quoteContainer wrote: There is a dark shadow I see on your soul, a side you cannot see, that blinds you in your most passionate moments. A beast that howls and screams, taunting you to let it free. It is in all of us, a monster lurking beneath your civil self. Only I have controlled it. You see it is not a demon that takes over us, it is not some foreign horror that overpowers, or a contagion that clouds your thoughts. The beast is a reflection of you, it is the inversion of your conscious mind. It does the bidding of your true emotions, if you’ll let it. There is no greater power in this world than the unchained beast. The weight that burdens others in these pallid years is a pedestal that raises me up above others. Come! Revel in your freedom, shirk the shackles of civilisation and sate your need for blood. - The Beast
Finally I am at a stage where I can start writing the narrative in earnest. After a good think over the christmas holidays I've decided to abandon the idea of character classes... well, sort of anyway. Initially I had planned for additional characters to be randomly generated from a set of classes and names. Turned out this doesn't make it easy for a) me to tell stories through the game and b) for players to become emotionally invested in anyone except the main character. So I decided to overhaul it slightly and have a number of additional characters, each with abilities that correspond to one of the old classes. Each character has a unique name, and a story to tell. When these characters rest, they will relate their story to the player, piece by piece- so you'll have to keep the character's alive to hear their entire story.
Prototype Exploration Interface
Another thing I've been working on is the exploration side of the game. Essentially there are a group of regions connected to eachother. Characters can explore these regions to find resources, items, other characters, and encounter dangerous foes. When a character arrives in a region they are presented with a number of choices, either:
- Look around the region they just arrived at to gather resources, before returning home.
- Abandoning their search and returning home (if nothing is found or the character runs out of food and water).
- Examining a set of clues in the area in order to discover new regions.
I've been focussed primarily on the last bullet point, the clue mechanic. In essence the clues are a series of environmental indicators that either turn out to be correct or incorrect. For example a clue might be:
If the character were to then investigate that clue they might find water. All clues have an associated Intelligence (from now on referred to as Perception) requirement. If the character doing the exploring has a high enough perception to meet or exceed this requirement, they will receive additional information about the clue. For example the previous clue might read:
This mechanic should make exploration more enjoyable for the player, provide an incentive for high Perception characters to be used for exploration, and to generate more risk-reward scenarios. The further the character travels from home, the higher the average perception requirement becomes.
Only a little post this week- trying to keep it short and sweet. Happy New Year everyone!
