The Expeditions - Flavour text versus Career Expeditions
As you may know, we are working on an additional text for the expeditions, because as many of you have mentioned, the expeditions lack some spicy story or at least some description of what’s going on. And yes, we are working on the flavour texts but you should know that the career expeditions and standard expeditions are different structures. Playing career mode the player’s going to experience a few career expeditions, but the standard expeditions still will be the most common thing to do in the game. And the flavour text designed for standard expeditions won’t affect career expeditions. Why?
Career Expeditions
During career expeditions, the player will find a few events (presented as a text) with a choice. That choice will affect gameplay, it may change the required skill in the upcoming random quest (which isn’t random anymore, if the player decides what to do) or it can change its difficulty. The career expeditions are story-driven, those events are linked and every career expedition has a clear goal. If it’s based on linguistics, then the goal is probably to translate something, the events will describe problems and the player is going to choose the solution. However, the standard expeditions don’t have, and won’t have such an advanced narrative. In fact, the career expeditions are on the edge, if the player can predict how the decision can alter the next random quest the game become a little unbalanced. We applied a few solutions to the career expeditions to make sure that it won’t destroy the gameplay even if the player knows all of the choices and knows how to alter each event. This is why the number of career expeditions must have been limited. If all of the expeditions would allow the player such a choice, then the player won’t choose by the beliefs in the heart, because the choices would be defined by the player’s team of explorers. And in the end, the story would lose its own value. And we want the career expeditions to contain a valuable story, but with meaningful choices.
Standard Expeditions
The standard expeditions will have 3 flavour texts for each expedition. Those texts won’t affect the gameplay, they are here only for immersion and better ex[erience. The standard flavour texts (texts prepared for standard expeditions, which don’t appear during career expeditions) are divided into 2 groups. First 2 texts on each expedition will be always from the first group. Those are shorter texts about events during the expedition. For example ‘Your team was accused of grave robbing but a small bribe resolved that problem.’. The third text is from the second group, which means that it can be longer, but it also can tell us more why the expedition could go wrong or why it was a success. The third flavour text appears always after the last random quest. Another example? ‘Your team got lost somewhere in the Kunlun mountains. Fortunately, they were found and escorted back by a strange group of 8 old men. They told a few disturbing stories, which one was about the Bohai Sea. But are they a credible source?’. Those texts won’t change your fate, if the expedition is lost then it’s lost, but should be a fine addition to the game. What’s more, flavour texts for standard expeditions adapt to the location. Presented examples can’t appear during the expedition in Egypt, because they wouldn’t have any sense. Kunlun mountains and the Chinese legend of 8 immortals don’t have anything in common with Egypt. This way, depending on where the expedition is placed not only artifacts and the random event after the expedition will vary but also the flavour texts are designed specifically for the region. One may wonder if the first group of the standard flavour texts is also designed this way, and the answer is yes. For example, let’s say that a flavour text states that an explorer had a dream. Depending on the location the dream can be different. In Egypt, one can dream about biblical 7 fat cows and 7 gaunt ones, when in Greece the dream would be about giving birth to a living torch, which burnt a city to the ground. The standard flavour texts can contain some trivia about local history, mythology, and culture or could focus on your team and their personal adventures. The main goal for the standard flavour texts is to make the game more immersive. The standard flavour texts will appear during the expeditions on the map (the player will need to hover the mouse above them to read them) and in the expedition report.
Will the career expeditions have voice over?
Yes, the career expeditions will have voice over for the events.
The expeditions are restricted by time, will it stop for the flavour texts?
It won’t be stopped for the standard expeditions, but the player will always have the opportunity to read the texts in the report. We understand that not everyone is a fast reader (especially in a foreign language), but we don’t want to stop the pace of the standard Expedition. We believe that flavour texts will blend in the waiting periods when the player waits for expedition result or for the next random quest.
However, the career expeditions will stop the timer during the events. Player will have unlimited time to decide what to do. Keep in mind that those ‘flavour texts’ are more complex, will have voice over and will require a choice from the player.
How many career expeditions will there be in the career mode?
There will be a few. Not as many as random events, the career expeditions are also limited by the plot and each one of them needs to have its place in the whole story.
What about the conflict between flavour texts and random event (event in the mail after expeditions)?
There won’t be such a thing as a conflict between those. We’ve solved this problem, the random events are going to adapt the event in the flavour texts and we are happy to inform you that there shouldn’t be any contradictions.
Could the story be altered by the player choices on the career expeditions?
We really would love to create such a system in the future, but for now, it’s not possible for Archeo: Shinar. The choices during the career expeditions will affect only the gameplay on those expeditions.
When there will be the next update?
We are currently working on the career mode and we can’t give you a date (like we used to with last updates), because we are testing a lot of scenarios. We plan to release a new update in May, but the date isn’t clear yet.
Will there be new audio tracks for the career expeditions?
No, we don’t want to add more music to the game. We have 2 more audio tracks but we keep them for something else. The career expeditions should have a few sound effects which aren’t in the current version of the game and will appear only on those expeditions.
Could you tell us when the game will be released (full version)?
No, we can’t do that. We have in-house deadlines and schedules and we can estimate when the game will be ready, but there are a few variables (like voice actors) which can affect the schedules. We wouldn’t feel comfortable giving you the release date, but we are doing our best to stay in the early access no more than 6 months.
Cheers!