I like the environment in games, the world it inhabits and showcases. Sometimes it can be a vast jungle of an urban city like Fallout 4 or it can be ruined world full of culture like Darksiders 2, and what they all have is a story embedded in every landmark and ruin that it can be amazing to explore the deep depths of what the devs made. To be honest, my dream is to put in the time to make a vast world that has so much to explore and culture that would be hypnotizing, making you wish you lived in this world. If you haven’t read my poorly written series The Story of Jeremy or at least my abandoned Amnesia series, I have a few already in mind to create, but the one I want to talk about is the world in Story of Jeremy. The vast land you would tread is called Cloven Isle, the known world of the English and the only place to find industrial cities and business. Hello and welcome to this Game-Making Challenge.
Mainland
Nyma, the country of civilized men and women, is a vast valley and prairie where the Prairie is a rural country that the farmer rules and the traveling merchant thrives. Although many miles away from the King, they still are considered men and women of the English Empire and support them thoroughly. The Valleys are where the English cities lie, where stone streets lead the people to and from capitals to capitals, where the working man strives for the English Dream and outnumber the beggar. In the Main Capital of Colleign, is where the royals and loyalists stay as the King rests atop it, living in luxury.
The Farmlands of the Prairie will be a place where law isn’t fully enforced and many raids take place. The player will begin here as he starts a revolution with the Joraal, a feline race that has been enslaved by the English, attacking farms to free slave Joraal and witness what kind of madness their owners have put on them. The player will see some awful things there during the main storyline, where slaves are conditioned to be less than human and turned to an obeying, lifeless coil. That’s only one of many the player witness. Your choice to put those kinds of Joraal slaves down or help them regain their sanity. It’s your choice and either one will have a downside.
English Knights, Scouts, and Rooks will patrol the roads of the Prairie, having them take down revolutionaries or at least bring some protection to English supporting farms and merchants. The raiders around there are dangerous and will attack anyone they can, English Knights, Revolutionaries, even defenseless farmers there if they please.
The Valleys will be more industrial and political, having more people insult you for your ethnicity or political stance and seeing a lot of begging men sitting on the cold, stone streets. Although the town seems almost in economical ruin, the citizens are considered wealthy enough to be in the middle class and have less crime than the Farmlands in the Prairie. People aren’t considered of right mind when you’re a Joraal. Seeing they’re in favor of the King, they don’t take kindly to any Cat-Like men or women in their towns, although no laws against them being within city walls. Some will insult you and give you a choice to react to it aggressively, verbally or ignore it all together. Your choice in doing so will weigh positive and negative very heavily. For example: if a man insults you and you ignore it, people will begin to continuously insult you until it evolves to straight violence.
There are seven capitals: Aeris, Thara, Acura, Themwoode, Erveland, Dimwall and Colleign. Each one having themes to them. For example, Aeris is a weapon sporting capital that aren’t afraid to show it by any means as Themwoode practices the English language and how to use it in any form. Basically meaning they can give you better insults that mean something instead of an empty threat. The player will be able to go to and from capitals, having different experiences that really tell what the people living are like and how they live.
Beyond the Forest Wall
The people of Nyma have a religious belief that beyond the wall is many evils that no man could surpass. Just inside the border are human-like monoliths that watch out whoever has bad intentions on the forest they’re entering. If you have a good soul and good intentions on entering the forest (meaning you finished the revolution of the main quests), the monoliths won’t have consumed by the forest. Beyond that is the forest border is the lost civilization of the Keltic Reign. This is where the ruins will be seen, statues, temples, even large cities that the English haven’t fully recovered its history. Living there are creatures only heard in legends and the player can find documents of them to see their weaknesses and where they might tread. They all do many different things to the players, such as the Krill, a hive mind crystal that takes over the dead. If they slash you, you get a lasting damage effect that takes sometimes days to finish it’s effects. This will be a kind of fetch-quest kind of thing, document every kind of species beyond the forest wall and bring a piece of evidence from the creature. Would be a great piece of world-building in the game, having these creatures only heard in legends and classify them as real for scientists.
The Keltic Ruins will also carry some madmen in there, people who have crossed the border and couldn’t come back, from all links of civilizations and some would even bare the English Flag, to show how many have turned so quickly. Besides the Ruins, there still lies the sea. The sea will be a high-level area as well it being only unlocked when you complete the main quest. It’s where all kinds of dangers roam, sea creatures that can topple warships and deadly hunters that can sway an entire crew to kill themselves. The player will have to manage his crew as well as fighting off everything he encounters or try to ward it off if you are afraid to lose a few men. And if you couldn’t tell, the crew will determine how fast and reliable your ship will be. If you lose them all, you will have to go off by escape boat to the nearest island. Speaking of Islands, they will be the many stops in the ocean, finding places to recruit men or Islanders to go off on your adventure. Some will need convincing to go and others want money in return while some are in desperate need of adventure. These people will also not be human… Entirely. Some will be kinder creatures out there and even some civil ones that you would normally attack. All their personal perks will affect you and your crew as well as the ship itself and will change the look of the ship as you keep recruiting. For example, Civil Krill will turn your ship into a hive overtime and it will become faster and every attack you deal on a sea creature or monster will poison them like as they did to you not too long ago. And a small chance of the creature you killed will become a krill and aid you in your adventures. Other more legendary creatures like Titans are not going to become a Krill. That would be too cool.
Besides all that I explained, the landscape will carry some great landmarks for the player to explore as well as ruins. Some will be completely void of all life as others will be infested with whatever took over the ruin. There will be legend landmarks, places you could read in a book of legends, such as Keddrick the Giant’s lair along with his quest line and story and the Gambling Tower, a place where everyone is trapped to gamble their lives away until they reach the top.
The legends will be a core part of the game, making them the most memorable, having nothing to gain from people’s quests like in other games, the quests are found by the player instead of given to him, having the game make you feel like you stumbled upon it.
Creatures
As I pointed out before, the game will have a mechanic of documenting legendary creatures, proving their existence in the realm of science and magic. There are three categories to put each creature in Mystic, a category consisting of creatures that have unimaginable power or misunderstood power, but this category can be untrustworthy since these creatures of legend or rumor. Creature, a category that used for anything below human or near such a thing; these creatures are considered animals of nature and are thoroughly examined by scientists. The Human category is classified for anything will the same differing intelligence as man’ Joraal and Giants fall in this category. The ones I have in fleshed out right now are the Krill, a hive mind infestation that infects the dead and kills anyone who appears as a threat to the hive. Titans, a guardian-like creatures that scales taller than the largest building known to man, a huge danger to all they come across and the common mind can only see it as a large shadow. An Amino, a creature that have eyes that puts their prey in a relaxing, paralyzed state as every feeling, even pain is more soothing than the last, making feasting on you all the more peaceful. Una-Gwin is a river monster that stalks their prey, purposely making them paranoid and makes sure to bring them down into the river to drown and feast upon them like piranhas. Harpies are a peaceful creature that can make bad days into good ones by playing a song with their enchanted lute, sometimes even nesting near an estate, giving the landowner good luck until the Harpy dies. There is many more creatures I have, but that makes this entire read ever so longer to write. I don’t know how I would makes these creatures into a balanced enemy in the game, but I think they would work somehow. I haven’t really put much thought into making this world in a game. Of course they all would have habitats to live in, only meeting them in a certain area, but I hope I can make them all a cool piece of the world to experience.
I hope you enjoyed this challenge and I do hope this was a good read. Please tell me how the world is and if I fleshed it out well. I would love any criticism you have on this entire world I have. Anyways, I hope enjoyed this The day to post the challenge is on monday, so I hope you enjoy making your own worlds and have a very great valentines days this month. ‘Til next time…
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