Cowzy Friday: The Rancher job & day system!
- Wesley Chartrand
- May 2
- 2 min read
Welcome back for a quick update on The Cowzy Game! This week’s focus has been on the new Rancher job and the passage of game time. Let’s jump in!
The Rancher Job
Cows are the central economic point in the game. While your villagers gather resources and build buildings, cows produce the milk necessary to create new products & sell for gold. This is where the Rancher job comes into play.
The Rancher role has begun! Ranchers are responsible for caring for cows—feeding, herding, and (soon) milking.
Thanks to our existing job system architecture, adding the Rancher was lightning fast. I simply created a new enum, DataTable entry, and then set the Rancher enum for BP_Cow and it then became recognized in-game as a valid job assignment!
I’m currently designing the math behind milk production & quality, deciding on factors like cow happiness, feed type, and time of day.
Day & Season Cycle
Cowzy Town, like many farming games, will have a day/night but unlike many city builders where days pass quickly, the days here will be deliberate, where the player must manage their villagers and cows to ensure they can get the most value out of their day to expand their town.
Time Progression: Days, seasons, and years now pass in the game world—even though they don’t yet affect gameplay.
Daily Reset: At the start of each new day, a ResetCowDay() function runs for all cows, preparing them for a fresh day of ranching.
What’s Next?
Milk Production: When the day ends, cows should produce harvestable milk
Production Variables: Add initial variables (e.g., feed quality, cow stamina) to influence milk yield.
Milk Quality: Start building the system to grade milk (flavor, richness, etc.).
Rancher Work: Ranchers should be able to collect milk from cows and drop it off at a drop-off location.
Storage Setup: Create infrastructure for milk storage (no UI yet).
See you next Cowzy Friday!! 🐄✨
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