#kaendor — Public Fediverse posts

#IridiumMoons is such a great game concept I have come up with, but it never stops feeling intimidating. Even with late 90s Raw 3D graphics, the amount of modelling and texture work for all the equipment, architecture, vehicles, and all the greeblies on the walls of ruined factories and power plants is daunting.

A fantasy game in my #Kaendor setting, that looks like Thief with double the polygon count and more texture colors seems much easier, even with having to model and animate monsters.

For the last couple of months now, work on making progress with #IridiumMoons consists to 90% of time spend trying to come up with an idea how I could make something playable out of #Kaendor.

Those other 10% are actually making really good progress that is looking like it has the making of something really amazing that could become a hit.

But I would be so much more efficient if I could stop thinking "I really want to do Bronze Age with dinosaur fantasy, though..."

Entering an area in FF12 that has a sandstorm going on made me immediately realize that with wind being such a prominent element in my aesthetic vision for #Kaendor, the #HornetEngine absolutely must have floppy hair and cloaks.

Tree leaf and grass sprites moving randomly in outdoor areas won't do it.

I imagine this will make character models significantly more complex and increase the work load, but this feels like something that should be given high priority.

#hobbydev #gamedev #godot

Entering an area in FF12 that has a sandstorm going on made me immediately realize that with wind being such a prominent element in my aesthetic vision for #Kaendor, the #HornetEngine absolutely must have floppy hair and cloaks.

Tree leaf and grass sprites moving randomly in outdoor areas won't do it.

I imagine this will make character models significantly more complex and increase the work load, but this feels like something that should be given high priority.

#hobbydev #gamedev #godot

My current fantasy worldbuilding mood is 12th century Iberia; Forgotten Realms Amn, Tethyr, and Calimshan; Elric of Melnibone, and Morrowind.

And Bloodborne.

#bumblebeegames #kaendor

New Site Post: A Color Palette for Hornet
https://bumblebeegames.eu/a-color-palette-for-hornet.html

Now I am actually a #gamedev. I made an actual thing for my game on a computer.

I made a color palette for making textures.

#hobbydev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor

New Site Post: A Color Palette for Hornet
https://bumblebeegames.eu/a-color-palette-for-hornet.html

Now I am actually a #gamedev. I made an actual thing for my game on a computer.

I made a color palette for making textures.

#hobbydev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor

New Site Post: A Color Palette for Hornet
https://bumblebeegames.eu/a-color-palette-for-hornet.html

Now I am actually a #gamedev. I made an actual thing for my game on a computer.

I made a color palette for making textures.

#hobbydev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor

New Site Post: A Color Palette for Hornet
https://bumblebeegames.eu/a-color-palette-for-hornet.html

Now I am actually a #gamedev. I made an actual thing for my game on a computer.

I made a color palette for making textures.

#hobbydev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor

First attempt at creating a color palette for #hornetengine.
Feels like a start in the right direction. But man, creating a good yellow is hard.

I want my primary yellow to be a vibrant ocher dust. There's going to be a lot of that on the ground and in buildings in #kaendor. Ever so slightly orange, but definitely not greenish. Vibrant, but still dusty. And not too bright.
The perfect shade exists in my mind, but getting it with just three sliders will take more practice.

First attempt at creating a color palette for #hornetengine.
Feels like a start in the right direction. But man, creating a good yellow is hard.

I want my primary yellow to be a vibrant ocher dust. There's going to be a lot of that on the ground and in buildings in #kaendor. Ever so slightly orange, but definitely not greenish. Vibrant, but still dusty. And not too bright.
The perfect shade exists in my mind, but getting it with just three sliders will take more practice.

New Site Post: The Group Stealth Issue
https://bumblebeegames.eu/the-group-stealth-issue.html

It's a long understood issue in RPG design that having all characters in a party make their own stealth checks while sneaking results in it becoming statistically impossible to get into any place undetected with the entire party.

But unlike pen and paper RPGs, CRPGs don't really have a hard reason to not split the party and tackle a dungeon with only your thieves.

#gamedev #hobbydev #bumblebeegames #kaendor #hornetengine

New Site Post: The Group Stealth Issue
https://bumblebeegames.eu/the-group-stealth-issue.html

It's a long understood issue in RPG design that having all characters in a party make their own stealth checks while sneaking results in it becoming statistically impossible to get into any place undetected with the entire party.

But unlike pen and paper RPGs, CRPGs don't really have a hard reason to not split the party and tackle a dungeon with only your thieves.

#gamedev #hobbydev #bumblebeegames #kaendor #hornetengine

Thinking about why my #IridiumMoons setting always feels more interesting than #Kaendor, I have now believe that any good #worldbuilding for a setting that is going to be used for multiple stories needs to have experienced a recent disruption of the old status quo.

Sauron is returning.
The Emperor has dissolved the Senate.
Kalak of Tyr has been killed.
Protomolecule discovered on Phoebe.
Reapers? We have dismissed that claim.

Frozen conflicts become unfrozen. Settled questions are open again.

Always fun to do #worldbuilding by playing "How can this be true?" when being stuck on things contradicting each other.

- The world was created by the gods establishing the natural laws.
- People worship gods to maintain the patterns of nature their survival depends on.
- For civilization, reliable trade is as necessary as seasons.
- Trade is a human invention, not a natural law, and not made by the creator gods.

Solution: The god of trade must have been born as a human.

#kaendor

After 10 years of struggling with this aspect of #Kaendor, I have now arrived at a design for the nature of gods, demons, sorcery, and other worlds that I realized has a lot of similarities with The Elder Scrolls and Warhammer.
And I am okay with that.

Because, and here's the kicker, it feels very simple and neat and tidy. 😅

#bumblebeegames

New Site Post: Ready to go
https://bumblebeegames.eu/the-truths-of-the-world.html

First weekend in my new place, start of my summer break, and switching to a 35-hour work week. And also Midsummer day.
Time to get seriously started with creating my own videogame.

#gamedev #hobbydev #bumblebeegames #kaendor #iridiummoons

Two games that have been quite the inspirations for the tone and look I want to pursue with #Kaendor are Darkborn and Elveon. Which have been cancelled 4 years and 16 years ago respectively.

#hobbydev

I actually did come up with a strong, interesting, and fresh theme for #Kaendor some weeks ago, but didn't realize it as such:

Magic is the power of Chaos. Experimenting with it keeps causing disasters and attracts demons into the world. But the only thing that can counter magic is magic. Sorcerers and demons are already here and have to be dealy with.

It reminds me of a killer quote by Kosh from Babylon 5:
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."

Now that I have committed to (as much as I ever commit to anything) making my game a party-based RPG with turn-based top-down combat, I want to explore again the possibilities of making it a systemic game based on the procedural gameplay of the early 80s D&D Basic/Expert edition.

I'm already seeing something similar at work in Jagged Alliance 2, and I find it hugely compelling gameplay. Add some Fallout and Kenshi, and there's CRPG gold ahead!

#hobbydev #BumblebeeGames #HornetEngine #Kaendor

Now that I have committed to (as much as I ever commit to anything) making my game a party-based RPG with turn-based top-down combat, I want to explore again the possibilities of making it a systemic game based on the procedural gameplay of the early 80s D&D Basic/Expert edition.

I'm already seeing something similar at work in Jagged Alliance 2, and I find it hugely compelling gameplay. Add some Fallout and Kenshi, and there's CRPG gold ahead!

#hobbydev #BumblebeeGames #HornetEngine #Kaendor

The sudden realization that with the look and feel of my Sword & Sorcery and Space Opera settings both being heavily inspired by 60s and 70s cinema, I can design the GUI for Hornet Engine with one icon bar at the top and one at the bottom, leaving the main play area with a 2.39 : 1 aspect ratio on 16:9 monitors.

#gamedev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor #iridiummoons

The sudden realization that with the look and feel of my Sword & Sorcery and Space Opera settings both being heavily inspired by 60s and 70s cinema, I can design the GUI for Hornet Engine with one icon bar at the top and one at the bottom, leaving the main play area with a 2.39 : 1 aspect ratio on 16:9 monitors.

#gamedev #bumblebeegames #hornetengine #kaendor #iridiummoons

With ADHD, I have learned that it helps me a lot to begin the design of anything game related by pinning down a one or two sentence definition of what I want to make when inspiration hits me. Regularly looking at the definition again to check if I am still on track helps me not getting lost in the weeds creating things at random without a plan.

But I now think defining #Kaendor as a Bronze Age fantasy world was an error that might have held me back for years.

#worldbuilding #bumblebeeames

#nwn2 #kaendor #bumblebeegames #hobbydev

Though, Neverwinter Nights 2 has a similar level of detail and realistic proportions to what I want to do with Hornet.

If I would make #kaendor assets for NWN2 in Blender, I could reuse them when making my own game mechanics in Godot.

I think modding NWN2 so that players can only play as human Fighter, Rogue, and Sorcerer, and customizing the sorcerer spell list should not be that difficult.

This sounds way too sensible for how much I hate NWN2 as a game.

#hobbydev

Feeling very exited to both work on my Conan/Morrowind-style Sword & Sorcery world #Kaendor and my Star Wars/Dune-style Space Opera world #IridiumMoons.

Too much creative energies.

Interesting option I am seriously contemplating:

"Spirits" are actually the descendants of natural creatures that have been "mutated" by sorcerous energies from the Beyond in past ages, and since then have become established species within their ecosystems with consistent phenotypes.

A good example of the "How can these things both be true?" Method of #worldbuilding. It often can lead to very interesting and new things that people haven't really seen done before.

#kaendor

A very important #worldbuilding question I was never able to really make a decision for in #Kaendor:

Is magic supernatural or extranatural?

Is there a spirit of the mountain, or a demon living in the mountain?

Are spirits always nearby but invisible, or are they in a different reality?

I never really had to make a final statement on this for my #ttrpg campaigns, but it will have to be permanently established for my #crpg.

"Handwritten scrawl: Minoan Bloodborne".

#kaendor #bumblebeegames

After having once again spend several days trying to come up with an interesting and unique concept for magic, spirits, and other worlds in #kaendor, I am now thinking that perhaps I don't really need to.

A Bronze Age setting with serpentmen, fishmen, and dinosaurs really isn't original in any way, but I actually can't think of a single time this has been used in a videogame. To lots of people, this would probably be plenty of interesting already.

#bumblebeegames #hobbydev

Underwhelming core conflict of #Kaendor:
- Position A: "By researching and understanding the sorcery of the ancients, societies can be greatly improved and better defend against supernatural threats."
- Position B: "The ancients couldn't control their own sorcery and kept destroying themselves with it."

Better conflict for Kaendor: "Things from Beyond have already taken notice of increasing sorcerous rituals. Leaving the ancients' powers buried is no longer an option."

My fantasy setting #Kaendor is the result of over a decade of work, while I've been working on my space setting #IridiumMoons only for a few weeks over the last two years. But now that I am considering them for use in a CRPG, the space setting seems so much more compelling because its conflicts are much more interesting.

Which had me thinking that fantasy settings rarely have interesting conflicts. Ancient evil wants to unmake reality is not a conflict, it's a contrivance.

#worldbuilding

New Site Post: Project Hornet
https://bumblebeegames.eu/project-hornet.html

As concept work on my first videogame is progressing, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I would much rather create shorter CRPGs with shorter development times, that take place in various different settings, rather than one big game tied to one story in one place.

Project Hornet is my plan to create the bare bones of a CRPG, that will be easily reusable for a number of different games.

#gamedev #bumblebeegames #kaendor

Doing some #worldbuilding for my #kaendor videogame and defining the laws and mechanisms by which magic works.
I created something that looks logical, consistent, and functional. But there's just no interesting consequences or questions that result from that, which would set off compelling stories or mysteries.

That's very much useless worldbuilding.

It adds information to process, but does not add anything.

New Site Post: Where is this Kaendor anyway?
https://bumblebeegames.eu/where-is-this-kaendor-anyway.html

Finally a basic overview of the kind of fantasy world that the Kaendor setting is representing and the main influences on its worldbuilding.

#bumblebeegames #kaendor

An attempt was made. 🐝

But this will be an indication for the type of quality you will be able to expect from Bumblebee Games. 😄

#bumblebeegames #kaendor #iridiummoons

New idea for a #crpg character system where characters are meant to feel different, but player's don't have to think much about stats:

Four Attributes:
- Strength
- Agility
- Wits
- Charisma

Six Skills:
- Combat
- Mechanical
- Perception
- Speech
- Stealth
- Magic

Every action checks one attribute and one skill to determine success or failure, depending on which are the most fitting. Every use slowly increases the skill, and very slowly the attribute.

#gamedev #kaendor

The first videogame I am slowly starting to learn game development for is going to be set in my Sword & Sorcery #Kaendor setting. At least the proof of concept prototype to develop the game mechanics, interface, and basic assets.

But I also did some work on a Space Opera campaign #IridiumMoons that I never ran, but would also make a great video game.

Given the setting themes and styles, I think it would make a great "Knights of the Old Republic meets Jagged Alliance 2" strategy-RPG.

While outlining the world for my fantasy videogame, I am torn between "make it nothing like Dungeons & Dragons" and "try to salvage the promissing pieces that Forgotten Realms had at the start of the 90s".

There might be a path to do both.

#kaendor

I've been using various different takes on the #Kaendor setting in a number of #ttrpg campaigns for 10 years (even before it got that name), and at no point would I ever have considered other worlds that characters can visit with magic to be other planets somewhere in the universe.

But right now, while working on an interpretation of the world for a #crpg, that idea is feeling really quite attractive.

Trying to come up with an address for my Kaendor CRPG project, I realized that https://kaendor.com is still available.

Yeah, I think this one should be fine.

#Kaendor #KaendorRPG

I put together a monster list for running a D&D 3rd ed. game in #Kaendor

Bit of a strange selection, with some really classic D&D monsters on it, and many others complete absent. And some cool ones from AD&D that I think 3rd ed. neglected way too much, or cool new monsters from the MM that not enough was done with.

I like it.
It has character.

#ttrpg #dnd #dnd3e #3ER

I put together a monster list for running a D&D 3rd ed. game in #Kaendor

Bit of a strange selection, with some really classic D&D monsters on it, and many others complete absent. And some cool ones from AD&D that I think 3rd ed. neglected way too much, or cool new monsters from the MM that not enough was done with.

I like it.
It has character.

#ttrpg #dnd #dnd3e #3ER

I put together a monster list for running a D&D 3rd ed. game in #Kaendor

Bit of a strange selection, with some really classic D&D monsters on it, and many others complete absent. And some cool ones from AD&D that I think 3rd ed. neglected way too much, or cool new monsters from the MM that not enough was done with.

I like it.
It has character.

#ttrpg #dnd #dnd3e #3ER

I put together a monster list for running a D&D 3rd ed. game in #Kaendor

Bit of a strange selection, with some really classic D&D monsters on it, and many others complete absent. And some cool ones from AD&D that I think 3rd ed. neglected way too much, or cool new monsters from the MM that not enough was done with.

I like it.
It has character.

#ttrpg #dnd #dnd3e #3ER

I put together a monster list for running a D&D 3rd ed. game in #Kaendor

Bit of a strange selection, with some really classic D&D monsters on it, and many others complete absent. And some cool ones from AD&D that I think 3rd ed. neglected way too much, or cool new monsters from the MM that not enough was done with.

I like it.
It has character.

#ttrpg #dnd #dnd3e #3ER

My experience with developing #Kaendor has been repeated cycles of having new ideas how to spice up the overall concept, taking things apart, building several new protoypes, and eventually after half a year or so becoming convinced that the original design was actually pretty close to what I want to accomplish in the first place.

It's annoying at times, but I've learned to find comfort in that it seems to confirm that I already have a winning formula and on the right path.

#ttrpg #diyrpg

Having a new map file open and an entire sandbox region (360x520 miles) just popping into in my mind. I'm seeing the mountains and rivers even on the blank space! And monster lairs, and faction headquarters.

#ttrpg #diyrpg #Kaendor

The cosmology I'm putting together is made up of the Material Plane, the Plane of Shadows, the Plane of Faerie, and the Far Realm. All of which are not from Planescape.

It's a fairly small setup as D&D style cosmologies go, with no inner and no outer planes, but I think that only gives those three planes more room to really show their presence in a campaign. And the way they are described in the book has been hugely evocative and inspiring to me even 20 years ago.

#kaendor #diyrpg