered this Article on Massively OP, we were surprised and excited. Somehow without asking personally, attending parties, or being part of a secret evil news conglomerate, an article (and favorable at that) was written about our game!

In the past, Brunelleschi has had very little luck getting press the "conventional" ways. We tried contacting news sites and journalists. We asked for reviews and offered interviews. We never felt comfortable trying to form relationships with journalists in order to ask personal favors, we thought the game should stand up on it's own.

So how did this article get written? Who broke the wall of press silence Brune has faced? A PLAYER! Imagine our delight when we saw at the bottom of the article a thanks to "Calren", one of our most active players. What a wonderful solution to the gaming journalism ethics issue! 

What if --get this-- Journalists wrote about games that Player/Readers want to read about?! Well it turns out both Calren and Massively OP were already on it, and we here at Aesop Games are proud to be involved. Anyone else who's already part of this practice should be proud too.

Thank You so much, to both Calren and Massively OP for showing (to us) a new age of games press. Here's to a bright future of relevant reporting in our exciting and constantly evolving industry. Everyone who likes games, let's ring the bells of change. Tell your gaming news sites what you want to read about!

Housing your Living and Dead

A city is nothing without it's population, and a population is nowhere without housing. While homelessness is possible in Brunelleschi, no settlement can stay together if there's nowhere for it's people to live.

_____________________________________________________________________

NPC Housing
In order to run any industry, you'll need the labor of the NPC populace. They split themselves naturally into Peers, Yeomen and Peasants. While your Granary will house your first few laborers, you'll need to quickly build more housing in order to grow and prosper.

_____________________________________________________________________

Peasant Housing

Peasants are an undemanding lot. Their housing tends to be cheap and easy to maintain. They don't mind cramped living in large numbers but will eventually become ill if crammed too tight with low local health.

_____________________________________________________________________

Yeoman Housing

Yeoman have a slightly higher standard of living and appreciate practical quality. They like their housing to be made of processed materials and expect somewhat more of local services than the dirt-munching peasants.

_____________________________________________________________________

Peer Housing

Peers are much more picky about Peers don't feel their demands are too high. All they want is special housing, lots of yard space, and a few gems pressed into the molding. They won't live many to a building and tend to want expensive materials devoted to their housing.

_____________________________________________________________________

Player Housing

Exemplar Housing
Every player in the Settlement also needs a place to live. Homeless players are assumed to be bothering the NPCs and causing general trouble if allowed to sleep in the streets. Players who want to sleep in the streets are advised to take up residence in a Colonnade. Several main buildings serve as snazzy player housing as well as Taverns in the Central Commons and Inns everywhere.

In addition to unnerving the NPCs, homeless players suffer an AP penalty as they have no safe comfy place to rest.

_____________________________________________________________________

Visitor Housing

This is an elite type of housing only available to higher ranking settlements. With these you can show off your achievements by hosting visiting citizens of other settlements. They cannot freely visit your settlement without becoming residents if you do not have any buildings providing visitor housing.

_____________________________________________________________________

Dead Housing

There are a small number of buildings that will house the dead. If run correctly, they will bring in a certain amount of currency per handled settlement death. Until Rank 7, this will mainly be represented with Burial Chambers which collect silver per Hero and NPC death and increases local Faith.