Company News Taking Care of Business - Iron Tower Studio 2019 Business Diary

[hivemind]

leaked concept art for the alien race design

Spoiler

 

[hivemind]

seriously tho like dont make them pudgy manlets please

ain't no one gonna want to look at that

 

[Vault Dweller]

If you are going by that logic there is no reason for them to look humanoid at all.
Or even be mammals of some kind. But, yeah, thats too deep.

If we had an army of character artists and art interns, I might agree with you. With one animator and limited budget on concept art, going for something "too deep" would be a mistake.

 

[Esquilax]

In any case, there is plenty of time to think about that, assuming you don't change your mind and opt for a different idea if you like something else better.

The way I see it, we (humans) need and develop muscles because that's our primary way of interacting with the world: carry, push, climb, run, throw, lift, chop, build, etc. We're all about tools (and we're nothing without them) and tools require muscles to wield them efficiently, be it an axe, saw, or hammer. The aliens will rely on psionic abilities to interact with the world so their physique will be noticeably different. Nobody will mistake them for humans.

Makes sense.

You had mentioned that the aliens use their priests to focus the psionics of their populace and weaponize it into some very powerful feats. Other than mind control/manipulation and telekinesis, what else would it entail? I would imagine that, assuming the humans are capable of constructing drones/robots, that they at least would be immune to those mind-affecting powers.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You had mentioned that the aliens use their priests to focus the psionics of their populace and weaponize it into some very powerful feats. Other than mind control/manipulation and telekinesis, what else would it entail?

All kinds of things. Psionics shouldn't be the way they fight but the way they live, so their entire society should be built around psionics. At least that's the goal here.

I would imagine that, assuming the humans are capable of constructing drones/robots, that they at least would be immune to those mind-affecting powers.

Traditionally, psionics aren't limited to abilities that affect minds but also include abilities to affect matter such as pyrokinesis (remember that Firestarter book/movie?), cryokinesis, electrokinesis, ergokinesis (GURPS loads it with data-manipulation abilities like nethacking, remote control, data retrieval, etc), teleportation, etc.

 

[Tigranes]

Also, seems a shame to skip the landing too.
Surviving through those first days, scavenging the ship and surrounding land, slowly building first settlement and experiencing first contact are very fertile ground for interesting gameplay.
It keeps things simple but at the same time very significant.

It might make a good survival game but we prefer faction-centric games. We need to reshuffle the old factions the player is already familiar with, which requires a chain of events to unfold, plus internal and external problems which also take time to emerge. Logically, the alien threat will unite the colonists and the factions but only at first. Since the threat is existential and can't be easily overcome, new ways to handle it would emerge which will start driving the factions apart and creating new ones. This process would take a couple of decades as such things won't happen overnight.

Same goes for the natives: they too need some time to process the new threat which requires some victories and losses. We can't have massive battles in RPGs (at least we can't), so it best to skip it and start the game long after the dust settles.

Plus, both sides need to develop some kinda counters to each other's strengths: the colonists would create gear protecting the mind (there's already this tech in the game - mental resistance has been a helmet stat from day one, but it's rudimentary), which would force the natives to find new ways to overcome it; the natives would come up with better shields and armor, which will give the player new materials and equipment. Plus, we'll need human psi-mutants which too takes time.

Colony Rats: surviving the first days after the landing as a resource-starved colonist accidentally separated from the crashed mothership! Your $9.99 goes towards funds for the Colony Ship sequel.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

If we had an army of character artists and art interns, I might agree with you. With one animator and limited budget on concept art, going for something "too deep" would be a mistake.

errm... that was sarcasm.

"deep" as in - basic logic.

And you dont need no army for that either. Especially since, apparently, they wont use their "limbs" for anything so you dont need to animate or even have those at all.

include abilities to affect matter such as pyrokinesis (remember that Firestarter book/movie?), cryokinesis, electrokinesis, ergokinesis (GURPS loads it with data-manipulation abilities like nethacking, remote control, data retrieval, etc), teleportation, etc.

One animator and limited budget can do this but cant do logically consistent form of life.

 

[Fenix]

Logically, if the probe can still transmit, so can the ship.

Well, I agree, but I didn't mean that probe still working, it's crashed, I mean it shows Earth intentions.
Also, while the Ship was home of your people, now it's more like the Temple (also interesting, how far they fell into barbarism and forgot who they are) so psychologically it's very different to find alien probe - because Earthlings are alien for them already - from you big Home.
Dunno, for me it would be interesting to find something like that.

Colony Rats: surviving the first days after the landing as a resource-starved colonist accidentally separated from the crashed mothership! Your $9.99 goes towards funds for the Colony Ship sequel.

Absolutely, that's what I thought - you can turn landing into Dungeon Rats - like game.