Dear Travellers
We're happy to share the first of a series of mini posts that will take you behind the curtains of Book of Travels production. In the coming months we'll be sharing small insights into the production journey, leading up to early access release later this year, and towards full release!
Today we want to share some progress on the game design systems. As many of you have read before, Book of Travels balances a lot of contrasting gameplay elements and it’s very much up to the player to pick and choose which parts to engage in. One of the pillars of the experience that we’re currently working on is a multiplayer feature we call Endeavours.
Endeavours are special events that require players to help each other and cooperate to solve situations (players of Meadow will recognise traces of obelisks). The amount of players needed, the context, the goal and the rewards all vary greatly from event to event. Starting out, your character represents one “slot” in any endeavour (see the above screenshot), but as your character develops it might gain the ability to cover two. Some Endeavours can be solved alone, but others will require you to gather a large band of travellers before engaging. Some will reward you with small magical boosts or items, and other, rare Endeavours can be the starting point of larger adventures! Endeavours are divided into four categories; physical, mystical, mechanical and social.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/
Physical Endeavours
These situations challenge your group with feats that require strength, such as operating a draisine cart, pulling objects out of a well, or clearing heavy rubble to uncover items.
Mystical Endeavours
These can be anything from praying by a shrine or singing at a graveyard to interacting with magical beings and invoking visions of the past.
Mechanical Endeavours
Braided Shore is a land that inherited an ancient industrial infrastructure, some of it is still noticeable in today's society. Through mechanical endeavours your group can use ancient steam boats and train engines, unpick mechanical locks and use various mechanical devices in the world.
Social Endeavours
Examples of these are a merchant who doesn't give access to her wares unless a group convinces her to, or a scholar who can give lectures to larger parties earning them valuable skills and knowledge in the process. Social endeavours are about interacting with folk in the world and affecting their response to you depending on your numbers.
Current status - your input!
We’re currently developing these systems and plan to try some out in the upcoming beta. We truly hope that you like the idea of Endeavours, and we’d love to hear your thoughts regarding them in the comments right here. If you have ideas for other types of Endeavours we can add, please comment below and we might implement them! (And credit you for it in the final game of course!)
Thank you for your time!
Jakob and the team