The past week in game development land has been an interesting one. I always find that when beginning a new project, or in our case refining the scope of an existing one, there are usually a million ideas that all fly in completely different directions. A couple of months ago I read an article on gameproducer.net that talked about setting three goals or targets for your project to easily help you decide “yay” or “nay” when it comes to new features. I’ve kind of taken this idea to heart and modified it to fit the goal of Ashianae’s Journey. I sat down at lunch today and jotted down a few notes about things that would be realistic and valuable goals for our game. We look to provide the following to player:
- A customizable and interactive environment.
- A high level of depth and character immesion.
- An experience that is fun.
In my opinion and from the research I’ve done, this last point is almost painfully, and obviously the most important goal on the list. While the others are important, you could almost include them as sub points. As it stands now, we’re pulling out all the stops in the Active Worlds software to make a game that can compete with other games in the industry, as many games created by individual third parties on the AW engine seem to fail when it comes to modern features. The company that owns the software however seems to very naturally come up with unique approaches that make their projects *feel* like games. This is our goal with Ashianae.
So that brings me to talking a little about two of the very important factors of the game itself - the two cities, and the culture of the Ashianae.. So allow me to elaborate a bit for you here.
Ashianae is a civilization of people that occupy a number of island chains, off the coast of a small neighboring continent, Draeda. Each island within the chain is usually comprised primarily of an entire city, as most of the islands are fairly small. In addition to one large city, some contain villages that branch off towards the coasts. Within each chain of islands is what modern civilizations would consider to be a “Capital” island, a place where the local seat of government power resides. The entire civilization of Ashianae is what one might compare to that of the mythological Atlantis - that is to say, the people there are spiritually and scientifically advanced and have under their control powerful weapons and utilities. It is this advance in scientific and mystical knowledge that has lead to an incredibly hostile environment amongst neighboring islands and island chains. Indeed, the neighboring relationships are tense and often violent even though all within our civilization claim to live under the flag of the Ashianae.
Our story, Ashianae’s Journey, takes place on just one of these capital islands, and is controled by two large cities: Dekarne and Karnaires.
Dekarne is the sprawling city that resides on the surface of the island, while Karnaires is a city that resides below ground within a large magma chamber and cavern. The two island cultures differ incredibly, but ultimately rely on one another for survival. The Karnaires provide the top side culture with the energy source that allows their civilization and island to thrive, while Dekarne provides food, water, and other natural resources. Typically the Dekarne is dominated by cut-throat politics, while Karnaires thrives amongst dangerous and volatile death matches.
At a later time I will have to go into more detail on the cities and their roles in the game itself, but to give you a generic idea: Players will be able to reside in either city, and be able to take part in the politics of each city. It is our goal to allow players to feel as immersed and involved in both city and political life as possible, for those players who are interested in role-playing.
In the mean time, here are some screen shots of the two cities… I’m sure you can guess which is which.
And finally, I thought it might be nice to end this picture with an update on some of our progress as of late. We’ve been working with our graphic artist on the team to do some mock ups of what our HUD will consist of, and what it will look like. Please keep in mind that this is a very basic tool set at this moment, and the icons you see along the top side of the screen will be changed completely to match out environment.
Drop me a line and let me know what you think about all of the above!
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
Tim Ramsey