The Thirty-Fourth Dynasty of Kevan
24 July - 03 September 2025
Ascension Address
A warm summer’s night in the heart of the city, and food truck operators broil and unload cooked kebabs in the yard. As the hour draws on and new customers start to dwindle, one vendor enviously watches a large group dispersing from a rival stall across the plaza. They unclip the marker board from the side of their truck, smear a sleeve across that night’s offers and prices, and start planning a new menu for the day ahead.
(The rules of the previous dynasty said that "the body of the [next] Ascension Address should contain its author’s Backronym for the Endgame Acronym": the backronym in question was "broil and unload cooked kebabs in the yard".)
Change the term “Wordsmith” to “Truck”, and “Puzzler” to “Yard”. Change the gamestate tracking page to “Food Park”.
Set the Building Blocks “Virtual Actions”, “Precondition Unidling”, “Reinitialisation” and “Revisions Allowed” to be active, removing “No Private Communication”. (I’m no fan of Revisions Allowed, after playing a few dynasties under it, but it seems to be in the zone of a block that’s still being tested, rather than one that the Emperor should take any Ascending view on.)
My Imperial Style will be the same as last time: Gardener/Preservationist/Powerhouse/Guarded/Methodical/Timekeeper, and the undocumented scam stance of “Scam-Gradual” (Scam-Averse for the first week or so, then Scam-Mundane afterwards; I’ll propose to add this to the list, during the dynasty).
Gameplay summary
Players privately compile menus for their food trucks, from a selection of ingredients. When everyone's picked a menu, menus are revealed and a number of customers visit the trucks to buy one item at random from each - but if they see an equivalent dish cheaper elsewhere, they'll switch to it. Players can lock in one menu item as a "signature dish" making it more likely to be chosen, and can skip a round to upgrade their truck.
Players
The following players were active at the beginning of the game: aria, Bucky, Chiiika, Clucky, Darknight, DoomedIdeas, eternalservererror, JonathanDark, Josh, Kevan, Trapdoorspyder
And at the end: Applebane, arthexis, Chiiika, Clucky, Darknight, DoomedIdeas, eternalservererror, JonathanDark, Kevan, Lawnomos, Trapdoorspyder, Vovix.
Final Ruleset
Gamestate
Posts of Interest
- Start Menu (Kevan) proposed the existence of Menus: lists of Dishes made up of specific Ingredients
- Trucks in the Night (Kevan) created the basic game loop: a customer approaches each Truck and either buys something at random from it, or buys an equivalent cheaper item from another Truck
- Pitches get Stitches (Josh) gave a line of Pitches for Trucks to occupy
- If You Cook It, They Will Come (JonathanDark) and Who's Buying (eternalservererror) made Customers into specific entities with names
- Five O’Clock Somewhere (eternalservererror) allowed Trucks to declare Happy Hour discounts
- Mise en place, or, everything in its place (Josh) split the game round into Prep and Serve phases
- No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (Kevan) required Trucks to pay for their Ingredients each Night
- Closed for Business (eternalservererror) allowed Trucks to Close, setting the scene for upgrade actions they could take as a result
- Oysters on the Oregon Trail (aria) added a new Ingredient with a risk of food poisoning; this built on an earlier, rejected food poisoning mechanic Oregon Trail (eternalservererror)
- Maintenance (DoomedIdeas) allowed Closed Trucks to choose a gameplay benefit for the following day
- With Credit to JonathanDark (DoomedIdeas) made the Oyster effect based on their prevalence across all Menus, rather than purely random
- Putting My Signature (Arthexis) allowed Trucks to nominate a Signature Dish which was more likely to be bought, but which could never be changed. Inflation (Arthexis) later allowed them to modify only the Price.
- Branding (eternalservererror) allowed Trucks to give themselves a flavour-text description
- Fixtures and Fittings (Kevan) rethemed the temporary "Closed Action" effects as equipment that could be added to a Truck; they were later made permanent effects
- Sponsored by the Algorithm (Trapdoorspyder) added Trending Ingredients, which would result in tips when Customers bought Dishes that contained them. Viral Marketing (Vovix) later made them easier to track and modify.
- Dive Bars (DoomedIdeas) required future Menus to list at least three items
- Deep Clean (Clucky) allowed Closed Trucks to remove unwanted Signature Dishes
- Dish of the Day (Kevan) allowed the Yard to highlight proposals that could potentially impact the current round
- Broke Down (Clucky) allowed Trucks to drop into a negative balance, taking out Loans
- Musical Chairs (JonathanDark) gave a way for Trucks to select Pitches.
- Half-Time Bell (Kevan) created a public notification to emphasise that half the players had submitted Menus, to let the slower players know what the median wait was. The Daily News (JonathanDark) later made it a daily countdown of remaining players, and Backlot Roll Call (Kevan) publicly named those players. Later there was a poll on how quickly players should submit menus (with a consensus of 48 hours), but the dynasty ended before it could take effect.
- First Impressions (Kevan) had Customers resolving cheaper Truck visiting decisions based on Pitch positions rather than at random
- Britian’s Favo(u)rite Pastime (Clucky) allowed players to queue their Shutdown Actions secretly. This was never used.
- Flavo(u)r of the Week (Clucky) doubled the number of Customers at weekends
- Michelin Guide (JonathanDark) added a victory condition: the Trucks with the most money each Night gained a number of Performance points, and the first to collect 10 would win.
- Post Peak Pork (Kevan) removed an ingredient from the game, to increase potential interaction between menus
- Running Low on Supplies (JonathanDark) had the most-used Ingredients priced higher in the next round; in practice this would always be the Trending ingredient
- You Scratch My Back… (JonathanDark) allowed players to pair up and generate extra "Referral" sales for one another
- It’s the Final Cook-Off (Arthexis) proposed to end the game by having the leading three players write menus and the rest of the players vote on which one they like the best, but it failed to say when that would happen; it timed out 4-2. After three failed attempts to make the Cook-Off happen, we suspected that most players were actually against the idea, and repealed it.
Just Declare a Winner Already(JonathanDark) proposed to drop the victory condition from 10 Performance to 5, meaning that Eternalservererror would win immediately. It failed.- Secondhand Fittings (Eternalservererror) allowed zero-Performance Trucks to take a free catchup Fitting
- Game Shortener (Applebane) took the victory condition down from 10 Performance to 8 Performance
Core amendments
- Revision Excision (Josh) repealed the Revisions Allowed building block
- Pace of Play (Clucky) added Obedient/Considerate Imperial Styles
- Wrapping up loose pork wraps (Chiiika) added Scam-Gradual and No-Scam-until-Victory styles
Nights
- 28/07: Monday Night
- 02/08: Tuesday Night
- 07/08: Wednesday Night
- 12/08: Thursday Night
- 16/08: Friday Night
- 20/08: Saturday Night
- 28/08: Sunday Night
- 02/09: Monday Night
Ascension
Eternalservererror's Grill Noir took the lead on Performance once it enacted, and from Saturday Night teamed up with Melody's Dine and Wine to have Chiiika's Truck set the same Menu but a dollar or two higher, so that her customers would always head to Grill Noir instead. (From Discord discussion they flipped a coin in advance to decide who would benefit from this plan, the other agreeing to go along with it and lose the dynasty.)
Nobody seemed to notice this Menu business, and Grill Noir got to 5 Performance on Sunday Night. With a proposal to lower the victory bar to 8 Performance, Grill Noir only needed to stay in the lead for one more night - which it did, and Eternalservererror declared victory.
Commentary
- Temperature Check was a mid-dynasty review
- 24 Hour Pokes’ Rice and Beans was the post-dynastic discussion