Side-Write: A Different Wonderland (Patreon)

I tried to drum up a good short story for this one, but I felt like a lot of the ideas that came to mind were kinda repetitive of things I'd explored before. I decided I needed to work more on expanding the world and giving it personality beyond the bare basics I've laid out so far, so this became more of a walk-through on trying to work that out and make sure I'm working in the right direction.

I hope you find it an interesting read!

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I still worry, when I think about the world and the story of this game, that I will let it become something I don't want it to be. I tend to focus a lot on making things fit together and make sense, and also on the tragic rather than the happy. I want Project Wild One to be a positive experience, and something that feels magical and special. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I want it to be a sort of "soft magic" world where things don't always have to make sense or fit together the way you'd expect. Like old fantasy.

And the background so far does support that. This is a world in sort of a soft post-apocalypse, with a lot of turmoil and change, and there are powerful agents at play changing the world in all sorts of magical ways that have not yet played out the entirety of their consequences. This is a world that used to be old, but has been reborn into something new and strange, something young and still discovering itself. There's a lot of room for all sorts of strangeness. Hell, if we stick to what I've described, there's literally a minor god that just spends all their time going around making the world stranger.

The ground is fertile, but I still feel like I could take this in the wrong direction. I've been thinking about the stories I could write in these segments, maybe describing other ways one might encounter the Wild One and what it would feel like, how this creature would seem to others, but... while there is a lot the Wild One can do, and it's a very dynamic character that will shake things up wherever it goes, it's not a strong emotional role. The Wild One will be silent, and unable to understand most characters. This is necessary for the gameplay to really work, and I think the character works best as sort of a mysterious, soulful beast, clearly intelligent but never speaking, only acting. It's the rest of the world that should be loud and colorful, and let the player character enjoy their time as a sort of silent protagonist. You'll have many choices to make, but you'll rarely have to explain your reasoning.

Now, not being able to understand others does mean a lot of "telling" flavor will be hard to deliver. Few people will be able to explain things like legends, opinions, or religions to you. But this will help make the world more "show, don't tell" as well. And that's part of why I feel like a more old school soft-magic world would work well: you can come across some minor or major wonder with no explanation or knowledge of it, and all you have to go by is what's in front of you. It leaves you plenty of room to wonder and speculate, and maybe interact with it some way, to benefit or hazard.

A lot of what I've built so far mechanically has been all about handling the big, complicated activities you can engage in with lots of mechanical parts, the fighting and sex and such. But I don't want that to be all there is to this game, and sometimes I think I lose sight of that a little thinking so much about how to get these mechanics to work right. At its core, this game is an engine that should be capable of many different things, and I've often satisfied my yearning to create this or that wonderful thing, my inspiration to go another way, by promising myself that this game will be flexible enough to encompass many of those in days to come. This setting should reflect and encourage that, too: a variety of experiences that don't have to involve fighting or fucking.

So for the final part of this, I want to spitball some ideas for what you could run into, that might help solidify the idea that this is a better, more wondrous world. Sometimes, once I'm really deep into the design and every idea is immediately appraised for practicality of application the instant I think of it, it makes it harder to see things the way the player does from the outside and really let my creativity loose to wander. I want to capture a little of that here before it's too late. So. A few example of what I'd like to see in this world would include...

-A playful, mischievous imp or fae that will be friendly, inclined to playing tricks, and hard to catch
-Someone feeling down or unwell, that the player can choose to try and help, though the Wild One's appearance may make them wary
-Two giants, frozen in mid-battle like statues by the God of Wisdom as part of a lesson in perspective
-A pervert that comes out here just to be used, and gets confused and frustrated if you don't do so
-A shiny trinket that refuses to be touched, blinking away somewhere else when you reach for it. Maybe accompanied by a confused and greedy creature trying to figure out a trick to taking it
-Trees that lean to give you shade
-A freshwater spring that heals you, if your conscience is clear
-A mirror that creates a doppelganger of you based on the way you're feeling that moment
-Creatures that seem to always be sleeping, yet somehow move around when you're not looking. The more you wake them, the more you start to fall asleep
-Invisible spots where the world goes dim, and you are invisible while in them
-Creatures that defend themselves by psychically sharing so much of their history and memories with you that you become sympathetic with them
-Succubi subsisting on snuggles
-Creatures that silently follow and watch you no matter what you do or where you go, evading your attempts to get close-- but if you manage to hit them, they disappear like they were never there
-Thrill-seekers out looking for the coolest, most dangerous thing around to fight
-A singing, bottomless hole
-Creatures made of wind that you cannot see, only feel
-A snake so impossibly long you never see the head or the tail, just the body slowly slithering by
-A pond with a surface that's vibrating constantly, creating a strange sound, only to fall silent the moment you touch it
-A large, featureless rock you can speak with, sometimes with someone else already there speaking with it
-A tree you can walk up the side of, and even sleep on, as long as you don't jump too hard
-A shadow creature that tries to lead you through a hidden shortcut into nighttime, then play with you

Maybe these wouldn't all be practical, but the important thing is to have a starting point for that sort of feel. Like a fairy tale, but mostly something different and new. I think it'd be okay to include some stuff from actual fairy tales as well, but I definitely don't want that to be the majority.

A lot of this will probably be kinda background stuff, to space things out and add a little "personality" to the world in between events, but I hope it'll help make the world feel special. And I hope these ideas have gotten you wondering a little...