Dear Travellers,
The last year was one where we slowly opened the door to Book of Travels and all it involves. We’ve been deeply gratified to read your response, in particular those replies that have lead us to books, art and other media that you feel share similarities with the square-peg project that is our TMORPG. With that in mind, and to make for a reviving start to the epic year that will be 2021, we’re dedicating this post to a deeper investigation of key inspirations behind Book of Travels, and we hope you feel inspired to share your own inspirations with us too!
The Library of Babel by Érik Desmazières
Circularity and uncertainty from literary magic realists
Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges is famous for fiction that undermines all notions of reality. One of his best known works is The Library of Babel, whose (almost) infinite stacks of randomised texts prompted the production team to begin designing a game world that has players get lost on an (almost) infinite quest of their own design. In Borges’ story characters respond to the uninterpretable texts in many ways - as cultists, cabalists, or simply on a searching for meaning and truth. The exploratory decentred experience that is Book of Travels owes a lot to Borges’ library and Ficciones. Other stories such as 1001 Nights and Judith Schalansky’s Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands have also inspired the dreamy reality and magical everyday of Braided Shore.
Tove Jansson’s Hattifatteners haunt Moominmamma
Light and darkness from Tove Jansson
All Moomin fans are familiar with how the light-hearted domesticity of Moomin life is made brighter by lurking darkness. A Groke, hattifatteners and the Lady of the Cold all loom in from the periphery to quietly nudge you out of your existential comfort zone. No matter the infinite beauty of the new day’s sun there’s always something unnerving in the offing. If Book of Travels gets anywhere close to conjuring this kind of uncanny we would be thrilled indeed.
Standing in the rain with Totoro
Peace and solitude from Studio Ghibli
Hayao Miyazaki’s work is much loved in the studio, and the stillness and silence in films like Spirited Away, Ponyo, and Totoro is something we love a lot. These daring minutes of peace aren’t validated by any narrative task, they’re simply part of a meandering journey, allowing us to get lost in something or nothing in particular. We’ve often written about getting lost in Book of Travels and about how tranquil it is, the effect of Ghibli’s ‘ma’ is something we dream of achieving in game form.
David Lupton’s Ged from Ursula le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea
Ambiguity from Earthsea
Everything mundane and ethereal in Book of Travels emerges from a grey zone somewhere between good and evil, and the game’s design and scattered narratives quite consciously evade that classical binary. So while we’re clearly very inspired by fantasy RPGs, the spirit of the game’s design owes a lot to fantasy classic A Wizard of Earthsea, in which Ged learns about the balance of the cosmos and fights inner turmoil rather than outer forces of darkness.
Layers of mystery from Baldur's Gate
Open world gaming from Baldur’s Gate
If there is one game we never tire of paying tribute to it’s Baldur’s Gate. This was the original it-doesn’t-hold-your-hand RPG and many of the team have spent uncountable hours playing it, both since production began but also way before the Book of Travels seed was even planted. The sense of just wandering the lands freely, just enjoying nature and the adventure is still an unparalleled experience in the RPG genre. Interestingly BG1 was created by medical doctors and not seasoned game devs - they wanted to make a game with a much more open style of play. In terms of game design, this is the team’s number one inspiration and we’ll be over the moon if we can even slightly live up to its achievements! Other games that we looked at are Journey, ICO and RPGS like Knights of the Old Republic.
A still from Jiri Trkna’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Character design and a diorama aesthetic from Czech animators
Czech animation has something of a cult following, but it’s Jiri Trnka in particular whose illustrations and puppets are an all time favourite of Art Director Jakob Tuchten. Trkna’s almond-eyed, graceful-limbed creatures are dressed in the deeply-hued cloaks of medieval style fairytales, an aesthetic that blends easily with feudal Japanese and Middle Eastern dress. Trkna’s animation also inspired Book of Travel’s diorama feel. This mix of 2D and 3D was a big technical challenge but, we hope, now evokes a Trknaesque atmosphere, suggesting fictions consciously staged in a world that’s deeply immersive.
The Blue Heron by AJ Casson
Arnold Böcklin's Isle of Death
A light and dark aesthetic from many fine art masters
While ambiguity is a source of dramatic tension in Braided Shore, visually, dark and light are very polarised. For the painting style, inspiration finally came from AJ Casson whose picture above became the cornerstone of the game’s visual style. Casson’s lines are fluid, vivid and detailed, and echo expressionists (such as Munch and Van Gough) in invoking the motion of wind. Wind is a very important phenomena in Braided Shore, so this aesthetic also works to hint at its continuing presence and magical influence. Away from the woods, dense looking rocks and flat reflecting water are borrowed from Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of Death series to create a bleak feel. The art team also looked to the Orientalists whose figurative art documented everyday life in Middle Eastern cities. From them comes the hustle and bustle of our biggest city, Kasa.
The Reception of Ambassadors in Damascus, by an unknown Venetian artist
Waterhouse's Love for Circe
Those unexpected human things
Of course there are tonnes of other influences that go into the Book of Travels cooking pot to stew, some of which are those unplanned, organic and human things. There’s a phenomena in the theory of visual art whereby artists cannot resist the temptation to fill all available space with detail. It’s known as Horror Vacui, and unsurprisingly that’s exactly how the game ended up looking how it now does. For that we have Lead Artist Marcus to thank! A studio copy of Madelaine Miller’s Circe now creaking with use like it has a spirit in its spine has also bled into our approach to spells and magic.
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We hope that this very brief dive into our various influences has inspired you to discover something new and fun. For sure, our journey of discovery is never over, and we'd love to hear all your suggestions for cultural rabbit holes that we can lose ourselves in, so please drop us a line below and let us know what Book of Travels makes you think of...
Thank you so much for spending your time with us! From the whole team, best wishes and stay safe!
Helen and the Dev Team xx
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/
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The T in TMO signals an alternative to the more common industry standard MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) putting 'tiny' in the place of 'massive'. That means fewer meetings, which we think means more magic... Read more here: What is a TMORPG?!
Revealing the Early Access World
Later this year Book of Travels will be available for Early Access on Steam. In Chapter Zero parts of the Braided Shore will be open, and among the places to visit is the gem of the region – the city of Kasa. Read more here.
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