[001] Codename "Shuffled World" Devlog

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Recently, I've been working on two things. Full time, as Analgesic Productions, Marina and I are working on our 5th game together. That's been going on since we released Sephonie in April, although we were doing some planning/prototyping since the end of 2021.

The game I'm talking about here is currently a solo side project that uses tools/code from Analgesic's 5th game - codenamed "Shuffled World", is  a treasure-hunt game where you "build the world" connecting different (hand-designed) rooms from different sets (e.g. Forest, Red World, Suburbs) together. How do you 'build the world...?'

You can use keys! (Well... that's the idea.) As a simple example, using a Forest Key gives a higher % of entering a Forest Room. Maybe you can enter a special forest glade if you create enough Forest Rooms. A "Same Key" will guarantee the next room is the same type. 

As you explore the world for treasure, you'll find more keys, larger areas that are 'properly connected', as well as people/hints that should help you with finding other treasures. As you progress the game, you unlock new "room sets", which will be pulled from as you build the world. By the end, exploring should become unmanageable without proper use of tools...

If the world gets too big, you have to reset it and try exploring from a random starting room. So it's best to just have one goal in mind. For example, if you're looking for a treasure associated with Red World, it might be good to bring along some Red World Keys. Maybe you should also figure out how to reach Red World Town, you might be able to figure out what other kinds of keys would be useful...

Well, that is the general idea. Most of this is just ideas... like if you find a room you like, you can even put it into a 'bookmark key' to reconnect the room to the world later, even after a world reset.

There won't be combat in the game: it's probably most similar to a mix of combat-less RPG Maker games, light 3D platformers, 'riddle puzzle' games, or point-and-click adventures.

Anyways, this game uses tools from Marina and I's next game! (But we are waiting to show that...)

Right now the side project's inspirations are things like randomizers, walking around tokyo IRL, stuff like secret levels in Binding of Isaac, scrapped unworkable ideas for Sephonie, "pulling" in gacha games, the randomness of roguelites, and old ideas like 'shuffled world' i wrote about last year.

https://melodicambient.neocities.org/posts/2021-02-27ShuffledWorldPart2.html

The story for this game has been bouncing between a bunch of short story/game/novel ideas I've had over the past year or two. Anyways, more on it as I find time to progress! And hopefully I'll be able to talk about Marina and I's next game soon.