Var and Yok: machines
Everything in Boz is made of two things, as in the old story: Var, the signal, and Yok, the silence. One and zero. You build small pieces that each follow one simple rule, and join them into switches, clocks, locks and machines that work while you do something else.
The pieces
All of them are in the Machines group of the build menu. Most face a direction; turn them with R or R1.
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Lever | Gives Var while it is on. Click it, or □ beside it, to flip it. |
| Pressure plate | Gives Var while anyone stands on it: you, a friend or a foe. |
| Sun-stone | Gives Var by day, Yok by night. |
| Thread | Carries Var from cell to cell, a little weaker each cell, and fades out after fifteen. |
| Shade stone | Turns the signal over: Var in front only while there is Yok behind. Two in a ring make a clock. With threads, they make any logic you need. |
| Delay crystal | Passes the signal on a moment later, at full strength again. Click it to set the delay. |
| Lamp | Glows when Var reaches it. |
| Fence gate | Swings open when Var reaches it. You can still open it by hand. |
The machines
A machine works once each time the signal reaches it, so a lever pulled twice, or a clock, keeps it busy.
- Stone digger: digs the rock or vein in front of it, as a stone pick would, and fills a chest beside it.
- Planter: picks every ripe crop on the tilled cell in front and sows the empty ones, with seeds from a chest beside it. Needs Farming 40.
- Forge bellows: faces a forge with a chest beside it, and smelts a batch of ore into ingots each time. Needs Blacksmithing 50. It never makes alloys.
- Conveyor belt: hands what it carries to the chest or belt in front, then takes up to ten of one thing from the chest behind.
- Storage chest: 48 slots. Machines fill it and empty it.
A clock, a digger facing a vein and a chest make a small mine. A sun-stone and a planter tend a field while the sun is up.
Discovering the pieces
Like every building piece, these are learned by doing. Your first campfire teaches you the lever, the thread and the lamp. A lever leads to the pressure plate; three threads to the sun-stone; eight threads and a lamp to the shade stone; a shade stone to the delay crystal. Two wooden floors teach the storage chest, and two chests and a lever, the conveyor belt.
The costs are small: a lever is two sticks and a stone, a thread one stone.