Devblog #1 - Gameplay
Intro to Worldform
Hello pioneers and welcome to the first Devblog for Distant Isles (huzzah!). My name is Elliot, and I started Worldform in 2021 to create awesome and atmospheric games that take you to other worlds.
I’m a hobbyist gamedev, looking to create worlds full‑time. I’ve been making games and prototypes for over 10 years now. With one commercial release under my belt, I’m looking for Distant Isles to be my most fleshed out and fun game yet.
Introducing Distant Isles
Distant Isles is a party‑based, turn‑based strategy role‑playing and roguelike game. Building a party, you will explore procedurally‑generated islands, seeking out adventure and treasure and trying to survive.
It is heavily‑inspired by Curious Expedition, and influenced by other popular games such as Caves of Qud, For the King and Stoneshard. It’s also inspired by a little game called Pioneers (which never saw a full release, but had a fantastic atmosphere).
It is set in a fictional universe, but heavily inspired by the Age of Discovery featuring tropical environments, ships and pirates, ancient shrines and treasure.
Distant Isles has been in development for over two years (since April 2023) as a part-time project. It is approximately 50% through production – significant gameplay, systems and user interface have been implemented. Testing of core gameplay, balance and polishing are yet to commence in earnest.
Gameplay
Distant Isles is fundamentally built on the premise of three modes of gameplay –the ‘Map’, the ‘Island’, and ‘Combat’. The player will sail around a larger map, arriving at islands, and then searching these islands for treasure and supplies (and engaging in combat).
You will explore this map and its islands with a party of up to four characters, each with their own skills, traits and quirks.
At its core, Distant Isles is about managing three key resources – Resilience, Inventory and Party Member health:
Resilience represents how far the player can move before bad events start occurring.
Inventory represents how much food, items and equipment the party can carry.
Health represents the health of each party member, and losing health is how the player loses the game.
As the captain of your band of party members, you must make interesting decisions to using these resources!
Wrapping Up
This is the first of what will (hopefully) be monthly Devblogs that I release on Steam. Each will explore a new subject matter, and dive deep into a system. Or perhaps they’ll just show‑off new content that I’ve been working on.
Stay tuned for further detail! This Devblog coincides with the release of our first trailer, and we’re shortly hoping to release a tech demo for testing and balancing.
Please follow and join us on this journey on Steam, or on our Discord!
Elliot