2025 is finally here, and that means Odyssey is releasing this coming summer! We've set the release date towards the end of June -- but stay posted, but there will be absolutely 0 hesitation to delay if the game needs more time!
While the anxiety and excitement of finally getting this beloved child of a game project out the door is mounting, I'd like to give another look at the inside.
From yours truly, project lead Andrew,
With a lot of the game's groundwork built up, it's long been time for me to get into the bloody details of the game, and so I've been spending a lot of time lately on the game's major hub area: New Bastion.
In New Bastion, the player will spend a lot of time upgrading their equipment, stocking up on consumables, following quest leads, and even customizing their house.
But is it enough to just have "things" to do in a town area? Or is there more to it? If you ask me, the answer is: of course! What's the point of immersion if there's nothing to get immersed by? That's why New Bastion is filled with unique characters. Almost every NPC in the town will get to know you, they'll remember things like how and where they met you, and how you became a citizen of New Bastion. But it's even deeper than that, I think. The idea behind a good NPC isn't just someone you build a strange parasocial relationship with, but how your actions as a player influence their path as the game unfolds.
So how does one develop an NPC, especially one in a town you'll spend most of the game in?
I. The Town
Obviously, setting is the most important thing. But I'm not just talking about cowboys in an old western, or knights in a medieval castle. I mean, REAL setting.I ask myself, how do towns form? How did this town form specifically? In the city of New Bastion in particular, it was formed outside of the ruined acropolis of an old, magical society. Naturally, it has drawn the allure of new blood with magical talents.
But let's get the superficialities out of the way and ask the real questions: Where do these people get their food? Is there water nearby? Is high in elevation, or maybe low?
I know it's cool to just make a "blanket" culture of people who are maybe warmongering barbarians, or overly-enlightened Elves, but even real-world counterparts to these fantasies are infinitely deeper than that. Many ancient Norsemen were farmers, goatherders; simple folk, rather than bloodthirsty raiders. The Spartans were a militaristic society, but they still shared deep cultural connections with each other -- even if they did eventually die out.
These are meant to be real people, so they need to follow a couple very real rules: like avoiding potential starvation, among other things.
II. Jobs
So we've figured out a little backstory, and asked some logistic questions. In New Bastion's case, the people live in a place with some good soil, so they farm; their agriculture makes them very fruitful, in fact. Since they farm, they need farmers. And what do you know: We have our FIRST NPC.
There's more than farming. Since jobs are involved, this means Bastion has some level of economic status. Do they barter with each other? Or do they use money? Where does this money come from? I think many games, RPG's specifically overlook the golden opportunity to make money more intertwined with its world.
I think many RPG's take money for granted. It's expected that there will be some raw mathematics that give them those shiny gold coins to spend on gear and loot. But that doesn't satisfy me. So I mocked up a ton of different types of money that different parts of the game world might use, or in "the lore" might have used at some point.
Then I thought it would be cool to make a quest about creating a new type of coin for the city, and look at that: A NEW NPC was born. Someone to mint these coins. But who is commissioning these coins? Just how centralized is Bastion's government? We need a treasurer, right?
The list goes on, and you can decide for yourself how detailed you want your world to be. If you can manage it, the more detailed and interwoven your town is, the better. Because what is a town but a web of interconnected people all getting along? Which brings me to my next stop....
III. Schedules, and Habits:
So we've created a handful of folks to work the fields, or smith tools, or what have you, but what do they do after that? Do they just stand in one place all day, hitting an anvil with a hammer? I suppose they could, I guess I wouldn't cast any shame on devs who would design it that way; but like I said earlier: This just doesn't satisfy me. Obviously, this requires a lot of technical aspects, but I am NOT the guy to ask for that. I just do all the "creative" stuff.
Odyssey is themed after the antiquity era, and what was a massive influence back then? Alcohol! Beer and wine have existed almost as long as humans had arms and legs to brew it! Maybe after a long day, farmers like to go to the tavern, and rest their tired bodies. The bartender might even make his own brews, wouldn't that be quite the passion? The tavern itself is a great place for a lot of NPC's to end up after the day's over, where you can still talk with them, but they might open up about different parts of their lives that wouldn't talk about during the day.
The market's another big one. Lots of people are shopping and gathering at the agora every day; it's a great way for them to mingle and spend time together.
And finally: Prayer. Many people follow their own religions, perhaps they have temples, or churches they gather to congregate. These are just a couple of examples, and they can go deeper than that -- I'm not trying to design your game for you, just describing the steps I took get where I have gotten.
IV. Conclusion
How deep your NPC's bonds can go is completely up to you. But giving the player a DnD sheet disguised as a character is just not the way to go. Meeting a character and they say, "I love gardening, this is my sister." is just not convincing. But maybe the character you meet mentions that she's suspicious her sister is poisoning her garden out of envy, or something will give you something to look into. It'll make these characters stand out more as people. From there, the connections will begin weaving themselves.
Hope you guys were able to make sense of this one -- since I wrote it at 5:30 am. Until next time!