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Workshop

Project presentation

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First thing first

Details of this game can be changed and improved but the general vision and ideas are already set as a start point

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Inspiration

Reigns + Darkest Dungeon

Quests in form of choices

Turn-based fights

System of reputation

Uncontrolled saves

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Inspiration

Reigns + Darkest Dungeon + Pathologic

Connected quests, map with tasks

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Plot

Important points:

  • Main hero collects characters to make a brigade, which he/she commands
  • Our hero spends time and money to create and reconstruct buildings in a certain location
  • Hero’s path is full of sacrifices and difficult decisions
  • Formal aim is to build N architectural wonders because the process will give enough life experience to find new meaning of life

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Plot

Important points:

  • Main hero is very reach so money isn’t a problem
  • The hero’s enemies are beasts
  • When they are tamed (defeated), they transform in buildings (for example, house, garden, etc)

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Lore

Challenges are represented as beasts which are fought with power of strategy thinking

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Game loops

Gain/Lose Reputation

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Find Workers

Complete assignments

Fight beasts

Collect knowledge

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Fights

  • Turn-based: every team (controlled by player or enemy AI) has it’s turn to make actions
  • Ability-focused: player chooses abilities and their targets, no items, no dependence on positions of characters
  • No point of return: damage to everything stays after fights finish

Combos

Numbers

Colorful executions

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Fights

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Fights

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Characters

Every character and beast is represented as abilities he/she can use and character’s stats (statistics, they are just numbers to show lack or sufficiency of something).

Example: Creativity 2 and Stamina 10 show that although this character lacks creativity but (it can be a problem for designer or artist) endurance can save him from long hours of workload.

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Beasts’ stats

But what about enemies’ stats? What to they mean?

Each construction has it’s own difficulties. For example, it’s a challenge to level out foundation of a house on a rough terrain. It’s also not so easy to restore an old monument to comply with historical style and match citizens’ preferences.

Every difficulty is shown as stat, which must be changed in some way to adjust needed aspects.

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System of Bars

  • Every characteristic (stat) is shown as bar
  • Bars have 2 states: active and inactive
  • To beat a character you need to make all of it’s bars active

For example: design of a building will be done only if Design stat is between 10 and 15 or between 25 and 30

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System of Bars

For human characters active status of some stat can give an advantage or a disadvantage.

For instance, if Impatience is in active state player can get timer which limits how long choices can be thought out.

More details about stats can be discussed in the end.

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Why bars?

It’s not always shown what are borders of activation, so as player you can:

Get information about constructions in quests to know how to solve problems

Use try-and-error approach

Damage stats of characters, which can need time to restore

Lose respect because you spent time and resources

Gain respect because you search for solution on your own

Make story choices

Gain respect because you helped (or not) some fraction

Lose respect because you helped (or not) some fraction

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Why bars?

And it can be more and more complicated�For instance, you start a quest and

Finish the quest and get information about constructions to know how to solve problems

Use try-and-error approach

Damage stats of characters, because of your choices

Lose respect because you spent time and resources

Gain respect because you find solution on your own using skills you learned

Make story choices

Gain respect because you damage workers of some fraction

Lose respect because you spend resources of some fraction

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Why bars?

Long story short:

Bars connect story and gameplay of fights,�provide complex choices,�give freedom to choose what is interesting for player

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Map and story events

  • There are different groups with diverse points of view
  • Group can give access to workers and projects of buildings if player got enough of it’s reputation
  • Some groups can let the player build architectural wonders, N of which are needed to finish the game.
  • N is at least 2 times lower than number of groups, so:

Player can choose stories to take part in,�groups to connect with�and workers to work with

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Motivation

  • Show importance of real-life architects, engineers, workers and their manual labor and intellectual work
  • Demonstrate difficulties as natural part of our life
  • Create a field for strategic thinking
  • Propose interesting management choices
  • Make a system of connected stories with a space for replayability
  • Create a good project for portfolio

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Current plans

As it was shown gameplay aspects are more or less focused and further design perspectives are seen more clearly.

When gameplay is ready test reputation balance, fights and try different UI

Programming time approximation was too far from truth. For example, there was an idea to present a demo by the middle of November but it’s still unfinished. In other words, project will move slower than expected.

From now, all features will be presented only when they are already finished.

We have enough artists, so it’s time to find writers for the game’s lore and story. Some sort of pipeline to join writing and gameplay will be needed.

This search will start when pipeline is created and gameplay has stable shape.

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Thank you for the interest!