Hello
Again.
First of all, big thanks to everyone who played SURVIVE and Spacepods and gave us
some feedback on those to games. Having little game jams and
challenges is something we want to continue. Keep an eye on our
twitter for more info on little games we make that you can play free
in your browsers.
Last week
we skipped our blog that was going to reveal some information about
the Lore and Setting in HQ-77, so we will go over all that in this
blog. We know from previous blogs that the game world is built from
an assortment of hexagon tiles. What we do not know is what this
world is, where and when it exists, or why we should care about
living here. Strap on your adventuring boots, this is gonna be a
long post.
So let us
begin by telling you that this world exists in an ancient time when the magic
of the elder gods still held power over this world. In this old world
there are many ancient beings including, Golems, Were-Men of all kinds, giant
insects and dragons. The dragons are the physical embodiment of the
elder gods. There are also the sentient(playable) races of this world. The
elder gods are the beings responsible for creating the first 3
sentient races. The following is a brief chronicle of their ancient
histories and how 3 became 8.
In
the beginning of time the elder gods created 3 races, Elves, Gnomes
and Trolls. They lived in relative peace and harmony due to being
separated geographically. At some point a group of Elves moved out of
the forest and into the grasslands, these Elves gave up there
immortal nature to be given the gift of science from one of the elder gods. Over time these
elves evolved into what we call Mankind. The nature of Mankind
however, is easily corrupted. A group of sages and wizards still longed for a
connection with nature and the gift of immortality So they left the cities of man and moved to the northern end of the
grasslands. But instead of returning to the old gods of the forest
they began worshipping the beast gods. This was a grave mistake, the
beast god took these men and twisted their flesh combining it with
that of animals. This brought about the race of the Satyr. The Gnomes have a similar story to tell. The Gnomes have
long lived on the southwestern tip of the world, they love the
marshes and the trees that grow there. There were at one point 3
prominent tribes among the gnomes. But now there is only one. You
see, one of the patriarchs of a tribe once found a cave, and in this
cave he found a crystal. This crystal mesmerized him and after
learning of its magical properties, he began searching every inch of
the cave, but finding no more he resolved to travel by boat around
the world till he found more crystals. He took his 3rd
of the Gnomish peoples and sailed east sticking to the coast. And after
many days at sea he spotted mountains on the northeastern coast of
world. He settled in these mountains and through the passage of time
and the digging of deep mines, these Gnomes ceased being Gnomes and
became Dwarves. There was however a great rift between the last 2
Gnomish tribes. Half thought the Dwarves were right in their quest
for crystals and the power they held, the other half held fast to the
swamp and the traditions of their forefathers. So after many debates
and council meeting the second tribe of the Gnomes moved away from
the swamp and into the badlands in the south. The harsh dry
environment turned these gnomes into hard and tenacious people. The
began worshipping the Djinn of the desert. After many generations
they ceased being Gnomes at all. Their worship of the Djinn had
transformed them into Goblins. While this ancient history was taking
place all across the lands, the Trolls were beginning to dwell in the
northern arctic lands. Upon encountering Trolls for the first time in
the northern edges of the forest, the Elf king sent envoys to them in
hopes of forging an alliance. The alliance was born in a royal
marriage, and with it the race of the Orc. Peace existed between
these peoples for some time till a high born Orc laid claim to the
Elven throne. This caused a war in the north. In the end the Orc
Prince and his people left the Troll kingdom and settled in the
tundra west of the northern forest. There is peace in the land, but
it is an uneasy one at best. Rogue Orcs raid the Elven lands, Satyr’s
attack cities and caravans of Man, and the Goblins are beginning to
cut into the swamp land of their distant relatives. This is the world
you will shape for the better or worse is your decision.
There are
8 playable races in HQ-77. They are listed below with a few words to
give them flavor.
Dwarves- strong, stout, loud. - Mountains/Cave
Elves- Graceful, Silent, Deadly. - Forest
Gnomes- Small, Ingenious, Crafty. - Swamp
Goblins- Swift , Devious, Tenacious. - Desert
Man- Determined, Intelligent, Charismatic. - Grasslands
Orcs- Hard, Cold, Calculating. - Tundra
Satyrs- Energetic, Musical, Demonic. - Grasslands
Trolls- Brutish, Unyielding, Large. - Arctic
From this
list we can begin to shape in our minds the images of these races and
where they come from. Due to the game being about shaping your own
story, no race is Evil and no race is Good. Since no race is
necessarily good or evil, you may ask what drives the story? The
only answer to this is YOU! The player pick his races, then sets off
on an adventure of his/her own design. Will you unite nations? Steal
riches from kings? Wage war on the elder gods themselves? The story
of HQ-77 is one that you will right. Your pen may be a sword, or bow,
or the words from your lips.
So there
is a brief over view of the Lore of HQ-77. Our next post will contain
a map and further description of the setting, and cultural styles of
the 8 playable races.
Before we
close this post, we would like to bring some attention to a game from
last weeks post. The game is Spacepods. Its a game we kinda built
just for fun, but its becoming a pretty big project here at the
office. After making a simple prototype and posting it on the gamedev
subreddit, we got tons of feedback. People had ideas, suggestions
wanted more so we gave it to them. We spent a good amount of time
last week polishing up the prototype and making it into a fully
playable arcade style game. We got in touch with a musician and had
him lay down some sweet tracks and now the game is fully playable on
our website. Spacepods We strongly suggest you go there and play it. Try
beating our developers high scores. If you can do that we might throw
you a party, or let you in on the alpha testing for
HQ-77. At the least, give it a play and leave us some feedback in the
comments below. If enough people enjoy Spacepods we will continue
dedicating time to it. We have a list of power up and multiplayer
ideas, as well as a single player campaign.
That's all
for this post, tune in next time for more exciting news on HQ-77 and
the other things happening here at Bitforge Studios.
Want to
know more about what’s happening at BitForge Studios? Follow us on
Twitter!
@BitforgeStudios
No comments:
Post a Comment