My first stab at procedural stories?? Ruins Of The Human Temple (Patreon)

Hey everyone just wanted to touch base to give you an update on "Ruins Of The Human Temple" aka the spiritual successor to Water Womb World. As you may know, the game involves you, the player, scooting around at the bottom of a sunken holy site analyzing archaeological traces that were left behind by a long dead civilization whose motivations and origins are rather obscure.

At the outset of the project I had toyed with the idea of making some sort of system based around auto-generated histories and artifacts. I am greatly inspired by Dwarf Fortress in this regard, although my project is much smaller in scope, basically I am planning on making an ending and then creating lots of different pieces of beginnings.

That is to say, Ruins Of The Human Temple will always have a similar close, but the mythos and narrative framework that under-girds the climax will be somewhat different each time. The ending is a question that has many answers, if that makes any sense.

I have a handful of scripts that goes through every piece of lore and assigns them cogently throughout the game map (the game will feature an outer chamber, an interior chamber, and an even MORE interior chamber)

So there's the lore, and then the archaeological pictographs/glyphs that are analyzed to make the most of the lore. Like the bits of lore, these glyphs are distributed across the game map, so, depending on where they are found, some playthroughs of the game will be easier, as the puzzle pieces that fit together might be closer or further apart.

I wanted to make this because I think it will be interesting to make but also interesting to play, for the thematic content of every story told resonates with the other, and so, going for multiple playthroughs of the game would be enjoyable, unlike Water Womb World or Discover My Body which don't have a ton of surprises left for the player after the first playthrough.

The other reason for making this system is because I am interested in making future games about archaeological sites/mysteries and would love to use something like this as a springboard far in the future.

Also! I've updated one of the character sprites. I am going to take a stab at getting the other one looking better too. As I was saying in the Discord, I think this new design looks much more "metal". 

By the way, come hang out in the Discord if you don't already!!!!

I have familial engagements most of this weekend but I'm packing a small on-the-go game dev station I can set up in my hotel room. I've really been on a tear lately and I don't want to waste any time!

As always, thanks so much for your support, it means the world to me that you are into the stuff I make.

-Yames