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Weekly Update 2020-2 (Development)

5 years ago - Edited 5 years ago2,224 words

Last week I talked about the battle mechanics; this week I mostly want to talk about some story stuff!

I'm currently focused on planning Divine Dreams' story. I want to have all the main events planned out in some detail before I properly begin, so then the development will just be translating and elaborating on them, and I'll always know where I'm going and what's coming. Since I largely made MARDEK up as I went along, I ended up wasting a lot of time trying to decide what was going to happen next, or even rewriting earlier bits to have them better fit with new ideas I'd come up with. I'm hoping the relative certainty of a solid plan will be conducive to productivity. That was certainly the case with Taming Dreams, where I thoroughly planned like I'm planning this now. (I'm not writing all the conversations and everything, but I'm laying out a skeleton that I'll flesh out later.)

The creative process is one of diminishing returns though, especially with something like this. Over the first few days of planning, I laid out a broad-strokes concept for the entire story, but with each subsequent day I've added less and less. Everything I add is important, and I feel like I'm coming up with at least one really good idea! during every brainstorming session, but all of them have to take into account everything else that's already been plotted, and I spend a lot of time reading over what I've already written. I suppose it's similar to filling a room with furniture: when the room's empty, you can put whatever wherever it seems best, but as you try and fit more and more things in there, you have to move things around to get them to all work together, and regularly take steps back to look at the big picture and make sure everything's working.

I can't really talk about most of my ideas without MAJOR SPOILERS, unfortunately, so I'm having to keep it all to myself and hope it'll eventually be interesting to people who aren't me. Still, I want to share at least a little bit.

As I've explained previously, the story's very strongly inspired by MARDEK, and by Taming Dreams, which was meant as a reimagining of MARDEK in much the same way this is. You could say ∞ the Neverwinter Nights module ∞ was the first draft, MARDEK was the second, Taming Dreams the third, this the fourth.

Here's a sketchy mock-up of the world map, which you might have seen already if you follow me on Twitter. Its purpose was to help me plan the total number of areas and their geographical relationships with one another, so then I can make better sense of the planned plot in my mind.



In MARDEK, the world was called "Belfan", which was just a random, meaningless fantasy word that came to mind. In the years since then, I've become very fond of meaningful names, so here I'm going with "Numina", from "numinal", meaning divine. Numina is just one continent in the Bronze Archipelago, rather than an entire planet in itself. I can't remember the names of the continents in MARDEK because they too were just random fantasy words (was one Fengue? Hadris? Something like that? Both six letters actually, so that's nice). Here, I like the idea of incorporating the mind/body divide from the gameplay into the literal lay of the land, plus I find the name "Godsbod" funny, and some of the place names/themes gain added meanings from their positioning here.

The first chapter (technically chapter 4), which is based on MARDEK 1 and 2, would take place on the northern continent. The next would unlock the southern one too, and the final chapter would be somewhere else, very much like in MARDEK.

Most areas are direct equivalents of MARDEK's, and most of the new names were originally planned for Taming Dreams. Goznor's now Gemsand, Canonia is Wyrmourn. Castle Goznor is the Cloud-Clad Castle. The Gem Mine is a place called the Dreamcave, which has more story significance. Lake Lacrimosa seems an appropriate name for a sorrowful lake of tears, cried from an eye. Some forests have been combined into the Lifewood, this time in the north, though I might rename it to something more cerebral. Aeropolis' first letter's tall lines have divorced (the left one cheated) and now it's Heropolis, a fitting name for the capital city of the courageous Bold. Maybe Crimson Peak - which is one of a few areas I might ∞ rename ∞ - could house a hot brothel or something. Hilarious, surely. Rift is an underground village, like Xantusia.

I wouldn't want to make the world larger than this because I need to be sure it's not too big to make a finished game. So I think this scale should work fine for what I have planned.



I'm giving a lot of focus to each character, and having much of the plot driven by aspects of each of their personalities.

For example, each character has a motto (or perhaps I'll use the term 'dream'): a short phrase that encapsulates their driving motivations, hopes, and perspective on the world and themselves. I came up with this for Taming Dreams originally, and used it as the basis of each character's musical theme, which I'll be doing here too. It gave more meaning to the characters' leitmotifs, and it made them easier to compose as well. Plus the challenge of succinctly summarising a character's entire outlook and story role like that is a an interesting and very valuable creative exercise!

I've yet to write mottos for most of the cast, but I'll likely do that over the coming week, and I want to try to compose some rudimentary leitmotifs when I do. I do have one for Dharma, which would also be used as the main theme of the game, much as Rohoph's leitmotif was also the Main Theme in both MARDEK and Taming Dreams. I'll write another post specifically about the music next week, unless something else comes up. For now, here's what I have for Dharma:

Divine dreams die in enlightened eyes
This sacred lie, this jail I deny

That explains his outlook on the world and himself, his values, and his story role and ultimate aim, all in a succinct, poetic snippet. I like it, since it doesn't really give anything away; you have to know what it's talking about first, then you'll be able to look back and think "ohhh, that's why it was that!".

I've had a new, similar idea this time which I like just as much. In addition to a motto/dream, each character also has a personal demon, or perhaps I'll use the term 'nightmare' to contrast with 'dream'. This is sort of like an embodiment of their deepest fears; kind of like the boggart from Harry Potter, though deeper. It's already been established that the miasma forms people's thoughts into physical monsters, so it's an extension of that.

It's essentially an elaborated version of something from Taming Dreams. In that, there were bosses such as this "Anxark", which was born from Deugan's anxiety in that particular situation:



There was also a boss called "Misfitoucant" in the third episode of that which represented Meraeadyth's sorrow about not fitting in. I don't think those were ever explicitly referred to as the character's personal demons/nightmares though; rather, they were one-shot bosses meant to be relevant to the momentary situation, but nothing really beyond that.

Now, though, each character has their own 'personal boss' which represents their biggest fears about themselves or the world. I think having to battle these makes certain sections way more interesting than if you were to just face some random monster that was never mentioned before and never will be again.

For example, take this section from MARDEK 2:



Here's a rough idea of what I have planned for the revised version of that section in this (some of it; I don't want to spoil it for you):





Elwyen in this has a bird aesthetic motif, and she sings and dreams of (metaphorically) flying freely on wild adventures. She's neurotic in an extroverted way - one of those wide-eyed 'crazy' manic pixie dream girls who lives the wild life because of insecurities - and her biggest fear is being trapped, denied flight, denied attention, becoming ugly and unable to be loved because she's no longer beautiful. This emaciated, wingless, heart-caged, wretched thing - this Haggird (haggard + hag + bird + gird) - represents a fate she fears above all else.

Much more interesting than a 'Lake Hag', don't you think?

Battles against these nightmares/demons would have their own special music, and they'd recur at important character moments. The battles against them would do something special with the character they were for: either that character would be unable to act some or all of the time (they can't face their deepest fear), or they'd be the only one who could act while everyone else becomes a frozen silhouette. The nightmare/demon might also only attack them, or at least attack them preferentially. I'll have to decide what seems the most emotionally resonant (them being helped out by their friends, or them overcoming their fears alone). Maybe it'll be situational rather than a hard rule.

Each recurs on important occasions through the story, at moments of important character growth. I like that it ties together gameplay, world lore (miasma forming monsters), and character arcs. It's the only place though where the monsters you face represent characters' specific mental states; most of the wild ones would be born of general ambient thoughts that have collected there over many years.

Hopefully that gives you some idea of what I mean about basing the story heavily on MARDEK, but improving it in the process!



One final thing: I've also been coming up with some character surnames, which I can't imagine would be used much or at all - perhaps they'd be restricted to the Encyclopaedia, like in MARDEK - but it gives some extra colour to each of them. Unlike the fairly random words the MARDEK characters had as surnames (I can't remember any of them), these too are meaningful, and they're made of common words too so they're easy to understand and remember. I'm not worrying about the six letters thing.

Here are four examples:

Mardek Honeyblood
Deugan Charhearth
Emeela Fathom
Elwyen Nympheather

They're all subject to change, as is everything, but I like fleshing them out in every little way that I can!



I'm going to keep focusing on the story planning until I'm finished with that. I've definitely got the big picture now, but there are still a lot of details to iron out. Once I've done that, I'll aim to complete a demo, likely of the fantasy sequence at the start, up until the transition to the 'real world'. That shouldn't take too long once I start focusing on it. Once that's done, I'll start on promotion, re-releasing the originals, and running a Kickstarter to build up funding for the rest. I can't do everything at once though, and I think it'd be foolish to jump to those later stages too eagerly, without first building a solid foundation.