16 WORLDS & COUNTING (0.3S.14) HAMMERDELL

I WONDER IF IT'S LIKE THIS FOR OTHER DEVS...

I spend every free second I have Developing. I am not sure what that means for others. For me, that means taking the TB of assets I've accrued/created/repurposed and slapping them together around an idea I scoped out on a napkin in February, then massaging them (Changing Textures, Remaking Colliders, Writing Scripts or Creating State Machines to do a Thin, and then creating assets which make them stylistically match the rest of the idea).

I have two kiddos (One Trans, and one Autistically Amazing) who get most of my existence. My wife keeps me stable, and I balance her out. And, of course, I have a Desk job. So I get between 20 and 30 hours a week to work, max. It's just not feasible to make something amazing, with backing, and come out in profit. So the only real way to make a game, for me, is to spend what time I have, fund it myself, and do all of the Music Design, Art, and Tech work solo. Eventually the Story Team will  be freed to begin building narratives for the secondary content (Side Quests, and Sub Quests, as well as Minigames, Trials, and Puzzles). But for now, this is my entire bandwidth.

When I built the Mad King TCG last year, and the Kickstarter was so Tepid, I decided that this, the parent project, would take literally as long as it takes. And that it would be solid before I took a dime from anyone. 

So for now, I just... push on. We're nearing a HUGE milestone in the game's lifespan:

We're almost done with the Overworld. Like Zelda Games of Yore, you live on the Sky Islands Maps. Librus is equivalent to Hyrule Field, and then we have an Island, accessible by Portal, and surrounded on all sides, by clouds. It's a very solid Kingdom Hearts feel when it comes to navigation. However, instead of heading into a Ship, you just jump around through the network of Portals. 

To that end, the screenshots above are from the 'Hub' I created where I maintain access doors to every Area, and each Time Instance of that area we've created. It makes fast traveling much... well... faster. Which when we're building the quests will be huge. It might be FUN to travel overland to each destination, but it's not time-effective. So our Testers will be able to bounce around at will.

This will be vital when it comes to completing complex speed runs, and validating that everything works between timeframes. 

ONTO THE NEW ZONES!

CRAG

Crag is our very FIRST Multi-Race location. We use characters from around the game everywhere. (What with the side story being a huge Joke about this being a Failed Isakai) and the desire to not craft throw away... anything. 

But Crag is home to the No'Yeti, and the Dragonaight's. Each race is driven by a different view of what is Fashionable and wise in this Harsh Climate. And unfortunately, it's led them to become mortal enemies. Which is to say they're constantly pulling pranks on each other. In this Barren Place, COLOR is everything, and making sure they're at the height of trends is their driving force. This Romeo and Juliet style friendship story unfolds at the foot of a Giant Snow-Nado temple. 

This is our VERY FIRST zone which uses internal Caves as a part of the core design. MOST of the game will have an internal instance, or teleport location which leads into Caves or Dungeons. But because all of this is linked by one timeline, it wasn't effective on the event side to code them separately. So this Zone is three smaller zones linked together by caves. 

The sections for the Dragon Queens and the Furballs are distinct in design. Our winged lizard offspring are Humanoid, but HUGE, and our Yetis are little tiny furballs. And their zones reflect these differences.

CITY OF CITIES LORN

This was a truly fun zone to build. 

Lorn is, at first glance, the most beautiful and refined of the Zones. It's the closest thing we see to Modern Civilization, outside of the Scientielves. They're still circa 1920, but very focused on 'Pleasure'. The city is populated by our local-neighborhood Bunny Peoples, and the story revolves around comfort based Magic. The bunnies used to believe EVERYTHING was a celebration, and life was fun, and from that their Magic stemmed. But lately, some invisible force has taken hold of them and they're only concerned with 'Refined' Magic, and the power that gives them over others.

Is it any wonder then, that Giant Mushrooms have sprung up in the Forest surrounding the town, and that the town's gates have been sealed? A mystery will unfold here, with an underground organization of long eared soldiers, and the pursuit of Freedom. And though there is no traditional Temple here, you'll find that the Snowglobes here retain a strange secret and if you look closely, you can see evidence of 'Little Folk' in the corners and on the Shelf. It might take shrinking down to size to gain an ally capable of resisting this strange set of happenings.  

HAMMERDELL

Home to the Haiku Nocte (A race of beings who are born from Magic Trees, and who are literally the masks they wear), this Japanese Themed zone is an homage to Zelda, the way that Zelda is an homage to Celtic Culture. Doing this in a way which is respectful took some serious thought. 

The Nocte (Both Races of them) are in pursuit of different things. The Haiku believe that words contain all power and experience and must be cherished. When their boats are born from the Mother Tree, and their masks crafted, they go out into the world un pursuit of Poems and Stories which gather Words of Power. They want to be able to summon the power of Others for their own use, but for the purpose of protecting the world. If the words survive, then things can never truly die. Or so they believe.

These little fellows communicate entirely in Poem form, and can be standoffish. But if you can help appease their ancestral spirits, and bring order back to their once tidy library, you will gain true friends.

All of the Japanese cultural elements will come from collects of Poems, and will reference that the Nocte were born into their world when a single work of creative fiction was left beneath the boughs of their Mother tree. Dazai quotes and the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu will drive this adventure. After all, who doesn't love a good game of Karuta!

EMBERSPARK & HEAVENSREACH

You may recall that we had a TWO WEEK setback as we tried to upgrade to UNITY 2022.2, and it cost us a ton of work. That was because we didn't want to LOSE the creations of these two intertwined zones.

Emberspark is available just after the Three World Prologue in Skylise Meadows. It's the 'Yellow' Themed zone at the top of Librus. And like the other Seven zones, can be accessed at any time from the Hub. You choose the order in which you complete these worlds.

You'll meet both the Go-Bots, and and the Scientifelves here. They're doing research on each other. This dead and abandoned Cityscape holds a dark secret about what energy powers the world. And in its depths lays a multi-story Temple to Tech which will need to be overcome if you're to reclaim a certain Tome of Destruction from its depths.

But while exploring you MAY notice something a bit odd beyond the cloud barrier. Unlike any other world in the Game, there appears to be a place in the distance you can't reach when you visit Emberspark. And there's a local teleport pad that a certain Elf just can't seem to get working. Perhaps with some parts from the Dungeon he might be able to get this working.

Also, the game is Color themed... now WHERE have you seen a Purple Themed tower before...? 

HEAVENSREACH

Heavensreach is the ONLY place in the game protected from the Golden Time phenomenon. The Elves here have found a way to protect things from both the passage of Time, and from the ravages of the Physical world. Unfortunately, that has left them somewhat... detached... from the other worlds. 

Their Patron, an ancient, and wise... not to mention grumpy Treant holds the secret to not only HOW their technology works, but to what actually happened in Emberspark (across the Ocean). This giant, mobile city, won't be here investigating forever, so it's up to you to befriend the Elves, and help them with their research.

You can legitimately get here any time After Emberspark is beaten, by way of completing the 'Time Enough For Love' questline with 'The Professor'. This quest will have you jumping through time more than any other, but will reward you with both a Shortcut between Emberspark and Heavensreach, but with a Crafting System which allows you to convert any combat item or armor into a permanent item which will survive the rewind of time. But the catalyst for this is a rare currency you only get from completing Side Stories. So... you might want to get questing!

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COMING ALONG!

 Only Five worlds remain to be crafted and then the MONUMENTOUS task of creating the Main Story, the Tools, and the Cutscenes comes next. Though the Dungeons aren't until the end of the Roadmap, we'll create placeholders where the boss can be killed in one hit, and the tool obtained, in order to get the story's progression right.

It will be a huge undertaking. Likely, taking most of 2023 if not a bit of 2024. But we'll be doing it in a completely wired world, repleat with the Time Travel turned back on. 

For now, stay tuned for the New Zones. We'll do a full tour stream in a few weeks when these last zones are done and ready for the QA team to begin hammering on them and finding all those Floating Trees and Missing Colliders! ♥

Game on friends!