Improper Devlog #5

This text will be a lot less formal than this type of media probably requires. On the other hand, it illustrates one important idea that I want to discuss today. Different elements of the game have great influence on each other during development. This ends up in some sort of ping pong game between them, but instead of a small ball they exchange ideas and concepts. The simplest, maybe a bit stretched, example of this are reused assets. However, in this text I will look at a broader example. Enough with introductions! 

Let’s create lore!!! 

Why!? I don’t know!!! 

Probably to explain things happening in our game. 

I love worldbuilding! Though I am doing this properly for the first time and there is no actual world in the game.

Is it worth inventing a complicated magic system more suitable for a 50 hour DND campaign to use it in a thirty-minute strategy game? Absolutely not!

Would it be possible to incorporate all of it’s ideas and interactions in this product? Most probably not!

Will I still do it? Absolutely!

I am not a writer in any way, so all this may seem like child’s play, but… Honestly, there is no but, it is just a childish part of me trying to create something cool and I am not ashamed of this.

My favourite fictional world is Warcraft and it’s universe is based on 6 fundamental forces arranged in a hexagonal pattern, which is coincidentally a shape explicitly noticeable in our game.

That’s why I am taking this exact type of organisation and trying to adapt it.

Now we need 6 elements. Luckily some amount can be taken from an already existing game.

First three and most obvious ones are different types of tiles, or, more precisely, resources they provide. These are stone, water and wood. First and last sound too ordinary, so let’s rename them into more mystical earth and nature\life. We are out of material substances so let’s look at other things happening. Corruption is an expected candidate for evil\forbidden force. 4\6 Good enough for now. 

What else happens in the game? There are 2 abilities: freeze and lightning (and shop but it is a bit less magical than needed) and they presumably should use some kind of power behind the curtains. Freeze and ice are intuitively associated with water, which we already have on the list, and I prefer stasis. Basically the same thing but cooler and not connected to real world phenomena. Lightning is ok, small rebranding as energy or electricity and we have primordial force.

We have our elements and preferred shape. Now we need to place them accordingly. Usually in such systems opposing forces situated on the opposite sides and I would like to start our arrangement with this simple pattern. There are two clear pairs (corruption - lightning, destroying corruption) and (corruption - water, being uncorruptable), obviously only one of those can be chosen. I tried both and settled with the second one for reasons that will be relevant later. Forest and stone should be around corruption because they can be corrupted. Finally, I think that a more suitable place for energy is between water and nature, while stasis is between solid rock and water. 

Now that we have specific order, we just need a small number of 6*5/2 = 15 interactions. On the other hand, we don’t need that many interactions. Let me just label already existing ones with arrows, some inner triangle to distinguish resources.  Nice symmetry appears and this is the reason mentioned earlier.

And here we are with a mysterious diagram that can be used to explain whatever stuff happens, but probably completely incomprehensible by anyone who hasn’t read this devlog. 

Good enough for me. Bye!