[quote=“Kostromama, post:4, topic:915”]Cool cool! Accepting community submissions as part of the game is a pretty sweet way to build a world-- it worked super well for Tales of Maj’Eyal, which has an incomprehensibly large library of mini dungeons and magic items because it held design contests on its forums.
So I guess that brings me to two more questions:
-Do you have a strong vision for what the world of Turris Puesco is like? If so, can you detail it a little bit for us? If there was more user-end content in the game, we could probably grok the lore and feel of the game without being explicitly told it. So far it seems like fairies are magic beings whose powers mostly extend to weight gain and loss, and the tower is utterly mysterious in purpose and origin.
-What kind of tone are you aiming for? So far the game is very silly and kind of stands at the crossroads of “Generic RPG” and “Silly Weight Gain Bonanza”. Is that where you want it/should the bulk of community-submitted events focus on those two areas? If not, what KINDS of events are you looking for?[/quote]
The vision for the world was and still is being made up as I go, which may or may not pose problems for the game in the future. My focus has been on creating the backend of the game; the encounters were made to test that the backend works properly, which is why most of them seem silly.
I can tell you about the lore in a spoiler tag. It’s pretty generic in terms of what you’d expect from a weight-gain oriented fantasy.
[spoiler]The origin of the tower is meant to be mysterious to the citizens of the town, but when you understand the motivations of the witch that sits atop the tower it makes more sense. The protagonist slowly figures out these facts while progressing through the game. However to understand the motivations of the witch, first one must understand the nature of mana in the universe of Turris Puesco.
Mana is the most important life force of living things in this world. It is essentially electricity as we know it, but with a much larger role. It controls the human brain and serves as a life force for plants. Mana is produced by all living cells, though fat cells produce the most mana. The human body has a system to regulate how much mana it can store. Any excess mana is expelled into the air, where it then becomes “passive mana”, as opposed to the “active mana” which is circulating the body. Passive mana can be absorbed by plants, but animals by default do not have a mechanism to absorb passive mana for their own safety, as the body on its own already produces a sufficient amount of mana for living. An over-excess of mana is dangerous since it can overwhelm the brain and lead to what’s referred to as a “manalepsis”, an intense seizure-like state where the body violently releases its mana in a series of convulsions. In the event of mana deficiency, the brain will simply stop issuing commands to the body, leading to cardiac arrest.
Casting magic is done by channeling mana into an object such as a staff. The staff storing magic becomes charged. Because the staff is not living and therefore has a much greater limit to how much mana it can contain, it can be charged with a deadly amount of mana to later be expelled at enemies in battle. The staff can only be charged by channeling active mana into it; it cannot absorb passive mana. This makes spell casting a dangerous foray and without the proper training and mana regulation it can lead to a deficiency.
Since fat cells produce the most mana, one would assume fat people would have more mana to channel and therefore would make the most powerful mages. This is not the case. While fat bodies produce more mana, they also expel more in order to maintain equilibrium. The only factor that affects the amount of active mana your body can store at once is genetics. Being fat in the world of Turris Puesco is generally frowned upon, much like in the real world.
However, the witch knows something that the average mage doesn’t. She knows how to convert passive mana into active mana to use for her own benefit. This is why she is slowly polluting the air surrounding the tower with fattening toxins – to make the citizens of Turici slowly become fat so she can harness the excess of passive mana they release into the air. She sits at the top of her tower, growing stronger and stronger as the citizens of Turici grow fatter and fatter. And the influx of mercenaries and merchants wishing to take advantage of the tower’s “riches” only serve to amplify the witch’s power.[/spoiler]