World Building
So a few friends and I have been working on a game world.
We don’t have a platform in mind, nor do we have a working engine yet.
What we do have are ideas. Story, characters, mechanics, history and setting.
Throughout this process I have learned a lot about the creation of a world. The task is an amazingly complex one, and the most important thing to remember is that you only need to show and explain what the player will actually encounter and interact with. So what does that mean? Well that means that when you are creating a world, you will want to flesh out every single detail and concept that has to do with the world. DON’T DO IT! All you will accomplish, is bogging down production by describing the attitude and common behaviors of the squirrels in your world. You will spend so much time worrying about the background to a specific scene instead of focusing on the overall theme and how it fits into the story.
Show someone else your work. If you cannot make the story fun and exciting to someone outside the development team, then you are failing in the primary purpose of a game which is to entertain the player.
You must be careful not to fall headfirst into the details of the world like a bottomless abyss, instead grab on to something solid and lean over the darkness below and come up with enough information to form the world.
Now having said all that, I must make a disclaimer.
I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL GAME DESIGNER!
I don’t have any previous experience in game design, unless you count messing around with the Morrowind toolset.
Everything I present to you in the course of these posts about world building are things that I have discovered through the exploration of my imagination.
I will also include references and sites which I have looked at when developing my ideas.
Sometimes I will use an example from my own work in order to illustrate my point, but the ideas I express will be applicable to every universe and game setting you choose to work in.
Strap on your goggles and lets dive right in!
