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Prelude to Divine Dreams?
4 years ago2,058 words
I've been thinking about it all week, and I've got an idea for a shorter, more concise version of Divine Dreams that I could conceivably finish by the end of the year...

These past few days have been interesting. Just over a week ago, I wrote ∞ this post ∞, where I talked about how committing myself to a long series might be a bad idea if it's not going to be profitable. The next day, I wondered in ∞ this post ∞ whether there were any shorter ideas that I could produce first.

One of those ideas - the only interesting one, really - was for a shorter self-contained prequel starring the character Savitr, Dayvha's father. I hadn't really refined it, though, and spent several days incredibly uncertain about whether doing that or just starting with Divine Dreams as planned might be my best bet.

I've given it some more thought now, and I'm getting excited about the idea as there's a lot that I can do with it!



I recently started playing the RPG Octopath Traveler; I wrote about my first impressions from just under an hour of playtime in ∞ this post ∞, and I might write another now that I'm seven or eight hours in. It's alright, it's nice to play an novel RPG, I suppose, though there are a lot of things that I've been annoyed by or which I'd want to do differently in my own game.

One of those things is the sheer length of the game. There are eight characters, each with their own stories spanning multiple chapters, and you visit and unlock them one-by-one. I've got five now, but it feels like it's been such a slog, and the thought that there are more left to unlock put me off playing at all yesterday. (Though factors such as depression and comparing my work to this make it more draining an experience in general than it might be for the average player.)

One of the thoughts I've had is that now that I'm older and don't have the time or energy to devote to a dozens-of-hours-long RPG like I could as a teenager, I like the idea of a 'bite-sized' RPG which contains the same essential experience, just streamlined. Longer than a film, but not a weeks-long commitment.

I don't know whether this would appeal to other busy adults too, or whether it'd just put off typical RPG fans because length is something they highly value in RPGs, but I wanted to mention it first because I feel it could be a selling point for the idea that I have. Plus something shorter is far easier to produce, of course.



Anyway, as for the idea:

I'm imagining it as a story told in three acts (in terms of narrative/gameplay structure, I mean; they'd all be released as a whole and might not be explicitly divided in-game), which would be devoted to three thematic concepts I've been incorporating heavily into my recent games: light, dark, and aether.

That is, act 1 would be set in a bright and vibrant overworld, act 2 would be set in a gloomy underworld, and act 3 would make a transition to the aethereal drealm, at least in part. Life, death, transcendence to an afterlife.



This would be both overt in terms of the visuals of the areas you're exploring, and more subtle in terms of character psychology during the acts.

I was able to come up with some plans fairly quickly for these, though they're still rough and there are a lot of gaps. I've only devoted a few hours to planning, though. I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't go into specifics here.

I will say though that it makes a lot of sense to use a small island as the setting. That means that this 'overworld' - which probably brought to mind something vast - would be a smallish 'dungeon' surrounded by water on all sides. That'd give the feeling of exploration without necessarily being a huge open world to explore. I'm intending it to be quite linear, but with the potential to explore off-path if you choose to (either to get hidden loot or maybe for sidequests). The underworld would be similarly-sized, and the drealm might be like MARDEK's dreamrealm in that it's just an alternative version of the existing areas (or not; I'm still planning this).

There'd also be a monastery you'd reach at the end of act 1, and which would serve as a sort of hub: this gives an excuse for all its inhabitant NPCs to look quite similar (they're all monks), and it fits well with the themes I'm trying to explore with these games.

I've planned four protagonists who join the party:



These are all characters who I've already planned for Divine Dreams - three are based on (though have developed well beyond) NPCs from MARDEK, and one was exclusive to Taming Dreams - so nobody's new. This is set ten years before the events of Divine Dreams, so the characters here were chosen because of their availability and goals during this point of the world's timeline. That allows me to keep the story I already spent a long time writing, to return to if this game does well.

It worked out sort of oddly though, because of these four, three are male, and two of those are eccentric bald men! Hardly the sort of cast I'd design if starting from nothing, and I wonder whether people would be drawn to them or not. Both the weird men have entertaining speech styles and personalities, though, so hopefully that'll sell them to players despite their lack of superficial sexy coolness. (By contrast, of Divine Dreams' 9 characters, 2 are male, 6 are female, and one is two parts male and one part female.)

The story would mostly centre around Savitr, who's a deeper character than the two incarnations of Enki that he was originally inspired by. He's got a fairly deep backstory, and what I've planned so far allows that to be explored in an intriguing way which I could see sparking a lot of wondering and discussion if I pull it off well enough.



I've already built Divine Dreams' engine, so I'll be using that, of course. I wouldn't need to make many more assets, since there are only three (or maybe even two) major areas, four playable characters, and maybe 4-6 NPC types (if that). Monsters and music might take the longest, but even those shouldn't take that long once I get the ball rolling since there aren't many of each that I need to make.

I'm planning to keep the mechanics the same as what I've already built, though I might remove the concords feature - for this at least - since it's not like you can choose your allies so it's a bit pointless. I'm also wondering whether tamed monsters could drop items which allow you to summon an instance of that monster species once when used; that could be interesting, and makes sense for some plot stuff I've planned.

Oh, another important thing is that since this'll be short, adding meaningful decisions would be fairly easy to do and potentially compelling. Perhaps each act's boss could either be killed or tamed, and how you choose to handle that could determine something about the next act. If you kill one boss, one of the two weird men doesn't join you in the next chapter; something like that. I could see this adding replayability and intrigue. (I have specific plans for three major choices like this, one at the end of each act, but obviously describing them would be spoilers!)



So that's the idea. It's hard to find a balance between explaining so much that it spoils everything, and too little that it's not clear what I'm trying to do!

The aim would be to release it by the end of the year; I'd set up a Steam page and start promoting it as soon as I had enough assets and enough certainty about the direction.

If it's well-received and profitable, then I'd be able to make the first part of Divine Dreams as a sequel. I don't think releasing sequels would be received the same as releasing something explicitly described as episodic. The three Divine Dreams games might have a common plot thread through them, but I'd write them such that they'd be accessible enough to newcomers, and they'd each have their own beginning, middle, and end. I'd also make improvements to the engine with each installment to, so it wouldn't just be like what could instead be DLC.

I've not played EBF, but if you have, what do those do? Do they continue on story-wise from the previous one, or are they all their own things?

If you ever played Golden Sun, I think that might be an example of this kind of thing, too? It was forever ago that I played them, but didn't the second continue directly on from the first narratively, or something?

If this thing wasn't profitable, then I wouldn't have left a story unfinished, as such. This thing would definitely hint at a wider world and leave the opportunity available for a continuation, but it wouldn't be incomplete without it. Hopefully it won't come to that, though!

Also, perhaps I could have a really small free demo for this? Some of the Pokemon games offered extremely short demos, didn't they? Like on the scale of two battles or something? Maybe I could do that for this, so the demo was just a small slice of one of the acts. Or something. Demos do seem to help with promotion, from the research I've done.

(I still need to do more research, by the way. I've done a bit this week, but then I got distracted by planning this!)

As for a title, perhaps something like Prelude to Divine Dreams could work? It could also be 'Divine Dreams: Prelude', but I feel that suggests there'd be more while the former could work as a standalone title. I like 'prelude' because of the musical association, which is appropriate if everyone's using musical instrument weapon things. I could also go with something else involving 'Prelude' which makes sense with the story I've planned, though I'll likely come up with ideas as I develop the story more.

(Or maybe something like "Prelude to a Requiem", stressing the life/death thing?)



I recently posted the design - and the process that led to it - for Savitr on ∞ the Patreon I recently revived ∞. The number of patrons and monthly earnings are still fairly small (49 and $257, as I write this), but they're definitely not nothing, and this gives me a lot of hope that perhaps I can continue to grow this and that it might ease some of my recurring money woes! The Savitr posts were more well-received than I expected them to be, so talking about character designs on there is definitely something I'll keep doing.

I'll probably post designs on this blog and Twitter eventually too, since I'll need to start advertising the game sooner rather than later, but you'll definitely be seeing them at least a few days early on Patreon.

I've got other stuff to do too, like finalising the Discord I've set up (there are a few people using it already, but I need to decide on channels and moderators and bots and things before opening it up more publicly). It's annoying how long things take - depression and being busy get in the way a lot - but at least I feel I've made some progress with a lot of stuff this month.

Anyway, this idea is still a tangle of swirling potentials, so I don't know if anything I've said here is actually clear! I'll likely post about some of these specific things like characters on my Patreon over the next week! I am excited though about having a Divine Dreams RPG I can release before the year's end! I also feel the story I have in mind might actually be more compelling than something based around the rambling skeleton of MARDEK.

14 COMMENTS

Maniafig222~4Y
I've had a hard time getting back to Octopath myself, I'm roughly just below halfway done (16/32 chapters completed) but so far the game's structure has been rather repetitive. I'm hoping these later chapters have some more interesting plot points, locations to visit and combat more complex than "nuke everything with Cyrus's UNPARALLELED FOCUS".

I think these days it's become a lot more acceptable for indie games and RPGs to be shorter and not overstay their welcome. I don't see people putting as much stock in playtime as they used to. A shorter game also means every aspect of it can be more polished than a long game that has parts they drag on or don't feel right.

I was kinda confused at first when you talked about the three acts, were you talking about DD or the prequel?! But it's about the prequel, which clears things up.

Hm, is Aether's colour cyan blue? That's also already Destruction's colour. Maybe the Elarna were right all along and have TRANSCENDED BEYOND THE CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH. Truly they have escaped the horrendous game played upon them by the cruel, merciless hivemind that is the Aolmna.

I've been wondering what the overworld will look like. I was rather fond of MARDEK and Taming Minds's use of a drawn map as an overworld, it was a nice abstraction of what the player could imagine what the world really looked like.

Gasp, it's Savitr! And Collie! And someone. Maybe Ola? Or somebody completely different. And Murias, hooray!!

Who doesn't love eccentric bald men?! Games need more eccentric bald men. There's nothing sexier and cooler than eccentric bald men.

One thing that did strike me about the new Savitr was that you said his runes would be something like axG, which actually corresponds with Nytsky's runes!! Quite unlike Deugan and Enki, where Enki's runes were wildly different from Deugan's, hence why Deugan's mask was so unconvincing.

It's a good idea to keep things a bit more streamlined than the full game will be. Having tamed monsters be summonable reminds me a lot of Taming Mind's Miasmon system, though limiting their amount of uses probably just means people will not bother using them. The JRPG consumable item curse!

One of the big advantages of making a shorter game is that you can have a branching narrative! The reason why Undertale's narrative can be extremely divergent depending on the player's choices (the merciful and omnicidal routes feel like totally different games!) was because the game's so short, while its in-development spiritual successor (It's not quite a sequel, but also it sort of is? Confusing!) Delta Rune is going to be a much longer game divided into chapters, but also going to be linear.

Thinking about that, Toby Fox also had planned out bit of Delta Rune before starting work on Undertale, so it's interesting to see the parallels here!

The EBF series doesn't have much of a running narrative between games, they're mostly disconnected with only a few loose threads tying them together. EBF1 ends with the villainous Zombie Goku destroyed, which plunges the world into chaos and gives EBF2's villainous Lance a chance to seize power and form a fascist empire. He's also defeated and joins the party for EBF3, where they fight and defeat some evil god thing called Akron. Then in EBF4 another party member joins and they fight against GODCAT, who is two cats and made the world. And then EBF5 is a series reboot, in which you need to recruit all party members again, and it turns out the villain is a fourth-wall breaking creator who actually made Akron and GODCAT in an attempt to breach into the real world. But like, most of this stuff only comes up during each game's final boss battle, the games don't have much of a running narrative even if the cast carries over between games.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age does pick up after Golden Sun's ending, yeah. GS:TLA also has you play as a new party, though most of the party members were also in GS. Eventually the parties of the two games meet up and SAVE THE WORLD of whatever. I always though the plot of GS is rather overrated, the script is unnecessarily bloated and huge, the characters are all stiff and boring and the combat isn't that interesting either. Good soundtrack though.

The name Prelude to Divine Dreams amuses me, I once made a AF:C quest called "Prelude to Dutch Quest" so it reminded me of that.

I look forward to more Patreon posts!!
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Tobias 1115~4Y
It's good to know that other indie RPGs are short, too, so the expectation isn't that they need to be large. It probably means that this being short wouldn't be a selling point, but also hopefully it wouldn't be a point of complaint either!

Aether's colour is teal, which is my favourite colour and the main colour of this site! It's annoyingly close to the destruction cyan, but maybe that doesn't not make sense because aether is what's left if everything else is destroyed??

By 'overworld', I just meant an explorable area similar to what I had in that Belief demo (but bigger, of course); maybe 'surface' might have been less misleading! I wouldn't want it to be very large, just a few connected 'rooms'. I do want to have some kind of map for travel between areas in Divine Dreams, but it'd be overcomplicating this.

It wasn't intentional exactly that Nytsky's and Savitr's runes are the same, but it is a nice outcome since I can definitely see how Nytsky would see him in a very positive light if he saw him as a 'better version of himself'!

I don't know much about Delta Rune (or is it Deltarune?), but if it's meant to be released in different parts, then that's a perfect comparison, especially since the name's different so I wouldn't necessarily have to use Divine Dreams in the title for this. Do you know if he's planning to release the chapters as separate games? It does seem eerily similar, though, and that gives me hope because obviously that's going to do way better than anything I make, but it might familiarise a lot of people with the idea.

(Though I wonder how well Deltarune is doing compared to Undertale; it tends to be that creators are often one-hit wonders...)

I don't know much about EBF at all, but those plots sound... uh, different to what I'm doing myself, let's say. Interesting getting a glimpse into them though! I can see how they'd work as separate things.

As much as I love RPGs, things like stiff or shallow characters seem like the norm to me! I don't tend to expect great stories or characterisation from any of them. But I suppose that could be said of most media, depending on how you look at it... I don't find any of the characters in the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars interesting!
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Maniafig222~4Y
I'm not exactly sure what the release scheme for Delta Rune will be, it's still not even entirely certain whether the game will be released but it is looking more likely than when the demo just came out and Toby Fox was very reserved about confirming it'll definitely get a full release.

Everything points to the game being structured as a sequence of seven chapters, each consisting of one in-game day, leading up to a climax. The first chapter/day has been released as a free demo, but looking at an old interview it seems the remaining chapters will all launch at the same time.

Undertale did something similar, the game's split into very clearly delineated chunks, and the free demo was the first chunk of the game. Having played both myself, I can confirm that not that much actually changed between the demo and the release version of that chunk.

There do seem to be some JRPGs that try to be more focused around characters, I think Persona is often mentioned, though I've never played them myself. It's a shame that a genre so lauded for its epic plots so often have rather barren stories to tell, but maybe we've not been playing the right JRPGs!
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Ampersand68~4Y
For a demo: maybe a brief talking/walking section where you interact with the monks at the monastery, perhaps punctuated at the end with a single battle?

As for the name, I actually think the title: subtitle format creates less expectation for a series, since "Prelude to Divine Dreams" makes it feel like there'll be a standalone Divine Dreams coming after it. Think of games like Planescape: Torment, Divinity: Original Sin, or Vampire: The Masquerade.

Another choice that I think conveys the same idea as "Prelude" with slightly different connotations could be "Overture"- which could be interpreted in a number of ways (i.e. a musical opening, an introduction between two parties, or inducement to establish of a "contract" of sorts- perhaps if Dharma is introduced in this game?). Then again, not knowing the plot, that title may be more fitting for another installment.
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Tobias 1115~4Y
Due to frustrations I have with RPGs in general, and Octopath Traveler in particular, the story itself starts by throwing you directly into a battle with no rambling plot stuff before that. I think that's a good way to catch the player's attention, and I'd be interested in structuring a demo similarly. But maybe having an area with NPCs could work too; I'll give it some thought!

Those are all helpful title comparisons! I think including a term like 'Prelude' is going to hint at something more regardless of the structure of the title, but it's good to know that Divine Dreams: Prelude might not necessarily create the expectation for more (though I do prefer the flow of Prelude to Divine Dreams).

Overture is a term that might actually be more appropriate, but it's not one that I immediately had established connotations for. I didn't know that it could mean establishing a connection! That actually might work better though, based on the plot I've got, so thanks for the suggestion! I think I'll play around with that...

(It's funny to think of calling it just Overture, and getting comparisons to UNDERtale...)
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Ptyrell37~4Y
The order that makes the most sense to me, in terms of building interest and a financial base of players, would be this:

DD1 - with 1/4 or so being a free demo
DD: prelude
DD2
DD3

I think preludes are the most interesting when you know more about what they are leading to. It also would be a great way to build momentum if after DD1 you could release something smaller and more quickly.

Releasing in 'sequels' rather than 'episodes' definitely seems more palatable for the average gamer.

This order would also set things up nicely for DD2, which ideally is where you would make the most money/fans, after having an established series with good mechanics and time to build up a good following. While the majority of the sales income is based on that first week, more time with the series on the market still will help with advertising and recognition.
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Tobias 1115~4Y
The main point of this 'prelude' is to test the waters, to see whether something like this would attract interest (and sufficient profit) without committing myself to working on a trilogy of games. That's what's been causing me so much distress lately: what if I release the first, it's a flop, and I've promised two more? My options would be to lock myself into something that might never make money, or abandon it, neither of which is desirable.

So the idea of making a shorter game with the same gameplay and worldbuilding concepts, which I could release much more quickly than the trilogy I've planned, has been growing on me more and more. If people like it, great! I'll gladly make more. If not, then I won't have started a series of games, and can move onto something else.
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Ptyrell37~4Y
Yeah that makes sense. I guess I'm less worried about that because it seems difficult for me to imagine the game not being a success, since it basically is a better version of the game so many have been wanting you to make for years. The demand and your improved skills and marketing knowledge make me optimistic! That's easy for me to say though, not actually being the person who is making and relying on that income.

I certainly like the prequel concept in general! In an ideal world though, I'd like it after DD1 was released.
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Tobias 1115~4Y
I'm glad to hear you have so much faith in my ideas! My main concern is doing marketing well enough, since it seems to be that - rather than game quality - which determines how profitable projects are. But that's why I'm doing the research.
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kasheeste2133~4Y
I'm torn on this one... while I certainly understand you're wanting to gauge interest I'm not entirely sure this is what you're after. Its a very fine line to walk, and in my experience people play demos/preludes with things they are already interested in not mythical maybe in a year if things work out projects. You certainly don't want to be making promises but at the same time without a clear connection how are people supposed to connect the prelude to the rest? You're all too aware that people have busy lives, and lots can happen between prequel and the acts to distract them with the result being even though they are able and willing to purchase and support you and your product. Whether they simply forget, move on, have a kid, are playing different games, etc. the result is the same; wasted opportunity and a missed sale. Having written this you should know I hate myself for having done so, too much gloom; but hopefully it will help you with some insight to prevent it becoming a reality.
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Tobias 1115~4Y
I suppose I should have made it clearer what I'm intending this to be: I'm designing it as a standalone game which would be complete in itself, to sort of compress all the ideas I find interesting into a neat little package. If I release something like that, then whether I continue with it or not, at least my ideas will be out there, given form. It's not supposed to get people ready for Divine Dreams; it's supposed to be its own thing, and if it's popular and profitable enough, then I'll work on Divine Dreams. The characters and stories would be related, but it's best to see this first thing as a game in itself, and Divine Dreams as a (set of) potential sequel(s). The whole point of it is to avoid committing to something long-term before its potential has even been gauged.

From the planning I've done for this thing so far, it feels like it could actually be better than Divine Dreams in some ways. Its shortness means I can integrate things like choices with meaningful outcomes, which is something people seem to like.

Perhaps I should rethink the title, to avoid including Prelude or anything like that, to make the intention clearer?

I do wonder though whether I'll still be making games - or whether people will still be playing them - in our fifties, or later. Hmm.
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kasheeste2133~4Y
Whether or not you're still making them is up to you but I can promise you that folks our age will still be playing games in their 50's. Sure they'll have grown a ton and almost certainly have other hobbies but people always need a (non-chemical) escape, whether that be adventuring around Belfan or running around some FPS. Throwing out some quick numbers (mostly from MMOs of course since I doubt they're available for RPGs)
LOL- [LINK]
CSGO- [LINK]
WOT- [LINK]
EVE- [LINK]
People definitely do play games as they get older, they just play different games. They aren't as interesting in fast paced reaction based games, they're looking for something either with a story or intellectually stimulating; they don't want to commit to playing for hours on end but are good for a couple here and there... all of which play in your favor. Additionally, when you look at those polls and see the under represented 50+ folks you must consider that those folks didn't grow up playing games and many likely never developed the affinity for them. As long as you play to your audience you're going to find someone willing to listen.
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Ptyrell37~4Y
This is really interesting! The older demographics are also the ones that have more money to spend, though I don't know if that directly translates to them spending more money.
0
Dingding32167~4Y
Something else you can consider is having a "Title :A Divine Dreams story" which is even clearer. It would be good to have a screen at the start and end clarifying what you've planned, likelihood of achievement and links to your various pages. It's pretty impressive how your patrons have grown substantially since you rebooted the page! I definitely think short games are good (personally but also for your target audience), though as you say I'd avoid saying episodic or even sequels, as that implies the previous ones are necessary. Just say it's part of the same world/ series might be enough!
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