Alora Fane

I've made some good progress towards finalising a story for... this Divine Dreams prologue thing, which I've got some title ideas for but still haven't decided on one yet. I've attempted to write a hopefully-interesting summary here, though it's tough because I don't want to spoil too much! How would you explain a story in a blurb without spoiling anything? What would you include to make it actually compelling? To what extent do stories even matter in games?

Last week, I worked on asset creation because I want to get to the point where I have a bunch of stuff I can start showing off to build interest in what I'm making. But I noticed while talking about it that it's not even really clear what I'm making! It doesn't even have a title! I also keep wondering when posting about it whether people even know what I'm working on.

I personally know what I'm doing, but it's tricky to communicate, especially without a title. Essentially it's a shorter, self-contained prologue game to the planned Divine Dreams trilogy (designed such that if it's well-received enough, I can make Divine Dreams, but if not, I don't have to and this won't feel incomplete without it), starring this character called Savitr, but that doesn't really tell you much about it.

I already have a 200-page document of story planning notes for Divine Dreams, mostly written at the start of the year, and I was able to come up with a rough, sketchy structure for this Savitr story in a few hours a couple of weeks ago, so I had some idea of what direction I was heading in. A lot of it was fuzzy and unclear, though, so I've spent this past week refining some details and coming up with interesting new ideas.

I've got to a point with this Savitr story where I feel it could be a really interesting story to experience, and I look forward to bringing it into being! It's a fascinating short story, an exploration of character psychology, rather than a world-saving epic.

But I'm unsure how much to actually talk about the story details. Stories have always felt to me like something sacred, something which should be kept as hidden as possible so as not to ruin the surprise. They're also something best experienced immersively, rather than just read about in a summary.

But how, then, do you even communicate the story of something enough to get people on board?

Some of you write your own stories, and I'm curious how you'd go about explaining those stories to other people if you wanted to get them interested. What would you mention, or not mention? Would you hint at specific events, or just a vague description of the setting? Would you describe any specific characters at all?

Twists are often the bits of stories that really make them stick in people's minds, but there's no way that you can explain those in a blurb! They only work if the person's already deeply committed.

I've been trying to think of how I ever found out about or took interest in story-driven games I've enjoyed. When I was younger, games had blurbs on their cases, though I don't remember ever reading them. I suppose most of the games I played were found via association (I liked Final Fantasy VII after initially playing it on a free demo disc, so I got FFVIII instantly, for example, or maybe another game had the SQUARE ENIX name on it so I assumed it'd be similar to what I'd played before). I remember going to Blockbuster back when that was still a thing and renting a new game every other weekend, though I can't recall at all what drove my decisions. The box art, primarily, maybe? I wonder. I probably read the blurbs, but did I look for game features mostly? "It has RPG mechanics? Sounds interesting!"

Steam has both brief and long descriptions of games, though I rarely buy new Steam games so I don't have a good idea of what they say, or what I want or expect to read in them. I had to think about what to write for them for both MARDEK and Sindrel Song, though I don't know if what I chose for either was representative of the experience at all.

I wonder to what extent a game's story is considered important by potential players who know nothing about the game, actually. Or even to players who do enjoy the games! I've poured countless hours into the Final Fantasy and Pokemon series, and their stories - especially in the earlier ones - are either shallow or confusing. When I was little, I likely didn't even know what was going on (I want to replay them as an adult to actually try to understand their stories, but I haven't had the time), and most of my enjoyment came from the overall feeling of the world I was exploring. The music, the visuals, the general style. Even if I didn't exactly understand the story, I still valued the immersion above all else.

I've wondered about the extreme success of things like the original Star Wars trilogy and Lord of the Rings over the years. It seems to me as someone who knows more than the average person about both franchises, but who doesn't consider myself a fan exactly (more like a curious observer), that they don't have especially deep or interesting stories or characters. But they obviously do to a whole lot of people, so obviously those people are seeing something in them that I don't. I suppose we all find different things compelling.

I wonder with things like those whether much of the appeal comes not from the specific characters as such, but just from the immersion in the world built for them ("I wish I could use the Force!"; "having a lightsaber would be so cool!").

I'm working towards establishing a world like that, with its own distinct rules that makes it compelling in itself; the kind of thing you'd want to spend time on a wiki reading about (I've spent a lot of time on Wookieepedia despite limited interest in the franchise just due to curiosity). I also want the games that are set in my world to have compelling characters, and I've been focusing on both with my plans this week.

I'll try to explain a bit of the story and setting that I have, though keep in mind that this is just the tip of an iceberg that I've already planned but don't want to spoil everything by revealing straight away (I say this because on past posts, it seemed as if people were assuming I had nothing more planned than what I'd explicitly mentioned).

(EDIT: Since this apparently wasn't clear: despite the unusual formatting, the following text is only meant to explain the concept to people reading this blog; I wouldn't use this for promotion or include it in-game or anything!)

The Aolmna are a hive-minded alien race who - due to the fact they hear each other's thoughts and feel each other's feelings - have never known conflict, only cooperation. They've seen other races grow, only to succumb to self-annihilation before they could establish a place on the stellar stage. This saddens them.

The Aolmna discovered that the root of reality is consciousness, and learned to manipulate this consciousness to 'dream up' artificial worlds. They decided to collect genetic information from dead worlds, and built some of these artificial worlds in which to plant and regrow these seeds of life. These worlds are known as fanes.

Alora Fane is one of these fanes. It's made up of six sub-worlds, 'petals', surrounding (in a non-Euclidean way) a central 'Nexus'. These self-contained petals are each home to a single sentient race - collectively known as the barbari - and they're fashioned after their lost homeworld.

The Aolmna - which the growing barbari consider to be gods - at first interact directly with the inhabitants, teaching them a philosophy called Unisis, which encourages cooperation and empathy for others. Each individual grows in their home petal, and once they've reached a certain level of spiritual enlightenment, the gods grant them access to the Nexus, where they can intermingle with enlightened barbari from other races. When they reach the next stage of enlightenment, they can leave the fane and spread Unisis out into the wider universe, like spores from a flower; the Aolmna hope this will help ease the suffering and death in the universe.

Alora Fane is different, however. An event in its history - the Cataclysm - caused the destruction of one of its petals and the extinction of that race, and severed the world's connection to the Aolmna. The world was left godless, decaying.

The Divine Dreams story takes place 666 years after the Cataclysm, and this prologue is ten years before that. During these centuries, myths have formed around this event that cast the world from the light age into the current dark age.

They speak of a figure called Blight the Betrayer - much like we might speak of Hitler - and how he led a dark army in a siege on the Spirit Temple, seat of Evetar, the first-created eternal Bold from whom all other Bold are descended. She was the most direct connection to the divine, and by kidnapping her, Blight the Betrayer killed the gods.

Two groups also formed around the time of the Cataclysm, with clashing philosophies:

The Seraphim are devout, and seek to maintain order and peace in the absence of the gods through careful and compassionate control. They're kind of like an order of fantastical police, or holy paladins; the psychological superego.

The Blight Wolves, by contrast, believe that the gods were jailers, that Blight was right to kill them, and that now that they're gone, the barbari are free. They embrace freedom of expression, and live rough lives in nature, embracing their bestial side; the psychological id. Over the years they've degenerated into tribes of bandits, who prey on the vulnerable to get by.

Savitr is a member of the Seraphim; he's built a reputation as the greatest Seraph there ever was. However, he feels profound guilt about some past 'sins' that he committed when he 'wasn't in his right mind', and much of what he does is an attempt to make up for those.

Collie spent her childhood among the Blight Wolves, but was rescued from this violent life by Savitr when she was just entering puberty. She's seen him as her hero since then - tinted with fangirlish lust due to pubescent urges - especially since his reputation continued to grow, and she's aspired to be a Seraph like him. Like Savitr, she feels some desire to atone for the crimes of the Blight Wolves, due to her prior association with them.

The story would start with Savitr arriving on a small island, where there's a monastery of an order called the Purple Monks. These monks have devoted themselves to lives of meditation and reflection about what lies on the other side of death.

The Cataclysm left the world with a few 'scars', through which the swirling sea of consciousness potential from which the world was dreamed up - the drealm - can be glimpsed. The monastery of the Purple Monks is said to be built over one of these drealmscars.

One of Savitr's old friends, a scholar with a deep interest in the drealm, travelled to the monastery to see this drealmscar for himself. He's been gone a while, though, so Savitr's on this mostly-self-appointed 'mission' to find him, possibly save him if something's happened to him. He brings along Collie - a new Cherub recruit - as he feels it'll be good, low-danger training for her.

The drealm makes the mental manifest; this is how the Aolmna dreamed up the world in the first place, and the lingering residue - miasma - also transforms feelings into monsters and magic. Savitr, joined by a pair of additional allies who represent the viewpoints of the Seraphim and the Cherubim, will face the Blight the Betrayer myth which has defined their lives in a much more visceral way than they ever have before.

HMM. Compelling or confusing? Like I said, it's hard to know what to say and what not to say! Obviously all that's way too long for a blurb, and much of it is establishing the setting, with little about the actual characters' personal stories. Hopefully I've at least hinted at some things which would be interesting to see explored in more detail.

Much of the Alora Fane stuff had been established previously; it's already on ∞ the Lore page ∞ that this site apparently has... though I just noticed it's been blocked since the site issues months ago, which just goes to show how many people ever look at it! It's full of inaccuracies, anyway; I haven't looked at it myself in ages.

Some of the stuff is new, though; I came up with it this week. I'd previously been imagining the Seraphim as fairly new, established by a now-elderly man in his youth, but it makes more sense for them to be centuries old like this. The Blight Wolves are a new addition that came from noticing that I had a bunch of different characters with canine themes, and it works wonderfully to make them all members of an established group like this!

I've planned the formation of the Seraphim and Blight Wolves in some detail, and it's tied to a lot of characters and events I'd already planned for Divine Dreams. So much of what I've been doing is drawing connections between existing ideas rather than coming up with new ones. It works so well it makes me feel giddy, and I wish I could gush about all the details, but annoyingly I can't without spoiling everything!

I do wonder how many people would ever notice or care, though; maybe what I'm making would be as popular as Sindrel Song was (144 sales currently). That's why I need to start marketing properly and sooner this time, though, and that's why I want to sort out this stuff so then I can get to that point.

(I suspect this will do better because it's an RPG, but we'll see.)

I've not decided on a title yet, though I do have some ideas:

Atonal - Savitr's driven by a desire to atone for past dark deeds; that's why he's a Seraph. Atonal is also a musical term, meaning without - or outside - a defined key; 'lost', in a sense, or 'other', 'outside'. And it's six letters, one word, and I don't see a game on Steam with this title! Also sounds like 'eternal', as in the hereafter.

Variants:
Atonal Dreams
Atonal Seraph
Seraph Atonal

Every day that I spend on planning, I come up with new ideas, so I feel that something just right might still come to me in time.

I'm using a general theme/motif of life-death-afterlife/rebirth; the story has three acts with those general themes, and each of the four main characters has arcs which I've planned with those three stages too (though this is hardly original; most stories could be described as having a rise, fall, renewal trajectory). It'd be nice to have a title which encapsulates that somehow.

Also, I've been tying all of what I've been planning into what I've already got for Divine Dreams. I don't know for certain whether or not I'll actually make Divine Dreams - I want to, but I'll be releasing this to gauge whether I'll make enough money from it before committing myself to something years-spanning - but if I do, then people who play all the entries in the series (and care about lore stuff) will have a lot of nice connections to notice! I'll be trying to make them as standalone chapters which don't require playing others in the series, but someone who did would find a lot of links to appreciate.

Of the four main characters in this, all of them go on to have major roles in Divine Dreams, though (mostly) not as basic recruitable allies. It's kind of like a Pokemon prequel game where you played as a team of Professor Oak, Giovanni, and Agatha, or something. Kind of.

(Hmm, after rereading this, I quite like Atonal Dreams... Or Dreams Atonal, maybe. The afterlife could be described as 'eternal dreams' or 'dreams eternal', and it ties it to Divine Dreams more nicely than "Divine Dreams: Atonal" or something. Clashing philosophies could also be described using loose synonyms as 'dissonant ideas', or 'atonal dreams'. Maybe??)

I've got to the point now where I feel I've almost worked out the plot that I want, though there are still a few uncertainties and rough bits to refine. I'll spend the next week working on these, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a solid story outline I can work with both for this and any future Divine Dreams games if people like this enough to warrant them. Hopefully I'll have a title decided too so I'll be able to refer to it properly!

Going back to the other questions though, how would you explain a story of your own? Or a story you're very familiar with, for that matter? Which bits would you include, or not? How much should I be sharing about the story in these blog posts? How much do stories even matter for games, do you think?

Oh, and I haven't posted on my Patreon or Twitter in a while, because it's hard to know what to say or show with story planning stuff. I don't really have any images to show; this post doesn't have any, and I wonder if that'll put people off reading it!

21 COMMENTS

Maniafig222~4Y

I've not had trouble figuring out what it is you're working on, but then I do follow all your blogs.

200 pages! That's a lot. That's like thrice as much as the MARDEK notes put together! I'd like to see what's in those notes.

Hm, I'll try writing summaries of some of the quest series I've partially made at the bottom of the comment. I do know that it's difficult to write around twists, especially when they happen early in the story!

Personally I usually extensively research a game before buying it, I find that this gets me more hyped to play a game than if I go in fully blind. Of course it's different for something like a sequel, but for standalone games I don't want to risk going in blind and being disappointed.

I also attach more value to actual gameplay footage than reviews, official blurbs and whatnot. Whether that's gameplay footage or footage of a cutscene or whatever, I find that bits of footage of a regular playthough of a game are what convince me whether or not something's worth my time.

Demos are a good way to gauge interest for that reason, since they let the player have that slice of gameplay footage, but in a playable form rather than as a passive observer.

Story's kind of nebulous in that sense, some people care more about lore and worldbuilding and action-driven narratives whether others care more about character interactions and character-driven narratives.

I'm not really that big into LotR for that reason, it's good Fantasy and all that, but there's also nothing really there for me to get too excited over. I do like the Legolas/Gimli interactions, I guess, and Frodo and Sam's journey. I've never even seen any Star Wars stuff, and it doesn't interest me at all.

Woo, story details!! A lot of this seems different from previously established lore.

Nothing much new about the Aolmna, except that they apparently have made more fanes. I always assumed AF was the only fane in existence, but it seems they've been making more of them.

I'd wondered before how the Unisis concept would be so troubling to the Elarna, since cooperation seems to be the cornerstone of most civilizations and species on our planet. Perhaps they reproduce asexually and their lifecycle requires them to prey on others to survive and thrive? But then how would they be able to even blow up their own petal? Large-scale events like that would need people to work together to cause. Maybe questions we'll see answered in DD.

The events around the Cataclysm do sound quite different. It sounds like the Cataclysm happened not on Fracture but the Bronze Archipelago?

I'm not sure how apt the comparison to Hitler is considering how the latter's crimes are all very well-documented and known, rather than mythologized and whatnot! Of course we do know that the gods weren't even killed, just cut off from the fane.

I'm not sure why the Blight Wolves would choose to go live in nature again since such a life just limits their ability to self-express, but then I wouldn't expect anarcho-primitivists to be intelligent in the first place.

I think the Miasma leak being caused specifically by the Cataclysm's leaks is new, I assumed those always had existed, why else would the Aolmna have erected those thick, firm, phallic obelisks?

Atonal makes me thing of the Atonae!! Seraph Atonal makes the game sound a lot Frenchier for some reason. Not Ay-tonal Seraph but Seraph Ah-tonal.

The idea of a Red/Blue prequel starring Agatha and Oak's actually something I've seen a few times among the fandom. I assume you were thinking about that when typing that?

Hm, how would I summarize my own stories? I guess I could talk about Art Quest, of which I made two quests. I'd planned more and have a pretty solid grasp of the characters and their motivations and fates and whatnot, but I'm not in any rush to make them.

"On a remote island, secluded from all other civilization by a mysterious thick fog, a young Goblin with aspirations of artistry comes into possession of a brush that can paint reality.

Growing up estranged and secluded from the rest of his tribe by his ever-doting father, Van Gob knows little about the rest of the tribe and its peculiar culture, and even less about the island outside his small village.

One day curiosity gets the better of him when his desire for new art supplies is denied by the tribe's Shaman, and he resolves to sneak out of the village at night gather supplies outside the village by himself to prove his father and the Shaman wrong.

Van Gob is amazed by the sights outside his little village, and his resolve to paint is increased. His curiosity and thirst for inspiration drives him further and further away from the village and ever-deeper into the depths of the forest.

But things go horribly wrong when his naivete leaves him vulnerable to the island's wildlife. With his toe brutally severed by a crab-like Craggle, Van Gob thoughtlessly rushes into a mysterious shrine and strikes a deal with a trio of Fey, bloody toe in hand.

The deal is simple: An enchanted brush for the price of Van Gob's toe.

After some hesitation and spurring from the Fey, Van Gob makes the trade, and finds himself surrounded by even more Craggles when he tries to return home.

The village Shaman arrives in the nick of time to save Van Gob, furious with his naivete. The tribe's leaders are in agreement: Van Gob's father has shielded him from the world too much, and Van Gob will have to spend more time with the other Goblins in his tribe to learn their ways.

But all Van Gob really wants to do is paint, paint with his new brush which has the power to enhance and reveal the reality of his fellow Goblins, a power which would drive him to discover much about his tribe, the world outside of the island, his father, his departed mother and his own identity.

Meanwhile, the Fey are observing with interest, their existence a secret Van Gob is forced to uphold."

Wow that actually sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it?! I'd even want to continue making more if there was at all an audience for it, but there just isn't with the AF:C engine.

I've not had trouble figuring out what it is you're working on, but then I do follow all your blogs.

200 pages! That's a lot. That's like thrice as much as the MARDEK notes put together! I'd like to see what's in those notes.

Hm, I'll try writing summaries of some of the quest series I've partially made at the bottom of the comment. I do know that it's difficult to write around twists, especially when they happen early in the story!

Personally I usually extensively research a game before buying it, I find that this gets me more hyped to play a game than if I go in fully blind. Of course it's different for something like a sequel, but for standalone games I don't want to risk going in blind and being disappointed.

I also attach more value to actual gameplay footage than reviews, official blurbs and whatnot. Whether that's gameplay footage or footage of a cutscene or whatever, I find that bits of footage of a regular playthough of a game are what convince me whether or not something's worth my time.

Demos are a good way to gauge interest for that reason, since they let the player have that slice of gameplay footage, but in a playable form rather than as a passive observer.

Story's kind of nebulous in that sense, some people care more about lore and worldbuilding and action-driven narratives whether others care more about character interactions and character-driven narratives.

I'm not really that big into LotR for that reason, it's good Fantasy and all that, but there's also nothing really there for me to get too excited over. I do like the Legolas/Gimli interactions, I guess, and Frodo and Sam's journey. I've never even seen any Star Wars stuff, and it doesn't interest me at all.

Woo, story details!! A lot of this seems different from previously established lore.

Nothing much new about the Aolmna, except that they apparently have made more fanes. I always assumed AF was the only fane in existence, but it seems they've been making more of them.

I'd wondered before how the Unisis concept would be so troubling to the Elarna, since cooperation seems to be the cornerstone of most civilizations and species on our planet. Perhaps they reproduce asexually and their lifecycle requires them to prey on others to survive and thrive? But then how would they be able to even blow up their own petal? Large-scale events like that would need people to work together to cause. Maybe questions we'll see answered in DD.

The events around the Cataclysm do sound quite different. It sounds like the Cataclysm happened not on Fracture but the Bronze Archipelago?

I'm not sure how apt the comparison to Hitler is considering how the latter's crimes are all very well-documented and known, rather than mythologized and whatnot! Of course we do know that the gods weren't even killed, just cut off from the fane.

I'm not sure why the Blight Wolves would choose to go live in nature again since such a life just limits their ability to self-express, but then I wouldn't expect anarcho-primitivists to be intelligent in the first place.

I think the Miasma leak being caused specifically by the Cataclysm's leaks is new, I assumed those always had existed, why else would the Aolmna have erected those thick, firm, phallic obelisks?

Atonal makes me thing of the Atonae!! Seraph Atonal makes the game sound a lot Frenchier for some reason. Not Ay-tonal Seraph but Seraph Ah-tonal.

The idea of a Red/Blue prequel starring Agatha and Oak's actually something I've seen a few times among the fandom. I assume you were thinking about that when typing that?

Hm, how would I summarize my own stories? I guess I could talk about Art Quest, of which I made two quests. I'd planned more and have a pretty solid grasp of the characters and their motivations and fates and whatnot, but I'm not in any rush to make them.

"On a remote island, secluded from all other civilization by a mysterious thick fog, a young Goblin with aspirations of artistry comes into possession of a brush that can paint reality.

Growing up estranged and secluded from the rest of his tribe by his ever-doting father, Van Gob knows little about the rest of the tribe and its peculiar culture, and even less about the island outside his small village.

One day curiosity gets the better of him when his desire for new art supplies is denied by the tribe's Shaman, and he resolves to sneak out of the village at night gather supplies outside the village by himself to prove his father and the Shaman wrong.

Van Gob is amazed by the sights outside his little village, and his resolve to paint is increased. His curiosity and thirst for inspiration drives him further and further away from the village and ever-deeper into the depths of the forest.

But things go horribly wrong when his naivete leaves him vulnerable to the island's wildlife. With his toe brutally severed by a crab-like Craggle, Van Gob thoughtlessly rushes into a mysterious shrine and strikes a deal with a trio of Fey, bloody toe in hand.

The deal is simple: An enchanted brush for the price of Van Gob's toe.

After some hesitation and spurring from the Fey, Van Gob makes the trade, and finds himself surrounded by even more Craggles when he tries to return home.

The village Shaman arrives in the nick of time to save Van Gob, furious with his naivete. The tribe's leaders are in agreement: Van Gob's father has shielded him from the world too much, and Van Gob will have to spend more time with the other Goblins in his tribe to learn their ways.

But all Van Gob really wants to do is paint, paint with his new brush which has the power to enhance and reveal the reality of his fellow Goblins, a power which would drive him to discover much about his tribe, the world outside of the island, his father, his departed mother and his own identity.

Meanwhile, the Fey are observing with interest, their existence a secret Van Gob is forced to uphold."

Wow that actually sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it?! I'd even want to continue making more if there was at all an audience for it, but there just isn't with the AF:C engine.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I should really be writing these notes as if I'll release them one day... but I'm not! They're a mess.

Interesting that your approach to games is essentially the opposite of mine! I like to know absolutely nothing!!! before I begin, but I also try to enjoy whatever it is for what it is rather than looking for faults (though I still haven't got back to Octopath Traveler after several weeks... I blame external factors rather than the game though).

I want to get to the point where I can release gameplay videos - or even a demo - soon, which is why I worked on assets last week, though I'm also concerned about overdoing that. Like if I release a 10-minute gameplay video when it's 20% done, will anyone want to watch one the next week when it's 25% done and the differences are minor? Or if I have a very incomplete demo, will anyone play a slightly-more-complete demo? It's sort of annoying that releasing MARDEK was probably a complete waste because the release of this will be coming so much later after it...

I really do wonder what it is about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings people go so mad for. They just feel so hollow to me! Maybe it's all about the stage of life they were in when they were introduced to them?

Alora Fane was one of several fanes since the very beginning, way back in my plans for Alora Fane: Regression, though I suppose it's rarely mentioned since it's largely irrelevant!

When I described the current design of the Elarna to you, did I say they look like ghosts? Because they do! I like that it means they can appear as inhabitants of the dead petal in the drealm or something, and also that it represents a particular kind of destruction: "cut out what isn't adding to your life" (that is, ghosting!). That's not really incompatible with Unisis.

The Cataclysm happened in Fracture, but the Bold don't know that the other petals even exist, so they had to make sense of it somehow! It also wasn't the Elarna's fault (though that was the plan before).

I compared him to Hitler because that's essentially synonymous with 'evil person' these days, like how 'Einstein' is synonymous with an intelligent person. There are more evil people in both fact and fiction, but I can't think of any whose name would be used in that way! (How many names are used like that? Hitler, Einstein, Sherlock, Romeo... HMM.)

I don't see how living in nature limits self expression! People could run around in the nude and cover themselves in paint. Going 'off the grid' does seem like something people to rebel against ordered society would do though.

The miasma wasn't caused by the Cataclysm; I kind of crammed in a reference to miasma at the end there so I can see how it gave that impression! The Cataclysm left 'drealmscars', though the miasma has been there since the beginning. It's kind of like the world is a hollow sphere made of ice, deep under an ocean; the miasma would be the thin film of water around the ice inside... or something. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

I only remembered the Atonae after coming up with Atonal! The more I think about it, the more I like Atonal Dreams... It's starting to feel right. Maybe I'll go with that??

I don't know of any fan stuff about Oak and Agatha, but it's pretty much made clear in the games that they used to have a relationship, so I'd be surprised if there wasn't a bunch of fan stuff about it! I was wondering whether there'd ever been any official stuff based on it. (Pokemon Masters, that mobile game, had Oak and Agatha as a playable characters, and they do talk about each other and have some shared scenes about their past; maybe that counts?)

Ha, Van Gob! I'm reminded of my own magic paintbrush story from years ago, which is why that item's there of course, though yours sounds a lot more entertaining and less off-putting than mine was! I like how items that happen to be included, like the goblin toe, are incorporated into the story. It's a shame that there's not an audience for those quests... though I hope you got a lot out of making them at least! I've made a ton of stuff I've never released just because that brings me pleasure. That's probably what most people do with Minecraft!

I should really be writing these notes as if I'll release them one day... but I'm not! They're a mess.

Interesting that your approach to games is essentially the opposite of mine! I like to know /absolutely nothing!!!/ before I begin, but I also try to enjoy whatever it is for what it is rather than looking for faults (though I still haven't got back to Octopath Traveler after several weeks... I blame external factors rather than the game though).

I want to get to the point where I can release gameplay videos - or even a demo - soon, which is why I worked on assets last week, though I'm also concerned about overdoing that. Like if I release a 10-minute gameplay video when it's 20% done, will anyone want to watch one the next week when it's 25% done and the differences are minor? Or if I have a very incomplete demo, will anyone play a slightly-more-complete demo? It's sort of annoying that releasing MARDEK was probably a complete waste because the release of this will be coming so much later after it...

I really do wonder what it is about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings people go so mad for. They just feel so hollow to me! Maybe it's all about the stage of life they were in when they were introduced to them?

Alora Fane was one of several fanes since the very beginning, way back in my plans for Alora Fane: Regression, though I suppose it's rarely mentioned since it's largely irrelevant!

When I described the current design of the Elarna to you, did I say they look like ghosts? Because they do! I like that it means they can appear as inhabitants of the dead petal in the drealm or something, and also that it represents a particular kind of destruction: "cut out what isn't adding to your life" (that is, /ghosting/!). That's not really incompatible with Unisis.

The Cataclysm happened in Fracture, but the Bold don't know that the other petals even exist, so they had to make sense of it somehow! It also wasn't the Elarna's fault (though that was the plan before).

I compared him to Hitler because that's essentially synonymous with 'evil person' these days, like how 'Einstein' is synonymous with an intelligent person. There are more evil people in both fact and fiction, but I can't think of any whose name would be used in that way! (How many names are used like that? Hitler, Einstein, Sherlock, Romeo... HMM.)

I don't see how living in nature limits self expression! People could run around in the nude and cover themselves in paint. Going 'off the grid' does seem like something people to rebel against ordered society would do though.

The miasma wasn't caused by the Cataclysm; I kind of crammed in a reference to miasma at the end there so I can see how it gave that impression! The Cataclysm left 'drealmscars', though the miasma has been there since the beginning. It's kind of like the world is a hollow sphere made of ice, deep under an ocean; the miasma would be the thin film of water around the ice inside... or something. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

I only remembered the Atonae after coming up with Atonal! The more I think about it, the more I like Atonal Dreams... It's starting to feel right. Maybe I'll go with that??

I don't know of any fan stuff about Oak and Agatha, but it's pretty much made clear in the games that they used to have a relationship, so I'd be surprised if there /wasn't/ a bunch of fan stuff about it! I was wondering whether there'd ever been any official stuff based on it. (Pokemon Masters, that mobile game, had Oak and Agatha as a playable characters, and they do talk about each other and have some shared scenes about their past; maybe that counts?)

Ha, Van Gob! I'm reminded of my own magic paintbrush story from years ago, which is why that item's there of course, though yours sounds a lot more entertaining and less off-putting than mine was! I like how items that happen to be included, like the goblin toe, are incorporated into the story. It's a shame that there's not an audience for those quests... though I hope you got a lot out of making them at least! I've made a ton of stuff I've never released just because that brings me pleasure. That's probably what most people do with Minecraft!

Maniafig222~4Y

I don't think every gameplay video has to be a full 10 minutes or anything, just having footage to show of the 5% newly added content should still be enough to catch people's attention! Demo releases don't need to be as frequent, people are indeed not going to play the whole demo over just for a tiny bit of extra content, except perhaps for Patreon users who can always have access to whatever the newest version is.

I can't say what it is about LotR myself either, I had a discussion some time ago about RPGs (specifically about Always Evil species, which is a trope I really don't like) and whatnot and the topic of LotR came up as a foundational work for RPGs as a whole but I just saw no value at all to clinging on to it, I'm much more excited by stories that subvert or go in entirely different directions entirely.

You did say they looked like Pacman ghosts! I assumed that meant they have an arrangement of tentacles hanging from their body arranged in a way to both evoke squids and ghosts... Sort of like those Squisps, I suppose, but also somehow Aztecian, and owlish, and Goblin-y?! I really should draw that.

I KNEW DEEP IN MY HEART ALL ALONG THE ELARNA WERE INNOCENT! I'm glad to hear that, since I've been hoping that would be the case ever since the Elarna were first conceptualized as a typical Always Evil species.

I actually saw a post not too long ago where people speculated on who the default example of an evil person was before Hitler, giving examples like Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Nero and other such historical tyrants and warmongers.

The limitations on self-expression from reverting to a pre-agrarian society would come from the harsh and rough conditions of nature relative to the comforts of societal life limiting how people can express themselves! Reduced access to medicine, artistic tools and means of producing media would impose more limits on self-expression than societal constraints.

Besides, nudist communes can exist within a society in which people can run around naked, optionally whilst having painted themselves!

I was thinking specifically of this! [LINK]

It was interesting having to work within the means allowed by the engine and its assets! I like to think such constraints fueled creativity. I particularly like using the spell flash from the Lionblade spell to simulate bleeding! Very wholesome content, yes!!

While it was fun to make these quests, and I really enjoyed it when someone did play them and give feedback, the fact that they got so little attention pushed me to stop making them entirely, since it started to make me resentful towards people and their lack of interest. These thoughts started to even become pervasive and create rifts between myself and others.

I just can't get any value out of creating something if others aren't going to consume it and tell me they like it. It just feels like all that time and energy was wasted altogether, to spend dozens of hours on something that one person will finish in an hour or two. Even if that person really enjoys it and I'm earnestly grateful that they did, what I get out of it is just not proportional to what I put in.

I can't say what it is about LotR myself either, I had a discussion some time ago about RPGs (specifically about Always Evil species, which is a trope I really don't like) and whatnot and the topic of LotR came up as a foundational work for RPGs as a whole but I just saw no value at all to clinging on to it, I'm much more excited by stories that subvert or go in entirely different directions entirely.

You did say they looked like Pacman ghosts! I assumed that meant they have an arrangement of tentacles hanging from their body arranged in a way to both evoke squids and ghosts... Sort of like those Squisps, I suppose, but also somehow Aztecian, and owlish, and Goblin-y?! I really should draw that.

I KNEW DEEP IN MY HEART ALL ALONG THE ELARNA WERE INNOCENT! I'm glad to hear that, since I've been hoping that would be the case ever since the Elarna were first conceptualized as a typical Always Evil species.

I actually saw a post not too long ago where people speculated on who the default example of an evil person was before Hitler, giving examples like Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Nero and other such historical tyrants and warmongers.

The limitations on self-expression from reverting to a pre-agrarian society would come from the harsh and rough conditions of nature relative to the comforts of societal life limiting how people can express themselves! Reduced access to medicine, artistic tools and means of producing media would impose more limits on self-expression than societal constraints.

Besides, nudist communes can exist within a society in which people can run around naked, optionally whilst having painted themselves!

I was thinking specifically of this! https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sdHCXMHUz9A/TuTu_e3TSOI/AAAAAAAAByg/uovSwgPhOAs/s1600/gen0a.jpg

It was interesting having to work within the means allowed by the engine and its assets! I like to think such constraints fueled creativity. I particularly like using the spell flash from the Lionblade spell to simulate bleeding! Very wholesome content, yes!!

While it was fun to make these quests, and I really enjoyed it when someone did play them and give feedback, the fact that they got so little attention pushed me to stop making them entirely, since it started to make me resentful towards people and their lack of interest. These thoughts started to even become pervasive and create rifts between myself and others.

I just can't get any value out of creating something if others aren't going to consume it and tell me they like it. It just feels like all that time and energy was wasted altogether, to spend dozens of hours on something that one person will finish in an hour or two. Even if that person really enjoys it and I'm earnestly grateful that they did, what I get out of it is just not proportional to what I put in.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I can't remember how I last described the Elarna, but they're like pacman ghosts or imp-grey-alien-octopuses wearing ghost-reminiscent ponchos! That is, their spindly black limbs are underneath the ghost bit rather than an extension of it. When I actually show off a picture of them - which I might do soonish if I'm going to be including them in this Atonal Dreams thing or whatever I call it, probably on Patreon - I bet they'll be very underwhelming!

I don't remember if I ever planned for them to be Always Evil - that annoys me too - but rather they ran away with destructive technology or something? Kind of like the speculation about humanity wiping itself out due to our warmongering ways. It wouldn't be all of them contributing to that, but a crazed few who took things too far. All the races the Aolmna took wiped themselves out in that way originally, so that would have been a repeat of that; a harsh reminder that the Aolmna couldn't reprogram nature, or something. What I've got now is probably better though, or at least it's something based in individual personalities rather than something on a species level.

The Bold has a mediaeval-ish level of technology anyway, so there wouldn't be all that much difference in terms of societies between ordered towns and chaotic bandits! And the Blight Wolves would have settlements; they wouldn't be sleeping in the dirt or anything. I'm imagining the Seraphim and Blight Wolves as fantastical versions of conservative and liberal mentalities, or at least the extreme, caricatured versions of them. Or maybe the more appropriate terms are things like authoritarian, libertarian? I don't understand politics enough and don't intend to make it political, though, god no. But it's essentially "we'd be better if the government controlled us" vs "we'd be better if we could do whatever we liked". Or something. They probably don't correspond to conservative/liberal, actually, considering all the American conservatives refusing to wear masks. It needs more planning!

That Samuel + Agatha thing looks quite interesting, and I've never seen that before! The Pokedex-before-they-were-invented is quite inspired! Is that just a one-off concept image, or did people try to make a mod, like they often do with those things?

I can definitely understand your frustrations about pouring all that work in and people just not caring. It's something I deal with every day, and I feel so sorry for other game devs who pour years into pet projects only to get less than 100 sales in the end and a couple of mediocre reviews. Sindrel Song is that for me, considering all I poured into it - not just time and energy, but heart too - and how little of a response it got. It gets to me all the time.

One of the frustrating things about it is that expectations scale, too. Sindrel Song didn't get zero response, and comments from you in particular and the other testers were thorough and fulfilling and I'm very grateful for those! But compared to what I was used to from MARDEK, it didn't feel like enough. Then when I ported MARDEK to Steam, the feedback was a fraction of what it originally got too, so that hurt. But then I feel so ungrateful.

Also, the only people who care about the things I've made are online people who found me because of those things! I've never known anyone in person who gave a damn. Some of them have shown polite interest, but obviously zone out quickly, so I just stopped even expecting anyone to care. It still hurt though.

And now I'm concerned that all the work I'm pouring into this thing will be for nothing. It's even worse that it's not just feedback I'm hoping for, it's enough money to keep doing it! I keep looking at the number of views on these blog posts, and feel worried and upset that they seem to be going down over time.

So I do understand that, and this seems to be a common thing about making anything. Makes me wonder why anyone sticks with it, honestly. I feel I sort of have to at this point because of how far I've come, but one of the reasons making this shorter one before committing to years of work is because if it doesn't do well, I can give it up and do something else!

I don't remember if I ever planned for them to be Always Evil - that annoys me too - but rather they ran away with destructive technology or something? Kind of like the speculation about humanity wiping itself out due to our warmongering ways. It wouldn't be /all/ of them contributing to that, but a crazed few who took things too far. All the races the Aolmna took wiped themselves out in that way originally, so that would have been a repeat of that; a harsh reminder that the Aolmna couldn't reprogram nature, or something. What I've got now is probably better though, or at least it's something based in individual personalities rather than something on a species level.

The Bold has a mediaeval-ish level of technology anyway, so there wouldn't be all that much difference in terms of societies between ordered towns and chaotic bandits! And the Blight Wolves would have settlements; they wouldn't be sleeping in the dirt or anything. I'm imagining the Seraphim and Blight Wolves as fantastical versions of conservative and liberal mentalities, or at least the extreme, caricatured versions of them. Or maybe the more appropriate terms are things like authoritarian, libertarian? I don't understand politics enough and don't intend to make it political, though, god no. But it's essentially "we'd be better if the government controlled us" vs "we'd be better if we could do whatever we liked". Or something. They probably don't correspond to conservative/liberal, actually, considering all the American conservatives refusing to wear masks. It needs more planning!

That Samuel + Agatha thing looks quite interesting, and I've never seen that before! The Pokedex-before-they-were-invented is quite inspired! Is that just a one-off concept image, or did people try to make a mod, like they often do with those things?

I can definitely understand your frustrations about pouring all that work in and people just not caring. It's something I deal with every day, and I feel so sorry for other game devs who pour years into pet projects only to get less than 100 sales in the end and a couple of mediocre reviews. Sindrel Song is that for me, considering all I poured into it - not just time and energy, but heart too - and how little of a response it got. It gets to me all the time.

One of the frustrating things about it is that expectations scale, too. Sindrel Song didn't get zero response, and comments from you in particular and the other testers were thorough and fulfilling and I'm very grateful for those! But compared to what I was used to from MARDEK, it didn't feel like enough. Then when I ported MARDEK to Steam, the feedback was a fraction of what it originally got too, so that hurt. But then I feel so ungrateful.

Also, the only people who care about the things I've made are online people who found me because of those things! I've never known anyone in person who gave a damn. Some of them have shown polite interest, but obviously zone out quickly, so I just stopped even expecting anyone to care. It still hurt though.

And now I'm concerned that all the work I'm pouring into this thing will be for nothing. It's even worse that it's not just feedback I'm hoping for, it's enough money to keep doing it! I keep looking at the number of views on these blog posts, and feel worried and upset that they seem to be going down over time.

So I do understand that, and this seems to be a common thing about making anything. Makes me wonder why anyone sticks with it, honestly. I feel I sort of have to at this point because of how far I've come, but one of the reasons making this shorter one before committing to years of work is because if it doesn't do well, I can give it up and do something else!

Maniafig222~4Y

Well, I look forward to seeing the Elarna! They sound a lot more interesting than how they looked back in Miasmon!

I think think that in the very earliest works set in AF NPCs talked about the Elarna as if they were just Always Evil, so I'm happy the current plans seem much more interesting than that!

The dichotomy you describe fits better on the authoritarian/libertarian scale, yes. Of course these things are much more complex than just a simple 2D scale. I assumed the dichotomy was society vs. no society, but it seems to be more government-run society vs community-run society.

I think it was just a one-off piece of concept art! It does make me wonder how many of the Pokémon fangame projects that are started actually make it to a full release.

I've seen people compare happiness to a treadmill to some degree, the better things are, the higher our standards and expectations become to be happy and the more the status quo is taken for granted. It's why people in the past who lived in outright worse conditions weren't miserable all the time. Of course that phenomenon has its limits too

Anyway, I did enjoy Sindrel Song a lot, yes! I'm also following Divine Dreams development with interest!

Well, I look forward to seeing the Elarna! They sound a lot more interesting than how they looked back in Miasmon!

I think think that in the very earliest works set in AF NPCs talked about the Elarna as if they were just Always Evil, so I'm happy the current plans seem much more interesting than that!

The dichotomy you describe fits better on the authoritarian/libertarian scale, yes. Of course these things are much more complex than just a simple 2D scale. I assumed the dichotomy was society vs. no society, but it seems to be more government-run society vs community-run society.

I think it was just a one-off piece of concept art! It does make me wonder how many of the PokÃ©mon fangame projects that are started actually make it to a full release.

I've seen people compare happiness to a treadmill to some degree, the better things are, the higher our standards and expectations become to be happy and the more the status quo is taken for granted. It's why people in the past who lived in outright worse conditions weren't miserable all the time. Of course that phenomenon has its limits too

Anyway, I did enjoy Sindrel Song a lot, yes! I'm also following Divine Dreams development with interest!

Tama_Yoshi82~4Y

I like the descriptive text, although it is unclear to me which kind of text it is supposed to be. This feels more like a wikipedia summary (although with fewer details), and certain choice of words break the narrative flow of the text ("They're kind of like an," "much like we might speak of Hitler"; the rest feels like it's being told like a mythical tale).

It's funny you mentioned Star Wars, because it feels like this is trying to be that "rising text" that appears at the beginning of all episodes (but VIII, although apparently it has??? [LINK] ). If compared to THAT (both use present tense!), it feels like Star Wars' intros rely a lot more on name-dropping in a matter that gives a strong "feeling" of what is happening, without getting bogged down in details (each opening crawl is less than a hundred words!). Yet, it's still a tricky thing, because Star Wars' intro style is not exactly conventional!

How would I share a story of my own? Urgh! This question has always plagued me. Every single time I get to explain what kind of story I'm writing, I always struggle to explain what it is (my stories are broad in scope, and they're not nicely genre-constrained). Since I currently like the flow of the story, I tend to play it safe and start with the beginning--although the beginning itself is a misleading picture of what's to come. Sometimes I go with world-building... although it doesn't exactly help that the main character is largely oblivious to the mythical world elements until quite late in the story. I could try to mix in details from different parts of the book to give a more high-level view... but then it risks giving away spoilers (some stories are defined by their plot twists, so it becomes more a matter of people telling each other there's a great plot-twist, like with the movie Parasites, which is basically impossible to sell other than by saying it's just insanely good). I think the answer mostly depends on what you believe is your main selling point; is it the characters, the world-building, or the atmosphere?

I remember in high-school we had a story-teller come to our school, and her job was basically to pick a couple novels and read it to us (one of those was Tristan and Iseult, another was Hunger Games), I found she did a very good job seling us on the books, although all she did basically was read key passages of the first chapters and acting out the dialogue. Sometimes the best promotional material IS the material.

Another trick I found really interesting was how the Deadpool movies were marketed. Usually, it's by way of trailers and highlight reels and such. But with Deadpool, they created entirely separate sketches which captured the "spirit" of the main character and meta-humor (which in this case is pretty much the selling point of the movie, so it really works). It's not clear how you could make that for a game that is already a promotional work for another... but, hey, maybe. I can imagine Collie and Savitr going around introducing the setting, and then being interrupted by something distressing--comical antics and dark atmosphere included.

Thoughts.

It's funny you mentioned Star Wars, because it feels like this is trying to be that "rising text" that appears at the beginning of all episodes (but VIII, although apparently it has??? https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Opening_crawl ). If compared to THAT (both use present tense!), it feels like Star Wars' intros rely a lot more on name-dropping in a matter that gives a strong "feeling" of what is happening, without getting bogged down in details (each opening crawl is less than a hundred words!). Yet, it's still a tricky thing, because Star Wars' intro style is not exactly conventional!

How would I share a story of my own? Urgh! This question has always plagued me. Every single time I get to explain what kind of story I'm writing, I always struggle to explain what it is (my stories are broad in scope, and they're not nicely genre-constrained). Since I currently like the flow of the story, I tend to play it safe and start with the beginning--although the beginning itself is a misleading picture of what's to come. Sometimes I go with world-building... although it doesn't exactly help that the main character is largely oblivious to the mythical world elements until quite late in the story. I could try to mix in details from different parts of the book to give a more high-level view... but then it risks giving away spoilers (some stories are defined by their plot twists, so it becomes more a matter of people telling each other there's a great plot-twist, like with the movie Parasites, which is basically impossible to sell other than by saying it's just insanely good). I think the answer mostly depends on what you believe is your main selling point; is it the characters, the world-building, or the atmosphere?

I remember in high-school we had a story-teller come to our school, and her job was basically to pick a couple novels and read it to us (one of those was Tristan and Iseult, another was Hunger Games), I found she did a very good job seling us on the books, although all she did basically was read key passages of the first chapters and acting out the dialogue. Sometimes the best promotional material IS the material.

Another trick I found really interesting was how the Deadpool movies were marketed. Usually, it's by way of trailers and highlight reels and such. But with Deadpool, they created entirely separate sketches which captured the "spirit" of the main character and meta-humor (which in this case is pretty much the selling point of the movie, so it really works). It's not clear how you could make that for a game that is already a promotional work for another... but, hey, maybe. I can imagine Collie and Savitr going around introducing the setting, and then being interrupted by something distressing--comical antics and dark atmosphere included.

Thoughts.

Tobias 1115~4Y

This text is just me trying to explain it in this blog post, both to put try putting my own thoughts into words, and to get the idea across to people who read this blog, hence the references to things like Hitler; I wouldn't use something written like this in the game or in promotional material or anything! It's formatted weirdly for no particular reason.

Interesting that the text crawls in Star Wars are all under 100 words! Trying to write one for this (which isn't what I was doing) could be an interesting writing exercise, though I feel that those only need to really set the first scene rather than communicate the story as a whole? Would the Star Wars films appeal to anyone if described purely by their crawls to people who'd never seen them? Probably not!

What you said about the issues of communicating what your story even is is exactly what I'm getting at! It's tough. I suppose it's lucky that games can use other stuff like visuals and trailers, which novels unfortunately can't do...

I wanted to use the 'Divine Scenes', like the one with Collie and Savitr from a couple of weeks ago, or whenever it was, to give a feel for the characters with conversations that wouldn't actually be in the game itself. I'm still interested in the idea, but I've not really got the impression that anyone else is! Maybe it'll be different when I'm more certain of my direction and I'm starting to post promotionally.

Interesting that the text crawls in Star Wars are all under 100 words! Trying to write one for this (which isn't what I was doing) could be an interesting writing exercise, though I feel that those only need to really set the /first/ scene rather than communicate the story as a whole? Would the Star Wars films appeal to anyone if described purely by their crawls to people who'd never seen them? Probably not!

What you said about the issues of communicating what your story even /is/ is exactly what I'm getting at! It's tough. I suppose it's lucky that games can use other stuff like visuals and trailers, which novels unfortunately can't do...

I wanted to use the 'Divine Scenes', like the one with Collie and Savitr from a couple of weeks ago, or whenever it was, to give a feel for the characters with conversations that wouldn't actually be in the game itself. I'm still interested in the idea, but I've not really got the impression that anyone else is! Maybe it'll be different when I'm more certain of my direction and I'm starting to post promotionally.

Ampersand68~4Y

I'm still iffy on the whole Collie being sexually attracted to Savitr thing... It kinda reeks of an Electra complex? I feel like it'd be less weird if those "pubescent urges" were expressed towards people who aren't basically her adoptive father figure. I think it'd allow for more interplay between the characters around the conflict of id vs superego if they actually discussed those feelings instead of Collie just being a creepy fangirl and Savitr ignoring that, brooding hero he that he is. And instead of just showing "wow look how messed up she is", it'd provide a legitimate point in favor of the Blight Wolves' perspective on life (i.e. the freedom to live and love freely, rather than the "noble" self-effacement and asceticism of a paladin in a religious order) and provide an internal conflict for Collie to overcome- wrestling with living up to the expectations of her hero and ersatz father figure and following the Seraphim's ideals vs following her own desires and possibly even seeking independence (which she would feel guilty about, since that's what "bad people" do) sounds more interesting than a one-sided crush that can ultimately go nowhere.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I wondered whether how I wrote this suggested that Savitr adopted Collie, which would make the lusting weird. He saved her, but she was given to a couple of unremarkable NPCs in the village and had a fairly ordinary life with them. Savitr was always a distant figure she mostly just heard (and fantasised) about, like a celebrity. He has a wife and child (Dayvha), but is rarely around to spend time with them because he's always away on missions.

When you lack love growing up, that tends to come out in weird ways. And I do think the fangirl angle would give some easy laughs, and it's in line with my general sense of humour anyway, and I'd say it's not deviant for how hormonal teenage girls think about male celebrities, but I won't do something the majority of people will dislike. We'll see how it goes.

I've got a lot planned for Collie's arc and the exploration of the Seraphim and Blight Wolves' philosophies (I don't intend to paint either as 'bad' or 'good'), but like I said, I can't really just blurt it all out in a post like this without spoiling everything! Which is a shame, because I like what I've come up with, but what that is won't be apparent until the game's actually made.

When you lack love growing up, that tends to come out in weird ways. And I do think the fangirl angle would give some easy laughs, and it's in line with my general sense of humour anyway, and I'd say it's not deviant for how hormonal teenage girls think about male celebrities, but I won't do something the majority of people will dislike. We'll see how it goes.

I've got a lot planned for Collie's arc and the exploration of the Seraphim and Blight Wolves' philosophies (I don't intend to paint either as 'bad' or 'good'), but like I said, I can't really just blurt it all out in a post like this without spoiling everything! Which is a shame, because I like what I've come up with, but what that is won't be apparent until the game's actually made.

Ampersand68~4Y

I'm not opposed to Collie crushing on Savitr, per se. Though I do think there's often a fine line between "creepy" and "cute", which impacts how relatable of a character she is, and which I think may be important for drawing in a broader/more diverse audience than you had for MARDEK (i.e. not 90% nerdy young men). After all, she is the only female character in the game.

Speaking of the Blight Wolves and their philosophy though, their canine motif immediately brought to mind the Cynic philosophy, which is named after their tendency to act as dogs, i.e. in accordance with nature and eschewing established social customs. This quote for example, really fits quite well with what information you've given on the Blight Wolves' philosophy:

"There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them."

You mentioned in another post that the Blight Wolves represent a more "liberal" school of thought vs the "conservatism" of the Seraphim, but then later said that maybe that analogy doesn't make sense in light of American conservatives, but I do think that strikes upon an interesting point. Many conservatives laud "law and order", but oftentimes this just means "laws for thee and not for me". Not to get too stuck into politics, but often the "upholders of the law" end up being the ones exempt from its rule (unfortunately, there are many people like Steele in the real world). But I think as you described it, the difference between the Blight Wolves and Seraphim would be more one of "invidualism vs paternalism", broader in scope than the typical left/right cleavages in modern politics.

Speaking of the Blight Wolves and their philosophy though, their canine motif immediately brought to mind the Cynic philosophy, which is named after their tendency to act as dogs, i.e. in accordance with nature and eschewing established social customs. This quote for example, really fits quite well with what information you've given on the Blight Wolves' philosophy:

"There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them."

You mentioned in another post that the Blight Wolves represent a more "liberal" school of thought vs the "conservatism" of the Seraphim, but then later said that maybe that analogy doesn't make sense in light of American conservatives, but I do think that strikes upon an interesting point. Many conservatives laud "law and order", but oftentimes this just means "laws for thee and not for me". Not to get too stuck into politics, but often the "upholders of the law" end up being the ones exempt from its rule (unfortunately, there are many people like Steele in the real world). But I think as you described it, the difference between the Blight Wolves and Seraphim would be more one of "invidualism vs paternalism", broader in scope than the typical left/right cleavages in modern politics.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I never knew the term Cynical was related to dogs; that's very interesting! And in many ways it fits wonderfully well with what I imagined these Blight Wolves to be!

It's more philosophical and cerebral than their motivations, though; I don't imagine most of them would be in it for high-minded reasons. But it is all about living in nature. I've been seeing the Blight Wolves vs Seraphim as 'beasts vs divine', or mundane vs transcendent. Enjoying Earth vs preparing for Heaven.

I care about psychology more than politics, and it seems that conservatism is associated with low Openness and high conscientiousness, I think? Rigidity. Or something like that; I can't remember the details. Whereas liberalism is the opposite. That's what I had in mind when comparing these ideas to those. But I corrected myself since it does seem to fall apart when we look at the real behaviour of hardcore conservatives making a big point of not being controlled by the government. I don't understand politics enough to get that, but I can definitely see how those traits would produce "I control you but you can't control me" behaviour.

Ideally the Seraphim and Blight Wolves' philosophies would be familiar enough to be easily understood, but different enough from real politics to avoid seeming like I'm trying to do commentary about real political beliefs (which I'm not).

I never knew the term Cynical was related to dogs; that's very interesting! And in many ways it fits wonderfully well with what I imagined these Blight Wolves to be!

It's more philosophical and cerebral than their motivations, though; I don't imagine most of them would be in it for high-minded reasons. But it is all about living in nature. I've been seeing the Blight Wolves vs Seraphim as 'beasts vs divine', or mundane vs transcendent. Enjoying Earth vs preparing for Heaven.

I care about psychology more than politics, and it seems that conservatism is associated with low Openness and high conscientiousness, I think? Rigidity. Or something like that; I can't remember the details. Whereas liberalism is the opposite. That's what I had in mind when comparing these ideas to those. But I corrected myself since it does seem to fall apart when we look at the real behaviour of hardcore conservatives making a big point of not being controlled by the government. I don't understand politics enough to get that, but I can definitely see how those traits would produce "I control you but you can't control me" behaviour.

Ideally the Seraphim and Blight Wolves' philosophies would be familiar enough to be easily understood, but different enough from real politics to avoid seeming like I'm trying to do commentary about real political beliefs (which I'm not).

Ampersand68~4Y

Don't be too fast in dismissing Cynicism as overly cerebral or high-minded- the originator of Cynicism, Diogenes, would put his philosophy into action by publically masturbating and defecating in the theatre! And though I'm sure the Blight Wolves (at least "currently") don't think deeply about philosophy, that doesn't mean they wouldn't live according to one, even if it's "merely" passed on by example, as opposed to ancient texts or teachings.

American conservatism is actually somewhat "liberal" in nature (or at least, aesthetic), as oxymoronic as that might sound at first blush. America's founding myth is one of independence, of freedom hard-fought from tyranny, as well as of intrepid pioneers and entrepreneurs. Obviously the truth falls far short of the romanticized version of things, but that version is what American conservatives revere, which leads to the phenomenon you describe (not that they aren't massive hypocrites when it comes to -actual- government tyranny, but let's leave that aside for now).

I think framing your story as a political debate would indeed be unwise, especially as nowadays more people than ever are questioning the legitimacy of our "lawful authorities". Not that it isn't important to address questions like that, but it is the sort of thing you'd need to think carefully about before approaching. That said, this won't necessarily stop people from reading into the story in certain ways, which I think is only natural in a time of heightened political consciousness such as we have now. As it stands, though, I'm interested to see where you take the story, and how (or even if) you'll resolve the tension between the two philosophies.

American conservatism is actually somewhat "liberal" in nature (or at least, aesthetic), as oxymoronic as that might sound at first blush. America's founding myth is one of independence, of freedom hard-fought from tyranny, as well as of intrepid pioneers and entrepreneurs. Obviously the truth falls far short of the romanticized version of things, but that version is what American conservatives revere, which leads to the phenomenon you describe (not that they aren't massive hypocrites when it comes to -actual- government tyranny, but let's leave that aside for now).

I think framing your story as a political debate would indeed be unwise, especially as nowadays more people than ever are questioning the legitimacy of our "lawful authorities". Not that it isn't important to address questions like that, but it is the sort of thing you'd need to think carefully about before approaching. That said, this won't necessarily stop people from reading into the story in certain ways, which I think is only natural in a time of heightened political consciousness such as we have now. As it stands, though, I'm interested to see where you take the story, and how (or even if) you'll resolve the tension between the two philosophies.

purplerabbits148~4Y

For me personally Story is very important to keep my interest, good hook to keep me interested per say.

For example The Ranger's Apprentice, starts out with the main character Will with anticipation for the choosing day, a day where the orphans like him will become apprentices to tradesmen to become productive members of their medieval society. On said day, no one is willing to take him because he's short. However, one mysterious, seemingly invisible, cloaked person hands the Baron a note, which leads the Baron to hold off on the final verdict for Will while the others are choosing their futures. So Will makes a desision to find out what that note says because what else could he do at that point?

Though that is for a book so a summary will be pretty long and the person reading is predisposed to longer passages to keep the reader engaged.

I can guess that the StarWars craze in part comes from the right age to watch and as a way of escapism. For me, it's similar to how when I watched A New Hope, I was disapointed because of the hype. However I can see why back then it was impressive. So for me it's a bit dated and I was a bit older when I watched them.

I think that for a way to introduce a game you need some for of hook. Kinda like how Tama brings up the Deadpool movies and how they are marketed. Well, the meta-humor is the hook for the watchers.

I do relate to the struggle for my game and thinking up a title and way to give a summary /pitch to play xD

For me personally Story is very important to keep my interest, good hook to keep me interested per say.

For example The Ranger's Apprentice, starts out with the main character Will with anticipation for the choosing day, a day where the orphans like him will become apprentices to tradesmen to become productive members of their medieval society. On said day, no one is willing to take him because he's short. However, one mysterious, seemingly invisible, cloaked person hands the Baron a note, which leads the Baron to hold off on the final verdict for Will while the others are choosing their futures. So Will makes a desision to find out what that note says because what else could he do at that point?

Though that is for a book so a summary will be pretty long and the person reading is predisposed to longer passages to keep the reader engaged.

I can guess that the StarWars craze in part comes from the right age to watch and as a way of escapism. For me, it's similar to how when I watched A New Hope, I was disapointed because of the hype. However I can see why back then it was impressive. So for me it's a bit dated and I was a bit older when I watched them.

I think that for a way to introduce a game you need some for of hook. Kinda like how Tama brings up the Deadpool movies and how they are marketed. Well, the meta-humor is the hook for the watchers.

I do relate to the struggle for my game and thinking up a title and way to give a summary /pitch to play xD

MontyCallay101~4Y

I think the descriptive text makes sense as a description of the setting, but less as something that grabs people's interest - all that backstory about the Alora Fane world isn't uninteresting, but I doubt new players will be able to appreciate it going in. The entire thing also feels a bit over-loaded with jargon! Though you probably just wrote it like that for completeness' sake.

The part that seems to be most related to the actual happenings of Atonal Dreams seems to be the last paragraph, and that doesn't seem like a lot! Since this prologue story seems to be more character-focused, I think that any simple explanation or blurb of the story should be from the point of view of these characters, to try to build a narrative first and foremost. As in

"Savitr, an experienced knight, and Collie, a young recruit, enter the drealm, a mystical realm where emotions become real. There, they must face their fears and uncover the hidden truth about the history of their world."

I think it's best to err on the side of oversimplifying with this sort of thing.

If you want to build nuance, I find it hard to see the Blight Wolves in a nuanced light with the description that you give them! Though that might also be the case of an unreliable narrator. In that case, you could hint at that a bit more! There's no point in being overly secretive with these sorts of twists - don't reveal them out of the gate, of course, but you want to use all that you have to promote the game! What's the point of all that effort if you can't use it to interest people in experiencing the story?

The part that seems to be most related to the actual happenings of Atonal Dreams seems to be the last paragraph, and that doesn't seem like a lot! Since this prologue story seems to be more character-focused, I think that any simple explanation or blurb of the story should be from the point of view of these characters, to try to build a narrative first and foremost. As in

"Savitr, an experienced knight, and Collie, a young recruit, enter the drealm, a mystical realm where emotions become real. There, they must face their fears and uncover the hidden truth about the history of their world."

I think it's best to err on the side of oversimplifying with this sort of thing.

If you want to build nuance, I find it hard to see the Blight Wolves in a nuanced light with the description that you give them! Though that might also be the case of an unreliable narrator. In that case, you could hint at that a bit more! There's no point in being overly secretive with these sorts of twists - don't reveal them out of the gate, of course, but you want to use all that you have to promote the game! What's the point of all that effort if you can't use it to interest people in experiencing the story?

Tobias 1115~4Y

As I said in another reply, this is just me trying to explain the story and setting to people who read this blog; it's not meant for the game or a store page or anything (despite the weird formatting). I should have clarified that; I'll edit the post to make it clearer.

A promotional blurb should fit in the limited space Steam games have for their short descriptions, or even a tweet, so something like that would be what I'd condense it to if I were actually writing something for that purpose!

The Blight Wolves aren't meant to be portrayed badly, though the Seraphim certainly think that they're no good. It would be explored with more nuance in the game, or at least that'll be the intention, though we'll have to see how well I can actually pull that off.

Astreon152~4Y

Divine Dreams Overture: Atonal Seraph

Tobias 1115~4Y

Divine Dreams: Overture: Atonal Seraph: Rise of Blight: The Beginning: Episode 0 & Knuckles

Really rolls off the tongue!

Astreon152~4Y

Hey, you never know: "A song of ice and fire- volume 1: A Game of Thrones" happened to be a success, all the way to "A song of ice and fire- volume 7 : A Dream of Spring" :)

phsc57~4Y

Atonal is a really great game, maybe something like Atonality? I have no idea of why but it sounds like a better game name to me? like Divinity: Original Sin II, Atonality: Divine Dream II??? different ideas but I think Atonal Dreams is also very nice, however it might make maybe people think that it is too much about music? since I've never seen the word atonal being used outside of music? It is a nice name and I like the way you use the word Atonal.

About explaining a story, I think there is a key thing to consider: you are making a game, talk about the gameplay first! and say that there is a vast story, give just the basic context, the start of it, not the general entire back-structure and lore, just the basics, try to put it in an interesting way, something small that might catch the attention of people, and you write a lot, and in Steam in my experience people seem to not read a lot! as much as your audience probably would. A big tip for a way to catch the attention of people, is maybe, when you finish the other stuff, if it does not go that far from this prelude-thing, maybe make it free? kind of a demo, the person might play it and enjoy it, and then buy the other ones, or the person might not like it.

About world building and also about explaining a story, Star Wars does that in a pretty nice way, a very important thing I believe, is explaining the general situation very well, in a kind of visual way, Star Wars blasts that text over you, and at the start of Episode IV (the original movie) you get to visualize that, there is a small rebel ship (the Tantive IV), and then a gigantic empire Star Destroyer, showing how massive the empire is, then you get to see that things are not going well, and it makes you interested, at least made me, what is going to come out of this? Lord of the Rings also does that, explaining... what is the Ring? the movie works with that so well, the initial scene and all, it makes you think "what is going to come out of this?", your game has that! but I'm not really hyped because I really don't have a real expectation for some reason? in Lord of the Rings it seems pretty obvious, there is an evil guy, evil ring, you intuitively imagine it has something to do with the ring, probably destroying it since Isildur did not, Star Wars you get the general idea of "lets beat this abusive empire!", this also happens with other games, Final Fantasy VI, not only the opening title already gives you the general vibe of the game, something darker, not so wholesome, it also explains the base of the plot, not detailed or anything, just gives you the base of the worldbuilding, and the rest is developed from there.
This gets to a thing I love, I personally do not see universes as the "what is there and what is said?" but "what might be there based on what is said?", with this I mean that when I see the empire in Star Wars, I think... why do they exist? why are they there? what else have they done? are there other rebellions? and the more you get to know about the universes, the more interesting it gets for me at least, there are multiple planets with their cultures, their past, Lord of the Rings does that into a different way, mostly considering how Tolkien basically made an universe based on his linguistic fun and not the other way around, which is interesting if you are into that, but then you get a book like the Silmarilion, that really makes you think of how small what you actually get to know exactly is, and your universe does fit that! and you actually did that back then with MARDEK as well, or even Deliverance, which is why I am interested in your works, this you wrote seems a bit small, but I'm pretty sure there is a lot to it, that is what makes me curious, I did read the figverse wiki after all, and I'd read the Divine Dreams one, of course after beating the game a first time and getting my first experience, a thing I think is important is to think, imagine someone just bought the game, how are they going to know exactly what is going on? all of the lore behind things? you should not give it all to them, but show that, there is much more to it, in a very intuitive way, basically all successful fiction franchises and works and all do this, Duna, The Foundation, I think you will figure this out well, because Deliverance and MARDEK do make me go "wow! there is a lot to this!", the way you start in out of all places, space, in Deliverance, with a ton of information, that does not get used, or MARDEK with the general idea of other planets, other races, not to mention how little you know about Belfan! reading this I did not get that vibe, the desire to find out more about the universe, the universe seems vast and my biggest problem is that, is the game itself going to captivate me like that? I explain on that more later.
With all of that said, it does not mean I do not value characters and/or they developement! that is crucial, but what grabs my attention first is the universe, and then I get to learn about the characters, and actually, I have to mention this, have you ever seen Neon Genesis Evangelion? with all of your interest on psychology and character developement... I think that anime could be very interesting for you see, and I would really like to know what you get out of it! also the fact that the creator did suffer from depression and other things while making it, and how characters might be relatable, the differences betwen people, subjectivity, all of that, and Evangelion starts out with the general idea of a plot and universe, that develops more into character developement, and focuses on that much more, and mixes that with the plot, in a pretty damn personal and philosophical way even, but what do you know about it before you watch it? generic giant robot show, gatters attention? at the time yeah, the name however... how does that come in? a thing that is very important is how the genres are important! this does not affect games as much because of how many games do not care about the plot, when you google Neon Genesis Evangelion you see: Apocalyptic, mecha, psychological drama. It is a really interesting combination in my opinion, I would put psychological drama as the main part of the show since it might have the best character developement I've seen in a show, Star Wars gets Science Fiction and Space Opera, and it fits that very well, it is pretty much the ultimate Space Opera, which is a genre I also greatly like, Lord of the Rings has High Fantasy, also interesting, but how do you do that for games? what games even fit a genre? FPS, RPG... that is the gameplay, I think this makes it much harder for people to find the right story-driven games, Steam literally only allows you to get Story Rich, which is so limited, what makes it rich? what does it go under? the story of a game that goes under it, like Mortal Kombat 11 is VERY different from something like Fallout 4 which is very different from Ori and the Blind Forest, and it is all under the same category.

I am interested in your game but the sad reality is that the first impression matters too much, and it is hard to do that in a non-visual or gameplay way for a game where plot is a big thing, reputation is very important in this, but how would I interpret if you only had the general "lore" you wrote on this post on the Steam game? the Aolmna are very interesting! makes me imagine, are there other alien races? yeah, there are! ok, so there is a lot to the universe, artificial worlds! this is also very interesting, a bit of developement on that, Cataclysm, explaining a possible problem and what makes it so special, and then it gets to characters and all, this seems to fit the pattern! but it really makes me wonder, how much is there to it? and how are you going to communicate this to the player? it also makes me think, such a small part of such a vast universe to start at, is the rest going to be explored?
The question I'm making is, if you are not going to include this in game, are you going to catch the curiosity of people? because if you only look at the gameplay and the lower levels of things, it seems pretty linear, go and deal with bad guy and save world! there is much more to that, inside and outside of it, but if I only got to look at it I would probably believe that, because it seems simplistic, I have no idea of how you can solve this, if you do even consider it a problem, but I do think this game is going to sell more than Sindrel Song, RPGs are much more popular than whatever Sindrel Song is categorized as, an idea to catch the attention of people to show that the game is deep, is to maybe make a very good trailer that explains on things, but I think it gets to a thing that works more on the lines of "show" than "say" because of how half of the games on Steam are asset flips who say you are going on an epic adventure with memorable characters and the game... is neither epic nor memorable.
Well, that is the way I see things at least... what about Dissonant Dreams? turns out that is an album, Divine Dreams: Dissonance, but I think Atonal works very well, I think that Dissonant is a word more people would correlate with ideas than music, as much as it is also used within music, but also something such as "cognitive dissonance", but maybe it goes too far from the original idea?

About explaining a story, I think there is a key thing to consider: you are making a game, talk about the gameplay first! and say that there is a vast story, give just the basic context, the start of it, not the general entire back-structure and lore, just the basics, try to put it in an interesting way, something small that might catch the attention of people, and you write a lot, and in Steam in my experience people seem to not read a lot! as much as your audience probably would. A big tip for a way to catch the attention of people, is maybe, when you finish the other stuff, if it does not go that far from this prelude-thing, maybe make it free? kind of a demo, the person might play it and enjoy it, and then buy the other ones, or the person might not like it.

About world building and also about explaining a story, Star Wars does that in a pretty nice way, a very important thing I believe, is explaining the general situation very well, in a kind of visual way, Star Wars blasts that text over you, and at the start of Episode IV (the original movie) you get to visualize that, there is a small rebel ship (the Tantive IV), and then a gigantic empire Star Destroyer, showing how massive the empire is, then you get to see that things are not going well, and it makes you interested, at least made me, what is going to come out of this? Lord of the Rings also does that, explaining... what is the Ring? the movie works with that so well, the initial scene and all, it makes you think "what is going to come out of this?", your game has that! but I'm not really hyped because I really don't have a real expectation for some reason? in Lord of the Rings it seems pretty obvious, there is an evil guy, evil ring, you intuitively imagine it has something to do with the ring, probably destroying it since Isildur did not, Star Wars you get the general idea of "lets beat this abusive empire!", this also happens with other games, Final Fantasy VI, not only the opening title already gives you the general vibe of the game, something darker, not so wholesome, it also explains the base of the plot, not detailed or anything, just gives you the base of the worldbuilding, and the rest is developed from there.
This gets to a thing I love, I personally do not see universes as the "what is there and what is said?" but "what might be there based on what is said?", with this I mean that when I see the empire in Star Wars, I think... why do they exist? why are they there? what else have they done? are there other rebellions? and the more you get to know about the universes, the more interesting it gets for me at least, there are multiple planets with their cultures, their past, Lord of the Rings does that into a different way, mostly considering how Tolkien basically made an universe based on his linguistic fun and not the other way around, which is interesting if you are into that, but then you get a book like the Silmarilion, that really makes you think of how small what you actually get to know exactly is, and your universe does fit that! and you actually did that back then with MARDEK as well, or even Deliverance, which is why I am interested in your works, this you wrote seems a bit small, but I'm pretty sure there is a lot to it, that is what makes me curious, I did read the figverse wiki after all, and I'd read the Divine Dreams one, of course after beating the game a first time and getting my first experience, a thing I think is important is to think, imagine someone just bought the game, how are they going to know exactly what is going on? all of the lore behind things? you should not give it all to them, but show that, there is much more to it, in a very intuitive way, basically all successful fiction franchises and works and all do this, Duna, The Foundation, I think you will figure this out well, because Deliverance and MARDEK do make me go "wow! there is a lot to this!", the way you start in out of all places, space, in Deliverance, with a ton of information, that does not get used, or MARDEK with the general idea of other planets, other races, not to mention how little you know about Belfan! reading this I did not get that vibe, the desire to find out more about the universe, the universe seems vast and my biggest problem is that, is the game itself going to captivate me like that? I explain on that more later.
With all of that said, it does not mean I do not value characters and/or they developement! that is crucial, but what grabs my attention first is the universe, and then I get to learn about the characters, and actually, I have to mention this, have you ever seen Neon Genesis Evangelion? with all of your interest on psychology and character developement... I think that anime could be very interesting for you see, and I would really like to know what you get out of it! also the fact that the creator did suffer from depression and other things while making it, and how characters might be relatable, the differences betwen people, subjectivity, all of that, and Evangelion starts out with the general idea of a plot and universe, that develops more into character developement, and focuses on that much more, and mixes that with the plot, in a pretty damn personal and philosophical way even, but what do you know about it before you watch it? generic giant robot show, gatters attention? at the time yeah, the name however... how does that come in? a thing that is very important is how the genres are important! this does not affect games as much because of how many games do not care about the plot, when you google Neon Genesis Evangelion you see: Apocalyptic, mecha, psychological drama. It is a really interesting combination in my opinion, I would put psychological drama as the main part of the show since it might have the best character developement I've seen in a show, Star Wars gets Science Fiction and Space Opera, and it fits that very well, it is pretty much the ultimate Space Opera, which is a genre I also greatly like, Lord of the Rings has High Fantasy, also interesting, but how do you do that for games? what games even fit a genre? FPS, RPG... that is the gameplay, I think this makes it much harder for people to find the right story-driven games, Steam literally only allows you to get Story Rich, which is so limited, what makes it rich? what does it go under? the story of a game that goes under it, like Mortal Kombat 11 is VERY different from something like Fallout 4 which is very different from Ori and the Blind Forest, and it is all under the same category.

I am interested in your game but the sad reality is that the first impression matters too much, and it is hard to do that in a non-visual or gameplay way for a game where plot is a big thing, reputation is very important in this, but how would I interpret if you only had the general "lore" you wrote on this post on the Steam game? the Aolmna are very interesting! makes me imagine, are there other alien races? yeah, there are! ok, so there is a lot to the universe, artificial worlds! this is also very interesting, a bit of developement on that, Cataclysm, explaining a possible problem and what makes it so special, and then it gets to characters and all, this seems to fit the pattern! but it really makes me wonder, how much is there to it? and how are you going to communicate this to the player? it also makes me think, such a small part of such a vast universe to start at, is the rest going to be explored?
The question I'm making is, if you are not going to include this in game, are you going to catch the curiosity of people? because if you only look at the gameplay and the lower levels of things, it seems pretty linear, go and deal with bad guy and save world! there is much more to that, inside and outside of it, but if I only got to look at it I would probably believe that, because it seems simplistic, I have no idea of how you can solve this, if you do even consider it a problem, but I do think this game is going to sell more than Sindrel Song, RPGs are much more popular than whatever Sindrel Song is categorized as, an idea to catch the attention of people to show that the game is deep, is to maybe make a very good trailer that explains on things, but I think it gets to a thing that works more on the lines of "show" than "say" because of how half of the games on Steam are asset flips who say you are going on an epic adventure with memorable characters and the game... is neither epic nor memorable.
Well, that is the way I see things at least... what about Dissonant Dreams? turns out that is an album, Divine Dreams: Dissonance, but I think Atonal works very well, I think that Dissonant is a word more people would correlate with ideas than music, as much as it is also used within music, but also something such as "cognitive dissonance", but maybe it goes too far from the original idea?

Tobias 1115~4Y

I'm getting the feeling that I failed to properly explain the point of this blog post. This isn't me setting up an advertising pitch to potential buyers who know nothing about the game; it's an explanation to readers of this blog - who presumably know at least a bit about the game already - what I'm doing, since I felt that wasn't made clear before. By "how do you explain a story?", what I meant was "how do I explain what I'm doing to you, people who are following the development?"

Something aimed at getting new people interested would be structured very differently. I feel that using just text for that would be a waste of time, so I'm not worrying about it until I have enough of the game made to make a trailer or brief gameplay demo. I'm currently working on getting to that point, though obviously I can't do that in a few minutes, or even a few days.

As for the game itself, as soon as you selected New Game, it'd jump immediately into a BATTLE where Savitr and Collie are fighting one of the other important characters, who's treating them as intruders on his island. This would serve several purposes: it'd explain why they're here (via some brief dialogue), it'd introduce some of the character traits straight away (Collie tells their opponent that they've got no chance against the amazing Savitr), and, most importantly, it'd introduce gameplay mechanics without any wait at all (and it'd serve as the tutorial for those mechanics). I've found when playing RPGs myself that I feel impatient until I've been able to battle for the first time, and have a harder time paying attention to the setup exposition for that reason, so it'd be a way of remedying that.

This battle would be followed by a conversation between Savitr and Collie where they talk about why they're there and their traits are explored in more detail. They've also mention the main villain (or what counts as such in this story) and hint at their primary motivation: a desire to atone.

After that brief exchange, the player would be free to wander around, battling monsters and such. More would be revealed through little scenes that come up occasionally after certain events; essentially Savitr and Collie would chat while going about their business, and you'd learn more about them both that way. I've planned it in some detail, but didn't talk about it in this post since that wasn't its purpose.

As for the title, Atonal incorporates atone, the characters' primary motivation, and blends that with the musical meaning. I like layered meanings like this! It's also six letters, which is a motif I'm using as much as possible (such as in all the character names). Atonal Dreams followed by Divine Dreams seems a nicer progression than just Atonal followed by Divine Dreams, and it suggests they're similar without being too similar. Atonal Dreams could also be read as 'dissonant desires' or something, which fits with the Blight Wolves vs Seraphim thing (though atonality isn't the same as dissonance exactly).

Regarding Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, I feel that a lot of the impressions any of us would get from those would be strongly coloured by the fact that they're cultural juggernauts; there'd be absolutely no way to view either of them truly neutrally unless you're old enough to have seen Star Wars in the cinema when it first came out. So that'd obviously be massively different to an unknown indie game!

It's accurate though that both present their fairly simple and easy to understand 'heroes vs villains' conflict in their intros! Personally I don't find either intro all that interesting though, and LotR's is in the form of external narration about background stuff which the protagonists aren't even aware of at the time, so you don't discover it along with them. I prefer what I'm planning to do, where the background is explained in a charactered exchange rather than in-your-face tell-not-show disembodied narration!

Something aimed at getting new people interested would be structured very differently. I feel that using just text for that would be a waste of time, so I'm not worrying about it until I have enough of the game made to make a trailer or brief gameplay demo. I'm currently working on getting to that point, though obviously I can't do that in a few minutes, or even a few days.

As for the game itself, as soon as you selected New Game, it'd jump immediately into a BATTLE where Savitr and Collie are fighting one of the other important characters, who's treating them as intruders on his island. This would serve several purposes: it'd explain why they're here (via some brief dialogue), it'd introduce some of the character traits straight away (Collie tells their opponent that they've got no chance against the amazing Savitr), and, most importantly, it'd introduce gameplay mechanics without any wait at all (and it'd serve as the tutorial for those mechanics). I've found when playing RPGs myself that I feel impatient until I've been able to battle for the first time, and have a harder time paying attention to the setup exposition for that reason, so it'd be a way of remedying that.

This battle would be followed by a conversation between Savitr and Collie where they talk about why they're there and their traits are explored in more detail. They've also mention the main villain (or what counts as such in this story) and /hint/ at their primary motivation: a desire to atone.

After that brief exchange, the player would be free to wander around, battling monsters and such. More would be revealed through little scenes that come up occasionally after certain events; essentially Savitr and Collie would chat while going about their business, and you'd learn more about them both that way. I've planned it in some detail, but didn't talk about it in this post since that wasn't its purpose.

As for the title, Atonal incorporates /atone/, the characters' primary motivation, and blends that with the musical meaning. I like layered meanings like this! It's also six letters, which is a motif I'm using as much as possible (such as in all the character names). Atonal Dreams followed by Divine Dreams seems a nicer progression than just Atonal followed by Divine Dreams, and it suggests they're similar without being too similar. Atonal Dreams could also be read as 'dissonant desires' or something, which fits with the Blight Wolves vs Seraphim thing (though atonality isn't the same as dissonance exactly).

Regarding Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, I feel that a lot of the impressions any of us would get from those would be strongly coloured by the fact that they're cultural juggernauts; there'd be absolutely no way to view either of them truly neutrally unless you're old enough to have seen Star Wars in the cinema when it first came out. So that'd obviously be massively different to an unknown indie game!

It's accurate though that both present their fairly simple and easy to understand 'heroes vs villains' conflict in their intros! Personally I don't find either intro all that interesting though, and LotR's is in the form of external narration about background stuff which the protagonists aren't even aware of at the time, so you don't discover it along with them. I prefer what I'm planning to do, where the background is explained in a charactered exchange rather than in-your-face tell-not-show disembodied narration!

kasheeste2133~4Y

Think of it like a resume. You've of course got your name and contact information up top so people know what it is they're looking at.
Immediately following you have a tldr of accomplishments or in the game's case attributes. No sentences, purely bullet points. BAM- RPG elements, BAM- inner conflict, BAM- lasting consequences, BAM- A three legged hippopotamus named Natasha. At this point you'll have either piqued their interest or the resume will be sitting in the trash unworthy of even the paper shredder.
This is followed by a body of short blurbs regarding the selling point. "Choose from millions of different skills as you play the role of Hippo Hunter Harry exploring the wilds of the North Pole. Will you be a sneeky net boi or a fearsome mud wrestler? The choice is yours!" "Three legs and a mouth full of teeth. The Ì¶wÌ¶hÌ¶iÌ¶tÌ¶eÌ¶ Ì¶wÌ¶hÌ¶aÌ¶lÌ¶eÌ¶ three legged hippo has proven to be more than a match for hunters of the past. Quick! Agile! Three-legged! The beast awaits!"
And finally, you arrive at the actual meat of the matter; the cover letter. A short three paragraph appeal to interests of the reader. They don't need to know about the Aolmna's genetic predisposition towards Seraphim ritual oil induced anaphylaxis which allowed Blight the Betrayer to be esnalved by the Annunkai... quite simply its confusing and off putting. Keep to the generic with a flair for the dramatic, whether you like it or not you are trying to sell something, don't lie but don't let any virtue go unmentioned nor a single word be wasted.

Think of it like a resume. You've of course got your name and contact information up top so people know what it is they're looking at. 
Immediately following you have a tldr of accomplishments or in the game's case attributes. No sentences, purely bullet points. BAM- RPG elements, BAM-  inner conflict, BAM- lasting consequences, BAM- A three legged hippopotamus named Natasha. At this point you'll have either piqued their interest or the resume will be sitting in the trash unworthy of even the paper shredder. 
This is followed by a body of short blurbs regarding the selling point. "Choose from millions of different skills as you play the role of Hippo Hunter Harry exploring the wilds of the North Pole. Will you be a sneeky net boi or a fearsome mud wrestler? The choice is yours!" "Three legs and a mouth full of teeth. The Ì¶wÌ¶hÌ¶iÌ¶tÌ¶eÌ¶ Ì¶wÌ¶hÌ¶aÌ¶lÌ¶eÌ¶ three legged hippo has proven to be more than a match for hunters of the past. Quick! Agile! Three-legged! The beast awaits!" 
And finally, you arrive at the actual meat of the matter; the cover letter. A short three paragraph appeal to interests of the reader. They don't need to know about the Aolmna's genetic predisposition  towards Seraphim ritual oil induced anaphylaxis which allowed Blight the Betrayer to be esnalved by the Annunkai... quite simply its confusing and off putting. Keep to the generic with a flair for the dramatic, whether you like it or not you are trying to sell something, don't lie but  don't let any virtue go unmentioned nor a single word be wasted.