Pindrop Productions · a playtest of a game in progress

Builder's Hard

Run a shipyard on an English river, 1775 to 1830: take orders by letter, buy oak and iron, keep your men at work, and send ships down the ways.

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Desktop browser needed (Chrome, Edge or Firefox). The game is a 60 MB download the first time.

A cutter in frame on the slip at a riverside yard, with men at work and woods behind
A cutter in frame on the slip, Bucklers Hard, 1790.

The game

You own a small yard. Owners write asking for vessels; you answer by letter, agree a price and a day, and order timber from the merchant and ironwork from the smith. Your men saw the logs in the pit, carry the timber, and frame and plank the hull, piece by piece, as you watch.

They eat, sleep, drink, grumble and get hurt. They work in gangs under quartermen, by the priorities you set. The Navy Board sends tenders; rival yards bid against you; the Board's overseer comes to inspect.

What's in it

  • Contracts by post, with a whole correspondence of merchants, owners and the Navy
  • Ships built timber by timber from real lines and scantlings
  • Your own designs: draw a ship in the designer to meet an owner's order
  • Buildings, workshops, the mould loft, the sawpit and the steam saw mill
  • The market and the news of the war; 1775 to 1830
  • Privateer raids in wartime, your own battery and volunteers
  • And at the end, perhaps, one of the King's dockyards
The ship designer with an owner's order checked against the design
Designing to an owner's order: tons, draught and guns, checked as you go.
The tutorial pointing at the desk's Write tab
The tutorial takes you through your first ship.
Privateers landing on the mud, the yard's men in line behind a rampart with guns
War: a privateer's boats come in, and the yard stands to arms.

For playtesters

Thank you for trying it. It's unfinished: things will be rough, slow or broken, and that's what we want to hear about.

Please try

  1. The tutorial (on the first screen). Does it make sense? Where did you get stuck?
  2. A new yard of your own. Build two or three ships. Is it clear what to do next? Is it too slow, or too fast?
  3. Design a ship: when an owner offers a price for your own design, try it.
  4. A war year (start in 1797 at the coastal hard) if you'd like to see a raid.

How to play

Look aboutDrag to turn · wheel to zoom · middle-drag or shift-drag to move
SelectClick a man, a building or a name in the list
TimeSpace pauses · 1 to 4 set the speed
OrdersRight-click sends drafted men (in a raid)
LettersThe ✉ Desk: letters, writing to merchants, accounts
Look insideV lifts the roofs off buildings

Your yards are saved in this browser (the Save button). Clearing your browser's site data deletes them.

Feedback

Tell us what you liked, what confused you, and anything that went wrong: what you were doing, and what happened. A screenshot helps.