Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones, Open-World Procedurally Generated RPG, Kickstarter Now Live
Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones, Open-World Procedurally Generated RPG, Kickstarter Now Live
Information - posted by Crooked Bee on Wed 6 June 2012, 21:16:44
Tags: Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones; KickstarterCult: Awakening of the Old Ones is an open-world RPG that aims for everything to be procedurally generated: world, stories, myths, legends, civilizations, creatures, and gods. It's now on Kickstarter, asking for a mere $5,000, and it looks pretty interesting and ambitious to me.
What is Cult?
Cult is an open-ended role-playing game set in a user-generated world with a strong focus on storytelling, exploration, and environmental interaction. In simpler terms, it is about exploring a richly fleshed-out fantasy world unique from any other, with procedurally generated stories, myths, legends, civilizations, creatures, gods, and - well, basically everything! Cult is one part role playing game and one part experiment into the possible depth of procedural generation, and one of my goals with this project is to intertwine computer-driven storytelling with random content in a way that appears as seamless as possible to the player.
I drew my inspiration from games like Dwarf Fortress, the Elder Scrolls series, Darklands, and even Crusader Kings. I have also been heavily influenced by games from the 90's like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore and Final Fantasy 3 which relied on a very strong story to draw the player in and keep them hooked. I love playing open-ended games, but I've always wanted a game that combined a randomly generated, complex world with equally complex stories, history, and characters. Since I've never been able to find any games like that, I decided to make one of my own!
Procedural storytelling? How will that work?
Dialogue, the personal stories of the various characters you meet, cultural anecdotes, and even the mythology of each world will be generated from scratch. Conceptually, it's fairly simple - I plan on writing many, many different possibilities for each different thematic element of the game to explore, so that each character, story, and personal exchange you make will seem organically unique. The hard part, as with any well-made procedural engine, is getting all the content accumulated in the first place. I've already started, but I view Cult as a very long-term project for myself, so this is something I'm going to be working on for years, if not decades! Of course, it will be released and playable long before the thematic elements are as polished as I'd like them to be, so it's also important for me to have the game engine stand on its own two legs as a great experience first. Eventually, I want Cult to be something of a combination between playing a game and reading a fantasy novel.
What language is Cult written in?
Cult is written entirely in Python, and utilizes the libTCOD roguelike library to make text look purty. Yes, that's correct - Cult so far is only text. Of course, I've done a bit of editing to the font set, but everything is still created using simple monochromatic characters. They're just mashed together in a way that makes them look nicer!
One reason I'm running this Kickstarter is because I'd really love to be able to get a custom tileset drawn up for the game.
$15 gets you a digital copy of the game. If you feel like pledging or just studying the tiers and rewards, be sure to visit Cult's Kickstarter page.
For more information about the game's current progress and even more videos, you can also check out the Cult development blog.
What is Cult?
Cult is an open-ended role-playing game set in a user-generated world with a strong focus on storytelling, exploration, and environmental interaction. In simpler terms, it is about exploring a richly fleshed-out fantasy world unique from any other, with procedurally generated stories, myths, legends, civilizations, creatures, gods, and - well, basically everything! Cult is one part role playing game and one part experiment into the possible depth of procedural generation, and one of my goals with this project is to intertwine computer-driven storytelling with random content in a way that appears as seamless as possible to the player.
I drew my inspiration from games like Dwarf Fortress, the Elder Scrolls series, Darklands, and even Crusader Kings. I have also been heavily influenced by games from the 90's like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore and Final Fantasy 3 which relied on a very strong story to draw the player in and keep them hooked. I love playing open-ended games, but I've always wanted a game that combined a randomly generated, complex world with equally complex stories, history, and characters. Since I've never been able to find any games like that, I decided to make one of my own!
Procedural storytelling? How will that work?
Dialogue, the personal stories of the various characters you meet, cultural anecdotes, and even the mythology of each world will be generated from scratch. Conceptually, it's fairly simple - I plan on writing many, many different possibilities for each different thematic element of the game to explore, so that each character, story, and personal exchange you make will seem organically unique. The hard part, as with any well-made procedural engine, is getting all the content accumulated in the first place. I've already started, but I view Cult as a very long-term project for myself, so this is something I'm going to be working on for years, if not decades! Of course, it will be released and playable long before the thematic elements are as polished as I'd like them to be, so it's also important for me to have the game engine stand on its own two legs as a great experience first. Eventually, I want Cult to be something of a combination between playing a game and reading a fantasy novel.
What language is Cult written in?
Cult is written entirely in Python, and utilizes the libTCOD roguelike library to make text look purty. Yes, that's correct - Cult so far is only text. Of course, I've done a bit of editing to the font set, but everything is still created using simple monochromatic characters. They're just mashed together in a way that makes them look nicer!
One reason I'm running this Kickstarter is because I'd really love to be able to get a custom tileset drawn up for the game.
$15 gets you a digital copy of the game. If you feel like pledging or just studying the tiers and rewards, be sure to visit Cult's Kickstarter page.
For more information about the game's current progress and even more videos, you can also check out the Cult development blog.
