The setting doesn’t have to be medieval period, but shouldn’t be technologically advanced. There is a mostly undetectable Functional Magic source that we’ll call tellura, since it comes from all around the earth. A rare number of people, called tellurics, are born with the ability to sense tellura more fully, and utilize it.
Think of the gameplay as a combination of Tomb Raider, Dishonored, Q.U.B.E.. Graphics should be colorful and vibrant, lots of natural environments, low- to mid-technology technology civilization, story, puzzle, and skill-driven system—i.e., getting further into the game should be based more on the the player figuring out how the magic and puzzling system works, versus leveling up and getting stronger to defeat more powerful enemies.
Tellurics learned to develop uses for tellura as a practical power source, sort of like electricity or combustion, but only controllable by tellurics. Tellurics don’t have to be traditional magic users or ascetics; they could be farmers that use tellura to help milk their cows or assassins that use it on their targets. Assuming the humans in this universe act like the humans we know and love in our universe, there’s going to be a plethora of cultural responses to the tellura phenomena.
There are creatures—it’s a bad name, but we can call them tellura beasts—that are born from the tellura, and like tellura they are mostly unseen except by tellurics. They are mostly harmless creatures but can cause havoc to humans for various reasons I haven’t explored yet. Solving the problems created by tellura beasts involve manipulating tellura directly, or by crafting items and combining them to create working devices.
Tellura can be used to acquire abilities, like x-ray vision, levitation, time-slowing, remote communication, etc., to help solve puzzles. In this sense, the player can level-up but there’s no “attack” or “speed” attributes to increase.
The player controls a character hat is part of a society of tellurics that investigate tellura beast funny business, either as a private matter or organized by the ruling bodies of the various lands. Think of them like Ghostbusters, in a sense, except more mystical than technological. There’s opportunity here to use side-quest mechanics to introduce additional, optional puzzles that aren’t required to move the campaign along, but provide additional “short stories” for the main narrative.
What this game won’t be: Dark Souls, horror p0rn, Skyrim, World of Warcraft, ultra-violent FPS shooters, hack and slash, heavy twitch gameplay
No: lootboxes, endless DLC, character customization, different game formats and variations
About the only “movies” I’ve watched in recent years have been a few game walk-throughs. Way too many in the past year have been the wrong kind of story for me. Some of the really big ones are morally disturbing. But I’ve not seen some of the ones you linked here, so I need to look them up because they appear much more interesting than the things I’ve turned down.
I remember Mist having a decent backstory that’s revealed at the end. The Talos Principle has playthroughs that look decent. I’d love to see what Call of the Sea has for a story but it hasn’t been released yet.
I agree; too many games are just movies with more gratuitousness.
You’re really showing your age with the no DLC/customizable character caveat. Simultaneously, you’ve made the sale to ancient relics such as myself. Bravo!
Josh! Yeah, I’m showing my age with this idea. There’s too many ways a game can steal your time and attention. I don’t want to addict people. Give me some interesting, fun mechanics and a story that makes me want to play enough to make it progress. 🙂
Yeah, I noticed that The Signal From Tölva had that, but nobody has posted on YouTube a complete walk-through. Several gamers went up to a certain point less than half-way and just stopped — three years ago. I liked what I saw, though.
5 Comments
About the only “movies” I’ve watched in recent years have been a few game walk-throughs. Way too many in the past year have been the wrong kind of story for me. Some of the really big ones are morally disturbing. But I’ve not seen some of the ones you linked here, so I need to look them up because they appear much more interesting than the things I’ve turned down.
I remember Mist having a decent backstory that’s revealed at the end. The Talos Principle has playthroughs that look decent. I’d love to see what Call of the Sea has for a story but it hasn’t been released yet.
I agree; too many games are just movies with more gratuitousness.
You’re really showing your age with the no DLC/customizable character caveat. Simultaneously, you’ve made the sale to ancient relics such as myself. Bravo!
Josh! Yeah, I’m showing my age with this idea. There’s too many ways a game can steal your time and attention. I don’t want to addict people. Give me some interesting, fun mechanics and a story that makes me want to play enough to make it progress. 🙂
Yeah, I noticed that The Signal From Tölva had that, but nobody has posted on YouTube a complete walk-through. Several gamers went up to a certain point less than half-way and just stopped — three years ago. I liked what I saw, though.