Lore post #7 (Patreon)

Hey, just an update on stuff time-wise as to where we're at on the project (and sorry for such a late post, was busy over Easter!)

- Triangulate is currently designing the arenas (yes, that's plural) for the Ice Boss fight; if you'll remember from back during the Fire Boss, I talked about how he was basically, even after the redone version of his "map", going to be the introductory boss for the game and how subsequent bosses would be much more directly engaging/complex to deal with. He's also got most of the boss animations done, too... just not the sex ones yet, haha.

Well, I think we're gonna achieve that with this boss. Honestly, one of the worst parts of almost any platforming, side scroller, or hell, even metroidvania game ever made, with very few exceptions, are the bosses; they're generally "spam attacks until you win" fights, or something else similar. While we're not saying we're doing something revolutionary here, we want the boss fights in Future Fragments to be a LOT more engaging than that, something where it doesn't feel like the boss was just tacked on at the end of the level because a level is supposed to have a boss, as it were.

- Cheshire is nearly done with the C++ port and cutscene editor, both of which he says he can get done by mid/late April, meaning we're aiming to have a demo out to Patrons soon thereafter. I realize it's been a long few months wait, but he's working on multiple aspects of the game at once (an animation editor, cutscene editor, composing music, C++ port) so while it may seem like it's taking too long or something, all this stuff is gonna get completed around the same time all at once, so yeah :P

- I'm basically focusing on the powerups and cutscenes right now, as databanks in general are taking a backseat until we get the C++ port done and I can start converting over the databanks into audio/video/game databanks, etc. so I want to get the powerups and most of the cutscenes done for the first two levels at a base level, before focusing on retooling the databanks.

I know I've mentioned this before too, but on a side note, the first game for the small games Patreon, Magic Matchup, is coming out in a week or two! http://www.patreon.com/hentaiwriter

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Now, as for the lore for this game; something we haven't really covered... at ALL, really, is the actual environmental state of the planet after the WORM takeover.

Originally, we actually wanted to have a short 2 or 3 screen sequence BEFORE Talia entered the Fire Level base where she would be outside of the base, and got to see the outside environment. We might still have this, but had we gotten that in the demo, you would have seen that the Earth is in pretty bad shape.

Due to wanting to control all the power themselves, as well as using such insanely large resources to build these mega-facilities, the Earth is effectively a wasteland OUTSIDE of the designated "WORM Bases" that the player goes through in the game.

80% of human life exists in these bases, of which there are a few thousand around the globe; to note, the one that Talia is in is one of the "core bases", one of the largest ones in the planet, of which there are only about 5-10 of them. (Remember, the WORM literally has around 90% of the human race working for them; the remaining 10% are the rebels fighting against them.)

(To clarify real quick too, the remaining 10% of human life that doesn't exist in the bases is the higher-ups in the WORM hierarchy, those who live cushy lives; a few of these people actually live OFF the planet, instead living in the relative safety of space-homes, fully loaded and shielded, as it were.)

This does of course mean, on the topic of the rebels, that they're living in incredibly harsh conditions, having to survive by pilfering the WORM bases as well as basic, primitive survival techniques combined with technology in the year 3000 (think replicators from Star Trek, that sort of thing). This of course further depletes the planet's resources, to power such devices to keep the rebels afloat, so the rebels were, and still are, fighting a losing battle.

The only glimmering hope of light for the rebels are their agents on the inside, who are slowly bringing down the WORM from within, but a few months before Talia's arrival, one of them went rogue, and that's when shit goes down. Remember how the Fire Level is in a state of repair with patches on the landscape and damaged, malfunctioning databanks that are frozen on a single entry? Something happened right before Talia arrived that dealt the WORM a major blow, leaving them in a weakened enough state for Talia to be able to get through their defenses as she did...

As an extra note here at the end, one particular note of interest where the WORM, in a rare example, has actually made the planet better off, is the global shield around the planet; as the ozone layer is mostly depleted by this time, it not only protects the planet, but it also acts as a gigantic solar panel. The energy from it is focused and sent down to the thousands of "minor" WORM bases, leaving the "major" WORM bases to gain their energy resources from the planet or technology within the base itself. The reason why the major bases aren't powered by the planetary shield is two fold;

1) The power from the shield would simply not be enough to power more than one or two of these bases, and doing this would leave thousands of bases without power, and

2) The major bases want to be able to still operate in case of a rebel attack disabling the planetary shield; this makes sure that the WORM has no "universal off-switch" as it were, in case of a successful rebel infiltration/attack.

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In about 4-5 days I'll have another post with more powerups to show off! :D