Community Builder

We keep coming back to a game where you're overseeing a group of people in the wilderness. There are so many open questions that we can't even answer, "Is it single or multiplayer?" "What's the core loop?" "What's the deal with combat?" "Is there an overarching story?"

There are a few things we've felt strongly about, though.

We don't want to build a game where the main goal is to not die. We don't want a village where the NPCs starve to death or get themselves blown up if you're not paying attention. People can survive just fine in this world, but you're playing because you want them to thrive.

We want to lean on procedural generation. It's an advantage that we have, it keeps things replayable for the player as well as the devs—because lord knows we're going to have to play a thousand hours of whatever this ends up being. The consistent surprises were my favorite part of Wildermyth, and I wouldn't have been able to stay interested in the game for ten years without them.

We want an environment that's beautiful and mysterious. No post-apocalyptic wastelands here.

We want a game where you can express yourself through your choices. You want to be able to take a screenshot and have that communicate something about what you value as a player. (I'm efficient! I love natural beauty! I'm into technological progress and productivity! I secretly wish I could be a Bear Lord in real life!) It's satisfying to feel like you created something within a game, feeling that ownership over it. We want to give that feeling as much room to grow as we can.

We want a community of characters who are fundamentally likable, or at least who are clearly doing their best. And like in Wildermyth, we want to give the player permission to get attached to them, which means not just yoinking them out from under you for minor gameplay mistakes.

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So uh, where do you start with something like that? Well, you make a terrain generator. And you make a character generator. You make the characters move around on the terrain. You have them fight monsters and see if you like how that feels. And you make an architecture-setter-upper. 

All those things are hard at first. Unfortunately, we aren't starting with an obvious game loop this time. But you've got to start somewhere. I miss having a project to chew on at my leisure.