Customizing Librus (Past the ½ Way Point)

Oh world design, you magnificently challenging task you.

We're finally at the half way point of the world buildout. It's one of those tasks that has to be done at the beginning of the development process. We created a Pinterest at the onset of the project, to collect ideas, and things we liked. To be honest, it was filled mostly with Ankama art.

From there we moved onto creating the skeletons for each of the Levels, and each of their time zones. 

But the base levels are scenes which are pulled in at 0,0,0, into each timeframe. Then the unique items for that time are loaded inside of that level's specific version.

The world is fairly formulaic. There are 21 worlds. (11 of which are built at this time). Each world has a three step main quest, and a Temple to complete. And then each of the main quest steps unlocks 10 sidequests, 1 minigame, 1 crafting event, a Town, 5 Dungeons, one secondary character story.

Librus is the larger, second hub, for the second half of the game. As such, 12 of the Teleportation Towers are found there. As such, the design choice was to terraform the Terrain, Plants, and aesthetic to match the coloring of the zone to which the teleport leads, as if the world of Librus was born from the need to connect the worlds. It's a design which requires a rework on the textures for each set. Which... takes time. But as you can see above, the effect is... lovely. 

I'm really very proud of this update.

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As you can see above, I've started streaming my Development sessions on Twitch. This is in no way intended to make money off of the stream, in fact I don't really expect much in the way of traction. However, in the spirit of full transparency, I want the community to go back and see how I design, and why. I feel like there's a masterclass here in industry organization. And though I am just one person, making one game, I'm a professional storyteller, developer, project manager, and Agile educator in my 9-5. So this gives a chance to see my organization first hand. 

Rather than announce a game, then go silent, and give small development updates I'm going with a model of Develop publicly, knowing the title is under copyright, and then announce the game when it's ready for players to actually play. I expect that, after launch, we'll continue to refine, and add content over the long haul. Until the game is largely design issue and bug free, I don't expect I'll put it down to work on a sequel. 

Part of the fun of getting a game to retail is the ability to go back and color in the stories based on what the fans are curious about. And we have lots of room for 'post launch content'. 

I'm also unsure how much of the game will get formal voice acting, and how many of our 'Modeled after real people' characters will stay in post-launch. 

The only reason to do a Kickstarter on this project would be for Physical Loot, so chances are it will just reach a 0.9 milestone and we'll put it up on Steam, head to GDC to promote, and hope we're good enough for an award or two. Who knows?

Time will tell. But feel free to review our streams, and jump in to watch. I've tried to make it as ASMR friendly as I can!

-Brandon