Dev Log #1 - Research & Looks - World Building

Before I wanted to start up any game engine to put my vision into place, I figured, it's research time!

While, yes, I had been sitting with this idea for a year and a half, I knew that writing down the lore and the habitants of the place would be easy! However, I also didn't want to make any of the classic RPG mistakes.

What's cool and what to avoid:

So, when writing down my Game Development plan, I also added what NOT to do based off some videos, but I like these the most:

Surely, when I heard "But you want to go bigger" with regards to the world, I was thinking "Hah! But I can do that!". (Spoiler alert: I understand why now :p)

But what about open worlds is something as a player I personally hate? Well, here is a dedicated list:

• Too many empty spaces - Often there isn't much balance between traveling from one place to another, making it so you fast travel a lot and breaking immersion. I want things to look at, not stretches of grass that was gorgeous the first 20 min of the game...
• Repetitive Quests (fetch me x of this!). While this can be alright occasionally, if it has really no goal (unlike, someone's livelyhood depends on it or whatever), it's really... not that fun.
• Collectables. They can be fun! But it just needs to have a purpose. If it's merely for the sake of collecting, you're most likely just doing it for the sake of 100%-ing it.
• Too much of the same things to do - This sounds a bit weird, but I mean this in the "Ubisoft" way, where you have the same bandit camps, too much of the same "follow this bird! And you will be rich!". Open worlds shouldn't rely too much on repetitive game elements to be fun. Open worlds should feel like you could live in them.
• Unapproachable buildings - While I totally get that it's a bit unnecessary to be able to access ALL the buildings, I had this a bit in Cyberpunk, where tiny restaurants and places you wanted to go in to, but you couldn't. I think buildings should also cater to a role-playing elements (eat/drink animations, etc).
• Same towns with no interesting narrative - While this depends on the game, this is something that Baldur's gate and the Elder scrolls do well! Every new place has its own story and reason to exist. That already helps massively to look over the same-y layout/building structures that sometimes bothers me too.
• Level restricted area - Look, in most level progressed heavy games this makes sense for replayability (think: platformers), but to simply restrict you from entering this gate because you're level 10 instead of 11, should be either a choice to the player and an inevitable consequence if they fail. I do think Valheim does this really nice, where each biome becomes harder to be around, and you're looking for ways to stay there longer per stay to gather the resources better.
• Liveless NPCs - Sure, they're not part of the story, but if you find yourself doing quest after quest in a huge city, it's just nice to be able to see some progression in the NPCs. Especially in games where you can talk often to an NPC, you'd expect it. I mean this especially in a NPC quest giver, where they need "10 amount of pumpkin seeds" otherwise a famine will happen... and then after the quest completion, they're never at all planting anything or planting those 10 pumpkins! :p

There are obviously lots of other things that I could mention, but I digress!

What I really wanted Thalara to have that maybe some of my favorite RPG games haven't quite touched on (or maybe kindly stealing it hehe):

• Each place to visit needs to tell a story - Whether through world-building (this place is destroyed! Why is that?!) or its own quest lines within that town that are interesting. Murder mystery, ghost stories, dilemmas. But at the same time, not making the people in the town feel helpless, that the only way they could even exist in the world is because of you in it.
• Progressive towns - This doesn't have to be big, of course! Back in the days, there were a few games I'd play where your help/choices actually impacted the town. Is after a chapter finish of the main quest, the town destroyed because of what you had done? are they thriving? Are there new buildings now? That's something that would be great, but obviously doesn't have to be big. A town doesn't spontaneously have to turn into a city.
• Being able to live in different towns and having your own house there (with it's own furniture and stuff you can buy!) - I love that you can do this in the Elder Scrolls, but at the same time, I wished we could buy and put all these pots and flowers we have found along our adventures somewhere cool, alongside with your own furniture style!
• Having NPCs with scheduled routines - But try to make them feel slightly different each time. A little bit like Stardew Valley! This also includes when a store is open, but playtesting will show if this is too annoying.
• NPC heart events - Speaking of Stardew Valley, while this would only count for a selection of NPCs in that town, it would be nice to feel more engaged with villagers, without that just being a quest.
• Roleplay-friendly buildings - Whenever I play Skyrim, I rarely fast travel. I often try to go from one inn to another once it gets dark and often find myself "eating" and "drinking", engaging with the NPCs with dancing and eventually sleeping in the tavern. If i'm not setting up my tent. (I play heavily modded lol)
• Random Events - I love when games do this! Something that still feels within the realms of the game, but could bring a bit of hardship to your gameplay (think: An assassin coming in through the night when you're sleeping). Or maybe alongside the road.
• Routing from one town to the other should have interesting things - Not necessarily yet another dungeon or fort to explore, but also the finding of supernatural things, or maybe finding a missing person, something that makes the player go "Oh what's that" and getting rewarded for it.
• Different outfits per place - Wearing full armor and stuff during your adventures makes a lot of sense, but once you're in a city... Why not wear that cute dress you found? Or buy a cool shirt! Something to make it seem like you're properly relaxing right now. A bit like Mass Effect, or Baldur's gate's camping site. Your character should look nice! Maybe make this even season-focused.
• Make specific places buff health/skills/perks/etc - Like a hot spring increases your health! Obviously, you don't want the whole place to have hot springs to visit, just scattered across the place.

Now that we've gone through the research there, what about the actual look and feel of the game?

Look and feel:

The world itself:

I wanted the world to have mutliple biomes, since I feel that it increases recognition of where you roughly are, but also other techniques of surviving in the biomes. For both player and the settlements. Some parts should be really mountain-y, while other bit more meadow-y.

The artstyle was pretty easily established. Look, I even made a pinterest board!

But, I was most inspired by Raja Nandepu's art: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/rajanandepu/ ! (https://www.instagram.com/raja.nandepu/)

The colours are vibrant, and use a lot of color study-related coloring. (purple being the opposite of yellow), which adds a nice and engaging "Hey, what's going on here" element to it. While I know it's going to be challenging to add, I love to try adding that.

Ironically, after that, I found out that The Witcher 3 does exactly this! Especially in the Blood and Wine DLC! (I would've added pictures, but Itch.io makes that pretty hard :p) The same is the case for Ghost of Tsushima

The People:

For that, I'm currently still working on a 'Lore book' of it that's not entirely finished: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v9OLUh__QKezxh2_jGuuvrF7smFWRJhd5IJxre2-0ys/...