Gameplay and Mechanics - How and Why

I figured I'd talk about some of the mechanics and lore pieces that you'll find in Fading Away, and the reasoning behind some of them. There might be a little history to find here, as well.

Sidescrolling

As has been mentioned this game is a 2D side-scroller. While it would have been assumed that there would be platforming in a sidescroller (after all, the two go very well together, gameplay-wise), it wasn't a hard choice for me to say "no, there won't be any platforming here." The reason? Tone.

A great many things in the game can be linked back to this concept of tone. I personally like to use the term "essence," but that brings in a lot of other connotations, so for now, I'll just say "tone." Consider what would change about the game if platforming would be included. A few of the obvious examples are things like: jumping on enemies to kill them, perfecting keystrokes to achieve difficult movements, and an overall focus on the environment as a catalyst for player movement rather than a setting for events to occur in. I would much rather the game world take on a more realistic appearance, leaving out the floating platforms and instead focusing on creating areas that reflect the surroundings that Leanen is currently in. Don't worry, this won't lead to endlessly-flat levels! Therge is a pretty hilly and uneven place, so there is plenty of variation there.

Continuous Gameplay

One of the big issues I've had with a lot of games is that if you fail, one of two things happens. For this example, I'll use the typical instance of a player character dying. The first and more common is that you will be met with a "Game Over" screen, and the game will be set back to a previous checkpoint. The second is the more specific mechanic of "Permadeath," in which you must restart the game from the beginning. Both of these contain an element which I'm trying to avoid in Fading Away...The halting of current gameplay to go back to a previous state. Not every game is like this, of course, but sadly, there is almost always some kind of going back, rather than moving forward. In Hellblade, you do get closer and closer to a permadeath situation every time you are killed, but you still are sent back to a checkpoint. In Majora's Mask, you can reset time to return to the start of the three days, but if the timer runs out, then the game is over and you must reload a save file.

I've long yearned for a game that allows you to fail, and still keep going. Now, ultimately, there do have to be situations in which the game is "lost," and you must start over; otherwise it wouldn't be much of a game then! Failure conditions must exist, but what I want to include in Fading Away are multiple states of failure. If you die, you can simply continue onwards as a ghost, due to the Binding (which I will get into later). Yet, drawing back to the example of Hellblade, a failure is not without consequence. You can fail a number of times, but these failures add up. Ultimately, you will come to a point in which there is the ultimate consequence: permadeath. In other words, your save file is deleted and you must restart the game from the beginning. I've always liked this design, but I wanted to incorporate continuous gameplay along with it. There is no going back to a previous point.

The way I am applying this to my game follows this philosophy. Leanen can be killed, but because he has the Binding, his spirit is unable to leave the world, and so he continues onward through the Middle World as a wandering spirit. If he returns to where his corpse lays, he can attempt to re-enter his body through multiple methods, if they are available. The simplest is through the Binding itself, though it is the most destructive to his soul. Other ways, such as focusing through relics or receiving assistance from the mysterious Maidens of Healing, are less harmful, but they are harder to come by. Once back in his body, Leanen will return to life, though he will receive damage to his spirit in the form of Withering, a weakening of the soul and a loss of essence. Should this withering become too great over time, or should Leanen die without the necessary hope for the Binding to use as kindling, his spirit will lose its essence entirely, and Leanen will fade away. Should this happen, all progress in the game will be lost.

Then again, this is all if you even decide to take the Binding at all...If you choose not to, then you must be even more careful...

The Binding and The Soul

I've mentioned something called the Binding, but what is it, exactly? Well, the souls of men are not bound to to Vilgen (the world). When someone dies, their soul will pass onward to the Otherworld or to the Halls of the Naeran, depending on where they choose to go. 

However, many centuries ago, when the height of mankind was beginning to wane, when the emperors of the greatest power Vilgen had ever known grew to fear their mortality, a concept was formulated. The telks who came to aid in the fights with the great enemy held powers which granted them unending life; why was it that only they were gifted this? In truth, mankind was gifted with powers of their own, but through the ages, it had been forgotten and lost (but not destroyed...). So the emperors sought their most accomplished seer, and bade him to discover a way to grant a human unending life like the telks possessed. After years of work, the seer returned with five braziers of a burning white flame. Eagerly, the emperors received these flames upon their souls, and so after many years, they still remained living. Yet, over time, they grew distant and detached from the world. For it had not been known then, but these white flames needed kindling. The braziers created a bond between the soul of a human and Vilgen. So long as it burned, the soul could not leave the body. What was discovered only too late was that the white flames fed off of the soul of the human, until it devoured it away entirely.

Following the destruction of the empire and the sacking of its capital, the braziers were separated. Some were destroyed, others were lost, but one was taken to the king of Therge as a treasure.

Situation-Focused Objectives

This was a difficult subtitle to come up with, since I wasn't really sure of what to call what I am trying to describe.

In a typical game, your objectives are directly given in relation to something that you have done or are currently doing. Your achievements and progress determine the future objectives that are presented. Sometimes, there will be instances in which your objectives are randomly chosen or newly generated, but often in these cases, this is to little result, except for your character sheet. While things like "radiant quests" in Skyrim do receive their fair share of criticism (often for very valid reasons), I do think that this type of quest was a good idea, albeit a poorly-executed one.

For a project like Fading Away, having an objective place a massive effect on the game world might be a bit too much for the scale I'm working at, I do still want to add an element of randomization to some of the objectives NPCs will give to you. However, randomization will only play a small role in the overall generation of objectives, as consequence is the more important factor at hand. It would not be hard to design five quests, then have an NPC randomly pick one of those five to give to the player. However, the quest and its consequences begin and end with the quest.

In designing the NPCs in Fading Away, I included factors that the player will possess, and not just the essential things like HP and reputation. NPCs also have thirst and hunger, they have inventories, and they have hope. If you talk to an NPC and he has plenty of food, water, resources, and he likes you, then the chances are that he won't need you to do anything for him. On the other hand, if you talk to an NPC who has nothing and hasn't eaten in a few days, then not only will he ask you to help him out, he'll be even more appreciative of you for assisting, and may help you out, later.

Now, consider that second NPC again. In the case of you declining to help him, other things can still happen. He won't just wait for you to accept a quest. If there are other NPCs nearby who can help out and like him enough, they may offer him some of what they have, causing this objective to disappear for this NPC. Quests here are meant to be like a domino in a chain. They are caused by something, and they lead to something. On that note, you also should be quite careful in choosing whether or not to help people out. Sometimes, if you get them back on their feet, they can steal from or kill another NPC who they don't like, or if no one helps them at all, they may just end up perishing (through multiple different ways, depending on their state...).

Crafting and Magic

Crafting here is relatively simple, as is magic. Being a game based around survival and enduring through hardship, it only makes sense to have some way to change or combine objects from one type to another. I don't feel like there needs to be much complication here, so crafting will take the form a screen where you can input an item you possess, and are presented with the available options, in correspondence to what else you have. From there, you can choose which new item to create. Given the scale and purpose of the game, I'm not planning to make crafting much more than a basic item transformation mechanic. Of course, your effectiveness in creating the item will be dependent on your skills.

Magic, on the other hand, functions in a similar way. In Fading Away, magic is less of the usual *zap* variety, and more of the buffing sort. In the world of Vilgen, stories and music hold special power to men, so when drawing forth a specific tale or verse to your mind, you can produce miraculous effects upon yourself. For example, recalling the tale of a valiant and courageous warrior will grant you some temporary bonus to your abilities, or allow your soul to regain strength, thus removing Withering from it. Some spells, however, require assistance in casting, and thus necessitate the possession of certain objects, due to their spiritual potency.

As powerful stories can survive through worlds and time, one of the best ways to find these tales is to speak directly to a ghost who may be willing to recall it for you.

Thank you for reading!