#talesofsurvival

[lde-talesofnovusanima]

Val - The Bandit Queen

Pursued by her father’s men, she took refuge amongst bandits who offered protection in return for coin. As money ran short and times grew desperate, Val embraced the criminal life and found a talent for turning a profit out of a bad situation… She was her father’s daughter after all.

Traits

Hired Help: In return for resources, Val can hire the bandits she encounters to attack other players.

Hunted: Her father’s influence in the Capital influences the White Cross to search for his daughter. (Increased encounter rate with White Cross members)

Backstory       Val made one decision after another that pushed her further into darkness. First, the thugs she hired were a necessary evil to keep her safe. Then when times got rough she started to lie, which led to scamming, which led to more and more. She was a beauty in your eyes and a thief in your pocket.       She had earned a reputation that brought her the wrong attention. People who wanted to use her, whether she liked it or not. A man with the title, Prince of Bandits, saw the benefit a woman like Val could bring to his band of crooks and tried to force her to join, she refused. The Prince of Bandits didn't like that answer and had her held down while he branded the mark of his band on her left cheek with a hot knife. Then he tossed her out into the rain and mud and exclaimed, "You are one of us now!"       Val, scarred and furious began to plan her revenge and several days later returned to the Prince of Bandits and accepted his previous offer and suggested they celebrate the merging of her band into theirs. They did and that night as the bandits drank and danced Valencia's girl's made sure to party up with the Prince's most trusted men, Val of course dancing with the Prince himself. Then when everyone but Val's crew were too drunk to stand straight, the daggers came out and all of the Prince's officers fell with smiling throats.       "You can't do this, I marked you! You belong to us!" The prince exclaimed as Val held him by his collar, bending his legs beneath him. Val shook her head, "No my prince, for I am the Queen, and they belong to *ME*." She said before bringing the dagger down onto his left cheek over and over again until his lower jaw was hardly connected to his skull. Then she dropped his corpse to the floor and gave his head one last kick, spreading blood across the floor like spilled wine before turning to the crowd before her. "Any objections?" She asked. All fell to their knees before their queen.

[lde-talesofnovusanima]

Personal Struggles - ToS Mechanic

This is a mechanic I’ve been playing with in my head for a little while now.  My goal with Tales of Survival is not only to make it a game about surviving the world, but the people in it.  Everyone has their own struggles to face in life, their own goals and baggage, how you come to understand others’ struggles and deal with your own will effect how you play the game.

My notes are listed below, aplogies for the lack of art, this mechanic is purely in my head for now.

--- What if each player started with their own struggles they had to face, their own priorities?  How would these affect not only how they play the game but how they interact with the other players?

What if your character had mistakenly used an addictive "herb" and they would either have to keep taking it or face the withdrawal of going without it?  To continue staying in that high state meant acquiring this drug as often as you would food.  But to go without would mean becoming sick as your body struggles with breaking away from this addiction.  How would you as another player, work alongside or deal with this addict?

Perhaps you had the unfortunate meeting with a couple of bandits who, luckily let you live, but on the terms you would provide them with certain resources every few days.  How would you keep up with their demands and what lengths would you be willing to go to keep your own skin alive in order to satisfy those demands?  Or would you stand against them...together, or alone?

These "Personal Struggles" would add another layer of depth to the game and have a larger impact on the player's interactions with one another.  How do you go about dealing with your personal struggle and how do you handle others when they are going through their own?

How it Works

Each player would start out with a Personal Struggle, a card that describes their situation for them and list any advantages or disadvantages their character has because of it.  It is then up to the player how they face that situation.  Based on how they handle the situation they may get a new card that reflects their actions.

Struggle 1 Addiction (Base Card) > Withdrawal (Card A) > Recovery (Card B)

Struggle 2               > Rebel (Card A)

Bandits-

              > Accepted (Card B) / Abandoned (Card B2)

In Struggle 1, the player has an addiction to a local herb.  The player must continue taking that herb in order to keep from suffering from withdrawal.  However while they are “high” their actions are sometimes out of their control and can lead to mistrust of the other players.  Should they go without the herb either by choice or not, they will undergo an intense “sick” state which will add difficulty to their survival.  However should they overcome it they will be free of the negatives of the addiction. A straight path scenario. You proceed from base, to A, to B. In this particular struggle you could make it to A, withdrawal, only to fall back to the base card, addiction, should you take the herb again.

In Struggle 2, the player has become the target of two bandit brothers.  They continually push the player to harm themselves and the other players by demanding them to give up resources, steal and harm other players, or face the consequences.  The player can choose to take a stand against the bandits which can either result in their freedom or demise, or they could give in and appease the bandit duo.  Card B and B2 show the possibility that a player’s action may not exactly lead to what they expected.  The bandits could choose to accept you as one of their own after passing their “test”, or they could simply leave you to deal with the situation you’ve put yourself in.

Branching path scenario. Your actions will lead to different conclusions to the scenario.

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What do you think of a mechanic based around understanding people?  Essentially scenarios dictated by the players you’re matched with.

[lde-talesofnovusanima]

Visit Original Link

Here’s a little piece of the recordings we’ve done with Zenuel for narrating ToS.  It’s been awhile since our last recording session as the holidays have kept us both busy but it has given me time to think of how the narration will be handled.  But I wanted to discuss it with you guys.

In short, do you think it’s better to have a single, in-depth narrator, or a variety of them even if they don’t go into as much depth with their narration?

Why I ask is something that has come up a few times in development is community involvement and allowing mods or other community content.  In the case of voice acting, working on a very detailed list of lines and responses is possible with one, maybe two actors.  I would still be able to give proper feedback and direction in that scenario, however the moment you open that up to a large number of people directing that becomes too massive a task for one person.  So in short, I would need to simplify the narration quite a bit so that the workload for a cast of narrators is feasible.

What are your thoughts?  Is allowing the voice acting community the option to share their voice through the game worth pursuing at the cost of a simplified narration?  Or should we stick with our guns and just have one detailed narrator for the game?

[lde-talesofnovusanima]

Logo work. Found a design direction we wanted to go and now mainly just figuring out what silhouettes to use and where we like them best.

[lde-talesofnovusanima]

Getting the screens for setting up a game and selecting a character ready as we work towards our alpha. It’s coming along more quickly than expected. What I thought would take a couple weeks has so far mostly been completed in two days.