The Survival/Crafting genre is well understood by most audiences, so I will not waste any words here explaining the basics. Try not to die, gather resoures, explore, build a home, craft new tools. We got it. 

 

In order to distinguish TerraForma I will begin by outlining what TerraForma is not, because much of the design decisions I have made have been in direct opposition to the typical Survival/Crafting experience. Maybe it is my personal taste, but I find that most of the fun that I have in such games is in spite of the core game loop. In order to "fix" the "problems" I have identified in my experience with survival/crafting games, I have a short list of principles to adhere to:

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1. The Most Valuable Resource is Time

The typical survival/crafting experience involves beginning with the clothes on one's back (sometimes not even), and scrounging for sticks and stones. Eventually these crude tools make way for more refined implements, etcetera, etcetera. I do not believe it is interesting to painstakingly chop trees and mine boulders what amounts to full hours of real time, only to be rewarded with another tool that's a bit faster (but not as fast as the next one). TerraForma aims to provide a similar core experience, without the chore-like nature of resource gathering, through the following mechanics:

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• Free Multitool - On spawn, players receive a plasteel tool that can be used as an axe, pickaxe, melee weapon, or prybar. This tool doesn't need to be upgraded, and never wears out.

• Lite Crafting Recipes - Want to build a wall? 1 Wood. Want to build wooden stairs? 1 Wood. A door? Believe it or not, 1 Wood.

• Small, Crafted Overworld - The game area is a bounded continent with hand-placed features. Infinite open worlds are great until you need to trek back to base.

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2. Persistent Presence

Who doesn't love coming home from a day of adventuring, storing all your loot in a row of chests, and then never looking at it again until you need to pull it out to craft something. I don't! In order to make player bases lived-in, TerraForma enforces a standard of displaying all player items in the world, rather than reducing stored items to icons hidden in a chest. Everything must be placed on a shelf, on a table, or on the floor. In order to not overwhelm the player with items to manage, the following mechanics are in place to simplify the experience:

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• Proximity Crafting - Items that are nearby to crafting tables are available for crafting immediately.

• Stockpiles - Wood and stone, and any other easily available and hoardable materials can be stacked together, reducing the space required.​

• Rot - Farmable items will rot over time, and simply disappear if not stored properly. This is to prevent an annoying pile-up of food, not to force the player to farm more.

• Rust - Even high-value items are subject to decay, if left exposed to the elements. If not stored indoors, scrap metal and electronics will be destroyed.

• Rare Ingredients - Other ingredients, such as scrap electronics, are extremely rare. Because crafting recipes are slim, a single scrap on a shelf could represent a security or power upgrade, and probably won't stay on the shelf for long.

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3. Realistic Inventory

Similar to how there are no chests in which to hide items, players do not have hidden inventory-chests that can hold many tons of resources, as is typical in the survival/crafting genre. Generally speaking, the survival experience doesn't include effortlessly carrying all of one's needs with them at all times. Instead, players must use free hands to carry items, or store them in a backpack.

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• Backpacks - May be found in dungeons, or crafted from leather. Items in the pack are queued in a First-In-Last-Out order, so important stuff should be packed last.

• Tools and Weapons - May be slung over the shoulder to free a hand to pick up an item.

• Pockets - Batteries, bullets, fuses, and other small items are carried in pocket slots. A free hand is required to use one's pockets.

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Most of the core game functions are in place already, however most have been implemented in their own silos, and a good deal of work is still needed to combine all of them. I am also open to the idea of scrapping or modifying the above points, as playtesting reveals how these systems work together.

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Unfortunately, due to some networking configurations out of my control, I will not be able to easily develop the multiplayer aspect of the game for the foreseeable future, so only single player demo builds will be immediately available.