Now that we've spent some sprints building the Reach, GANYMEDE is where we begin adding flesh to the skeleton we’ve constructed. Art have continued their construction of ports, officers, locomotives and worked on improving the docking platforms. The content team outlined the next area of the High Wilderness: Albion. Tech have been busy implementing wrath, heat, armaments, shop mechanics and storylet UI.
Art
This sprint Tobias (formerly known as Toby here) began work on the Royal Society port! Backers managed to achieve all five portions of this port during the Kickstarter.
The once-moribund Royal Society of inventors, explorers, and scientists has received a generous grant from Her Enduring Majesty and a renewed mandate: to unravel the mysteries of the High Wilderness!
Both Paul and Tobias also finished up some of the officers. Below you can see the Incautious Driver as well as Sunless Skies’ version of an old favourite, the Blind Bruiser.
Art also spent some time redesigning the docking experience at ports, which Tobias implemented.
With this version, players can pull into the dock from either direction, however, the dock will expel players’ locomotives out of the dock in only a single direction. The artists were far too delighted envisioning being able to rev up the locomotive’s’ engine so that docks would actually shoot locomotives back into space. This has yet to be tested as a possibility.
Content
This sprint, the content team have developed a comprehensive story document for the game's second region: Albion! Albion represents London's core territories, basking in the radiance of the Clockwork Sun.
Creating a document like this is an involved process. We take our initial high-level outline of a region and drill mercilessly into it, pitching ideas for ports, quests, conflicts, and discoveries. Every member of the team pitches concepts and takes part in the discussion, and we bring members of other teams in (production, tech, comms, analytics) to pitch and contribute, too.
Every pitch gets polished, expanded and tied into the overall stories of the region. Some pitches won't make it to the final game - we can't do everything we'd love to, so (as much as it pains us) we have to choose the ones that work best together.
Then Chris takes the pitches and discussion and compiles them all into a document. Writers get an opportunity to make final amendment to their pitches, and then the document is shared with the whole company so everyone can offer feedback. That feedback is discussed, then incorporated into a final (ish) version of the document.
Then we can start writing ports!
Speaking of which, here's a sneak peak at the list of the ports we're considering for Albion, a few of which may ring bells for fans of Sunless Sea and Fallen London:
Avid Horizon, the Clockwork Sun, the Brabazon workworld, the Most Serene Mausoleum, Worlebury-Juxta-Mare, Ephemera, Eagle's Empyrean, and the Floating Parliament.
Cash and James also worked on one of the Reach’s remaining ports: Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus, where weary acrobats and grizzled clowns entertain an audience of visitors. A handful of those visitors will choose to stay here, and never leave. Are they charmed by the magic of the Big Top? Or is it something deeper?
Exceptional Freelancers
We can also reveal some of the exceptional freelancers who have already begun work on ports for Sunless Skies. All three worked extensively on Sunless Sea, and are experienced with our processes and tools. They're already sinking their (very sharp) teeth into the new story possibilities offered by expansions to our narrative content system.
These freelancers are:
Meg Jayanth (80 Days, Horizon: Zero Dawn): who wrote the Isle of Cats and Varchas in Sunless Sea.
Emily Short (Galatea, Inform 7, Versu) - who wrote Station III, Visage, Nuncio, Dahut, Anthe and Aigul for Sunless Sea and Zubmariner.
Richard Cobbett (The Long Journey Home, games journalism) whose Sunless Sea and Zubmariner work includes Saviour's Rocks, the Empire of Hands, Mr Sacks, the Pirate Poet, Nook and the Gant Pole.
Gameplay and Design
Barry implemented heat, a subtle mechanic with big effects in-game. You'll primarily notice this in combat, when you'll see firing your guns and moving at top speed slowly increase your locomotive's heat gauge until - if you're not careful - your engines may overheat.
This won't result in immediate destruction, but you'll be punished with an array of possible effects for running your equipment too hard. This applies both to the player's and agent locomotives.
Barry has also implemented Wrath, which Adam discussed last week on the FBG Podcast. Wrath represents an agent's current hostility towards another agent or the player. This allows agents to fight one another when it logically makes sense, and also allows players to identify simple narratives in regards to why the fight occurred.
Wrath is modified by provocations, which can be instantaneous (like being hit by an attack) or periodic (like a specific type of agent being a certain distance away).
When an agent's Wrath towards any other agent or the player is at a certain level, the agent is marked as hostile and will enter combat!
Meanwhile Mac worked on implementing shop functionality in ports, and our first run at the cannon and shotgun armaments, which are featured below (more glamorous gifs to come as armaments progress).
We've agreed the Art Nouveau style we'd like for our UI, and Liam's now going in and implementing this across the game. This should do a great deal to establish the tone and time of Sunless Skies. He’s also been refining the transitions to create a sleeker feel.
Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 22nd June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. Our next sprint, HYPERGALAXY, will feature bug fixes, weapons content and locomotive UI!