Gahbreeil
Scholar
Attention
You, the Player, are about to witness an Artificial Reality as similar to Real Life as possible within developing the project. The Development Team wishes you and your Player Character good luck in surviving the realities of a Medieval Setting in a Fantasy Reality.
It is the Development Team's utmost hope that you will enjoy the Massive Single-Player Role-Playing Game within a mature mindset and approach to the topic at hand.
You, the Player, are about to witness an Artificial Reality as similar to Real Life as possible within developing the project. The Development Team wishes you and your Player Character good luck in surviving the realities of a Medieval Setting in a Fantasy Reality.
It is the Development Team's utmost hope that you will enjoy the Massive Single-Player Role-Playing Game within a mature mindset and approach to the topic at hand.
Demo Drawings
Each in 2180x1538
Each in 2180x1538
Massive Single-Player Role-Playing Game:
A Theatre of Life within a Sword and Sorcery setting
Mortal
Title of the Setting:
Scythe
06/09/24
List of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Concept
III. Game Framework
IV. Plot
Owner of Intellectual Property
Lead Designer
14/01/23
Gabriel Greene
Introduction
A Theatre of Life within a Sword and Sorcery setting
Mortal
Title of the Setting:
Scythe
06/09/24
List of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Concept
III. Game Framework
IV. Plot
Owner of Intellectual Property
Lead Designer
14/01/23
Gabriel Greene
Introduction
Date of delivery: 6 years
Genre of video game: A Simulation in the style of Role-Playing Games, Adventure games and Real Time Strategies
Genre of Plot: Sword and Sorcery
Setting: The world known as the Scythe
Player view: A choice of Isometric, FPP and TPP
Game Framework: 3D open world, 3D models with fluid and vivid animations, retro graphics, comic/painted textures, 2D interface, an advancing time and light source system, extensive scripting
System requirements: Next generation of Consoles/Personal Computers, advanced Motherboard, Graphics Card and CPU as well as copious amounts of RAM and space on the SSD
Introduction: Mortal is an open world Simulation video game for players above the age of 18 that allows for the type of immersion and freedom that has never before been experienced when playing a video game. The design document describes everything about the project and the finished product. All parts of the project are meant to be novel and non-copyright infringing, no part of the video game is based on the intellectual property of other persons nor copyrighted ideas unless stated otherwise. Any similarities are coincidental.
Genre of video game: A Simulation in the style of Role-Playing Games, Adventure games and Real Time Strategies
Genre of Plot: Sword and Sorcery
Setting: The world known as the Scythe
Player view: A choice of Isometric, FPP and TPP
Game Framework: 3D open world, 3D models with fluid and vivid animations, retro graphics, comic/painted textures, 2D interface, an advancing time and light source system, extensive scripting
System requirements: Next generation of Consoles/Personal Computers, advanced Motherboard, Graphics Card and CPU as well as copious amounts of RAM and space on the SSD
Introduction: Mortal is an open world Simulation video game for players above the age of 18 that allows for the type of immersion and freedom that has never before been experienced when playing a video game. The design document describes everything about the project and the finished product. All parts of the project are meant to be novel and non-copyright infringing, no part of the video game is based on the intellectual property of other persons nor copyrighted ideas unless stated otherwise. Any similarities are coincidental.
Concept
Concept: Mortal, at core, is a Simulation game. A Massive Single-Player Role-Playing Game in which the Playable Character is the same as the Non-Playable Characters in terms of Characteristics, Skills, Journals, Inventories and the Array of Actions present in the video game.
Within the Simulation, Characteristics define the mind and body of a Character while the Skills reflect what the Character has learned.
Journals contain all that a Character might know, Inventories are lists of what a Character carries and what a Character might own.
The Array of Actions is all that a Character can act out and so, it covers not only combat, movement and dialogues yet also looking at and using items within the game world as well as those out of the carried inventory.
The Array of Actions is meant to be a truly revolutionary experience for the Player. The Plot of the Simulation, in other words the Main Quest, is a folk tale or legend which has foundations in reality and life upon Earth during the Medieval Ages.
In this legend, the Player takes the role of the Playable Character, a male or female Character of the human species which inhabit the setting. The character is created by the Player at the beginning of the Single-Player experience.
Although the Main Quest exists, the Player does not have to advance the Plot or even begin it. It is essentially a Side Quest amidst an abundance of other Side Quests which are the Story Quests as opposed to the Generic Quests which happen based on the Characters using the Array of Actions and the respective Journals.
A Journal records all that a Character does and sees, allowing for the Simulation to generate Generic Quests based on the entirety of what the Characters do. And so, Actions, Relationships, Quests and even Inventories might lead to new Quests and affect the world within the Simulation.
In other words, each action has a potential reaction. Unlike most of the Story Quests, a Generic Quest can be completed by any Character. As Characters see or participate in events, their Journals are automatically updated and so, Quests can be given to other Characters through dialogue as all Characters present can converse with other Characters in the same way the PC can.
However, Quests are not the entirety of the artificial life of a Character as Travel, Dialogues, Trade, Relationships, Crafting, Work and Combat can happen outside of Quests.
A Character that works as a blacksmith will craft without any Quest in order to increase Skills, improve characteristics and earn coin, any of the Characters will make attempts at both Friendship and Romance through Dialogues, all of the Characters will try to find Work, some Characters work through Combat, some through Travel. A Characters Work might be Thievery.
If a Character might, within scripted roaming of an open world, travel between locations, a Character can switch between different types of Work based on variables, can attack the Characters that are foes, converse with the Characters that are friends, decide to find Work when there is no coin in the Inventory, fulfill other Characters Quests based on receiving mention of these through Dialogue.
If crime is rampant in a town, the NPCs living within might leave the settlement to search for better lifes elsewhere. If a town is succesful and wealthy, it will draw NPCs to live there.
Yet commoners who work the land in hamlets will not desire to move to a town since their Characteristics and Skills are different to the ones of a town thief, a merchant or a craftsman to name a few.
Commoners will not rush into combat either, the life of these Characters is inherently peaceful and so, other characters might and will find employment as a guard or mercenary. Perhaps, even an adventurer.
In the ongoing quest of survival, food and drink as well as equipment and supplies are a driving force in the lives of all Characters as the Characters trade, talk, sleep, fight, work and travel the setting in order to achieve their goals and fulfill their desires and everyday needs.
To summarise and expand on the concept of the video game, all NPCs as well as the PC play a role in Mortal.
When a Character cuts the purse of a merchant, the merchant might notice right away and raise alarm if there are other Characters present nearby, the merchant might also notice later on and so, approaches the guard or his private mercenaries, giving them a quest to catch the thief based on the exact item missing.
If a Character kills another Character in combat, the family of the deceased Characters mourns the passing of the husband, son or father, depending on what that particular NPC did in the Simulation as evident by the Journals as well as the entire database of past events that is hidden to all Characters as each particular Journal grows thicker with the passing of time.
The simulation of the life of each Character is meant to allow whole communities, the world, to feature in gameplay, not through some form of storytelling or empty and meaningless animations yet as an Artificial Reality.
As for the Plot, the Main Quest is meant to allow the Player Character to become a wealthy and famous adventurer by the end of the Quest. Forgotten keeps and dungeons scattered across the continent serve the purpose of creating the Sword and Sorcery aspect of the Simulation and that is what the Main Quest is meant to represent.
As the Simulation is meant to allow the Player to take part in the life of a community in a town or the countryside as at least half of the video game experience, becoming a traveller who can, either with the help of a group or alone, brave the wilderness and delve into dungeons is not an easy path nor task.
The Main Quest is supposed to be a classical RPG tale of defeating monsters and other adventurers that wander the setting in search of treasures and the Player is not forced to take part in the Plot.
Instead, the PC can become a town thief, a farmer, a vagabond, a blacksmith, guard or even a pleasure seeker without much experience in any way of life.
To become wealthy enough to settle, powerful enough to master Sorcery, strong and agile enough to become the greatest adventurer of the setting are just a few of the goals that the Player might choose.
The RTS aspect of the video game is the management of the PC and any followers chosen by the Player as well as owned buildings and land.
As the Adventure part of the Simulation is the Array of Actions and the Dialogues, the Simulation is fully explained, the Concept abridges what the game is and what the Player is able to do. All of which are further explained in the Game Framework.
And the Player is essentially able to do everything and anything. From buying a flagon of cold mead in a roadside tavern in order to destress his PC to working in a silver mine or befriending and falling in love with a Character that the Player deems interesting.
The Player can enjoy a primarily mouse/gamepad oriented experience within which the PC's and the possible Companions' Arrays of Actions can be accessed easily without a keyboard which serves as an aide to the Player when using a keyboard and a mouse.
Without any further ado, the entirety of the gameplay and all of its parts are explained forthwith.
Within the Simulation, Characteristics define the mind and body of a Character while the Skills reflect what the Character has learned.
Journals contain all that a Character might know, Inventories are lists of what a Character carries and what a Character might own.
The Array of Actions is all that a Character can act out and so, it covers not only combat, movement and dialogues yet also looking at and using items within the game world as well as those out of the carried inventory.
The Array of Actions is meant to be a truly revolutionary experience for the Player. The Plot of the Simulation, in other words the Main Quest, is a folk tale or legend which has foundations in reality and life upon Earth during the Medieval Ages.
In this legend, the Player takes the role of the Playable Character, a male or female Character of the human species which inhabit the setting. The character is created by the Player at the beginning of the Single-Player experience.
Although the Main Quest exists, the Player does not have to advance the Plot or even begin it. It is essentially a Side Quest amidst an abundance of other Side Quests which are the Story Quests as opposed to the Generic Quests which happen based on the Characters using the Array of Actions and the respective Journals.
A Journal records all that a Character does and sees, allowing for the Simulation to generate Generic Quests based on the entirety of what the Characters do. And so, Actions, Relationships, Quests and even Inventories might lead to new Quests and affect the world within the Simulation.
In other words, each action has a potential reaction. Unlike most of the Story Quests, a Generic Quest can be completed by any Character. As Characters see or participate in events, their Journals are automatically updated and so, Quests can be given to other Characters through dialogue as all Characters present can converse with other Characters in the same way the PC can.
However, Quests are not the entirety of the artificial life of a Character as Travel, Dialogues, Trade, Relationships, Crafting, Work and Combat can happen outside of Quests.
A Character that works as a blacksmith will craft without any Quest in order to increase Skills, improve characteristics and earn coin, any of the Characters will make attempts at both Friendship and Romance through Dialogues, all of the Characters will try to find Work, some Characters work through Combat, some through Travel. A Characters Work might be Thievery.
If a Character might, within scripted roaming of an open world, travel between locations, a Character can switch between different types of Work based on variables, can attack the Characters that are foes, converse with the Characters that are friends, decide to find Work when there is no coin in the Inventory, fulfill other Characters Quests based on receiving mention of these through Dialogue.
If crime is rampant in a town, the NPCs living within might leave the settlement to search for better lifes elsewhere. If a town is succesful and wealthy, it will draw NPCs to live there.
Yet commoners who work the land in hamlets will not desire to move to a town since their Characteristics and Skills are different to the ones of a town thief, a merchant or a craftsman to name a few.
Commoners will not rush into combat either, the life of these Characters is inherently peaceful and so, other characters might and will find employment as a guard or mercenary. Perhaps, even an adventurer.
In the ongoing quest of survival, food and drink as well as equipment and supplies are a driving force in the lives of all Characters as the Characters trade, talk, sleep, fight, work and travel the setting in order to achieve their goals and fulfill their desires and everyday needs.
To summarise and expand on the concept of the video game, all NPCs as well as the PC play a role in Mortal.
When a Character cuts the purse of a merchant, the merchant might notice right away and raise alarm if there are other Characters present nearby, the merchant might also notice later on and so, approaches the guard or his private mercenaries, giving them a quest to catch the thief based on the exact item missing.
If a Character kills another Character in combat, the family of the deceased Characters mourns the passing of the husband, son or father, depending on what that particular NPC did in the Simulation as evident by the Journals as well as the entire database of past events that is hidden to all Characters as each particular Journal grows thicker with the passing of time.
The simulation of the life of each Character is meant to allow whole communities, the world, to feature in gameplay, not through some form of storytelling or empty and meaningless animations yet as an Artificial Reality.
As for the Plot, the Main Quest is meant to allow the Player Character to become a wealthy and famous adventurer by the end of the Quest. Forgotten keeps and dungeons scattered across the continent serve the purpose of creating the Sword and Sorcery aspect of the Simulation and that is what the Main Quest is meant to represent.
As the Simulation is meant to allow the Player to take part in the life of a community in a town or the countryside as at least half of the video game experience, becoming a traveller who can, either with the help of a group or alone, brave the wilderness and delve into dungeons is not an easy path nor task.
The Main Quest is supposed to be a classical RPG tale of defeating monsters and other adventurers that wander the setting in search of treasures and the Player is not forced to take part in the Plot.
Instead, the PC can become a town thief, a farmer, a vagabond, a blacksmith, guard or even a pleasure seeker without much experience in any way of life.
To become wealthy enough to settle, powerful enough to master Sorcery, strong and agile enough to become the greatest adventurer of the setting are just a few of the goals that the Player might choose.
The RTS aspect of the video game is the management of the PC and any followers chosen by the Player as well as owned buildings and land.
As the Adventure part of the Simulation is the Array of Actions and the Dialogues, the Simulation is fully explained, the Concept abridges what the game is and what the Player is able to do. All of which are further explained in the Game Framework.
And the Player is essentially able to do everything and anything. From buying a flagon of cold mead in a roadside tavern in order to destress his PC to working in a silver mine or befriending and falling in love with a Character that the Player deems interesting.
The Player can enjoy a primarily mouse/gamepad oriented experience within which the PC's and the possible Companions' Arrays of Actions can be accessed easily without a keyboard which serves as an aide to the Player when using a keyboard and a mouse.
Without any further ado, the entirety of the gameplay and all of its parts are explained forthwith.
Game Framework
Mouse and Keyboard Map: LMB – Movement, Actions, Choices. RMB – Array of Actions. Mouse Wheel - Zoom In and Out. TMB - Rotating the Camera. WSAD - Movement. Spacebar – Jumping. Shift – Running. Ctrl – Sneaking. Q - Pause. J – Journal. Escape - Menu.
Engine Details: Within the video game, the Player's focus is on the Playable Character which is, by default, placed at the centre of the screen.
This is as of the Bird's Eye view camera which is a moveable Isometric camera which can be rotated in a full circle around the PC as well as zoomed in or out.
As the Player rotates the 3D environment, the Player might find something obstructing the view of the PC and its surroundings and in that case, the obstacles become translucent or a 85% opaque.
While it might seem that the days of Isometric RPGs are long gone, the genre of Real Time Strategies will never leave the Isometric camera.
That is why this project aims to develop a video game in which the Player can seemlessly move between the action paced First Person Player camera and the Isometric/Third Person Player cameras.
If it seems that the project is overly ambitious, it can surely be proven that it is not so. Both the FPP and the TPP cameras are variants of the Isometric one. The video game world would have to be projected by the Personal Computer or Console either way.
That is where innovative techniques such as the one described in the next sentence come into play. A system of seemless loading between cubes that would average at around a 27 Isometric game screens at maximum zoom out.
The one which the Player Character is within and all the surrounding ones to allow for travel between these cubes.
This means that the models and textures, as well as the entire graphical side of the game, would be processed by the Personal Computer/Console only in the cube in which the PC would currently be in. The movements and actions of Characters would be processed without graphics in the entirety of the sandbox map with the exception of the cube in which the PC is within.
As the Player leads the PC to move into a new cube by moving into the border subcubes, the previous one is cleared while the new one is loaded. When the PC moves into a border subcube, 9 subcubes are deactivated while 9 are loaded, maintaining a procedurally projected game world.
In other words, the entire 3D map of the world within the video game is divided into cubes and only the one in which the Player Character is will be the one fully loaded. The PC can move back into the subcube in which it was because it is still fully loaded.
Only widescreen graphic display resolutions are available in the graphics setting of the video game.
In a 3D environment there is more than the directions of a compass, there is also altitude.
To represent altitude in the video game, subcubes exist upwards as well as downwards in order to allow for buildings to have many stories or floors, for rooftops to be an area available to the Characters and for dungeons, tombs and caverns to be explorable.
FPP and TPP cameras would allow looking up, the distance covered by the cube would be followed by fog of war.
Light Source and Time: The Light Source system is based on day and night as well as light sources smaller than the actual light source of the setting and so, it calculates shadows. Shadows allow for more efficient sneaking and can also allow invisibility for the Character whom is hiding within.
A person standing in the light of the day will not notice a person sneaking in the shadow of a building's west side while the light shines from the east.
The shadow will essentially be too dark to pierce with eyesight unless someone enters it and adapts to the darkness.
The shadow system is not a real time shadow simulation yet instead a collection of translucent engine objects that define whether an area classifies as an area within shadow.
As the Setting's Light Source continues its cycle, some of these objects disappear in order to appear elsewhere unless there are light sources present in these places.
Carried torches and lanterns function in the same way a static torch or lantern does. All of the small Light Sources remove parts of the shadow areas which function as the aforementioned objects or overlays upon the projection of the map.
A Circle of Vision which is meant to represent both sight and hearing of a Character. It can be improved with Skills or Characteristics and it works against other Characters' Skills and Characteristics when a Character sneaks. The circle of vision does not pierce shadows which might disappear when a Character carrying a lightsource enters a shadow area/object.
Animations, colliding models: The Simulation is also meant to offer fluid animations and an array of movement within the video game, walking through crowds, jumping and running, climbing and sneaking, skimming between Characters or objects as the Character models collide within the environment.
Generic Adventures: Events that happen around a Character are recorded in that Character's Journal based on the database of events that might happen within the video game. In example, a script activates when an NPC dies and the death is recorded into the Journal of all the Characters who were present or found out.
Similarly, a script would activate if the PC stole something from an NPC and the NPC would note and offer the quest to the guard. Or the other way around, after all, NPCs can steal from the PC.
This allows for Generic Quests and adventures to happen in the simulation. The database aforementioned contains all possible types of quests and events and scripting allows for these quests and events to happen as artificial lives progress within the simulation.
Countless adventures await based on random occurences, or events, happening based on the NPCs travelling and the work that the NPCs perform. This includes animals and beasts. These events exist beside the actual quests which form the Plot as well as an abundance of side quests which can merge with AI created events within the storyline.
In example, the antagonism of 2 Characters leads to a side quest appearing while it may also not appear or disappear within the passage of events and advancing time.
A character will seek out the people, directions and even lore upon having a need to learn of any of the aforementioned matters. A generic quest, side quest or even need for items or a place to sleep at. A drunk stumbling upon his way home as an example.
Quests: Each Quest is in fact a topic within the journal which has a description. This means that each quest is a journal entry, the generic adventures as well.
Reading: When the PC opens a book or a letter, any form of script, the journal opens and the text is presented therein, under Lore. Time passes at 50% when the journal is opened. Bookmarks organise the journal.
Journal Bookmarks: 1. Characteristics and Skills. 2. Quests. 3. Journal. 4. Lore. 5. Relationships. 6. Inventories. 7. Enterprise.
Characteristics and Skills: Strength, Agility, Endurance and Intellect as well as Sense, these are the Characteristics of a Character.
The Skills are based on movement, combat and dialogue as well as work and the Array of Actions and are divided into the usable Skills and the passive Skills.
Stealth, climbing, physical endurance, melee and ranged combat, haggling, work related Skills, lying and sorcery to name a few.
Knowledge points are spent on a passive Skill as all Characteristics are essentially passive in order to spend knowledge on usable Skills and Passive Skills or a few.
Sense is a variation on sanity and wit in speech merged into one. It is the valid reasoning of social behaviour and norms, even the world past intellect which constitutes knowledge and natural predispositions.
Sanity takes its toll through gaining stress in combat, work and life. In diplomacy and deceit all is possible through exactly wit and cunning which are sense.
Skills are connected to the possible occupations or work, in the end there are 35.
The Strength Skills cover Blacksmithing that includes production of metal trade goods, nails, horseshoes, hinges, locks, perhaps even coated rooftiles as well as Melee combat, Farming, Mining and even manipulation of objects as well as a set of special skills named Heroic Strength.
All Characteristics include the same amount of skills. This leaves 5 unique Heroic Skills.
The Usable Skills are not neccessary nor required, the point of the Skill Lists is to govern artificial lifes similarly to the percentages of health, fatigue and so on. Passive Skills define all a character might know, Usable skills are an addition and gameplay improvement.
In example, Melee: Cleave, Skewer, Bash (Usable Skills) that replace a normal attack in order to achieve some goal. Dodge, counter and parry can affect any of these usable Melee Skills. Parrying, Shield proficiency, Wielding two-handed. (Passive Skills)
Might affects Melee in the same way that Stealth might affect Archery or Fortitude might affect Carpentry.
Characteristic Skills:
Strength – 1. Melee 2. Might 3. Carpentry 4. Construction 5. Fishing 6. Blacksmithing 7. Heroic Strength
Agility – 1. Archery 2. Athletics 3. Stealth 4. Thievery 5. Tailoring 6. Leatherworking 7. Heroic Agility
Endurance – 1. Vigour 2. Fortitude 3. Courage 4. Perception 5. Farming 6. Mining 7. Heroic Endurance
Intellect – 1. Wit 2. Cunning 3. Herbalism 4. Shopkeeping 5. Management 6. SorceryHalf 7. Heroic Intellect
Sense – 1. Haggling 2. Deceit 3. Lyrical 4. Art 5. Strain 6. SorceryHalf 7. Heroic Sense
Knowledge Points: Emerging victorious over a group of bandits, succesfully crafting an item or finishing work on something allows a Character to gain some SAEIS Knowledge Points.
Knowledge is divided into the 5 groups based on how it was earned as well as general knowledge and is automatically distributed into the appropriate characteristic.
When accessing the journal, the Player can obtain new Skills with a characteristic's KPs and improve the Skills that are already known.
Although KPs might come in abundance, perfect Characteristics and all available Skills cannot be attained by a single Character during a playthrough. It is possible to be skilled in many professions yet not in all.
As was mentioned, Knowledge Points amassed through deeds are used to improve Passive Skills and unlock Usable Skills. Forging a sword would amount to a few KPs, the same amount that shooting an arrow succesfully at a living target would.
In example, a blacksmith gains 5 KPs upon a successful finale to forging a longsword, a hunter gains 5 KPs upon killing a stag with a longbow. A vital source strike and killing the stag in one strike would amount up to a 10 KPs.
In general, "heroic" Skills award more KPs than "mundane" ones. Thievery, Combat, Sorcery are the "heroic" Skills.
"Mundane" tasks award less KPs as the Passive Skills improve. "Heroic" tasks award the same amount of KPs, always.
A stronger blacksmith will take less time to forge a, for example, claymore. A really good blacksmith might even forge an artefact. Items that are more difficult to craft award more KPs than the ones which are easier.
There are more Usable Skills and Passive Skills in combat than in work and so, more experience is earned in combat related Skills rather than in, for example, carpentry.
Health, Stress and Fatigue: Wounds or damage as well as pain dealt to a Character equals loss of the health percentage and a rise of the fatigue percentage respectively.
Pain lowers a Character's fatigue percentage as a Character receives it, resulting in possible loss of consciousness at a hundred percent fatigue.
Wounds can be treated with herbalism knowledge and appropriate medicines while resting only alleviates pain which also represents bruises, long term rising of the fatigue percentage.
Fatigue regenerates slowly, health does not. Thirst and hunger as well as stress to complete the 5 percentages that rule life within the setting.
Alcohol inebriates the Character who uses it. Not only does the Character who has partaken lose some social Skills, they also receive a penalty to all dice rolls within the system. The status of inebriation starts after a Character has drunk a bottle of hard drink or 4 of a softer variant.
The penalties all vanish in time or through sleeping. One cannot decide how long one sleeps as when sober, it is always the maximum value of a one night sleep while Characters that are not drunk can nap as well through deciding to sleep less than the maximum resting period of 12 hours.
There are no benefits to being drunk past reducing stress even though it is a popular activity. Tobacco drains fatigue and offers only a reduction of stress lesser than alcohol in the form of an activity that Characters enjoy partaking in, the same as drinking alcohol.
As for hemp, it raises the maximum fatigue while rising the current amount the Character has besides being an activity of the aforementioned sort as well.
It is a peculiar substance that is not used by most yet it allows for a deep waking rest and so, has it's place within the world of the setting.
Hemp and some other herbs as well as alcohol heighten the pain threshold or when pain activates and lessen the pain acquired by a Character as well. Open wounds cause pain over time.
Furthermore, if a character becomes obese, which is possible through eating more than hunger requires daily, the character loses some agility and has an additional agility cap which prevents the character from becoming too agile.
Hunger and Thirst will, upon draining fully, affect Fatigue, raising it.
Array of Actions: The Array of Actions is a list or menu that allows for the following 6 options which expand into further lists: Use, Inspect, Combat, Sorcery, Dialogue, Journal, Work.
The action of "Cutpurse" is not visible in the Array of Actions until KPs are spent on acquiring the usable skill within the skill of Thievery.
All Usable Skills are a part of the Array of Actions and depending on the Skill in question, need to be acquired or learned.
Dialogues and Activities: Conversations within the Simulation work through the 8 points of the Dialogue Star: People, Lore, Directions and Work, Friendship, Romance, Trade as well as Grouping.
All of the aforementioned continue into lists of topics that have descriptions and can lead towards further lists of topics.
The descriptions of topics are essentially dialogue lines that are randomed with each conversation. These should be 1 or 2 sentence long for a quick exchange of words, the statistic of Sense and the Skills that it governs would allow for different options instead of the generic, quite similarly to Intellect or Stress.
Characters and items, locations present in the setting, trade and thievery, romance branches such as flirting or dedication, friendship branches and so on are the topics present in the lists at the points of the DS.
Chosen topics affect the availability of future topics as does the Relationship System. Group conversations can happen as well. Up to 5 Characters can talk simultaneously with the Characters speaking in turns.
Essentially, the Player Character can approach same as he or she can be approached by Non-Playable Characters.
The Player uses the right mouse button to pick the option of dialogue out of the Array of Actions in order to converse with an NPC or a group of NPCs, that is how the radial menu of the Dialogue Star appears upon the game screen.
The Player chooses the option of Lore which is visible only as a randomed dialogue line of the sort, ie. "Might I ask you of..." and this way a list of topics appears, quite similar to the Inventory system.
Locations, as one example, work through Characters giving one another directions from the nearest landmark, location, building or roadsign.
The Player can choose, for an example, the Morgrayn Castle topic which is visible as "the Morgrayn Castle." and this way the dialogue continues with the NPC answering the PC based on their Journal.
If the NPC does not know of the location, only the topic that would be visible to the player as "I do not know of Morgrayn Castle." is available to the NPC and it chooses this option or a rude variant of "I do not know." based on the variables.
"I do not know." is essentially the topic but the sentence might appear as a dialogue line. If the NPC does have Morgrayn Castle Lore or Directions within their Journal they might answer with the information the Player is looking for.
If the Character which was asked does not know of the location, a Lore topic, the Character gains the Lore topic in it's Journal.
Non-Playable Characters stop their loitering to talk to other Characters in their free time and stop their tasks to talk when in need to do so.
The Player Character encounters NPCs wanting to speak to him or her and stopping beside to indicate the possibility of a conversation through the dialogue line or description of the topic the engine chose appearing above the head of the NPC.
Beside work there is tobacco and drink, flirting, merriment and rejoycing, dancing amidst many other activities for all Characters to enjoy.
The adventure game within Mortal can be narrowed down to the Dialogue Star which functions as an innovative way of presenting conversations to the Player and the Point and Click Adventure that exists within the Simulation.
Inspecting, applying force, opening, closing, climbing, all done by right clicking to access the deeds and Usable Skills menu which is presented as a screen within the game screen that appears upon right clicking.
Left clicking within the simulation serves its purpose to walk and run as well as attack when within combat started by the NPCs or by the PC through the right click menu.
To discern between looking at a door and applying force to it, the Player clicks the right mouse button which offers the list of possible interactions when activated, some options are invisible depending on what was right clicked, the Player cannot "Open" an NPC.
Personal inventory is presented within the journal. Locations as well as people, work, notes and so on are scribed automatically within to allow the scripting to perform it's best. It also includes the Skill book.
The Journal also includes inventories connected to owned land plots. The Journal updates the inventories when accessing them while on the actual land plot.
The world is inhabited by many Characters and so, holidays such as medieval festivities centred around religion or lack of work exist.
Dialogue choices are not recorded in the database of events, only relations between people and Generic Quests are.
Romance, sex and children: There are 3 stages of life present in the Simulation. Toddler, essentially an item in the game world where it can be seen as a crib, child which is from the age of 8 to 18 and adult which is from 18 until death. Children are presented as 13-14 year olds.
Children function as adults yet cannot have sex, gain less stress and have weaker characteristics and so, all skills are weaker, the handicap disappears upon adulthood.
Sex is presented in the game through 3 or 4 paintings and romantic music playing after the fade out and before the fade back into the game upon the action of sex.
Naturally, violence between Children is undesirable. NPCs will almost never do. An adult NPC attacking a child would incur massive Stress disadvantages, killing one as well. The other way around as well.
Age: Characters age up to a 80 years of life before passing away because of natural reasons.
Work, Trade and Equipment: 16 occupations define medieval life and those are: Farming, Herbalism, Fishing, Tailoring, Cooking, Mining, Blacksmithing, Hunting, Leatherworking, Sword-for-Hire, Thievery, Trade, Art, in example a bard's trade or painting, Ownership of Land, Woodworking and Construction.
Land is a plot of land slot or a building. All of these can occupy both the PC and the NPCs. The 16 occupations use and are used by the crafting system. To craft means to combine or modify items.
Placing items/furniture within buildings "at whim". Snapping items to align with other items as well as walls.
Constructing buildings only upon pre-designed slots of land, choosing the type of building to build.
Equipment is sorted into singular clothing and armour, cloaks and coats, hoods, hats and helmets, scabbards and weapons in items worn or used as well as supplies, weapons as well as items of multiple or single use in general equipment.
All other objects are singular in nature as well, a Character can posses multiple singular objects. All Characters share no nudity and wear basic clothing unless they acquire different clothing to replace it.
There are 2 necklace slots and 4 ring slots. Index and ring fingers of both hands. Necklaces like prayer beads, feather necklaces, classic jewelry and dreamcatchers.
Creating artefacts is difficult yet the Player can do so out of items through use as well as through Sorcery. The items become artefacts over time as the Player achieves heroic deeds wearing and using said items. Crafting is possible at workshops and campfires.
Exchange of goods and construction works are perhaps the most vital part of the life of a society. The PC can buy or build warehouses, obtain goods as well as sell them. This means shops can be built or otherwise acquired and taken care of by the PC.
By the work option within the DS one can also hire people to take care of buildings. This warrants revenue out of safe shops and warehouses.
Based on the events within the video game, a thief might enter a shop owned by the PC where the player is the actual shopkeeper and he is away adventuring.
In the case of the hired shopkeeper the events might work similar as the shopkeeper falls in love or gets drunk taking up all of his time for the day.
This means he does not show up at the shop and the player might not ever find out about the thief whom has taken goods from the PC if the player does not check the shop's wares.
Upon entering either a forest or a cavern, in forests, lumberjacks use the skill out of their list of skills that represents tree cutting and click on the clumps of trees available to gather timber.
All forests can be fully cut down yet it would take a lot of ingame time in some instances. Beside areas of unpassable woods that can be accessed for timber, there are also long corridors or paths through the unpassable forest.
This way, lumberjacks can access the middles of the forest to begin their work there, allowing for the regrowth of the centre during the cutting of the outskirts.
Large forests are essentially endless resource sources. Caverns work the same way with ores replacing the lumber.
The entire world is divided into plots of land, some of which are unobtainable, some colonisable, some bare and ready for construction.
If the Player does not want to enjoy carrying out mundane work activities such as blacksmithing or woodworking, the Player can enter the second page of the inventory of the plot where the PC is working, named Workload.
There, the Player can set the duties of the Player Character for a chosen amount of time, up to the entire working day. This option is available in all professions, including guard duty, thievery or art. If there is no area or workplace to perform the Workload within, the option is unavailable.
There is no bartering, there are only sale of Items, Objects, Plots of Land in return for coin and spending coin in return for the aforementioned.
Maps: Maps of regions can be obtained, the Player, the companions, plots and inventories are not on the map. A map is a painting that is meant to help the Player alone learn and understand the lay of the land.
Lockpicking: To pick a lock the player has to go through 4 stages of a circular maze in which tumblers exist. The outer circle is the first tumbler which the player picks by clicking on it so that it "goes upwards" and unlocks that particular tumbler.
The player then advances to the next stage of the circular maze. The circular maze is based upon a full circle with smaller circles within, all connected by lines. The tumbler stays up, it becomes visible upon hover.
Combat: The combat works based on a 6 sided dice system in which hitting a target and damage is represented by dice rolls. Armour acts as a barrier to damage and has it's own durability points as opposed to the percentage of health. The dice number is the first of the 1d6 acronym, in this example it means one 6 sided dice.
4d6 are rolled to pass action checks including hitting a target. Small one-handed weapons deal 1d6 minus 1 damage, the lowest score being 1, regular 1d6 damage and bastard weapons as well as bows 2d6, two-handed weapons deal 3d6 damage.
Leather armour has 40 points of durability and absorbs 1/4 points of damage loosing durability and in the case of wooden weapons it absorbs 3/4 of the damage from each strike, not loosing durability.
Further on is the chainmail, with 90 points of durability which acts as half of a barrier, absorbing 1/2 damage of an attack against the wearer while wooden weapons simply do not affect the durability of the chainmail while causing halved damage.
And at last is the plate armour with a 140 durability points which acts as a full barrier and absorbs all damage until destroyed, wooden weapons cannot affect this armour, it hinders dodging. Weapons have a similar range of durability, from leather and wood to plate and two-handed.
Flanking other Characters guarantees a more fleshed out combat system where additional points, from 2 up to 8, are granted to the attack check and damage when standing beside another Character in order to realise the concept of a battle in which Characters surround themselves. This warrants attacking from behind a Character as well, commonly known as backstabbing.
The advantage becomes bigger the further a Character is in degrees from the front of the Character starting with 90 and ending at 180 to represent the back with 45 degrees each side to allow for backstabbing.
90 degrees flanking equals 2 additional points to damage and attack check, 135 equals 4 while 180 degrees equals 8.
Rushing is using the run ability as in the general experience in Mortal yet within combat to allow for standing directly beside another Character.
It can only be done at the end of a 2 metre circle around every Character. Upon a succesful rush 3 points are added to the initial attack.
Attacks upon vital sources like the heart or an artery equal another 2d6 of damage if no armour is present and a secondary 4d6 hit check to decide whether the damage happens or whether a non-vital part of the body is damaged.
The Character performing a vital source attack opens himself up to flanking attacks from all the enemies present who can attack the Character. Besides that flanking attacks happen when a Character moves past another Character even though it is not that Characters turn. There is no flanking/backstabbing bonus to a vital source attack check.
Intense swordplay in form of duels, dodging and counterattacking. A duel is a process that starts upon locking swords with another Character because of using a Skill in appropriate conditions.
It involves different combat rules applying to the duels, strength becoming more important than agility as dodging becomes annuled and instead one has to rely on parrying, all Characters can escape a duel through stepping backwards upon a succesful counterattack or attempting a roll of 4 dice in order to escape by stepping back succesfully through dodging which is a Skill that hinders the attacks upon a Character using dodging by up to 8 points.
Counterattacking is performed upon an attack on a Character who tries to defend himself in one of the following ways, dodging or parrying.
Upon an attack on the Character in question a parrying attempt is based on the Skill of parrying and a 4d6 roll unless the Character has a higher Skill in dodging which works just the same as parrying.
Counterattacking is a derivative of parrying and dodging and so the Skill requires one of the previous ones and can only be performed upon a succesful parrying or dodging roll.
After an action check a Character with the Skill might be granted an attack that happens within the moment the dodge or parrying attempt was executed. The counterattack can be dodged or parried.
When a Character succesfully dodges/parries and performs a counterattack that was dodged/parried, that Character begins a duel so that the counterattacks do not continue indefinitely.
Simultaneous rounds, a round is 5 seconds of ingame time. All characters perform the same amount of actions within a round.
Sorcery: Sorcery is, as stated through the lore and setting, a matter of thought. The thoughts become harder to complete for various reasons as the sorcery grows stronger in it's nature and so, Skills and Characteristics affect and allow sorceries a sorcerer or sorceress might perform. Casting sorceries rises fatigue.
The damage a sorcery of harm or an elemental sorcery the kind of an arrow of fire might inflict ranges from 1d6-1 to 20d6. Magic works through clicking the right mouse button and accessing the list of known sorceries and then clicking to incant it which takes up to a few seconds of ingame time.
The 5 divisions of sorcery are psionics, sorcery of the elements, control over light and darkness, conjuration as well as healing and harm.
Sorcerers and Sorceresses do not fight non-practicioners of sorcery unless attacked. They are too busy with their own matters.
Time and Exploration: Ingame time of the 24 hour day and night of the setting would equal 2 real life hours during which the player can do literally anything. 5 minutes of real time equals an hour within the Video Game. The 8 month year represents autumn and spring. Each month has 3 9 day weeks. 2 seasons within the video game to represent harvest time and the death of nature before rebirth.
There are 2 large realms to wander, work and adventure within. Load screens for the Player when travelling between the realms, all Characters can travel between realms as chaos or law thrives.
Summary: An RTS and a Tycoon in which one governs and attempts to work within an economy while controlling only one Character. Endless gameplay and a massive scope.
An RPG with love, revenge, overcoming obstacles, helping others as well as selfishness and everything else that a Simulation of real life in a medieval setting warrants.
An Adventure Game with the use of and combining items, the abilities of a human and dialogues. Mundane and exciting experiences in an advancing world. Simulation of societies, economy and Characters.
Choices to make and consequences of actions. A brand new Table-Top Role-Playing Game with the use of up to 4 6 sided dice, designed for the video game. A combat system based on dice rolling as well as passive and usable Skills.
One immense sandbox map to cover the area of approximately a two hundred and fifty square miles or 640 square kilometres, perhaps more within the temperate region named the setting.
Branches to the storylines within the Side Quests as well as the Main Quest as of time as well as events and the Generic Quests generated by the NPC movements and actions within the world.
A memory system in which the computer processes journals simultaneously allowing for the coding to create a lifelike simulation. Dialogues based on the Dialogue Star and lists of possible topics with descriptions.
Engine Details: Within the video game, the Player's focus is on the Playable Character which is, by default, placed at the centre of the screen.
This is as of the Bird's Eye view camera which is a moveable Isometric camera which can be rotated in a full circle around the PC as well as zoomed in or out.
As the Player rotates the 3D environment, the Player might find something obstructing the view of the PC and its surroundings and in that case, the obstacles become translucent or a 85% opaque.
While it might seem that the days of Isometric RPGs are long gone, the genre of Real Time Strategies will never leave the Isometric camera.
That is why this project aims to develop a video game in which the Player can seemlessly move between the action paced First Person Player camera and the Isometric/Third Person Player cameras.
If it seems that the project is overly ambitious, it can surely be proven that it is not so. Both the FPP and the TPP cameras are variants of the Isometric one. The video game world would have to be projected by the Personal Computer or Console either way.
That is where innovative techniques such as the one described in the next sentence come into play. A system of seemless loading between cubes that would average at around a 27 Isometric game screens at maximum zoom out.
The one which the Player Character is within and all the surrounding ones to allow for travel between these cubes.
This means that the models and textures, as well as the entire graphical side of the game, would be processed by the Personal Computer/Console only in the cube in which the PC would currently be in. The movements and actions of Characters would be processed without graphics in the entirety of the sandbox map with the exception of the cube in which the PC is within.
As the Player leads the PC to move into a new cube by moving into the border subcubes, the previous one is cleared while the new one is loaded. When the PC moves into a border subcube, 9 subcubes are deactivated while 9 are loaded, maintaining a procedurally projected game world.
In other words, the entire 3D map of the world within the video game is divided into cubes and only the one in which the Player Character is will be the one fully loaded. The PC can move back into the subcube in which it was because it is still fully loaded.
Only widescreen graphic display resolutions are available in the graphics setting of the video game.
In a 3D environment there is more than the directions of a compass, there is also altitude.
To represent altitude in the video game, subcubes exist upwards as well as downwards in order to allow for buildings to have many stories or floors, for rooftops to be an area available to the Characters and for dungeons, tombs and caverns to be explorable.
FPP and TPP cameras would allow looking up, the distance covered by the cube would be followed by fog of war.
Light Source and Time: The Light Source system is based on day and night as well as light sources smaller than the actual light source of the setting and so, it calculates shadows. Shadows allow for more efficient sneaking and can also allow invisibility for the Character whom is hiding within.
A person standing in the light of the day will not notice a person sneaking in the shadow of a building's west side while the light shines from the east.
The shadow will essentially be too dark to pierce with eyesight unless someone enters it and adapts to the darkness.
The shadow system is not a real time shadow simulation yet instead a collection of translucent engine objects that define whether an area classifies as an area within shadow.
As the Setting's Light Source continues its cycle, some of these objects disappear in order to appear elsewhere unless there are light sources present in these places.
Carried torches and lanterns function in the same way a static torch or lantern does. All of the small Light Sources remove parts of the shadow areas which function as the aforementioned objects or overlays upon the projection of the map.
A Circle of Vision which is meant to represent both sight and hearing of a Character. It can be improved with Skills or Characteristics and it works against other Characters' Skills and Characteristics when a Character sneaks. The circle of vision does not pierce shadows which might disappear when a Character carrying a lightsource enters a shadow area/object.
Animations, colliding models: The Simulation is also meant to offer fluid animations and an array of movement within the video game, walking through crowds, jumping and running, climbing and sneaking, skimming between Characters or objects as the Character models collide within the environment.
Generic Adventures: Events that happen around a Character are recorded in that Character's Journal based on the database of events that might happen within the video game. In example, a script activates when an NPC dies and the death is recorded into the Journal of all the Characters who were present or found out.
Similarly, a script would activate if the PC stole something from an NPC and the NPC would note and offer the quest to the guard. Or the other way around, after all, NPCs can steal from the PC.
This allows for Generic Quests and adventures to happen in the simulation. The database aforementioned contains all possible types of quests and events and scripting allows for these quests and events to happen as artificial lives progress within the simulation.
Countless adventures await based on random occurences, or events, happening based on the NPCs travelling and the work that the NPCs perform. This includes animals and beasts. These events exist beside the actual quests which form the Plot as well as an abundance of side quests which can merge with AI created events within the storyline.
In example, the antagonism of 2 Characters leads to a side quest appearing while it may also not appear or disappear within the passage of events and advancing time.
A character will seek out the people, directions and even lore upon having a need to learn of any of the aforementioned matters. A generic quest, side quest or even need for items or a place to sleep at. A drunk stumbling upon his way home as an example.
Quests: Each Quest is in fact a topic within the journal which has a description. This means that each quest is a journal entry, the generic adventures as well.
Reading: When the PC opens a book or a letter, any form of script, the journal opens and the text is presented therein, under Lore. Time passes at 50% when the journal is opened. Bookmarks organise the journal.
Journal Bookmarks: 1. Characteristics and Skills. 2. Quests. 3. Journal. 4. Lore. 5. Relationships. 6. Inventories. 7. Enterprise.
Characteristics and Skills: Strength, Agility, Endurance and Intellect as well as Sense, these are the Characteristics of a Character.
The Skills are based on movement, combat and dialogue as well as work and the Array of Actions and are divided into the usable Skills and the passive Skills.
Stealth, climbing, physical endurance, melee and ranged combat, haggling, work related Skills, lying and sorcery to name a few.
Knowledge points are spent on a passive Skill as all Characteristics are essentially passive in order to spend knowledge on usable Skills and Passive Skills or a few.
Sense is a variation on sanity and wit in speech merged into one. It is the valid reasoning of social behaviour and norms, even the world past intellect which constitutes knowledge and natural predispositions.
Sanity takes its toll through gaining stress in combat, work and life. In diplomacy and deceit all is possible through exactly wit and cunning which are sense.
Skills are connected to the possible occupations or work, in the end there are 35.
The Strength Skills cover Blacksmithing that includes production of metal trade goods, nails, horseshoes, hinges, locks, perhaps even coated rooftiles as well as Melee combat, Farming, Mining and even manipulation of objects as well as a set of special skills named Heroic Strength.
All Characteristics include the same amount of skills. This leaves 5 unique Heroic Skills.
The Usable Skills are not neccessary nor required, the point of the Skill Lists is to govern artificial lifes similarly to the percentages of health, fatigue and so on. Passive Skills define all a character might know, Usable skills are an addition and gameplay improvement.
In example, Melee: Cleave, Skewer, Bash (Usable Skills) that replace a normal attack in order to achieve some goal. Dodge, counter and parry can affect any of these usable Melee Skills. Parrying, Shield proficiency, Wielding two-handed. (Passive Skills)
Might affects Melee in the same way that Stealth might affect Archery or Fortitude might affect Carpentry.
Characteristic Skills:
Strength – 1. Melee 2. Might 3. Carpentry 4. Construction 5. Fishing 6. Blacksmithing 7. Heroic Strength
Agility – 1. Archery 2. Athletics 3. Stealth 4. Thievery 5. Tailoring 6. Leatherworking 7. Heroic Agility
Endurance – 1. Vigour 2. Fortitude 3. Courage 4. Perception 5. Farming 6. Mining 7. Heroic Endurance
Intellect – 1. Wit 2. Cunning 3. Herbalism 4. Shopkeeping 5. Management 6. SorceryHalf 7. Heroic Intellect
Sense – 1. Haggling 2. Deceit 3. Lyrical 4. Art 5. Strain 6. SorceryHalf 7. Heroic Sense
Knowledge Points: Emerging victorious over a group of bandits, succesfully crafting an item or finishing work on something allows a Character to gain some SAEIS Knowledge Points.
Knowledge is divided into the 5 groups based on how it was earned as well as general knowledge and is automatically distributed into the appropriate characteristic.
When accessing the journal, the Player can obtain new Skills with a characteristic's KPs and improve the Skills that are already known.
Although KPs might come in abundance, perfect Characteristics and all available Skills cannot be attained by a single Character during a playthrough. It is possible to be skilled in many professions yet not in all.
As was mentioned, Knowledge Points amassed through deeds are used to improve Passive Skills and unlock Usable Skills. Forging a sword would amount to a few KPs, the same amount that shooting an arrow succesfully at a living target would.
In example, a blacksmith gains 5 KPs upon a successful finale to forging a longsword, a hunter gains 5 KPs upon killing a stag with a longbow. A vital source strike and killing the stag in one strike would amount up to a 10 KPs.
In general, "heroic" Skills award more KPs than "mundane" ones. Thievery, Combat, Sorcery are the "heroic" Skills.
"Mundane" tasks award less KPs as the Passive Skills improve. "Heroic" tasks award the same amount of KPs, always.
A stronger blacksmith will take less time to forge a, for example, claymore. A really good blacksmith might even forge an artefact. Items that are more difficult to craft award more KPs than the ones which are easier.
There are more Usable Skills and Passive Skills in combat than in work and so, more experience is earned in combat related Skills rather than in, for example, carpentry.
Health, Stress and Fatigue: Wounds or damage as well as pain dealt to a Character equals loss of the health percentage and a rise of the fatigue percentage respectively.
Pain lowers a Character's fatigue percentage as a Character receives it, resulting in possible loss of consciousness at a hundred percent fatigue.
Wounds can be treated with herbalism knowledge and appropriate medicines while resting only alleviates pain which also represents bruises, long term rising of the fatigue percentage.
Fatigue regenerates slowly, health does not. Thirst and hunger as well as stress to complete the 5 percentages that rule life within the setting.
Alcohol inebriates the Character who uses it. Not only does the Character who has partaken lose some social Skills, they also receive a penalty to all dice rolls within the system. The status of inebriation starts after a Character has drunk a bottle of hard drink or 4 of a softer variant.
The penalties all vanish in time or through sleeping. One cannot decide how long one sleeps as when sober, it is always the maximum value of a one night sleep while Characters that are not drunk can nap as well through deciding to sleep less than the maximum resting period of 12 hours.
There are no benefits to being drunk past reducing stress even though it is a popular activity. Tobacco drains fatigue and offers only a reduction of stress lesser than alcohol in the form of an activity that Characters enjoy partaking in, the same as drinking alcohol.
As for hemp, it raises the maximum fatigue while rising the current amount the Character has besides being an activity of the aforementioned sort as well.
It is a peculiar substance that is not used by most yet it allows for a deep waking rest and so, has it's place within the world of the setting.
Hemp and some other herbs as well as alcohol heighten the pain threshold or when pain activates and lessen the pain acquired by a Character as well. Open wounds cause pain over time.
Furthermore, if a character becomes obese, which is possible through eating more than hunger requires daily, the character loses some agility and has an additional agility cap which prevents the character from becoming too agile.
Hunger and Thirst will, upon draining fully, affect Fatigue, raising it.
Array of Actions: The Array of Actions is a list or menu that allows for the following 6 options which expand into further lists: Use, Inspect, Combat, Sorcery, Dialogue, Journal, Work.
The action of "Cutpurse" is not visible in the Array of Actions until KPs are spent on acquiring the usable skill within the skill of Thievery.
All Usable Skills are a part of the Array of Actions and depending on the Skill in question, need to be acquired or learned.
Dialogues and Activities: Conversations within the Simulation work through the 8 points of the Dialogue Star: People, Lore, Directions and Work, Friendship, Romance, Trade as well as Grouping.
All of the aforementioned continue into lists of topics that have descriptions and can lead towards further lists of topics.
The descriptions of topics are essentially dialogue lines that are randomed with each conversation. These should be 1 or 2 sentence long for a quick exchange of words, the statistic of Sense and the Skills that it governs would allow for different options instead of the generic, quite similarly to Intellect or Stress.
Characters and items, locations present in the setting, trade and thievery, romance branches such as flirting or dedication, friendship branches and so on are the topics present in the lists at the points of the DS.
Chosen topics affect the availability of future topics as does the Relationship System. Group conversations can happen as well. Up to 5 Characters can talk simultaneously with the Characters speaking in turns.
Essentially, the Player Character can approach same as he or she can be approached by Non-Playable Characters.
The Player uses the right mouse button to pick the option of dialogue out of the Array of Actions in order to converse with an NPC or a group of NPCs, that is how the radial menu of the Dialogue Star appears upon the game screen.
The Player chooses the option of Lore which is visible only as a randomed dialogue line of the sort, ie. "Might I ask you of..." and this way a list of topics appears, quite similar to the Inventory system.
Locations, as one example, work through Characters giving one another directions from the nearest landmark, location, building or roadsign.
The Player can choose, for an example, the Morgrayn Castle topic which is visible as "the Morgrayn Castle." and this way the dialogue continues with the NPC answering the PC based on their Journal.
If the NPC does not know of the location, only the topic that would be visible to the player as "I do not know of Morgrayn Castle." is available to the NPC and it chooses this option or a rude variant of "I do not know." based on the variables.
"I do not know." is essentially the topic but the sentence might appear as a dialogue line. If the NPC does have Morgrayn Castle Lore or Directions within their Journal they might answer with the information the Player is looking for.
If the Character which was asked does not know of the location, a Lore topic, the Character gains the Lore topic in it's Journal.
Non-Playable Characters stop their loitering to talk to other Characters in their free time and stop their tasks to talk when in need to do so.
The Player Character encounters NPCs wanting to speak to him or her and stopping beside to indicate the possibility of a conversation through the dialogue line or description of the topic the engine chose appearing above the head of the NPC.
Beside work there is tobacco and drink, flirting, merriment and rejoycing, dancing amidst many other activities for all Characters to enjoy.
The adventure game within Mortal can be narrowed down to the Dialogue Star which functions as an innovative way of presenting conversations to the Player and the Point and Click Adventure that exists within the Simulation.
Inspecting, applying force, opening, closing, climbing, all done by right clicking to access the deeds and Usable Skills menu which is presented as a screen within the game screen that appears upon right clicking.
Left clicking within the simulation serves its purpose to walk and run as well as attack when within combat started by the NPCs or by the PC through the right click menu.
To discern between looking at a door and applying force to it, the Player clicks the right mouse button which offers the list of possible interactions when activated, some options are invisible depending on what was right clicked, the Player cannot "Open" an NPC.
Personal inventory is presented within the journal. Locations as well as people, work, notes and so on are scribed automatically within to allow the scripting to perform it's best. It also includes the Skill book.
The Journal also includes inventories connected to owned land plots. The Journal updates the inventories when accessing them while on the actual land plot.
The world is inhabited by many Characters and so, holidays such as medieval festivities centred around religion or lack of work exist.
Dialogue choices are not recorded in the database of events, only relations between people and Generic Quests are.
Romance, sex and children: There are 3 stages of life present in the Simulation. Toddler, essentially an item in the game world where it can be seen as a crib, child which is from the age of 8 to 18 and adult which is from 18 until death. Children are presented as 13-14 year olds.
Children function as adults yet cannot have sex, gain less stress and have weaker characteristics and so, all skills are weaker, the handicap disappears upon adulthood.
Sex is presented in the game through 3 or 4 paintings and romantic music playing after the fade out and before the fade back into the game upon the action of sex.
Naturally, violence between Children is undesirable. NPCs will almost never do. An adult NPC attacking a child would incur massive Stress disadvantages, killing one as well. The other way around as well.
Age: Characters age up to a 80 years of life before passing away because of natural reasons.
Work, Trade and Equipment: 16 occupations define medieval life and those are: Farming, Herbalism, Fishing, Tailoring, Cooking, Mining, Blacksmithing, Hunting, Leatherworking, Sword-for-Hire, Thievery, Trade, Art, in example a bard's trade or painting, Ownership of Land, Woodworking and Construction.
Land is a plot of land slot or a building. All of these can occupy both the PC and the NPCs. The 16 occupations use and are used by the crafting system. To craft means to combine or modify items.
Placing items/furniture within buildings "at whim". Snapping items to align with other items as well as walls.
Constructing buildings only upon pre-designed slots of land, choosing the type of building to build.
Equipment is sorted into singular clothing and armour, cloaks and coats, hoods, hats and helmets, scabbards and weapons in items worn or used as well as supplies, weapons as well as items of multiple or single use in general equipment.
All other objects are singular in nature as well, a Character can posses multiple singular objects. All Characters share no nudity and wear basic clothing unless they acquire different clothing to replace it.
There are 2 necklace slots and 4 ring slots. Index and ring fingers of both hands. Necklaces like prayer beads, feather necklaces, classic jewelry and dreamcatchers.
Creating artefacts is difficult yet the Player can do so out of items through use as well as through Sorcery. The items become artefacts over time as the Player achieves heroic deeds wearing and using said items. Crafting is possible at workshops and campfires.
Exchange of goods and construction works are perhaps the most vital part of the life of a society. The PC can buy or build warehouses, obtain goods as well as sell them. This means shops can be built or otherwise acquired and taken care of by the PC.
By the work option within the DS one can also hire people to take care of buildings. This warrants revenue out of safe shops and warehouses.
Based on the events within the video game, a thief might enter a shop owned by the PC where the player is the actual shopkeeper and he is away adventuring.
In the case of the hired shopkeeper the events might work similar as the shopkeeper falls in love or gets drunk taking up all of his time for the day.
This means he does not show up at the shop and the player might not ever find out about the thief whom has taken goods from the PC if the player does not check the shop's wares.
Upon entering either a forest or a cavern, in forests, lumberjacks use the skill out of their list of skills that represents tree cutting and click on the clumps of trees available to gather timber.
All forests can be fully cut down yet it would take a lot of ingame time in some instances. Beside areas of unpassable woods that can be accessed for timber, there are also long corridors or paths through the unpassable forest.
This way, lumberjacks can access the middles of the forest to begin their work there, allowing for the regrowth of the centre during the cutting of the outskirts.
Large forests are essentially endless resource sources. Caverns work the same way with ores replacing the lumber.
The entire world is divided into plots of land, some of which are unobtainable, some colonisable, some bare and ready for construction.
If the Player does not want to enjoy carrying out mundane work activities such as blacksmithing or woodworking, the Player can enter the second page of the inventory of the plot where the PC is working, named Workload.
There, the Player can set the duties of the Player Character for a chosen amount of time, up to the entire working day. This option is available in all professions, including guard duty, thievery or art. If there is no area or workplace to perform the Workload within, the option is unavailable.
There is no bartering, there are only sale of Items, Objects, Plots of Land in return for coin and spending coin in return for the aforementioned.
Maps: Maps of regions can be obtained, the Player, the companions, plots and inventories are not on the map. A map is a painting that is meant to help the Player alone learn and understand the lay of the land.
Lockpicking: To pick a lock the player has to go through 4 stages of a circular maze in which tumblers exist. The outer circle is the first tumbler which the player picks by clicking on it so that it "goes upwards" and unlocks that particular tumbler.
The player then advances to the next stage of the circular maze. The circular maze is based upon a full circle with smaller circles within, all connected by lines. The tumbler stays up, it becomes visible upon hover.
Combat: The combat works based on a 6 sided dice system in which hitting a target and damage is represented by dice rolls. Armour acts as a barrier to damage and has it's own durability points as opposed to the percentage of health. The dice number is the first of the 1d6 acronym, in this example it means one 6 sided dice.
4d6 are rolled to pass action checks including hitting a target. Small one-handed weapons deal 1d6 minus 1 damage, the lowest score being 1, regular 1d6 damage and bastard weapons as well as bows 2d6, two-handed weapons deal 3d6 damage.
Leather armour has 40 points of durability and absorbs 1/4 points of damage loosing durability and in the case of wooden weapons it absorbs 3/4 of the damage from each strike, not loosing durability.
Further on is the chainmail, with 90 points of durability which acts as half of a barrier, absorbing 1/2 damage of an attack against the wearer while wooden weapons simply do not affect the durability of the chainmail while causing halved damage.
And at last is the plate armour with a 140 durability points which acts as a full barrier and absorbs all damage until destroyed, wooden weapons cannot affect this armour, it hinders dodging. Weapons have a similar range of durability, from leather and wood to plate and two-handed.
Flanking other Characters guarantees a more fleshed out combat system where additional points, from 2 up to 8, are granted to the attack check and damage when standing beside another Character in order to realise the concept of a battle in which Characters surround themselves. This warrants attacking from behind a Character as well, commonly known as backstabbing.
The advantage becomes bigger the further a Character is in degrees from the front of the Character starting with 90 and ending at 180 to represent the back with 45 degrees each side to allow for backstabbing.
90 degrees flanking equals 2 additional points to damage and attack check, 135 equals 4 while 180 degrees equals 8.
Rushing is using the run ability as in the general experience in Mortal yet within combat to allow for standing directly beside another Character.
It can only be done at the end of a 2 metre circle around every Character. Upon a succesful rush 3 points are added to the initial attack.
Attacks upon vital sources like the heart or an artery equal another 2d6 of damage if no armour is present and a secondary 4d6 hit check to decide whether the damage happens or whether a non-vital part of the body is damaged.
The Character performing a vital source attack opens himself up to flanking attacks from all the enemies present who can attack the Character. Besides that flanking attacks happen when a Character moves past another Character even though it is not that Characters turn. There is no flanking/backstabbing bonus to a vital source attack check.
Intense swordplay in form of duels, dodging and counterattacking. A duel is a process that starts upon locking swords with another Character because of using a Skill in appropriate conditions.
It involves different combat rules applying to the duels, strength becoming more important than agility as dodging becomes annuled and instead one has to rely on parrying, all Characters can escape a duel through stepping backwards upon a succesful counterattack or attempting a roll of 4 dice in order to escape by stepping back succesfully through dodging which is a Skill that hinders the attacks upon a Character using dodging by up to 8 points.
Counterattacking is performed upon an attack on a Character who tries to defend himself in one of the following ways, dodging or parrying.
Upon an attack on the Character in question a parrying attempt is based on the Skill of parrying and a 4d6 roll unless the Character has a higher Skill in dodging which works just the same as parrying.
Counterattacking is a derivative of parrying and dodging and so the Skill requires one of the previous ones and can only be performed upon a succesful parrying or dodging roll.
After an action check a Character with the Skill might be granted an attack that happens within the moment the dodge or parrying attempt was executed. The counterattack can be dodged or parried.
When a Character succesfully dodges/parries and performs a counterattack that was dodged/parried, that Character begins a duel so that the counterattacks do not continue indefinitely.
Simultaneous rounds, a round is 5 seconds of ingame time. All characters perform the same amount of actions within a round.
Sorcery: Sorcery is, as stated through the lore and setting, a matter of thought. The thoughts become harder to complete for various reasons as the sorcery grows stronger in it's nature and so, Skills and Characteristics affect and allow sorceries a sorcerer or sorceress might perform. Casting sorceries rises fatigue.
The damage a sorcery of harm or an elemental sorcery the kind of an arrow of fire might inflict ranges from 1d6-1 to 20d6. Magic works through clicking the right mouse button and accessing the list of known sorceries and then clicking to incant it which takes up to a few seconds of ingame time.
The 5 divisions of sorcery are psionics, sorcery of the elements, control over light and darkness, conjuration as well as healing and harm.
Sorcerers and Sorceresses do not fight non-practicioners of sorcery unless attacked. They are too busy with their own matters.
Time and Exploration: Ingame time of the 24 hour day and night of the setting would equal 2 real life hours during which the player can do literally anything. 5 minutes of real time equals an hour within the Video Game. The 8 month year represents autumn and spring. Each month has 3 9 day weeks. 2 seasons within the video game to represent harvest time and the death of nature before rebirth.
There are 2 large realms to wander, work and adventure within. Load screens for the Player when travelling between the realms, all Characters can travel between realms as chaos or law thrives.
Summary: An RTS and a Tycoon in which one governs and attempts to work within an economy while controlling only one Character. Endless gameplay and a massive scope.
An RPG with love, revenge, overcoming obstacles, helping others as well as selfishness and everything else that a Simulation of real life in a medieval setting warrants.
An Adventure Game with the use of and combining items, the abilities of a human and dialogues. Mundane and exciting experiences in an advancing world. Simulation of societies, economy and Characters.
Choices to make and consequences of actions. A brand new Table-Top Role-Playing Game with the use of up to 4 6 sided dice, designed for the video game. A combat system based on dice rolling as well as passive and usable Skills.
One immense sandbox map to cover the area of approximately a two hundred and fifty square miles or 640 square kilometres, perhaps more within the temperate region named the setting.
Branches to the storylines within the Side Quests as well as the Main Quest as of time as well as events and the Generic Quests generated by the NPC movements and actions within the world.
A memory system in which the computer processes journals simultaneously allowing for the coding to create a lifelike simulation. Dialogues based on the Dialogue Star and lists of possible topics with descriptions.
Plot and Setting
Setting: The setting is essentially a flat world that exists as a double-sided diamond due to mountains and what lies beneath the ground. It's existence is within a cosmic space and is bound by an atmosphere similar to that of Earth.
It is a world large enough to have a 24 hour day within a 9 day week and a year that lasts for 8 months. Only the Moon exists, giving more light during the day than during the night on an eternal journey around the double-sided diamond. This means everything in the world is quite pale, yet the days are still colourful while the nights are dark.
It is a place inhabited by humans, animals and beasts and it is the continent known only as the Scythe, with the Ocean surrounding the pangaean continent.
Humanity is slightly vampiric because of their ancestry as in the past, the humanity of the world did not know how to farm or forage succesfully and so, hunted, wandering the Scythe. In a few generations, humanity adapted to forage as well and eventually became settled and started to cultivate the land.
Eating the raw meat of animals and beasts and drinking blood affected the race forever. This means that the Characters enjoy long lives and are stronger and more agile than their real life counterparts yet are cursed to become ghosts who roam the land, more often than not, invisible to the living.
Gothic architecture is the main principle of constructions within Mortal. Even the wooden buildings in the villages are constructed with this architectural style in mind. This shines upon all other craft in the world as well.
Concept of the Plot: Past the Player Character becoming an adventurer, the Plot can be explained as a quest of survival.
Besides the gameplay, which is focused on survival because of fatigue and stress and so, taking part in the theatre of life and all of it's activities, the Plot as well will require of the Player to survive during challenging events.
Whether the Player chooses to be a thief, a guard or a mercenary or simple farmer, even a beggar, will have no effect on the events of the Plot which the Player can take part in or not depending on his or her whim.
The PC does take an unwilling part in these events if he or she chooses not to follow the call of adventure as the PC's deeds will be recorded and will have an effect on the world presented within the Simulation.
The scythe is a continent scattered with small and large realms as well as a vast no man's land. Within the Plot, a dark power stirs, intent on casting these realms into chaos.
One of the thirteen sorcerers present in these realms aims to take control of his death and studies dark sorceries which would prolong his life and even extend it onto the period of time after his passing, be it death by sword or by time. In other words the sorcerer wishes to become undead.
This would be the first time such an event would happen upon the world of the setting. Depending on the Player's actions, the sorcerer in question might be slain before he achieves his goal. On the other hand, the sorcerer might be slain afterwards when he begins to amass an army of undead under his control.
It is also vital to the plotline that refugees will escape into the no mans land and out of camps prepare to make one last stand against the evil that may appear in the known realms. The other sorcerers will know of this and the Player can either become one of them or their pawn in the Plot or rather it's ending.
Scythe: The Scythe is the name of a mythical artefact, it is, in fact, a deity trapped in the form of a longsword, unable of sentience, all of it's powers transformed to empower the artefact which is the most powerful weapon in the video game.
Upon equipping the weapon, all of the Heroic skills are acquired, the action dice roll upon attack is improved to a 8d6 and the damage of the longsword is a 6d6. It cannot be damaged nor destroyed. Attacks are double as quick. It is the most powerful item and weapon available in the Simulation.
Dialogue Examples:
Greetings – (Greetings), (Hello), (Good evening), (It's a pleasure to see you again)
Leaving dialogue – (Goodbye), (Good night), (I wish you luck), (Go to hell)
People – (May I ask of), (Could you tell me of), (Do you know of), (Perhaps we could talk of), (Have you heard of)
Lore - (May I ask of), (Could you tell me of), (Do you know of), (Perhaps we could talk of)
Directions – (Might you tell me), (Do you know where), (Have you seen), (Where is)
Friendship – (I enjoy talking with you), (It was a thrill to talk with you), (You're a great friend), (May the Sun shine upon your path)
Romance – (Might I say, you look beautiful), (Would you care to talk with me), (I'm thrilled to know you), (Might I kiss you)
Work – (I am looking for work), (Are you free for employment), (Can you work for me), (I want to employ you)
Trade – (Perhaps, we could trade), (Care to barter), (I wish to trade), (Would you be interested in trading)
Grouping – (Would you join my group), (Care to travel together), (You will have to leave my group), (I don't think you belong in my group)
ANNOTATION: Hiding in shadows, either preset or generated in real time are most probably copyrighted. The lockpicking is novel although lockpicking mini-games might have been copyrighted. ©
It is a world large enough to have a 24 hour day within a 9 day week and a year that lasts for 8 months. Only the Moon exists, giving more light during the day than during the night on an eternal journey around the double-sided diamond. This means everything in the world is quite pale, yet the days are still colourful while the nights are dark.
It is a place inhabited by humans, animals and beasts and it is the continent known only as the Scythe, with the Ocean surrounding the pangaean continent.
Humanity is slightly vampiric because of their ancestry as in the past, the humanity of the world did not know how to farm or forage succesfully and so, hunted, wandering the Scythe. In a few generations, humanity adapted to forage as well and eventually became settled and started to cultivate the land.
Eating the raw meat of animals and beasts and drinking blood affected the race forever. This means that the Characters enjoy long lives and are stronger and more agile than their real life counterparts yet are cursed to become ghosts who roam the land, more often than not, invisible to the living.
Gothic architecture is the main principle of constructions within Mortal. Even the wooden buildings in the villages are constructed with this architectural style in mind. This shines upon all other craft in the world as well.
Concept of the Plot: Past the Player Character becoming an adventurer, the Plot can be explained as a quest of survival.
Besides the gameplay, which is focused on survival because of fatigue and stress and so, taking part in the theatre of life and all of it's activities, the Plot as well will require of the Player to survive during challenging events.
Whether the Player chooses to be a thief, a guard or a mercenary or simple farmer, even a beggar, will have no effect on the events of the Plot which the Player can take part in or not depending on his or her whim.
The PC does take an unwilling part in these events if he or she chooses not to follow the call of adventure as the PC's deeds will be recorded and will have an effect on the world presented within the Simulation.
The scythe is a continent scattered with small and large realms as well as a vast no man's land. Within the Plot, a dark power stirs, intent on casting these realms into chaos.
One of the thirteen sorcerers present in these realms aims to take control of his death and studies dark sorceries which would prolong his life and even extend it onto the period of time after his passing, be it death by sword or by time. In other words the sorcerer wishes to become undead.
This would be the first time such an event would happen upon the world of the setting. Depending on the Player's actions, the sorcerer in question might be slain before he achieves his goal. On the other hand, the sorcerer might be slain afterwards when he begins to amass an army of undead under his control.
It is also vital to the plotline that refugees will escape into the no mans land and out of camps prepare to make one last stand against the evil that may appear in the known realms. The other sorcerers will know of this and the Player can either become one of them or their pawn in the Plot or rather it's ending.
Scythe: The Scythe is the name of a mythical artefact, it is, in fact, a deity trapped in the form of a longsword, unable of sentience, all of it's powers transformed to empower the artefact which is the most powerful weapon in the video game.
Upon equipping the weapon, all of the Heroic skills are acquired, the action dice roll upon attack is improved to a 8d6 and the damage of the longsword is a 6d6. It cannot be damaged nor destroyed. Attacks are double as quick. It is the most powerful item and weapon available in the Simulation.
Dialogue Examples:
Greetings – (Greetings), (Hello), (Good evening), (It's a pleasure to see you again)
Leaving dialogue – (Goodbye), (Good night), (I wish you luck), (Go to hell)
People – (May I ask of), (Could you tell me of), (Do you know of), (Perhaps we could talk of), (Have you heard of)
Lore - (May I ask of), (Could you tell me of), (Do you know of), (Perhaps we could talk of)
Directions – (Might you tell me), (Do you know where), (Have you seen), (Where is)
Friendship – (I enjoy talking with you), (It was a thrill to talk with you), (You're a great friend), (May the Sun shine upon your path)
Romance – (Might I say, you look beautiful), (Would you care to talk with me), (I'm thrilled to know you), (Might I kiss you)
Work – (I am looking for work), (Are you free for employment), (Can you work for me), (I want to employ you)
Trade – (Perhaps, we could trade), (Care to barter), (I wish to trade), (Would you be interested in trading)
Grouping – (Would you join my group), (Care to travel together), (You will have to leave my group), (I don't think you belong in my group)
ANNOTATION: Hiding in shadows, either preset or generated in real time are most probably copyrighted. The lockpicking is novel although lockpicking mini-games might have been copyrighted. ©
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