Skies of Arcadia and Zelda games are great: both have straightforward adventure, simple but deep combat systems (based on tactical CHOICES more than rote execution; that use good music programmatically; and that resolve before they wear out their welcome), and plots excavated through world exploration. More of that! The Zelda game of reference here is Wind Waker: there will be ships and ports. The Zelda game of reference here is Wind Waker: there will be ships and ports. First draft is going to look a lot like a 'Skies of Arcadia' ripoff, because it will be.
The surface of the planet is water. The known world is one small continent on the only plateau to reach above the water, dominated by a single central mountain with the Imperial Castle on top, surrounded by islands. Each island is unique and most are sovereign, though some belong to the continental empire. Those that do are not universally happy about it, although the whole continent and its inner ring of islands are. Discontents help you evade the empire, so you can learn to sneak gradually.
The empire is modeled after the British empire at their naval peak. Ships have to sail with the wind. The Imperial Navy will be the primary enemy (it may, I dunno, level up to space baddies eventually). They'll sail a variety of ships, tending toward big, strapped up, not necessarily fast ships of the line. The naval big bads will be big triple-decker gunboats; the hero will have to outsail them, because you never get one. Instead, you level up from a small sailboat with no guns to a small 20-gun ship to the equivalent of a French 74: big enough guns (in poundage) to hang (the final ship will also have extremely good range/accuracy), but small enough to be fast and quite shipshape. You'll have to build up your crew to get cannons running as fast as a ship is capable.
The game starts in a village, far out from center. The village, which has, like, 5 houses, is in a tiny, homey rural archipelago. The village has shipping concerns outside Imperial purview, between independent parties: these are considered by the Imperial government to be piracy. Bureaucratic overreach and, quite frankly, rude.
Zooms in to birds-eye view of the village. Scene begins outside A House, where
, who is cut from the same cloth as Moomintroll, more or less, is being told by A Friend to go to the sailboat to meet parent. You begin
Sailing is the main part of the game, but there are ports and villages and such.
Walking Around happens all the times you're not in a boat/ship. You never fight
while Walking Around; Our Hero is cagey and innocent. Baddies are a distinct
minority in this game, outside of their ships. When they are around, Our Hero
avoids the sightlines (displayed in arcs around them) of baddies. You snoop
invisibly, and if you get caught, you lose. You walk around with hjkl or arrow
keys, space to talk to people.
Hello, says parent. Turns out you have to {{do something}} which requires taking a boat to two other islands. But today is special. Today you're old enough to go out and about, so by god, you're learning to sail. Your parent gives you the rudder. Cue instructions! First you open a map and set a marker; then you sail.
You have a birds-eye view of the ship and the wind is pictured as a bunch of arrows. You start medium speed pointed toward your marker. You can pick a speed relative to the wind (stopped, slow, medium, fast) and steer left and right.
H |= left J |= down K |= up L |= right
A: open map S: [???] D: [???] F: fire guns
Your angle to the wind determines your speed; the sails are automatically set to an ideal angle to the wind and jib algorithmically. Totally hands off: you have the wheel and a shipshape crew (first one of parent/friend; then your crew once you level up) has the sails. This trip is short, and downwind. There's a HUD with compass, and you see your marker, first at the edge of the canvas and then on the place to dock or the arbitrary spot of water you picked. Docking or running into it, respectively, stop your ship and erase the marker. You arrive at {{island B}}. You get {{thing A}} and turn your sights to {{Island C}}. It is upwind, so you are taught to tack. The ideal line against the wind might be displayed when your angle is close to it.
It's a thing. It's gonna be a bit sanitized, because that stuff in real life was horrific. In this game, everyone has lifeboats and in battles, both sides always hit the hull. The arcs of all ship's guns' range is displayed radiating from the sides of the ships. When they're in range, you just hold f and your crew will fire your cannons as fast as they can. Slower sailing means more accurate guns. Eventually, someone's hull breaks. If it's the baddie, you win! The other crew is stuck on their slow little lifeboats and you are free to sail away, your hull regenerating as your ship's carpenter works. If it's you that gets sunk, you probably have to restart right outside the other ship's range.
One exception: maybe 3/4 of the way through, you have to go to a certain port with your 20-gun ship. While you're off your boat doing a Plot Thing, the port is closed off by an overwhelming force of Imperial gunboats. You make a plucky stand, but your ship is sunk and you and your crew are taken prisoner. You have to escape from prison (someone you helped earlier in the game busts you out, then you have to not get caught), and on your way out, you pass a beautiful 74-gun ship with a shallow draught and fast lines made by the Friggin' Stradivarius of Independent Island Shipbuilders. The Empire has just confiscated it. You steal it, make your getaway, and that is how you get your Boss Ship.
Not sure about the proper frequency, degree of scripting vs algorithms, etc The fundamental act should be exploration, not combat
120 bpm is standard; maybe things can speed up during a boss fight or such?
Anyway, the standard exists to make layering easy. Layering, along with a new technology called "melodies", enables a very simple theme for a region to be programmatically varied as players explore different areas within it. Each area has a unique, distinctive set of clips it loops.
Layering different tempi at the same rhythm enables shifting polyrhythms and chords, which is just basically the shit, and enables really cool, distinctive feels for different areas.
In Skies of Arcadia, boss fight music played a perfect little trick: when you get the boss under 50% life, the music subly changes to a major key. 💯 out of 💯, will definitely steal.
At all times, the player is in an area; and every area is within a region. Every region has a musical theme; every area has a unique variation on that theme. The only exception is maybe if location is trumped by a surprise boss fight; but encounters should be geographically determined.
- There are 4 or 5 regions surrounding the imperial continent.
- have one or two areas that are significant to the plot or that are subplots:
- unlock an ability
- treasure
- a monster terrorizing an island
- find a ship
- enemy camp
- etc etc
- have habited places (all cities and towns are safe)