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Embracing Eternity - Subjective Perspectives

6 years ago1,645 words

Since the previous post, I've completely revised most of the primary gameplay of Embracing Eternity! The new mechanics focus on exploring the subjective nature of the world, and what it's like to see from someone else's eyes.

I'm still experimenting, so none of what I'm going to talk about is set in stone, but as with the previous post, maybe it'll be interesting to see the process anyway.

Essentially, I've done away with the turn-based, RPG 'battles' in a separate arena, so now all the 'action' happens in the same mode in which you explore, as in most games. Rather than attacking things with weapons, though, you talk. Rather than there being one 'talk' button, or having branched dialogue trees in a separate conversation mode, you can bring up a menu thing by holding down a button (the R trigger on an Xbox controller, currently). Here's Gemma, her evil clone Jemma, and Viva on a grand adventure through the afterlife together:



Each character has six sentiments that they can express (it's not confusing at all, using that same word for something different again, no), which they'd accumulate or change as the story went on, maybe. These would be general attitudes, like, say, "Fret", "Joke" (as in the image), "Optimism", "Pessimism", and so on, and they'd each be associated with one of the runes (A/R, F/T, G/J)... which I was also going to call sentiments, but I'll have to rethink that. Maybe the commands can be called 'thoughts' and the runes are called 'sentiments'. Hmm. It's hardly important right now though!

When you select a sentiment to express, the character says something:



(That's Gemma using the 'Wait' command... which isn't really an emotional sentiment, but whatever!)

And if there are any people within range to hear it, they respond in a context-appropriate manner:



Most sentiments (Follow and Wait being notable exceptions) have an 'emotional charge', such that they affect the rapport of monsters or the willpower of allies in the same way as in the previous concept. That is, by matching a sentiment's runes to theirs (the flower above their head shows a character's rune affinities), you can 'heal' them, whereas clashing runes lower rapport or willpower.



You can see a 'damage number' and a reduction in willpower (HP, shown by the core of the flower) here.

The plan is to have monsters talk too, expressing the thoughts that created them verbally. Real inner demons are quite verbal, after all. It would be 'turn-based' in the sense that the monster would say something, then you'd have to say a reply, then it'd reply to your reply, etc, as in a conversation. This would be enforced by having cooldown timers for the spoken sentiments, probably.

When you say something, everyone within a certain radius would be affected, both monsters and allies. That is, unless you come close to someone, in which case you 'bond' to them (as shown by the glowing light around their flower), and your words only affect them.





It'd be extremely dull if these sentiments triggered exactly the same bit of text every single time! So I'm aiming to avoid that by making them contextual, so that the character says different things in different situations using the same commands. It could be conversation-specific, so that they say different things to every monster in response to what it says, so the words are different even if the 'damage' mechanics remain the same. At the very least, there'd be variations on each phrase; in two screenshots there, Gemma is using Fret but saying different things each time.

Once you've built up a monster's rapport fully by using matching sentiments enough times, it doesn't disappear, defeated. Instead, you're able to ask it to follow you (you can also ask your allies to do the same at any time). Monsters 'counter' any sentiments predictably, so if you for example use Fret on a Anguist, it'll always use the same sentiment in response. Monsters' sentiments follow the same targeting rules as characters' meaning that unless they're locked on to someone specific, they'll affect anyone within range. This means that you could get a tamed monster to follow you, then 'trigger' it using a certain command phrase which would make it express a sentiment itself, affecting other monsters or allies. This would be a necessary strategy to overcome monsters that you didn't have the basic sentiments to deal with yourself.

For example, if Gemma had only Grave and Abstract sentiments, she'd be unable to build the rapport of a Jolly/Realistic monster at all, as those sentiments don't match and the effect would be negative. If however she found a monster she could tame, and which replied with Realistic sentiments of its own, she could get it to follow her to where the other monster was and trigger its sentiments using her commands. If that makes sense.

That's the plan so far... but I've yet to code it in the prototype I've got (I've only been working on it for a few hours), so I don't know whether it'll work out well in the long run. Having predictable 'counters' might mean that 'conversations' with monsters would have no room for surprise at all... though maybe only tamed monsters would react reliably. I imagine it'll all become clearer as I continue working on it.

Having context-dependent dialogue may also present issues from a development standpoint... by which I mean it might be a pain in the arse to account for every possibility, or at least enough possibilities to seem interesting. I'll play around with that too and see how it works out.

In addition to that though, there's an additional key mechanic that I've added this time around, which is that of subjective perspectives. Essentially, you could switch between the playable characters (Fey, Vex, Sam Sara, maybe Viva) at any time using a button (L or R currently)... which would reveal the world as they see it. For example, the world to Gemma looks a deep blue, dark, murky, foggy; a representation of what it's like to be lost in - consumed by - a depressive mindset (not that that fits this character as such, but she won't even be in the final game anyway and this is just a prototype!). She also sees her clone, Jemma, as some kind of skanky evil demon.

From Jemma's perspective, however...



...the world is brighter overall, calm and pleasant even, and it's Gemma who's the skanky, evil one!!!

From what I've read of accounts of the afterlife, it seems that it's essentially a construction of belief. The universe itself might very well be, with consensual reality just being a 'crystalised dream' with consciousness being the most fundamental property from which everything else is born, rather than an emergent property of the electric jelly in human heads. Whether or not that's objectively true for the reality we're in, I think it's an interesting concept to explore. Our beliefs really do determine our reality in many undeniable ways, after all - while one person may see a shadow as a friendly waving hand, another might see that same shadow as a dangerous spider ready to strike - so it's interesting to think of that being made more manifest in the non-physical world. The original concept for 'mind monsters' that I've been exploring since Miasmon was of emotions or thoughts being given a sort of solid illusory form, so this is really just an extension of that.

I've also been thinking a lot about subjectivity recently in light of real-world issues like sex and gender... which I'd like to write about in more detail soon (not that I haven't before, but I've had some specific things on my mind). And the fantasy superpower I'd say I wanted if asked isn't something like flight or invisibility, but an 'empathy beam' which you could shoot at others who'd inflict harm, to get them to directly experience what their victims are feeling. The importance and fascination of seeing things from others' perspectives has been a huge keystone in the construction of my own mind for ages, so I like the thought of incorporating it into this game design like this.

It fits with the previous concept in that characters face their monsters alone, but can help each other out. In this, monsters for one character would only be visible to that character; as far as the others can see, there's nothing there. The monster can still hurt the one who can see it whether you're controlling them or not, so you'd have to switch to them to tame it.

This could also easily extend to environmental puzzles. Where one person sees a wall, another sees an open door, and a path beyond it. A metaphor made manifest! The one who sees the wall couldn't walk through that wall, whether they're following you or trying alone, because as far as they can see it's real, meaning that different characters could explore different places and help each other out by using their own perspectives in that way.

It's all still very sketchy, but I think I'm getting closer to the kind of game that might be interesting to make and to play. I'm more interested in making an experience with mechanics that would get people thinking than those that are just purely 'fun', but ideally I'll be able to make it at least somewhat entertaining! I'll keep working on it and see how it goes.