Greetings travelers, in this devblog you’ll read our insights on what we’ve been up to since the last update and some other gameplay/lore elements that we find interesting to share. Let’s get right into it.
TFM: The First Men has a very mod-friendly, open ended, “custom game” a-like mapping system. Including us, content creators will be able to generate empty maps and design it however they like.
There’s something that we think is important and exciting here. From the available Traditions, Constructions, Activities, Traits to Skills, one person’s map might not be the same with others’ in terms of progression, setting and content.
You might still wish to use the game’s base map content and everything, but it’s your choice to make something completely different, from art assets to the core content. Our builder is highly capable of providing you with tools that’ll make your life easier when creating new, original content.
Same makers and tools also allow you to create contents in small scale and publish them as you see fit. You want to add vampirism to the game? Sure, create its traits, skills, activities etc. and pack it up. You wish to add a whole new combat class to the game? Go ahead, create the proper traditions, paths etc. and let the people enjoy your Gunslinger when they decide to pick a class for their thoroughly invested characters.
This allows different maps to be able to feel very unique, both thematically and mechanically. Thus, creating a sense of a new “custom game” with each created map. For example, we’ve set out a goal for ourselves to create two types of maps for Early Access as a starter. A “sandbox” type map called Armonia, and a more linear, story-driven one that tells us a story about Adam and Eve’s alternate journey in a fantasy world.
TFM’s sandbox gameplay will be developed around the high fantasy continent of Armonia, a diverse landscape inhabited by numerous races, adventures, dungeons and cultures. It’ll be the ultimate fantasy experience with a lot of classic RPG elements sprinkled throughout its hand-crafted regions. The player will still have a main plot to chase if he likes to, but the map’s playtime and scale will be grand enough to allow you to play it as in an open-ended, chill structure. Or vice versa, if you’re into that.
Without throwing any spoilers and details at you, in an outline form, let’s talk about Armonia’s Backstory and the overall plot structure as it is now. As these are considered canon for the adventures that’ll be shaped around them for now, they may still be changed without hesitation for the good of the game. For those who’re mythical lore junkies like us, we’ll make sure to update you with details as we go.
Long ago, before the First Men’s arrival beneath the shades of their Gathering Tree in western Armonia, they were the tribal inhabitants of a plane called Ihfal-dun. In it, the whole tribe witnessed a world-wide armageddon called “the Calamity” that boiled seas, melted mountains and turned the cycle of life upside down in a matter of minutes.
Luckily, their ancestors saw the arrival of the Calamity eons ago and forged a prophecy to warn their offspring. The tribesmen who witnessed the Calamity used this sacred knowledge to successfully escape their plane and save themselves. It was a prophecy that foretold the reunion under a holy tree.
The mysterious departure from Ihfal-dun brought them to Enigma, also known as The Silver Sea, or the Astral Void. They found themselves aimlessly soaring between multiple systems like crackling meteors.
They traveled for ages in an unusual time-frame. During this process, most of the tribesmen went mad, some of them lost their ways and crashed into nearby stars or others got enslaved by the Gith, a race of marauders, consisting mostly of Astral pirate bands.
During their enslavement, the tribesmen traveled through multiple astral phenomenons in these strange pirate ships. Some got sold as slaves to planar settlements, other ships and their numbers started to dwindle as they were being scattered throughout the Enigma.
During one of their astral trips, two remaining slaves, a man and a woman of the tribe were caught between an Illithid assault on their Gith ship. While at the lower deck, inside arcane-locked cells, a mind-flayer hastily entered the room and attempted to break them out.
He started talking about “the Empyrean” and his dream, and an artifact called “Nightmare’s End” and how the race of “Humans” were binded with the fate of producing a “Dreamborn” child who’d carry the weight of entering the Empyrean’s fabled dream with it. The upcoming psyche-storm was not like the ones before, and had to be stopped.
When the figure provided the potential ancestors of a future civilization with essential information and a scroll that’d prove useful with imbuing this “Nightmare’s End”, a group of Gith scoundrels entered the room, as the boarding battle still ensued upstairs on the deck. A fight began inside the room.
While the mind-flayer was occupied with the fight, he used telekinesis to throw the dead Giths’ escape crystals to the First Men. Through one of the damaged hull’s cracks, they saw the vast Silver Sea, and a plane full of life in front of them. Specifically, the continent of Armonia.
Holding hands, they held onto the crystals and jumped out from the ship. The crystal encapsulated and shot them forward. After a long trip, they crashed inside a meadow and created a hole. When they crawled out of the tiny crater, they witnessed the wonders of a world full of mysteries, hardship and adventure, as they walked towards the Gathering Tree in the distance.
Armonia will be our main white-board in terms of new updates, as we’ll jam them up at it to test rather than other maps, if of course we decide to create a new one with a whole different setting and feeling. Maybe the First Men will find themselves in other mythical planes in the Empyrean’s Dream, who knows?
We’ll use it to test new core mechanics, balance existing ones and alike. Your creative criticisms are highly important in any of these decisions that we consider to implement in our maps.
Character Appearance
One of the things that we were looking forward to was the easy implementation of character appearances by artists and the content designers’ communication with them.
In TFM, each character changes appearances based on their traits. Traits have the ability to alter a character’s body part, or multiple ones at the same time.
Characters are born with Race, Gender, Life Stage(Condition) and Elemental traits. One by one, each of these traits try to match themselves with what the content designers assigned them to in the Trait Maker database.
Based on this structure, all traits mingle with each other using a priority system to organize who goes on top what. Not just physical traits, but weapons and armors are also represented through traits in TFM, therefore, based on what are the character’s active Attack and Defensive skill sets, we’re able to observe a change in such a character’s hand-held and donned items.
Character’s who’re not in a combat party and are just minding their own worktime and downtime activities inside the settlement also use this system, constantly changing their garments and holding equipment coherently logical with what they’re doing. This incredibly component based system allows us to easily create jobs without thinking about the complications of implementing new aesthetics into the game, so both the designers’ and artists’ creativity flows uninterrupted by unnecessary software barriers.
Real-time Combat
Each character in TFM has a Defensive Skill Set, Attack Skill Set and Utility Skill Slots. Defensive and Attack sets are obtained by choosing an active Armor and Weapon type combat trait for the character. Each such trait holds a set of skills assigned to it from the Trait Maker, after its skills were designed and implemented to the Skill Maker by the content designer.
Apart from these two, a character’s maximum Utility Skill Slots are determined by modifiers from other traits. While a character is limited to this modifier for its active and currently usable skills, there are no limits on how many he can collect from his traits.
Since our previous blog, we’ve established the core progression system of Armonia’s combat traits for adventure-seeking characters. We also eliminated the idea of strict class-based railroading and separated all class mechanics to thematically appropriate individual traits, so it’s much easier to create multi-class (multi-colored) characters based on their primary and secondary stats.
Maybe there’s that one utility skill that matches perfectly to your build from the Vanguard class but you also wish to hold on to your Fighter’s Heroic Leap? If your character’s stats are eligible to obtain them all, go right ahead and experiment!
Based on your traditional decisions, the settlement will one by one unlock these individual combat traits which will be available for your characters to pick them up through Path activities, by your command.
Current progression uses a 5-tiered system for all individual armor and weapons. For example; if your settlement already has Woodcutter’s Hut, Crafting Table and Leatherworker’s Workshop unlocked; you’ll be able to come across a Tradition called Fighter’s Code, which unlocks a construction called Training Yard and three combat traits for your Path of the Warrior operation panel: Fighter’s Scrap Handaxe, Fighter’s Light Studded Leather and Training: Maneuvering.
These are your “Tier 1” fighter Attack Skill Set, Defensive Skill Set and Utility skills separated to three different traits. From now on, you can construct the Training Yard and if you’re able to afford and the character is eligible, you’ll be able to grant these to anyone through Path of the Warrior. These, with future tradition investments, will slowly upgrade and expand their modifiers and skills, even unlocking new skills to the set as they upgrade to higher tiers.
Fighter’s Scrap Handaxe will turn into copper, iron, steel and finally adamantine, reaching its final form. Same with Fighter’s Studded Leather; light, medium, heavy, thick, solid.
Considering each “class” will have more than one weapon and armor with multiple utility skills providing combat traits, there’ll be some decisions made when you look at how to build a potential combat character.
For example, a character with a Fighter’s Iron Shortsword, Scoundrel’s Thick Leather Armor and some utility skills from the Flamespeaker’s tradition will come out as a “Green/Black/Red” with lots of specific modifiers. This means that you actually worked and achieved to unlock all of this through traditions and then stitched them together as a build of your own creation.
You think your Fighter’s Steel Handaxe and the skills it provides will work better after slaughtering the denizens of their kennel? Nothing’s holding you back to change skill sets while you’re not in combat.
That’s all for this month’s update, see you on the next one. Stay safe and keep exploring!