One Hand Clapping Consortium
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Immersion is Just Drowning By Choice
🕑 Added 2024-04-23 19:48:49 +0000 UTCIn preparing for the release of the first update of the reimagined Princess on the Run, it became clear that the world of Aerth needed to be updated and explored. The problem with most sandbox games is that they either become a grind, grow too quest-heavy, or distract from the story.
I’ve always felt that well-made stories - like well-made people - are a product of their environment, and how they fit within it. While avoiding that dirty, dirty term - worldbuilding (ugh) - I decided that a story about a princess running away from the only home she had ever really known needed some background.
There’s a lot of writer-y gobbledygook that talks about how to develop backstories for characters, and I won’t bore you to death with the process. The main thrust is that the story for each character is informed by the world around them.
Case in point: players of the previous version of the game will note that most of the people in the game are pretty young. There aren’t a lot of parents, or crotchety old men or ancient washerwomen, etc. doing that Charlie Brown-esque (mwah mwah mwah-mwah, etc.) sort of talking.
Why not?
The truth is pretty simple; there aren’t a lot of assets for older folks. As well, most folks don’t have Lemon Parties as part of their kink (for the love of His Noodly Appendage and the preservation of your soul, please do not google ‘lemon/lemonade party’).
So, how to account for the lack of older folk? Well, I don’t know if its a perfect solution or not, but I decided to fold the absence of older folk into the overall background and plot of the game. Most older folks have every generation’s older members decimated by a mysterious plague that wipes out a lot of the intricacies of the historical record, sowing political strife and chaos. Like the Black Death and the Dancing Plague of 1518 meet up in a fancy movie theater to watch ‘’Miri’’ (an old ST:TOS episode) before doing things that will eventually get them kicked out of said fancy cinema.
This major event informs the personality, behavior and actions of most of the characters.
Now that I have shared a bit of How the Sausage is Made, I will quickly step away from the subject and just share an image of Joan by Steve (I'm calling it, Joan the Badass, Chapter 27) and a snippet about the Murmur from the game.
(excerpt from Woes Upon the Pyre, as sung by his bardic excellence, Smithone of the Russet Hills)
In Taboa,
when the town guard had completed their labors
bodies of the dead were lain outside the walls
an unplanted crop
never to grow,
never to seed,
never to harvest,
were piled like new-fallen pine
The Murmur
took most, but the children; it left them all be
but stole still from them -
their childhood
their boyhood
their girlhood
they wandered, aimless.
They wandered
and in wandering, neighbors and strangers;
became brothers,
became sisters,
became blood.
Families broken made whole.
Memories
remade anew in the only way the young can.
History lives,
endures still,
in old faces.
in old bards
as the young begin anew
The Murmur
never perishes but only sleeps until
the young grow old,
planting seeds
watching them grow
until the Murmur comes to reap again.
Comments
JeffersonSound (El Jefe)
I love Elly too.
JeffersonSound (El Jefe)
To put it bluntly, once we are done with the reimagining of Mobum's original and we expand and continue the story, it's going to step up a lot in terms of lore and character development. Plenty of lewd stuff and plenty of seriously good story.
JP EMM
I'm sure it was, but it hadn't really developed out far enough to begin exploring that. The Murmur was an explanation as fir why all there weren't that many old folk around. It also allowed us to create blended families of people who weren't actually, genetically closely related (thus bypassing the increasingly nebulous rules about that sort of content from sellers and paymasters). Lastly, it gave me a story arc under which other stories could be told, as well as the dynamics of growing up too soon/without parents, or without a firm oral history to guide the development into adulthood. Big lofty goals, of course. You'll be able to tell me at the end of the game how close we came to meeting them.
Ard Rí Sídhhe Dragon
I had the impression that something similar (rooting out and defeating the source of whatever is causing the problems) was the intent of the original project too...
JP EMM
I want that too, but a lot will depend on the choices the player will have to make along the way. And - spoiler alert - the player WILL have an opportunity to root out the source of the Murmur. It won't be a single choice, but a bunch of them.
JP EMM
I think that the people who have been fans of this game as well as those who support its recreation deserve nothing less, Di_Va. While imitation is the height of flattery, improving on it is a far better homage.
Ard Rí Sídhhe Dragon
So you're saying we'll die young-ish? Nooooooooooo!!!!...... I want to have Elly be able to become a great-great-grandmother surrounded by scores of our descendants! 😏
Di_Va
I'm interested to see how this event influences the story . It's great to see that you are interested in developing the existing story/lore in many levels.
