>>5234474The list of aesthetic inspirations I am thinking of:
Shadow Of The Colossus
Symbaroum
Armello
Redwall, Brian Jacques
Everwild game trailer
Tad Williams, Memory Sorrow Thorn
Prince Of Persia 2008
Journey
Sky: Children Of The Light
Kuldahar from Icewind Dale
Baldur's Gate 1,2
Pillars Of Eternity 1,2
Prince Of Nothing
David Gemmell
Lone Wolf, Project Aon
Gormenghast
And then some sailpunk (cloudpunk?) stuff
Sundered Skies rpg
Worlds Adrift cancelled game
The Wildsea rpg
I want to make a noblebright utopian setting but it keeps coming out grimdark cringedark lol. I will even settle for just whimsical elegiac or anime urgh Nausicaa but cannot manufacture this feeling. Look I even researched a specific game design list of domestic cosy comfy triggers, close your eyes and imagine this:
cat asleep on lap
sound of rain on roof
holding hands
tree swing
cooking with herbs hanging from the kitchen
carving fruit
smell of baking rolls
walking through a pile of crunchy leaves
carrying a basket of vegetables back from farmer's market
fishing at a pond full of lily pads
walking on stepping stones through a mossy garden
a child whispering a joke
flying a kite
wind chimes
dust motes glittering in afternoon sunlight
mending a fence
sweeping a porch
sound of a snoring pet dog
forking hay in a barn
...there is a long list on Project Horseshoe game design website research. Some of this is in conflict with my inspirations above.
They mention stuff like:
- NPCs welcome and greet adventurers
- tend and befriend, pets
- seasons, daytime, dawn day dusk evening
- community spaces like libraries, taverns
- nonurgent tasks, avoid interruption
- abundance of resources, avoid zero sum economics, avoid social comparison, competition coercion threat
- low cost social reciprocity, social rituals
- self determination, handmade materials
- human-scaled environments, man-made interiors (not soaring gothic or sublime / numinous architecture landscapes etc)
now how to incorporate all this into a cosy game hmmm