TheGatewayOfRealities
patreon
Khzandithri, the world puzzle assembles
🕑 Added 2020-10-30 19:01:42 +0000 UTCAuthor: Salireths.
πΆπ· Please note that all images and gifs shown in this post is a form of concept-art. While it is 3D, it is not representative of how it is going to look in-game. It is merely a preview lacking many details. π·πΆ
By this point you are probably familiar with my struggles with level design, as my journey of making the hub-level hasn't been easy at all. It's not just enough to make a pretty level layout and call it a day - I've tried that before, it wasn't enough.
Since when we discussed sexy organic designs for architecture, I kept promising to show a design for the main vessel, but I needed some time to realize what I had to do.
You might heard me mentioning "Khzandithri, the city between realities" (there is even a channel in our Discord named after it). Since the inception of TGOR-Verse I had this idea of a central interspecies city, where "Uplifted" (anthros) and "Originals" (ferals), Scalies, Birds and Furries - would all come together to live in tandem, offering experiences from their different cultures to each other.
Not a new idea in sci-fi/fantasy, I know, but for me it's very personal. It feels like, if such place exists, that's where my true home is - I may be infinitely far away from it, but it is in my heart, and I hope it is in yours too.
Only problem, I never believed I could model it into the game - it was supposed to be really, really big, a Dyson-sphere kind of big. But I recently realized that I could just scale it down to a size of a space station!
And even a station, of course, would never be fully explorable - the amount of work needed is beyond the capabilities of a single artist/designer. But we don't really have to do that - if just a small part of it is in the game, and the rest is in the background "skybox" (think Citadel from Mass Effect), it would already make a huge difference.
It's not only about visuals, it hugely impacts narratives and worldbuilding that can take place in-game. There is a big potential for new ideas and it's more immersive to roleplay in - it draws from our "collective fantasy" and adds its own twist on top of it.
Let's take a closer look at that city/space station, shall we?
Khzandithri Overview
The station is circular in design and has an a 8-fold symmetry - it is a star with arrows pointing into different directions, representing freedom, chaos, and Dragon Union's desire of exploration. It's layout is split into 4 main areas:
- The Cosmosaur Ports, that's where shuttles dock and live.
- The middle level, place of most services and habitats.
- The highest level, the Central Dome - a luxurious Dragon utopia.
- And the Scaffolds, the lowest level - a violent wildland.
For this post I only have sufficient details to talk about the middle level, in particular its most notable district, a local "tourist attraction" so to speak. Naturally it makes only sense to set the game's main area there.
The Pleasure District
Hatchery is where player emerges for the first time, but not as a hatchling - with the advanced protoliquid technology there is no need to go through the process of becoming an adult. Everyone is preloaded with basic knowledge and has a fully grown, carefully engineered body.
Before exiting you're asked to go through a medical examination, serving as a tutorial and making sure you're prepared for the new life. You can even go through some tests to see the extent of the sensual interactions you can do!
Given a starting amount of servs, the currency used as a token of provided services, you leave the hatchery - standing naked on a street of a strange interspecies world who value pleasures, services, and exotic personal experiences above all else.
Hotels, restaurants, bars, markets, pleasure parlors, fetishes, sexy creatures - all cost servs. Rent a basic room and buy basic food - you will need to find yourself a good job to sustain living here... Starting with simple errands to get by, you will learn new skills that over time will pave a road to the opulent Dragon city. If you fail however, the Scaffolds will not be so hospitable...
The Gatekeepers
Higher up you go the less servs are going to be of service - reputation is the key. Noble Dragons will only notice you if you start helping various fetish-oriented organizations, and offer you a prestigious role of becoming a Gatekeeper.
With proper training, you will get to date your Cosmosaur (a living shuttle), then boldly fly into the ancient space. Together with other Gatekeepers, you will be reversing the reality - taking a peek at how universe looked before its expiration. With this strange form of archeology, you will be learning of new species and cultures, bringing back valuable materials to further expand Khzandithri.
Conclusion
I'm finally at the position where all the pieces of the puzzle matched up: lore, gameplay, narrative - all come together under a cohesive whole, joined together in this interdimensional interspecies city.
All of this wouldn't be possible without rigorous iteration and countless ideas being tried.
Now, there is so much room for many interesting NPCs, interactions and storylines, ideas for all of which, unlike before, come to me without problem. I'm no longer trying to do something completely alien - it is familiar, while still having its own unique share of bizarre culture and kinks. I firmly believe that the process of game's content creation will go much smoother after this.
Thank you for staying with me for all this time, helping me to find and keep realizing this vision.
I can't wait until you start experiencing it.
And thank you for reading!
Comments
Zarnox
That looks amazing, but I can't help but feel it looks to much like human architecture. The streetlights, for example, look far to similar to what we have on Earth, and look like they were designed more for function than for aesthetics, which is awkward considering how highly they value unique culture. With such advanced technology, there would be little need to worry about structural stability, so "buildings" could easily have much more unusual shapes, such as large overhangs, or even entire structures suspended in air by only a few beams of material. At the moment, while I understand it is a work in progress, it looks a little to much like a generic sci-fi design. On the topic of originally planning to have a Dyson sphere, you could instead have a Dyson swarm of these stations, being visible off in the distance. Being locked to a single station could easily be explained as a method of managing an balanced population density between the stations.
I like that idea too.
Keldric Usugi
That sounds wonderful!
the Gateway of Realities
I don't know anything about that game, but I was totally considering making a holodeck-like player home, which can be changed and altered to suit everyone's preference (unlocking more views as game progresses)
Keldric Usugi
Skyboxes have always been a very useful tool when scale is wanted, without the added difficulty of modeling and populating areas the player can't get to. Going this route might also allow for more customization if there's player housing or some such. Look at Phantasy Star Online 2, where yoy can customize the view you see from your balcony, for instance. It's a small, nice little addition that makes things feel more dynamic and pleasant.
