Pagination

  • Adventure
    • Rivera is on a caravel (the mansion) and she is trapped in the crow’s nest with a fellow exploration expedition member, who watches with you as pirates seize the deck and go below to round up the rest of your crew. You must swing on ropes and cut them to knock pirates off the ship or knock them unconscious. You go below deck and find that your crew has already dealt with the pirates so you can continue your quest: find the lost relic inside a jungle temple. You must avoid setting off traps or running away from them. At the chamber you must pick the correct key using logic and clues on the temple wall and retrieve the idol.
    • Next expedition they travel to the far east to retrieve an ancient sword that has fallen into the hands of an assassin clan. Your job is to infiltrate through stealth the clan’s headquarters in a trading port manor and retrieve it. At its retrieval, the sword turns out to be cursed and you and your group enter a parkour dream world where if you die you die in real-life as a test of worth. You and your team live, and the assassins, seeing as you passed the sword’s test, lets you leave with it.
    • Your team heads back to an American port to take a train back to your city to place the two artifacts in the museum. However, the train is attacked by bandits and you must solve a number train puzzles to first free the train of robbers and reach the engine room, then do a rail puzzle to make sure that the train does not crash by using a whip to pull levers.
  • Aesthetic

    Each genre has its own aesthetic; some genre maps can be larger or smaller than others, but in general each room’s layout stays similar across genres. Overall, while within books, artists can stylize and play off the book/paper theme as much as they want.

    • The Real World: The mansion in which players must navigate is an antebellum-style mansion, aged but still well-kept. Features natural lighting and everything you would typically expect at your grandma’s house. Feels homey and warm, even when your family goes missing.
    • Mythology: Main motifs are that of Greco-Roman, Persian, and Egyptian; the mansion is colored like papyrus and has a desaturated yellow tint to it. Shading and outlines have some noise, resembling faded ink. NPCs include centaurs, nature spirits, and gods; the mansion somewhat resembles an ancient temple.
    • Fantasy: Tolkien-esque world with medieval European influences (Celtic/Viking/Frankish). The environment should evoke the sublime- awe-inspiring structures, dramatic lighting, but subdued colors. Elves, dwarves, and orcs act as NPCs; parts of the mansion look like a castle.
    • Adventure: The most hodgepodge genre, featuring high contrast, bold colors and lighting. The mansion transforms into a pirate ship which can travel between an Mesoamerican jungle, an East Asian port, and the Wild West..
    • Steampunk/Gothic:The mansion becomes an academy in industrial England; structures and items that look fine in the day become creepy and distorted in the night. Technology features strongly when it is bright outside, colorful; more supernatural things appear in the desaturated darkness. Overall color tint is sepia.
    • Noir/Atomic: Everything is black and white, grainy like old-time film. The mansion becomes a 1920’s style ritzy hotel in the city; featuring suits and such. Combines later Americana styles with art deco. NPCs are humans like club goers, the mafia, and a nuclear suburban family.
    • Anime/Manga: A world heavily based off of modern Japan though with increased instances of absurdity. The mansion becomes a high school, for which you are late to the first day of. Shading is flatter and outlines are thin; coloring is similar to that of watercolors. Features magical girls, kaiju, cherry blossoms blowing in the wind, and pointy chins.
    • Superhero: A bright, modern/near-futuristic city where the mansion becomes a superhero headquarters. Everything is outlined in bold black while items are colored in halftones like in comic books. On occasion, one can see sound effects in bubbles. Include humans, though a few may be aliens or mythical creatures.
    • Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic: Colors are desaturated and dull. The mansion is a crumbling safehouse at the edge of a ruined city in a wasteland. Features graffiti, Mad Max style vehicles, zombies, and a ripoff Hunger Games.
    • Space Opera: The mansion transforms into a spaceship flying through the galaxy. Everything is sleek and futuristic; lighting is most likely going to be blue, purple, and white. NPCs can be humans and aliens, and like in the adventure world you can land on a moon base and an alien planet.
  • Anime/Manga
    • Rivera finds herself as a shoujo protagonist who’s late for the first day of school. She sees her brother, clearly a shounen protagonist, but she becomes blocked off by her reverse harem of senpais. She must complete a stealth puzzle to avoid getting by her senpais.
    • She gets accosted by the class president who tells her she must get more involved and forces her participate in the school festival by filling in for an injured sports team member on every team (who her brother hurt by accident). In order to “power up”, she must make friends on each team who then carry her through the challenges through the power of friendship.
    • She confronts her brother about his reckless behavior- he refuses to listen to her and they both hear news of a kaiju attack on the city headed towards the school. Her brother runs off to pilot a mech- she must use a necklace from the adventure genre to transform into a magical girl and fly off after him.
    • The kaiju attacks the school’s upper floors where her brother is piloting a mech; however a risky move on his part fails and ends up destroying his mech. Rivera must rescue her brother and also kill the kaiju before returning home.
  • Dad
  • Dulivre Kids Concept
  • Fantasy
    • Rivera starts off as a halfling on a farm; a wizard appears to her and tells her to travel to Royal City and meet with the princess. You must do a fetch quest for the local villagers to defeat the goblin bandits who are blocking the path and retrieve the legendary Sword of Unnecessary Power, which she then keeps.
    • In Royal City, Rivera tries to get an audience with the princess but the Captain of the Guard tells you that you need to kill a dungeon beast before you can enter to prove your worth. You enter and do a puzzle battle with a chimera and gain entry.
    • You meet with the princess who is your mom. She is being courted by many suitors and knights, and though you try to get her attention, the noise from the suitors drowns you out. Your mom announces that in order to meet with her you must win the joust and so you must sabotage the other suitors to win the joust. Afterwards, you have a tearful reunion with your mom who realizes that fantasy romance is overrated, right as she gets kidnapped by a dragon.
    • Rivera travels to the dragon’s lair and slays the dragon in a puzzle battle. Mom rescued, you return to the real world.
  • Mythical
    • Rivera wakes up in a glade of trees, where an angel appears to her, saying that she is a demigod and has been selected by one of the gods to be her champion. She is whisked away to Temple of the Heavens (the mansion) and is greeted by all of the gods. Most of them have chosen a mighty hulking warrior as their champion but the goddess of wisdom has instead chosen Rivera. They are tasked with the challenge of defeating the giants who are building a tower to the heavens to challenge the gods, but they doubt her capability. She must prove herself by making it through the minotaur’s labyrinth using her wits(the basement).
    • Successful, both she and the warrior are sent out to fight the beasts that terrorize the humans on earth. While the warrior hacks away at the beasts, Rivera notices that they only attack at night and they are afraid of light, and that the people do not have fire. She must collect fire from the giant’s camp in a stealth mission and give it to the humans who are now able to defend themselves. Pleased, the goddess of wisdom grants her a number of magic artifacts to help her with her final quest: a chalice that is filled with an elixir of temporary invincibility when refilled with water, a book containing a powerful spell that lets her astral project, and a mirror shield.
    • Her final job is to climb the tower using her mythical artifacts and defeat the giants at the top. At their defeat, the warrior who the other gods had championed becomes jealous and attacks, prompting a puzzle battle where you use the tower’s construction equipment to trap him.
  • Noir
    • Rivera becomes the assistant detective for a big time P.I. in the black and white city of Los Chicago, NY. The detective receives a call in his smoky office and a buxom lady with a mink scarf arrives. She is worried about an attack from a scorned lover while she is at a gala at the Grande-Royale Hotel. The two take the job and go to the hotel. They meet the scorned lover (the host), a mafia member, an undercover policeman, a grizzled veteran, a bookish intellectual, and a maid. They have a grand time, but suddenly the host of the gala is found dead in a backroom. The policeman calls for backup and the hotel is on lockdown. Rivera quickly discovers that the detective is completely inept and that she has to solve the mystery herself. She searches through the kitchens and lower floors to find clues and deduces that the maid had killed the host, but as she is about to confront her, she is found dead in the swimming pool. After that the people retire to their beds for the night and Rivera has to move to another genre.
    • The next morning, she looks around for more clues. She goes to the hotel minbar and she orders virgin white Russian from the bartender. The bartender slips that the police and the mafia have been at fight with each other and that the maid may have ties with with the mafia. You interrogate the policeman and discover he is innocent with an airtight alibi. Then you check with the mafia to see if he knew who may have been troubling her, and he suggests that she looked troubled last night. You check her room and find a threatening letter telling her to kill the host or else her secret affair with the veteran will be revealed. With this lead, you narrow the choice to the intellectual and confront him. He is arrested on the detective’s insistence and the police declare this case closed, but why was the host targeted at all? The case does not sit well with Rivera but she must leave for the time being.
    • The last session begins in the jail where the intellectual is being held. She asks him about his motive, to which he replies he was framed and that he did not do it. Rivera realizes that they had simply leapt to conclusions by ruling out the other guests and accusing him. She goes back to the hotel, still under crime scene lockdown, and notices that the chalk outline around the host is unfinished despite him working on it apparently all night. The voluptuous client confides that the detective kept making cryptic reassurances at her last night while she was at the parlor. There, you find a scrawl by the detective that matches the threatening letter the maid received. Thus you confront the detective in the office. He is arrested in a puzzle battle, and the case is closed.
  • Post-Apocalyptic
    • Rivera wakes up in a bunker and finds that she’s part of a society of survivors of a terrible apocalypse involving zombies, nuclear war, and a corrupt government. This also the day the Selection to choose who will participate in the Trial of the Wastes. She sees her sister get selected and you are barred from leaving by a vault gate. Rivera must hack her way out and follow them into the wastes.
    • The first trial of the wastes involves getting past the city ruins which are crawling with zombies. Her sister and her fellow teenage protagonists easily clear this section except for the obvious minor character. This becomes a platforming challenge for Rivera as she must hop across the crowd of zombies. (The floor is lava but zombies)
    • The second trial is to get through the radioactive desert full of bandits on motorbikes. Her sister has already cleared this section but she has no idea of where to go and so must solve a puzzle to lead her the right way (desert maze)
    • The final part involves freeing your sister as she and her comrades have passed the trials and are therefore “prime candidates for experimentation.” Rivera must enter the Integral and defeat the derivatives who are the corrupt government agents. Despite the friends she has made and being the part of the heroine, her sister decides that she’d rather spend time with her family and leaves.
  • Rivera
  • Space Opera
    • Rivera finds herself staring out a large window into space, the mansion having become a large spaceship. A crewmember taps her shoulder, saying that they’re almost to their destination, Moonbase Lambda Omega Lambda. Suddenly the PA system starts up, reporting a situation on the bridge requiring all new recruits to report. Rivera hurries over and finds her dad being accosted by the rest of the crew and demanding to see their manager. He is sent to a cell aboard the ship and though Rivera tries to argue with them she is still too low a rank soldier to have any real authority. She must prove her worth by completing the mission on the moonbase, which is to repair the gravity field generator. She does well, ranking up from recruit to cadet, but it’s not enough to free her father.
    • Before reaching the next mission, the ship is ambushed by space pirates. While Rivera is completing puzzles to shut down the airlocks, she receives news that the pirates have breached the hold and have taken her father. She runs over just to see her father calmly going along with the pirates, glad to finally be getting some fresh air around here. She and a few other cadets cross the ship to take him back (something about no man being left behind), and they must perform a stealth-style puzzle to retrieve him. After accosting the pirate captain she is promoted to corporal and is finally given responsibility over her dad. Before she can leave with him, he accidentally mistakes an escape pod for an elevator to his new quarters and gets launched onto an abandoned planet possibly crawling with hostiles next to a black hole which may destroy the planet. However they are unable to to run after him immediately because of the damage done to the ship during the raid.
    • Rivera leads an elite squad of soldiers to rescue her dad. They find the crash landed escape pod on the surface. The land is extremely unstable thanks to its proximity to the blackhole(more dropping platforms, funky gravity). She tracks her dad into an abandoned facility where it appears a monster has corrupted the base. The alien is weak to sunlight, therefore she and the soldiers bring down the roof to expose the alien and kill it. Turns out her dad was locked in an outhouse the whole time. After a successful mission they beam out and Rivera and her dad return to reality.
  • Steampunk/Gothic
    • Finding herself in the Oxbridge Institute of Science and Engineering, Rivera becomes a chimneysweep in the building. Though the Institute is the leading center of robot technologies and alchemy, recently there’s been a number of unexplained disappearance of students. In the day (while steampunk is in play), she is asked by the Dean (her grandpa) to act as his eyes and find some clues. As a man who hates leaving a mystery unsolved, he does not want to return until this case is closed. At night (when gothic is in play), she spots a vampire and follows it to a locked door. In the day she solves the lock to it (a steam/clockwork puzzle) and inside she spots the missing students, but they are hooked up to pods that are draining their life energy. They are rescued but unconscious, and in the corner of her eye, Rivera spots the vampire slink away to the corner.
    • When she returns to the Institute, the Dean is worried since all the gear that they found in the locked chamber had gone missing before they could investigate it. During the day and night at first, Rivera must look for clues and find out which professor is the vampire. The steampunk way to defeat him is by setting up mirrors all over the campus to redirect sunlight so that at the right moment the professor is incinerated; the other method is to drink a potion from the alchemy lab that temporarily converts Rivera into a werewolf so that she can confront the vampire and trap him by cutting down iron cages. Mystery solved, her grandpa is satisfied and returns with her.
  • Story

    The story isn’t so much of a singular story but rather many split up among the various genres.

    • The Real World: After a day of being bullied at school, a telephone call alerts your family to the disappearance of your grandma right after your grandparents moved into their new mansion. Troubled, your family drives over to visit them and search the place. Rivera Dulivre, the angsty and bookish protagonist, carries herself to the library to escape reality, only to find her family missing. She finds out that by reading a book, she can enter a genre and navigate the mansion. Once you find all of your family members, you discover that the house is haunted by a librarian who wasn’t able to return an overdue book before she passed away. By returning the book, you break the curse over the mansion and everything returns to normal.
    • All the other genres are to be written in the stories document.

    Characters:

    • Rivera Dulivre(Player Character): Rivera Dulivre, mocked by her classmates as the River Liver or the Deliverygirl, is a bookish and brooding young adolescent girl, about age 14. She is rather lonely and feels disconnected with her family, who seem to be getting along much better than she does. Rather than telling them about her experiences in school, she reads books as a form of escapism. Despite this, she truly cares for them and is willing to rescue them from peril.
    • The Dulivre Family: Rivera’s family consists of her mom, dad, older sister, and younger brother.
    • Her mom is a hard worker, though she longs for a getaway from the constant bustle of her career, delving through piles of fantasy romance novels.
    • Her dad also is a busy man of the no-nonsense variety, easily confused by most tropes of speculative fiction and not particularly genre savvy. Rivera has been recommending him a few books, mostly of the space genres, but he’s reluctant to read them…
    • Her older sister Tanya is easily the coolest person Rivera knows, always current with the latest trends and latest books, often of the dystopia genre.
    • Her younger brother Khalil is a giant weaboo and is a general embarrassment to Rivera, who often ends up protecting him from would-be bullies. He talks in Wapanese and is eager to act out his latest obsessions in manga, like becoming a mech pilot.
    • Grandpa and Grandma Dulivre: Rivera’s maternal grandparents who had originally given Rivera her love of books. They were especially excited to have recently purchased a mansion with an extensive collection of books and wanted to show it off to their grandchildren as soon as possible.
    • Grandpa is an academic man deeply in love with his wife. He’s rather fond of books set in the Victorian era, both in steampunk and gothic horror traditions. He is deeply troubled by the disappearance of his wife within their new mansion.
    • Grandma carries the vigor and excitement of a child in her tiny old body. A touch eccentric, she loves superhero comics and on occasion cosplays.
  • Summary

    An adolescent girl must jump, crawl, and puzzle her way through different book genres.

    Genre: 3D Puzzle Platformer
    Scope: The length of Portal 2 in terms of the main story/critical path. Most of the rooms are simply reskinned or slightly modified depending on the genre the player is in.

    Features
    • Genre Hopping: the player can hop in and out of different versions of the map by entering books of different genres. The basement in the fantasy genre might become a dragon’s lair, while in the superhero genre it might become a sewer.
      • Once you unlock a room, it becomes accessible in the library, which acts as the main hub between all genres.
    • Bookmarks: the player can save via bookmarks within a genre.
    • Puzzles: the player must solve various puzzles in order to navigate the mansion; most of these are environmental puzzles that require platforming and moving objects, while a few are minigames.
      • Occasionally, changes in one genre can be felt in another; such changes will be noted to the player.
    Controls
    • Movement: WASD- directional movement, spacebar- jump, LShift- Crouch
    • Camera: hold Mouse2
    • Interact/Pick-Up: Mouse1
    • Enter: Menu, access Inventory, Options, Bookmarks, etc.
  • Superhero
    • Rivera finds herself in the Superhero HQ laboratory where a number of superheroes freak out at her sudden appearance. She asks for her grandma, who has become the Shawled Crusader, and the superheroes leave her unattended. Suddenly, a minor villain appears and attacks, causing destruction to the lab and splashing Rivera with Chemical Y which gives her the ability to conjure pancakes from thin air. She and the Shawled Crusader give chase to the villain and capture him before retreating to his lair. Her Grandma declares Rivera to be her sidekick before flying away.
    • Rivera finds herself and her grandma in the middle of a bank heist where they are stopping an actual supervillain who the minor villain worked for. Rivera has to set up situations for her grandma so that she can defeat the villain’s minions. However, it is revealed that this was all actually a trap- the villain captures her grandma with her only weakness phlebotinum, delivers a monologue, and whisks the Shawled Crusader away.
    • Rivera has to rescue her grandma from the superhero lair, but he keeps running away to a new one: [BOSS RUSH]: she goes through the boss phases from previous genres and eventually, she confronts him right before he is about to use some Rube Goldberg machine that will destroy her grandma; Rivera destroys the machine while he’s monologuing and at this point has rescued her whole family.

Weave

  • Ash'ra
    Personality
    • Avoids people due to isolation in early life
    • Possible culture shock and lack of strong social skills
    • Confident but covers flaws with silk
    • A little resentment towards the gods as a result to lack of connection to them ->
    • Feels need to impress them due to original lack of talent, resents idea not good enough for the gods
    • Subtle nativities and looks to others for actions and what to do
    • Tries to one up others problems leading to her correcting her views and sympathizing
    Background
    • Adopted as orphan so feels estranged (orphaned as a baby)
    • On spirit walk retreat and no answer so return and everyone’s dead
    • A member of the Silk Guardians, the only surviving member
    • Isolated in Temple
    • Contrast with cocky personality that leads to her messing up/ over confident
    • Sometimes ignores Pad’uas advice and fails as a result
    • First god she is angry at abandonment and hate to it -> at the end she’s stops hating the gods due to knowledge
    • Only interacts with purified gods
    • Overcomes fear by going to village you pass by that overtime u pass but eventually after purifying gods she is more willing to interact and wave at the people
    • Possibly dream of corruption and hurting others
    • Makes own hammock or tent to sleep and cue dream cutscenes
    Motives
    • Called to action by Pad’ua
    • Resents lack of original connection to god/ wants revenge slightly
    Likes
    • Tea, thats what she gifts(likes it due to tea ceremony)
    • When sleeping and resting the teapot is next to it
    • Idle time she fiddles and makes characters she could control occasionaly
    Fears
    • Scared of strangers and the new world but grows to accept
    • Lack of self confidence in spirituality leading to hesitance (because retreat to look for signs and meditate)
    • Over time grows to care for the people she meets and loves, sees their pain and relates to them that way
    • Scared to rely on other slightly, shes is only person so she has to show confidence in herself

    • Layers of fear for each layer taken off

      • Spiders, drowning, buried alive, lost, greed, corruption(rust), Unstable mentally(crazy), Fear of change, fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of talking to others/confrontation, fear of money
  • Ash'ra Concept 1
  • Basics
    • All gods in purified form are humanoids with abstract features standing 9-10 feet tall
    • In monster/corrupted form they are monstrous and lose humanity parts of them
    • Forms relate to occupations of the people they govern follow their ultimate virtue
    • different personalities with the gods (humble versus full of self)
    • Gods are based on caste systems
    • Each has their own temple which holds a portal to their manifestation form
  • God of Artisans

    • The God of blacksmiths, cooks, carpenters, sculptors, artists, etc.

      • Purified- obsessed with culture, super eccentric, colorful personalities, relaxed/ helpful, Bob ross
      • Corrupted- He becomes mad/ crazy, “I’ll make you into my art.”, wants to model/ change you themselve, obsessive tendencies, Perfectionist, fix impurities
    • Open market sounds W/ chatter
    • Pottery clicking / working noises
    • Industrial, tinkering music- marimba/xylophone, cymbals
    • Composed of crafting materials like metal and wood; can repair self using items
    • Hands
    • Enemies would consist of golems, inanimate objects brought to life; living paintings
    • Initial desire was to create a civilization full of artists and builders who can craft wonders; a cultured people
  • God of Merchants

    • The God of merchants

      • Purified-
      • Corrupted-
    • Made of gold, gemstones; based on ships and/or caravans
    • Nautical music- flute, accordion, harpsichord
    • Enemies would be pirate-esque, aquatic or based off caravan animals like horses, camels, oxen
    • Initial desire was to have the people rely on trading for necessary goods like food, tools, etc in exchange for salt
  • God of Warriors

    • Corrupted by Ahriman due to underappreciation, easily manipulated

      • Purified-
      • Corrupted-
    • Composed of armor and weapons
    • March sounding music- drums, brass
    • Initial desire was to create a militaristic civilization who would be able to repel invaders and protect their meager resources
  • Goddess of Farmers

    • The Goddess of farmers, miners, hunters, etc.

      • Purified-
      • Corrupted-
    • Tribal, folk sounding music- acoustic guitar, harmonica, tribal drums, tambourine
    • Composed of dirt, plant material, animal hide/bone
    • Enemies would be plant/animal based- corrupted means that they are rotting, looking like zombies
    • Initial desire was to create a people who were self-reliant, farming and hunting their own food, relying on the gifts of nature
  • Goddess of Priests

    • The Goddess of silk, magic, scholars

      • Purified- Very mysterious and hard to read, Talks in riddles , large flowing clothes, aloof, idealistic
      • Corrupted- Full of self, haughty, talks down to others, when purified she gets emotional,
    • Zen/meditation music (holy)- flute, piano, choral voice
    • Silk based, probably based on weaving tools or spider, sorceress type
    • Enemies based on silk spinning animals, cloth (like floating sorcerer robes), puppets
    • Corrupted
    • Irritates Ashra with the riddles she has
    • Initial desire was to unite the people in their worship of the gods as a pantheon
  • Goddess of Servants

    • The Goddess of princes, nobles, public servants

      • Purified-
      • Corrupted-
    • Royal/classical sounding music, waltz- strings, brass, organ
    • Composed of stone, chains, like a castle or a statue
    • Enemies made of stone, paper, feathers, food, domestic items
    • Initial desire was to create a fair, efficient, and progressive government
  • Guardian Sanctum
    • Tapestries everywhere
    • Home base, location of tutorial
    • When you pick up tapestry pieces from the Wilds/temples, you repair tapestries here and can read up on lore
    • Location of training room
    • Since Priest Goddess corrupted just some months ago, Sanctum is abandoned looking but not falling apart
    • Graveyard of fallen sisters, buried by Pad’ua prior to Ash’ra’s return
  • Guardian Sanctum Concept 1
  • Lore
    Origins of the World (lore found scattered in Guardian Sanctum)
    • [The Origin Force] created the World; from its body came forth the Pantheons of the world
    • Each Pantheon was assigned to a section of the World. Some areas received 2 conflicting gods; some received 3 or four gods working together; still others only received one patron; this large stretch of desert got SIX.
    • The gods and goddesses all had conflicting ideas on how they would shape their region: Merchant wanted the people to trade salt with other nations; Farmer wanted to just grow crops and farm livestock; Artisan wanted people to just manufacture and produce art; Warrior wanted to build a powerful military; Servant wanted the most progressive law/government system; Priest wanted everyone to just worship them
    • The region remained divided for a long time- each God more or less ruled a section of the world and remained weak
    Ahriman and the Triumph of the Gods (lore found scattered along the Daiti River)
    • Ahriman was a foreign god from a region with conflicting gods; He was kicked out of his land and He and his followers decided to find a new land to control
    • Upon coming to the desert, He noticed how weak the area’s gods were and decided that this would be the perfect location.
    • Ahriman’s followers raided the land, sacking villages and terrifying the locals. The people sent out a cry of help to their Gods.
    • Hoping that by defeating Ahriman by themselves, each God hoped to prove their ideology the superior among the others.
    • When they each faced Ahriman one-on-one, they were defeated. Alone, they were too weak. They hid away, ashamed, underneath the Lake of Tears.
    • The Six realized that their defeat was caused by their lack of power divided. Now, they devised a plan to fight him, but together as a group.
    • To do so, they organized all of their followers and asked them to worship them all as a Pantheon rather than just having one patron god. By increasing the faith they received, they grew in power.
    • With the 6 gods and their people united, they faced off against Ahriman and his followers at the Scar. It was a long battle, but all of Ahriman’s followers were defeated and Ahriman himself was destroyed.
    • The desert safe at last, a golden era dawned, where cities grew, trade flourished, art and culture bloomed, and abundant food meant hardly anyone went hungry.
    The God of Warriors (lore found scattered in the Scab, the Temple of Warriors)
    • The God of Warriors wanted a nation that could defend itself
    • He created the Scab, a volcanic region, so that his people could harvest the tough granite for building walls and forts and sulfur for creating gunpowder.
    • The God believed in the “eye-for-an-eye” mentality when it came to justice, and often butted heads with the peaceful Goddess of Servants.
    The Goddess of Servants (lore found in the Crowns, The Temple of Servants)
    • The Goddess of Servants intended on creating the most progressive, peaceful, and efficient government in the world.
    • The Crowns served as both a defensible location for the capital that can easily be supplied with water, food and minerals despite its relative isolation.
    • She wanted to minimize punishments for crime, instead focusing on eradicating the root of the matter; the God of Warriors was not pleased by this.
    The God of Merchants (lore found in the Merchant’s Fingers, The Temple of Merchants)
    • The God of Merchants originally wanted the people to invest in global trade; since the desert was so barren, He thought that it would be best to import most of their goods in exchange for salt.
    • To this end he created the Palm Sea so that the desert would have a port with access to the ocean as well as the Merchant’s Fingers so that the people could harvest the lucrative mineral.
    The Goddess of Farmers (lore found in the Sinking Gardens, The Temple of Farmers)
    • The God of Farmers wanted the desert to be self-sufficient in producing food, growing their own crops and raising livestock.
    • He created drought-resistant flora which then covered the Green Crowns and the Daiti River with forest; the lands become fertile, and the inland delta known as the Sinking Gardens began flourishing with wildlife.
    The God of Artisans (lore found in the Golemforge, The Temple of Artisans)
    • The God of Artisans saw the desert people as those who could create great wonders and wanted to maximize that creative potential.
    • He hewed the Golemforge’s canyons, creating awe-inspiring landmarks in stone, glass, metal, etc; these materials could then be used for sculptures, tools, ceramics, etc.
    • He began the Grand Mural so that the land would have a Wonder that people could come marvel and visit.
    The Goddess of Priests(lore found in The Sand Loom, The Temple of Priests)
    • The Goddess of Priests had planned for the people to unite together in worship of all the Gods- problem was that the Gods were so divided that the people’s worship was split as well.
    • The Sand Loom was created as a place of meditation; those seeking enlightenment can go to the Qoqun Oasis, separated from the world, marvelling at the magic of the rainbow sands.
  • Pad'ua
    Personality
    • Refined and pure image
    • Old monk, patient, short words
    • Protective streak but very ambitious and confident
    • Empathetic to people around them and cues in ashra how to interact
    • Nags Ashra a lot due to past teacher position she had with her
    • Headstrong leading to issues and problems
    • She believes her way is the only correct way to do things
    • She just stops the connection to bag and shut down the silk she can use
    • Shift from stubborn set personality -> open to change more and less stubborn
    • Tries to come to grips that she won’t always be there like how can i promise her future
    • Eventually talks about how ashra could start up more silk guardians, start interaction to promise family and love for ashra in the future
    Background
    • Older 70 or 60 years
    • 50 years back is the corruption started for farmer gods
    • Fire burnt down corps leading to start of hardships for the parents
    • Orphaned later on and parents died of starvation(farmers) 12 years old, fed kids instead of themselves
    • Isolation leads to her not knowing about how wide the corruption has spread
    • Wants ashra to reach out and expand self
    • She is like the mom who guides Ash’ras choices and decides
    • Lost connection due to knowledge
    • Stop talking to gods to avoid corruption

    • Ash’ra Mentor

      • Also adopted and bonds with Ash’ra
      • Former high priestess of the Silk Guardians at the Guardian Sanctum
    Motives
    • Born in or adopted
    • A month sense corruption and is fresh in mind and ambitious
    • Shuts down when facing her own fears and leaves Ash’ra to help herself
    Likes
    • Jokes and Humor to cope with issues around
    • Creating things out of silk was her original hobby that she did with the other priests before they died so she teaches Ashra how to do it
    Fears
    • Paranoid and overly cautious
    • Fear of fire
  • Pad'ua Concept 1
  • Story
    Chapter 1
    Cutscene 1
    • Tapestry depicting history of the gods fighting Ahriman
    • Day-night cycle- see light pass on tapestry to show passage of time
    • Gods become corrupted one by one- daylight fades and stays dark, torchlight
    • Final Goddess of Priests gets corrupted, shadows move around, monster shreds tapestry, bloodstains as the priestesses get slaughtered
    • Tapestry drifts down, lands at the feet of Ash’ra, the last Silk Guardian
    • Weapon in hand, she seeks out for any surviving members of her order in the Guardian Sanctum
    The Guardian Sanctum
    • Ash’ra needs to clear out the minions out of the sanctum (Goddess of Priests minions) and find surviving Guardians if any
    • First section- introduce movement controls like climbing, running, wall jumping, and swinging; Ash’ra sees signs that a person might still be alive
    • Second section- introduce the combat mechanics; Ash’ra finds the journal of her mentor Pad’ua talking about the attack; the last entry was only a few days ago, talking of how she’s decided to use the Sacred Silk Bag from the sanctum vaults and then purify the corrupted Titans
    • Third section- reinforce learned mechanics, introduce Titan-fighting mechanics; Ash’ra finds the Sacred Silk Bag and takes it; in the next room she finds the wounded body of Pad’ua. She however is controlled by corrupted silk strings and is being puppeted around by the Priest Goddess. Ash’ra must use her purifying silk magic to release her master from the corruption.
    Cutscene 2
    • Wounded but still alive, Pad’ua uses the last of her magic to transfer her soul into the Sacred Silk; she urges Ash’ra to take on her mission to free the Titans, despite the internal conflicts she has.
    • At Pad’ua’s liberation, the sanctum’s corruption is wiped away; Ash’ra is now free to explore the world
    Chapter 2
    • Sanctum Fields
    • The Wilds, Part 1- The Peaks
    • The Temple of Servants
    Chapter 3
    • The Wilds, Part 2- The Isles
    • The Temple of Merchants
    Chapter 4
    • The Wilds, Part 3- The Woods
    • The Temple of Farmers
    Chapter 5
    • The Wilds, Part 4- The Ruins
    • The Temple of Artisans
    Chapter 6
    • The Wilds, Part 5- The Sands
    • The Temple of Priests
    End
    Final Cutscene
    • The 5 freed gods unite together to purify the God of Warriors and destroy Ahriman for good
  • Temple of Artisans
    • At end of canyon, entrance at its former edge; as time passed, temple expanded and dug into to expand area of lore
    • Corrupted- murals and statues come to life
    • Enter areas, combat occurs, find a dead end; come back out, layout becomes shifted
    • Everything is gray
    • Boss fight occurs at the timeline place where the Artisan God got corrupted
  • Temple of Farmers
    • Blocked by brambles
    • Located in the Sinking Gardens
    • Filled with plant/animal/mud enemies
    • Sinking platforms/floating platforms in mudwater
    • Currents in river water
    • Rotting/moldy/Floridian swamp aesthetic
    • Mangrove forest
    • Don’t fall in water, there are gators
    • “Rising water” stage, falling platforms
    • Rivers flowing through
    • Closer to temple, becomes swamp
  • Temple of Merchants
    • Can’t access due to high tide
    • Located around the coast, island theme
    • Temple on French island (the one with path that gets covered up with water at high tide)
    • Temple filled with gold coins and gemstones
    • Grand Shipyard is where you battle the boss
  • Temple of Priests
    • Located at an oasis
    • Desert environment
    • Blocked off by sandstorm
    • Temple made of glass, creating a dome like a greenhouse; looks like a funhouse
    • Mirages frequently happen/ mirage enemies
  • Temple of Servants
    • Located on mountain, hall carved into mountain
    • Like a castle
    • Previous kings’ statues carved into wall
    • Titan located in throne room
    • 5 levels, from bottom to top: Royal Archives, World Embassy, Supreme Court, Parliament, Grand Palace
  • Temple of Servants Concept 1
  • The Wilds
    • Non-corrupted normal areas
    • Surrounding areas of Guardian Sanctuary
    • Closer to sanctum, more field-like and plains

    • Subregions

      • Daiti River Valley- green, forested region with scattered villages, most of population lives here
      • Grey and Green Crowns- northern mountain ranges of former capital next to a waterfall; villages here are more in ruins since Servant Goddess was first corrupted
      • Merchant’s Fingers- salt pans(dried up lakes); people used to harvest salt here, otherwise dangerous due to sand/water mixing to form quicksand; next to Palm Sea
      • Sinking Gardens- inland river delta of Daiti River, muddy, swampy region full of wildlife and trees; formerly had floating gardens
      • The Golemforge- canyon/mesa region; sculptures everywhere, natural and artificial; lore carved into canyon walls, timeline of world’s history; corrupted carvings, junk piles
      • Sand Loom- shifting different colored sands, sandstorms magically shift everything into different patterns; oasis in middle
  • World Map

Ennea

  • Aesthetic

    In regards to aesthetic, the world of Limbo is gray, gloomy, and supernatural. Colors are dark or desaturated except in areas where the Islanders live, each with their own associated color palette and patterns. The art would best be done in a stylized cartoon look along the vein of Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker with a twist of Tim Burton. The modeling of the characters would be lowpoly, with the textures and animations imitating the aesthetic of N64-era games.

  • Air Region

    The Air Tribe is, above all else, eccentric. Everyone is urged to do “their own thing,”” giving them the freedom to pursue whatever they want. The idea of being a unique individual is of great importance to them- being told that they are “not original” or “lacking personality” is like a slap to the face. Many become artists and performers or engage in strange hobbies. Despite the variety, they are prone to being a jealous bunch, envying what talents another may have.

    Region: Cloud/Mountains

    Aesthetic: Incan/Baroque influences

    Dungeon: Fogflute Isles

  • Ambar

    A grizzled elderly man, eager to help Val and Pelas… by forcing them to do things for themselves. His tough love approach to teaching is intended to help the kids grow in Courage, though results can end up mixed. If you are stuck, he MIGHT drop hints as to what to do, otherwise he’ll let you figure out for yourself.

  • Ambar Concept
  • Arco

    A teenager living under the pressure to succeed in school under his parents expectations. Quite frankly, he doesn’t know what he wants from life other than success

  • Arco Limerick
  • Argena

    The last Metal Tribe member who has not assimilated into the Founders; was deeply in love with Tyresis, a Spirit Tribe man who was killed in the Spirit Tribe genocide. She holds a deep regret for the event, mulling it over for the past 60 years

  • Battle

    Val will face many hostile spirits during her travels, all of which aim to render her unable of having energy and thus easy to rend her soul from her body. Due to their incorporeal nature, spirits cannot be harmed by physical attacks. However, by learning how to wield Virtue, one can fight against the spirits and let them move on.

    Your character has thirteen attributes, each representing one of the thirteen Virtues, all starting at zero but can increasing to a baseline capacity determined by your WIS or higher depending on actions you take both inside and outside of battle. Your enemies, on the other hand, have the opposite of these- Vices. Depending on the amount of certain Virtues you have, Val will either be well-prepared or weak when facing certain enemies, forcing players to be well-balanced.

    Combat begins with Val taking initiative, given the choice of either Attack, Meditate, Item, or Flee. Attack allows you to use an offensive skill against the enemy, Meditate lets you heal or change Virtue amounts, Item lets you use an item from your inventory, and Flee lets you escape an encounter. Following your choice of action, enemies have a similar choice of Attack or Meditate.

    There are certain status effects present in battle that can affect you or the enemy. These end after a certain number of turns though they can be healed via a skill or item.

    • Fatigued greatly lower ACT

    • Vulnerable greatly lower RES

    • Frazzled greatly lower FOC

    • (?) greatly lower AGI

    • Zealous greatly increase ACT

    • Resolute greatly increase RES

    • (?) greatly increase FOC

    • Haste greatly increase AGI

    • (stun equivalent) unable to move

    • (poison equivalent) slowly drain MES each turn

    • (regen equivalent) slowly heal MES each turn

    Your goal as the player is to reduce your enemies’ MES down to zero. In a similar vein, you want to make sure that your own MES does not drop to zero or below; if it does then the battle is lost since you are too tired to fight the spirit. Healing and meditating is encouraged. On occasion you may have to fight two or three enemies at a time.

    At the end of battle, you gain EXP, item drops if any, and gold. When your EXP bar is full, you gain a level which boosts your stats and gives you skill points to be used in the Skill Tree.

  • Battle Flow
    Initiation

    Initiative determined by AGI stat; a graphic showing turn order appears on top, also determined by AGI

    Player Turn

    Choose between Act(Offensive Skills), Tactic(defend for a turn, flee), Meditate(Heal, Defensive Skills, Stat Changing), or Item.

    • If Act or Meditate chosen Critical timer bar appears with green area, size of which is affected by FOC stat; if confirm key is pressed at the right time, critical hit- increased damage or added negative effect, increased healing or added positive effect

    • If Act hits Enemy Enemy has short moment (half a second or less) following attack hit to react; if reaction is true, then damage dealt with be lessened or status effects are less likely to occur, or some counterattack will be done to the player

    If Enemy Turn

    No enemies have an Item, so will choose either Act, Tactic, or Meditate.

    • If Meditate chosen Enemies will not have a critical timer bar.

    • If Act chosen Critical timer bar appears with green area; randomly choose when to attack; if hit within the green area, critical hit

    • If Act hits Player Player has short moment (half a second or less, can be increased with AGI stat) to react, visual or auditory cue will be given; if timed right, reaction where damage dealt will be lessened, lower chance of negative status effects occurring, or Val deals a counterattack

    End

    Battle ends when either the player has run out of HP, the enemy has run out of HP, or either Val or the enemy flees.

  • Chaos Region

    The Chaos Tribe was the tribe of starstruck dreamers, ever optimistic and determined to deal with whatever life threw at them. Unlike the Water Tribe who was too busy studying and the Thunder Tribe who only built only if it would bring them recognition, the Chaos Tribe took the opportunity to explore the possibilities of magic and science, building a metropolis with tech that defied physics. However, their propensity for being whimsical and fickle meant that many led rather aimless lives doing only whatever they liked at the moment.

    Region: Upper Capital

    Aesthetic: Sci Fi

    Dungeon: The Starscraper

  • Controls

    Mechanics call for keyboard controls, with optional mouse interaction. Movement in overworld include arrow keys/WASD with inputs for diagonal movement and/or analog stick, and a button for interaction, default is X. For menu navigation, Enter pauses the game and opens the menu. Arrow keys/WASD to navigate, X for confirmation and Z for canceling. Menu controls are also used in-battle with reaction-based critical attacks. Mouse movement can be substituted for selection movement when navigating menus and battles.

  • Coriol

    A college age starving artist of the Air Tribe trying to find which guild she belongs in and thus devote her life to; very fickle and subject to her whims, but finds compassion rather than envy towards the other guilds

  • Critical Path

    The game is fairly linear, organized into a prologue, 4 chapters, and the epilogue. You are free to travel between the villages using warp portals within the villages at any time.

    Prologue

    Cinematic, one controllable area where Val is at the Life-Death corridor, followed by another cinematic of her falling.

    Chapter 1

    Water Tribe battle tutorials and intro to world; free period to do available quests; cutscene of the Trustee “reacquisitioning” the scientists followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Tidewater Labs and miniboss: The Trustee; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Dark Tribe finding Nakit and chasing her to her house; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Sporedor Swamp and miniboss: The Banker; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Light Tribe meeting Gobe; free period to do available quests; cutscene of Gobe disappearing followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Mirror Hall and boss: The Mayor; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Chapter 2

    Fire Tribe travel to village blocked, meet with rebels; free period to do available quests with the rebels; cutscene giving access to main village followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Mt. Pyrenis and miniboss: The General; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Nature Tribe witness destruction of the Mother Tree, go find the location of the new village; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Everthorn Reserve and miniboss: The Warden; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Ice Tribe getting run out of the village and meeting Fyord; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Lynxkill Glacier and boss: The Judge; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Chapter 3

    Earth Tribe intro; free period to do available quest; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Faultline Mines and miniboss: The Overseer; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Thunder Tribe intro; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Coulombyn Clockworks and miniboss: The Principal; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Air Tribe intro; free period to do available quests; cutscene followed by more time to do other quests; dungeon: Fogflute Isles and boss: The Curator; resolution cutscene and travel to the next area

    Chapter 4

    Spirit and Metal Tribe rebellion from all 9 tribes gather, Founders create barrier; free period to do quests for Argena; quest to take her to the grave of her beloved; dungeon: the Colonial Quarters and miniboss: The Prophet; break the barrier and proceed to the next area

    Chaos and Order Tribe rebellion begins to get more extreme; free period to do available quests; Val is captured and taken into the Capital; escape prison and travel through The Timeless Ruins; rest area; escape the The Starscraper; miniboss: The Scribe; give a speech on both hope to rebels but restraining themselves from hurting the Founders (or not).

    Final dungeon The Imperial Palace; final boss: His Imperial Majesty Tredecimus Vitiae; Val has the choice to either return home or stay

  • Dark Region

    Within the toxic fungal swamps, the Dark tribe thrives. Practically everything here is dangerous, and hostile spirits lurk about, prompting the clan to trust in one another for survival. Tribesmen are anxious about support or security, and build support groups and are prepared for nearly everything. Nevertheless, their tendency to lean towards extreme paranoia leads them to be either very clingy or quick to abandon new relationships.

    Region: Swamp

    Aesthetic: Iroquois/Ethiopian influences

    Dungeon: Sporedor Swamp

  • Earth Region

    This tribe lives underground with tunnels carved deep into the mountains, mines running far below. Their value of kindness allows them to be more freely giving amongst their clan, though rarely with other tribes. Family- and society-oriented, most Earth tribesmen live well if not very exciting lives. Their generosity has its drawbacks, with excess luxury rampant amongst all classes while the poor sacrifice their earnings for family and others, hoping that it will earn them love and friendship (and occasionally donations).

    Region: Caves/Crags

    Aesthetic: Persian/Japanese influences

    Dungeon: Faultline Mines

  • Etanoli

    The young rebellion leader of the Fire Tribe; fierce and determined, she makes brash decisions with little regard for the collateral damage her resistance creates

  • Fire Region

    In the volcanic region of Limbo, it’s kill or be killed, and the Fire Tribe does its best to protect itself against spirits and the land itself. Though its members do manage to eke out a home life farming the fertile soil and mining, the most awaited moment comes when a tribe member comes of age and joins the military, displaying courage in the face of dangerous beasts and spirits. Hiding emotion and turmoil for the sake of bravado, they tend to be very temperamental and violent when provoked.

    Region: Volcano

    Aesthetic: Medieval European

    Dungeon: Mt. Pyrenis

  • Fyord

    A fidgety young adult (24-30) who wants to do the right thing all the time, even it means sabotaging the tribe’s survival by honoring the Pact made with the Founders.

  • Game Concept

    Ennea is a turn-based RPG game where you control Val through her journeys in Limbo, moving around in a 3D environment. A unique system reliant on Virtues, which acts as both your HP and stat modifiers, allows you to cast magic and fight against the numerous hostile spirits that roam the island. By building Virtue, you are better able to get these enemies to recognize the error of their ways and peacefully move on. Strategy is key to winning any battle in Ennea. Outside of battle, Ennea is an exploration of human personalities based off of the Enneagram, talking to the Islanders over the virtues they follow and how it can both make a person great or terrible based on how they act on them.

  • Game Purpose

    Ennea at its heart is an exploration of people’s motivations, personalities, and seeks to make players at least consider these before taking action. The exploration part needs some sort of conflict in order push players forward. Thus, the battle system. The battles should work with the story; basically, the Virtues and actions you take outside of battle are then put into use in fighting against hostile spirits.

  • Gobe

    A mere toddler, she shows a innocent sense of gratitude and Joy despite the trials of desert life. Even when held captive, she never seems to lose a sense of awe.

  • His Majesty, Tridecimus Vitiae

    The emperor of the Founders, a wicked man with no purpose other than to be terrible. As the final boss, he fuses with spirits of all 13 vices. You can take a guess as to how terrible he looks.

  • Ice Environment
  • Ice Region

    An isolated and often judgmental tribe that lives according to strict principles. They work often for their own subsistence, hunting and logging and fishing; having to exchange goods and services enacts an honor system amongst them, something they are bound by. A deep seated fear of being wrong means that tribesmen are perfectionists and unwilling to admit they are wrong, a stubborn attitude that allows them to survive in the harsh landscape.

    Region: Tundra

    Aesthetic: Inuit/Nordic influences

    Dungeon: Lynxkill Glacier

  • Items

    Equipment

    There are five basic item slots for equipment- Hands, Mind, Heart, Body, and Feet. The Hands slot is where ACT boosting items can be equipped in place of a weapon. The Mind slot is for FOC boosting equipment. Items that either boost Virtue or regenerate MES can be equipped in the Heart slot. The Body slot is where defensive RES boosting items can be equipped. Finally, items in the Feet slot boost AGI.

    Other Items

    Other items that can be used in-battle include healing items which can double as attack items, status inducing items to be used on both Val and/or enemies, and component items to be used for quests and crafting.

  • Light Region

    The desert, being as barren as it is, is nonetheless filled with the laughs and awestruck voices of the Light Tribe. They enjoy the little things in life, being thankful and in wonder in every opportunity they are given. A sad moment in life is the last thing any tribesman would want, but entire life’s worth of covering up bad experiences has left even the tribe’s most experienced farmers and artisans, to be quite frank, childish and naive and unable to make judicious choices.

    Region: Desert

    Aesthetic: Mali/Navajo influences

    Dungeon: Mirror Hall

  • Limerick
  • Limericks

    Concept: To get people interested, we can design posters depicting characters from the game and have these limericks so they get the creepy yet cartoony vibe.

    Timid young Val is no leader and in Heaven she is no believer. ‘Twixt the plane’s crashing noise and her mom’s worried voice, Torn between life and death- she chose neither.

    Sundyu tries not to be selfish; His love for the forest’s quite elfish. But it’s turning to rubble and his tribe is in trouble- He’s their leader, and he’s only twelve-ish.

    For Coriol, music’s her passion; She might also be into fashion… But she’d better pick soon- Hunger’s inopportune since she’s all out of food to ration.

    When anxious, Nakit feels much better writing her suspicions in letters. Though she was not prepared to have her concerns shared- Now the mafia’s out to get her.

    Arco studies hard, hits the gym, extracurriculars filled to the brim. He’s dying, quite frankly, Pressured by his family To be perfect or else they’ll disown him.

    Argena watched the first war erupt, Only one her tribe not corrupt. She watched her love slaughtered and also their daughter; Now she waits for her past to catch up.

    Gobe hardly ever feels down His laughs’ volume knows know bounds. So it’s rather concerning that his family’s not yearning when they find out he hasn’t been ‘round.

    Marbelle’s life seems like perfection, surrounded by her family’s affection. But with wages declining, she spends more time mining- Now she’s struggling to maintain connections.

    Fyord had known deep down inside in keeping the Code, Founders lied. He does have his doubts of what will win out: His tribe’s honor, their hunger, or pride?

    Pelas, “Great Explorer,” runs free; His parents, most times, leave him be. Two researchers absorbed in their work had ignored The guards coming by for the “fee.”

  • Marbelle

    A middle aged woman (30-40) struggling with keeping up a social face even when her family is increasingly hungry, forcing her to stay in the mines for longer periods of time

  • Mechanics Summary

    Val is the only party member for the sake of streamlining the game. She has 6 stats:

    • Action(ACT) meant to simulate how willing a person is to act upon their virtues; the attack; currently tied to Virtue as a modifier, since the more you adhere to a Virtue in general the more likely you are to act upon it.

    • Resilience(RES) meant to simulate how well you resist things that oppose your virtues; the defense; also affects status effect resistance; currently tied to Virtue as a modifier, since the more you adhere to a Virtue in general the less likely you are to suffer damage because of it.

    • Focus(FOC) how easily a person can focus on memories/feelings of specific virtues; healing stat; with Val as the only character, healing becomes very important and is implemented for the sake of preventing multi-vice/enemy battles from being too difficult; not tied to Virtue to make healing easier instead of lumping it with ACT or RES

    • Agility(AGI) how quickly a person can move; determines turn speed, evasion, reaction timer; not tied to Virtue because it doesn’t make sense being tied to it; can be important when dealing with multiple enemies at once, balances out having a one-person party

    • Wisdom(WIS) the baseline Virtue cap; simulates the experience a person gains and therefore has a greater ability to hold virtue within themselves; there are time when a person’s virtue shines more, so Virtue can go over the WIS cap; however, when it goes below the cap and a person heals, the highest they can go is up the baseline WIS

    • Virtue the HP; Val has multiple Virtue HP bars to simulate how a person can have differing Virtues; multiple HP bars imitates the effect of having multiple party members and buffers against more difficult enemies; you gain Virtue by meditating(healing) in battle, healing at a save point, or taking an action (dialogue/quests); only the latter can boost Virtue beyond the WIS cap

    Battles stick to this basic system. The further you are in the game, the battles become more challenging: multi-vice enemies are added, then multiple enemy battles. Status effects can also be included, representing difficulties encountered when dealing with terrible personalities. As the battles are represented by overworld sprites, some are avoidable for the sake of preventing the game from being too grindy. Like irl conflicts, most times you get to choose which battles you face and appeals to both casual and battle-oriented players.

    After battle, you earn gold which you can use to purchase items and equipment to make battle easier. You also gain experience which you can level up with. When you level up, you can earn skill points which you can put towards one of 4 skill trees, which present in order to appeal to different play styles.

    Current issues this model has includes:

    • Terrible balance issues; the way the system is currently set up, a player might have too much or too little Virtue to effectively survive filler combat; granted, this forces players to keep an eye on all of the Virtues instead of just one just as the game’s philosophy is meant to, but is sacrificing playability for philosophy worth it?

    • Healing’s importance forces players to sacrifice a turn as Val is the only character; this might extend battle unnecessarily by forcing players to heal constantly

    Alternative Implementation of Virtue

    Rather than HP, Virtue can be implemented as one of many MP bars that power all your skills so it can still be tied to attack somehow; however, that would quickly drain Virtue and would overthrow a lot of the philosophy. You don’t become less courageous after a show of bravery or less understanding after you displaying what you have learned about a topic.

    Something that is a very radical overhaul of the Virtue-HP system is the Virtue-progress system. This changes not only the creatures found in each region but also battle and game progression. Each land has one Virtue they excel at and have a deficiency in all the others, with one being especially weak. This invites hostile spirits of all the other vices into the region. Virtue is not a battle stat; ACT, RES, and HP are all independent. Rather, Virtue is like a progress bar for restoring balance in a region. The more enemies of a certain vice you defeat, the more of its opposite Virtue increases in the region until the area’s balance is restored (palettes become brighter, npcs gain different dialogue, monsters of a vice eventually disappear from the minor dungeon). After restoring balance, you can then enter the major dungeon and face the boss. Issues with this system might make the story repetitive and not as flexible (unless restoring balance is applied in another way like granting an item or skill or something). Also makes the battle system similar to other turn based rpgs; not much is changed other than battles feel more mandatory storywise.

    Virtue could also be implemented as an elemental rock-paper-scissors system like Pokemon; after all, each Virtue can defeat a vice that society has caused. For example, Fire’s vice is wrath. Wrath is defeated by Harmony, which is Nature’s Virtue. Therefore, Nature beats Fire. This could quickly get complex due to 13 elements and lead to match-ups that do not correspond to the classical pairs (i.e. normally Water beats Fire and Fire beats Nature, but here Water beats Light and Fire and Nature beats Fire).

    Virtue as indication of your rapport with an enemy (helping the enemy to understand their problems) is another solution. Like in the original system, your Virtues are pitted against the enemy’s vices as HP. However, ACT and RES are not tied to the HP Virtue but instead to the other unused ones. The closer your Virtues match (i.e. enemy has high UND and low CRG and so do you = high match) the more effective your attacks are but the more effective the enemy’s attacks are as well (you both resonate with one another, so it’s easier to get a response). Vice versa, if your Virtues do not match up well your RES goes up but ACT decreases (your values do not match and so it’s easier to ignore the other). You can meditate to heal or increase a stat or forget to decrease a stat to better match your opponent. This involves a lot of strategizing: do you want the battle to be over quickly or guarantee a win over time? Do I decrease my stats now for an easy win but risk having too little HP next time an encounter a spirit? This can make battle increasingly tedious, but it imitates conflict between people whose ideals match or don’t. Status effects would be of greater importance in this kind of battle system. For an example of this in use, play Taming Dreams on the Android market, first 2 episodes are free.

    Virtue is separate from mental stamina (HP) and it is simply an attack/defense modifier. Depending on the amount of the Virtue you have, the stronger or weaker you will be in battle. Virtue can increase or decrease based on external actions take in the Overworld or boosted by meditation in battle. Virtues are specialized attack/defense modifiers against an enemy of the opposite vice.

    Virtues as class: Following specific Virtues encourage a particular style of fighting. For example, courage as a high DPS, air as primarily AGI focused, etc. Val would be your generic build-your-own character based on fighting style, with flexible skill trees. The problem then becomes how can we make it necessary to become well-rounded?

    Virtue should be:

    • Affected by story(can go up or down based on decisions taken by the player)

    • Affected by battle(conflicts are based on ideological battles, therefore your virtues can change as can the enemies)

    • The Virtue system should somehow encourage the player to become well-rounded in them by either benefitting the player; though deviation is allowed, extreme specialization in just one Virtue should somehow be punished by the gameplay

  • Menu

    The menu can be accessed from the overworld at any time. Within it, a panel displaying Val’s stats are available for you to see as well as Skills, Items, Bestiary, Map, Options, and Return to Main Menu. The Skills page lets you see all of the skills you have learned as well as look at the Skill Tree so that you spend skill points. The Items page lets you look at your inventory, both with in-battle use items, equipment, and key items. The Bestiary contains all of the enemies you have encountered as well as their stats. The Map shows you both the world map and local map as well as the location of yourself, items, and entrances/exits. The Options page allows for you to adjust graphics and audio. Returning to the Main Menu lets you go back to quit the current saved game.

  • Metal Region

    Even though they lived on the same land, the Metal Tribe settled in small stationary villages alongside the Spirit Tribe. Since they did not get to move when times were bad, they constantly struggled to gain enough resources for the whole year. Economic with resources and words, the tribe was focused solely on balance, never letting one ideology or resource dominate the tribe. Such a rough and tumble attitude of “doing whatever it takes to survive” does however make it easy to justify criminal activity, part of the balance between good and evil within the tribe.

    Region: Plains

    Aesthetic: Post-apocalyptic/Western

    Dungeon: The Colonial Quarter

  • Nakit

    A mature middle-aged woman (40-50) suspicious about the growing strength of the mafia. Loyal to the old traditions of the Dark Tribe, she risks life and limb to preserve her culture and way of life..

  • Nature Region

    The peaceful Nature Tribe lives one with Limbo’s nature… kind of. Vegetarians who seek not to harm any living thing, their way of life is easygoing and lax with relatively plentiful food and peaceful spirits all around to protect them. They’re quick to forgive and forget, and tend to treat everyone equally. Such a way of life leaves them sensitive and emotional when things go wrong, and as such they are the first to fall prey to feelings of hopelessness.

    Region: Forest

    Aesthetic: Northwest Coast/Aztec influences

    Dungeon: Everthorn Reserve

  • Order Region

    The Order Tribe disliked change beyond all else or in general being in a position which they weren’t comfortable with. By restraining their desires, they live repetitive and comfortable lives guarding the ruins of the Ancient Capital, keeping alive the history of the Islanders. Their love of tradition however often times masks inertia and laziness, deeming change as too much work. Their patience prevents them from taking the initiative, instead waiting “for when the time is right” when it might not ever come.

    Region: Lower Capital

    Aesthetic: Roman/Egyptian influences

    Dungeon: The Timeless Ruins

  • Overworld Movement

    Movement in the overworld is done from an top down view similar to Super Mario RPG, where you can move around the map, entering and exiting areas, and encountering enemies which appear as single sprites. Running into these sprites immediately start a battle between one or more foes. Other objects you can interact with are NPC humans, peaceful spirits, treasure chests, switches and levers in certain areas, and save points which also serve to heal you.

  • Pelas

    Young, spry, and enthusiastic about everything, Pelas is your typical annoying 1st grader. He tries to get Val to break out of her shell and excited to Understand the world of Limbo, with limited success. He catalogues the hostile spirits of Limbo in the bestiary. His researcher parents rely on him for food and household chores.

  • Plot
    Prologue

    Val and her mother are aboard an airplane, flying over an ocean. Suddenly, things get turbulent, and the plane quickly loses altitude. As the plane plunges into the ocean, everything blacks out. Val wakes up at a corridor with two mirrors beside her, one of the plane wreckage in the sea and another of a glimpse of heaven. Scared and worried for her mother, she instead turns her back and wanders into the darkness, eventually stumbling into a pit where she fall from an immense height down into Limbo, plunging into the sea and blacking out.

    Chapter 1

    After falling, Valerie wakes up on a beach with no clue of where she is. Finding no sign of her mother, she wanders around a beach until she encounters a hostile spirit. Ambar, a cranky old man, appears but instead of warding it off lets it fight Val. He instructs her on how to use Virtue to cast magic and how to win a battle against spirits. Ambar takes her to his hut where Pelas, an enthusiastic young boy, is setting up a meal for Val, having found her earlier and sending Ambar to check up on her while he prepared dinner. Ambar and Pelas both tell Val that she is now in Limbo and explain a little bit about the tribes and Virtues. When asked about her mother’s whereabouts, Pelas replies that he didn’t see anyone with her on the beach, causing her to panic and cry out for home. The boy suggests that perhaps she could accompany him back to the Water Village to meet with his parents who might know of a way to find her and get out.

    Pelas’s mother and father, though kind, are experts in marine biota and cannot offer much help. Realizing how useless they were in this situation, they began to panic. In order to make up for their inability to help, they instead give her a map of Alto Pyrenis and tell her to ask around the village, hoping that maybe one of the residents would know how to help her. They don’t. Disheartened, Pelas suggests they visit Ambar for another lesson in battle. Ambar gives her some equipment and tells her about the Founders and how they have taken control over all of the tribes. Seeing how late it is, Ambar escorts her to the Water Village where she can take a boat ride to the mainland to find a way home. Upon arrival, they find that the Founders are threatening the village with a message from the Trustee, who says that the researchers are late with their results and that “funds” will be cut off if they do not comply. Ambar steps in, saying that they cannot do this when they already have taken so much away. In a fit of anger, he attacks one of the guards, prompting the Founders to kill him. While the tribesmen look on in horror, the head of the guard states that as further incentive, some “funds” were to be taken right at that moment. The guards seize Pelas’s parents and a few other researchers and take them away.

    The remaining villagers explain that the Trustee provides the village with “funds”- that is, people. If they do well, they release villagers they have captured and send them to the village instead of in a prison lab setting. Should they fail, they are instead taken away, with the tribe struggling to both complete research and provide for themselves. Pelas is heartbroken, losing both his parents and his mentor. However, Ambar reappears but as a peaceful spirit, claiming that Val and Pelas still have much to learn and his desire to help guide them kept him in Limbo. They want to rescue them, but the villagers are not of much help, stating that they’d prefer to continue researching and getting them back then. Val must then convince the villagers that their research can actually be used to help save the imprisoned villagers rather than simply using up all of their time on studying.

    Once they are persuaded, the villagers begin working on a plan. Val and Ambar alone enter the Founders’ Lab, infiltrating it and freeing multiple villagers. Upon freeing Pelas’s parents and letting them escape, Ambar urges Val to explore what the Trustee was using the villagers to research. The lab, unfortunately was flooded by the Founders. Trapped, Val is forced to face the Trustee in battle. Upon his defeat, the Trustee is forced to come to terms with the plight of the Water Tribe, undoing his former ignorance, and the Founders thereafter abandon the lands of the Water Tribe, leaving the natives in peace to rebuild.

    Amazed at the tribe’s liberation, Ambar urges Val to free the other tribes on the mainland. They sail to the closest region, the swamp of the Dark Tribe. There they find the tribe to be surprisingly well-off; with the wetland as difficult, toxic, and dangerous as it is, before the Founders the tribe found supplies scarce. However, Val and Ambar soon uncover that the tribe is in dire straits as they are nearly bankrupt, having relied almost entirely on the Founders and being discouraged from getting their own supplies through the machinations of the Banker. With the people having money extorted out of them, the people will soon starve, leading to a massive wave of organized crime as people begin to both continue to rely on the Founders yet distrust them, forming the mafia, who are also tied to the Founders. Your goal is to both defeat the mafia and the Banker, breaking their reliance on the Founders’ supplies while simultaneously alleviating the constant fear the Dark Tribe has for both its future and one another.

    Past the marsh and through the mountains lies the desert of the Light Tribe, where the people seem to be living an ideal life free of any Founder influence, which strikes Ambar as odd. Upon asking the villagers, it appears as if they have no idea of who the Founders are or what they have done to the other tribes, instead remaining clueless of the outside world and denying that bad things are happening. Ambar and Val soon find that the villagers have been kept in isolation under the seemingly paternal governance of the Mayor. However, the Mayor has in fact brainwashed a great number of the tribesmen so that the disappearance of their children and goods goes unnoticed as they are smuggled off into far away lands. By making contact with the last remaining unbrainwashed villagers, they are able to reveal the Mayor as the corrupt man he is. Angered by this, the Mayor reveals a strange device attached to his arm. Upon activating it, an Ignorance, Deceit, and Envy spirit appear and appear to fuse with him, transforming him into a grotesque watery, angelic, and demonic creature that Val must defeat in combat. Fearful of what this could mean for the Islanders’ future, Ambar urges Val to continue to the lands of the Fire Tribe, where defeating the Founders may lead to an island-wide revolt.

    Chapter 2

    The Fire Tribe should have been willing to help, with the majority of the tribe being proud warriors. Instead, Val and Ambar are blocked off from reaching the village at every turn by the local militia. The soldiers have been enlisted by the Founders to guard the region against a rumored uprising while the Resistance led by Etanoli has been leading guerilla attacks. However, the Founders have been planning on the rebels’ attacks on finishing the tribe off once and for all- Val must quench the rebels’ wrath and break the General’s hold on the region.

    Unlike the resentful Fire Tribe, the Nature Tribe instead decided to live in peace with the Founders. However, the nonviolent approach of the tribe has led to the destruction of the forest they love. Rife with violence, the people have fallen into despair and despondency where they feel helpless to do anything but watch as the Founders destroy their home. It is up to Val to stand up to the Warden and lift the people from their hopelessness into action.

    The Ice Tribe is by and large a proud people bound by honor and the desire to be right, a trait that was noticed by the Founders. The tribe was then tricked into being indebted to the Founders with a deal that they could not fulfill. The tribesmen must provide enough resources as tribute, but it is sabotaged annually and thus they are unable to fulfill the requests of the Founders. Val must either stop the sabotage from occurring or convince the tribe to give their pride and honor code for the sake of their survival. Upon doing so, the Judge will attack the player, fusing with Fear, Wrath, and Malice spirits.

    Chapter 3

    Everyone is smiling in the subterranean world of the Earth tribe. They all look so cheerful working themselves to the bone in the mines that Anbar and Val do not notice them starving at first. Despite the cheery attitude in public, the Earth tribesmen of the lower classes are miserable as the Founders used the custom of lending a hand no matter what to heighten the already-present class inequality. While the rich are free to spend extravagantly on luxury goods and donate occasionally to the local charity, the poor are so embroiled in their own financial woes that they are spending more time working in the mines to pay off their generous lifestyle. Defeating the Overseer will free the poor and restore balance.

    The Thunder Tribe, for the most part, no longer identify themselves as such except for the old and stubborn, and even then only in private. With the Founders in places of power, the Thunder Tribe has been turned into the workhorse of the Empire by using their desire for success against them; in order to be successful now, all Islander culture must be abandoned and replaced with Founder beliefs. Val must stop the reeducation of the students by urging them to find their own dreams rather than following the expectations of everyone else. In overthrowing the Principal, their identity is restored and they can be true to themselves once more.

    The village of the Air Tribe, set atop the Cloud Mountains, appears to be thriving in spite of the presence of Founder soldiers with the various art guilds showcasing their talents throughout. Despite this, the artists themselves are clearly in trouble: the guilds have been manipulated into an envious rivalry against one another where sabotage and conflict run rampant. The Gallery Show is coming up, where each guild will be judged based on their work and the Curator will choose who gets the Founders’ patronage for the upcoming year- that is, who will be supplied this year with food, money, and other necessities, and who will starve. Val must break the jealous rivalry between the factions and get them to work together instead. In restoring balance to the Air Tribe, the Curator fuses with Greed, Sloth, and Deceit spirits.

    Chapter 4

    The rebellion culminates in the surrounding of the Founders’ lands in the center of the Island, once the Capital. However, a barrier has been set up in the plains, inaccessible to all but Founders and Metal Tribesmen. The plains are barren, with a few Founders’ forts dotting the area thanks to the Spirit Tribe genocide and the betrayal of the Metal Tribe. Val meets the last unassimilated Metal Tribe member and must help her walk through the regrets of her past in order to break into the Capital. The miniboss, the Prophet talks of salvation for the Founders in the creation of new and brighter empire in a world far off, unsettling the heroes.

    With the rebellion at its closest, Ambar is worried of the Founders’ progress on the technology and what their motives are. Wandering off into the plains, Val is captured and imprisoned within the Capital by the Founders in hopes that they get some information out of her. She escapes and must battle her way through the Timeless Ruins of the deported Order Tribe as well as the Starscraper of the sealed-away Chaos Tribe, learning about hope and patience as the rebellion needs it. At the top, she faces off against the Scribe, who talks of the Founders’ troubles in running out of resources and the desire they have for more, causing them to create a portal to Earth where they can have more. At their defeat, Val must broadcast a speech to the rebellion with the choices she sends affecting her Virtue for the final battle.

    With the final dungeon, Val must go alone in fighting through waves after waves of spirits in the Imperial Palace. There she faces off against the one who started it all: the Founder Emperor, His Imperial Majesty Tredecimus Vitiae. In building a portal to Earth, the magic of Limbo renders their technology useless; however, since spirits are inherently magical, the Emperor starts the fusion project so that supersoldiers can make takeover of Earth simple. He then fuses with 13 hostile spirits of all the vices and morphs into a hideous monster blocking the way of the portal. After his defeat, the Founders all flee, but the portal is finished charging with only one possible use. Val must decide whether to return or stay, and then the epilogue happens.

    Epilogue

    Depending on how many of the hostile spirits you defeat (there is a set number per area) and which choices you make in the final chapter, the epilogue can come out differently.

    If she stays, Val becomes an ambassador for the tribes. Though the Emperor is defeated, his minions still control the Founders Empire elsewhere in Limbo though its hold is falling apart. Some Founders who converted to Virtue decided to stay, though others couldn’t last and left for other lands. The outcome of Alto Pyrenis as a whole depends on how many hostile spirits she has defeated. With a few defeated, the Islanders are left alone by the Founders but the presence of so many hostile spirits makes development difficult, leaving the nine/ten tribes isolated and disunified. The Founders who wanted to stay were kicked off the island due to conflict, leaving them to practice Virtue elsewhere. The Imperial forces attack the weak nation every now and then, but it still remains autonomous. With more defeated but not all, a weak federation forms with Val at its head, still prone to conflict but less so than before. This time, the converted Founders are instead integrated into the remaining tribes, and the Empire leaves the island alone. With all of the spirits defeated, the tribes are unified under a strong democratic government with Val as its eventual head. The new nation is strong enough to influence the Empire into letting the deported Chaos and Order tribesmen return.

    If she goes home, she wakes up amongst the wreckage of the plane floating in the ocean; if she defeated only a few hostile spirits, her mother’s jacket can be seen floating in the water, implying her death followed by Val crying and paddling away. With more saved but not all, Val will just look off into the ocean, waiting before rowing herself away. This ending is open to interpretation as to what Val’s mother’s fate was. With all hostile spirits defeated, Val wakes up and sees her mother unconscious next to her, checking her vital signs before rowing off into the distance.

    In both cases, the closing scene is a childish scribble of Val and all of her friends.

  • Project Scope

    The project would be a medium-sized undertaking, very much feeling like an indie game with art and mechanics trimmed down to the basics. On the other hand, the assets required as well as story are very fleshed out but a balance between battle and exploration would be fantastic. The best situation is to have some concept art, a refined battle system, and a clear main plotline fleshed out by the end of the semester. The roles required would be:

    • Concept Artists for enemies, characters, and the environment. With 11 areas in total, consisting of a small village and 2 dungeons, there many opportunities for artists to draw their own flora, fauna, and designs. The enemies are all based on various pitfalls of human nature like Procrastination and Bad Tan Lines, so artists are free to let their imaginations fly!

      • Water Tribe (Understanding) beaches, jungles, Indian/Polynesian aesthetics

      • Dark Tribe (Loyalty) swamps, mushrooms, Iroquois/Ethiopian aesthetics

      • Light Tribe (Joy) desert, glass, Mali/Navajo aesthetics

      • Fire Tribe (Courage) volcanoes, charred forests, Medieval European aesthetics

      • Nature Tribe (Harmony) forests, wild animals, Northwest Coast/Aztec aesthetics

      • Ice Tribe (Just-ice) tundra, taiga, Inuit/Nordic aesthetics

      • Earth Tribe (Kindness) caves, mountains, Persian/Japanese aesthetics

      • Thunder Tribe (Diligence) steampunk, mechanical city, Victorian aesthetics

      • Air Tribe (Integrity) cloud mountain tops, Incan/The Capitol aesthetics

      • Spirit and Metal Tribes (Faith and Temperance) plains and wasteland, no aesthetics as the Founders killed the nomadic Spirit Tribe and assimilated the Metal Tribe

      • Chaos and Order Tribes (Hope and Patience) futuristic sci-fi city and ancient Roman/Egyptian ruins; people deported

      • The Founders the villains, buildings in industrial modernist style, Americana aesthetics

    • Storyboarders for writing out the script and dialogue. There is expected to be at least 4 main chapters, each encompassing 3 lands. As linear as the game is, the story writers have a unique challenge of presenting the different Virtues each tribe represents while still pushing Val onward in her journey.

      • Chapter 1 Water, Dark, and Light

      • Chapter 2 Fire, Nature, and Ice

      • Chapter 3 Earth, Thunder, and Air

      • Chapter 4 The Lost Tribes and the End

    • Game Designers for refining the battle mechanics and the user interface. Because Virtue, the HP, is a modifier for attacks AND defense, it becomes tricky in battle to make sure neither the player is too strong nor too weak. In addition, we will need game designers to create maps for the various dungeons.

      • Battle System

      • Level Design

      • UI

    • Sound Design for composing music and adding sound effects

  • Regions

    There are 11 areas of the game minus the intro corridor and final dungeon, each corresponding to a miniboss/boss. Each region has a minor dungeon (the lands around the village), a major dungeon (where you fight the miniboss/boss), and generally a village.

    There are a total of 10 villages over the course of the game, 9 for each of the first areas and the rebel’s camp functioning as the village in the final chapter. Each village has a shop, a crafting area, a save point, and a few NPCs who can give out quests. These can range from gather, kill, and fetch quests and reward Val with Virtue, items, or a stat boost.

    The type of enemies found in a region coincide with the Vice the local tribe is weak against, ie Pride elementals found in the Ice region.

    The minor dungeon is where most quests will take place, and are easy to navigate for the most part. Think of these as the dungeons connecting 2 areas like in the Zelda games.

    The major dungeons are more puzzle oriented than the minor dungeons. Much of the level design is to discourage the Islanders’ virtues or take advantage of them, like the Water dungeon might take advantage of the curiosity of the tribe by placing traps in chests.

    The exceptions to the one minor, one major dungeon per area are the plains area and the Capital area. The plains region’s “minor” dungeon contains puzzle elements you would find in a major dungeon, in a way having 2 major dungeons. The Capital area instead has 2 major dungeons and no minor dungeon.

  • Setting
    Limbo/Purgatory

    In the moments after death, people are given a choice: do they stay on Earth to roam as wandering ghost, or do they move on to heaven, hell, or wherever their faith and karma sentences them to? Despite the relatively clear cut choice, still many spirits are indecisive. Such spirits end up in the strange dimension known as Limbo/Purgatory, a subterranean world where a murky, endless ocean divides continents and islands, each with their own twisted and horrific biota.

    Here, the sun and moon do not rise nor set but stay along the horizon, casting an eternal twilight, circling around and around. When their sun’s feeble rays shine through the thin mist that permeates the plane, that is the island’s day. When a gloomy shadow falls upon the sea and the moonlight barely illuminates the land, the faint glimmer of cold crystals shining far away on the the cave’s ceiling, the inhabitants know it is nighttime. The world is neither joyous nor painful, only dreary; nevertheless, danger lurks around almost every corner, not just due to the varied and unforgiving landscape but also due the spirits that make up the majority of its inhabitants.

    Spirits

    Upon arrival, the indecisive spirits of Limbo are classified generally into two major groups- peaceful and hostile. Many just wake up in a random location with no idea of where they are. Unable to truly interact with the world due to their ethereal bodies, spirits are thus left to wander the world until they find a way to remove the obstacle that keeps them from moving on. However, some spirits do possess living and inanimate objects that allows them to interact with the material world.

    Peaceful spirits are often trapped due to lingering desire to stay in the material world despite meeting all other requirements of moving on. By satisfying their wishes or letting go of what binds them to the material world, they can move on. Hostile spirits on the other hand are far more dangerous, going out of their way to harm other spirits and humans. Their reason for being in Limbo is more often than not due to being a good person at heart but committing many bad deeds in life. By either letting them realize their innate goodness and then serving penance, or by letting them accept the damage their actions have wrought, they can move on.

    They have a strange tendency to imitate certain forms based on their Vices. For example, a spirit of Ignorance will take on the appearance of form of light, an angel, or something of the desert as the desert-living Light Tribe is prone to ignorance. In other words, hostile spirits take on the forms based on the Vice most common to the area.

    The Island of Alto Pyrenis

    Among the numerous landmasses that dot the Ocean of Purgatory lies the Island of Alto Pyrenis, a name given to it by the Islanders’ ancestors. The island is rather large, approximately the size of France. Due to the supernatural nature of the island, its landscapes are extremely diverse, almost like a patchwork quilt.

    The island can be divided largely into ten main regions. The first is the tundra region, cold and unforgiving with a few taiga located along the slopes of some southern mountains. To its southeast is the barren crags and canyons region, with mountains riddled with large underground cavern systems. East of the crags lies the mech region, metal structures like gears and pipes rising from the ground like a city stood there. The eastern coast of the island is dominated by the Cloud Mountains which reach high above the seas. An jungle archipelago lies off the southeastern coast, with reefs hidden beneath the dark waters of Limbo. A humid swamp lies to the islands south amidst a giant river delta, gloomy and teeming with giant mushrooms. Past some high mountains, the swamp gives way to the arid desert area, bordered to the north by a highly active volcanic zone. Tucked in between fire and ice strangely enough is a vivid forest, teeming with wildlife.

    In the center of it all (and taking up the majority of the island) lies the rolling hills and plains region through which most of the regions are connected, the Asphode River winding lazily across the prairie. The ancient Capital, a city that had originally fallen into Limbo due to a disaster on Earth, too lies in the center of the plains, a region of its own. Due to the divergent cultures of its inhabitants, it has two districts: the above ground is futuristic, filled with technology that could not exist without the presence of magic. The other half is the underground ruins, the actual ancient city that serves as a foundation to the one above, preserved by its inhabitants.

    Magic

    The Islanders were the descendants of humans who had fallen into Limbo by accident, mostly from the original inhabitants of the Capital; people who simply disappeared on Earth with no sign of them having died. The circumstances around such an occurrence are rare; the human must, in a single moment of facing a life or death situation, choose to do neither. Spirit and body are not torn asunder and are both thrown together into this unforgiving dimension, where the killing is more likely to occur due to hostile spirits and harsh landscape and thus solving the problem of a person neither dead nor alive.

    Nevertheless, societies such as that of the Islanders have thrived in Limbo thanks to the knowledge of magic, taught to them by the peaceful spirits. As the spirits have found out, the Virtues that they once held in life manifest themselves in the form of magic in Limbo, which makes sense when you think about Limbo as a place where your fate is decided based on your innate goodness.

    • Ice Justice, righteousness, honor, respect, morality; opposes Malice (the desire to do wrong)

    • Earth Kindness, selflessness, cooperation, charity, compassion; opposes Greed (hoarding time and resources)

    • Thunder Diligence, efficacy, ambition, competence, success; opposes Sloth (laziness, inaction)

    • Air Integrity, creativity, honesty, freedom, individuality; opposes Deceit (lying, being a hypocrite, not being true to yourself)

    • Water Understanding, curiosity, wisdom, reason, acuity; opposes Ignorance (denial of truth, avoiding the facts)

    • Dark Loyalty, trust, responsibility, caution, prudence; opposes Apathy (lack of attachment, not caring about anyone or consequences)

    • Light Gratitude, joy, enthusiasm, wonder, purity; opposes Envy (jealousy, desire for someone else’s things)

    • Fire Courage, confidence, fortitude, discipline, valor; opposes Fear (cowardice, shyness, anxiety)

    • Nature Peace, acceptance, equality, harmony, mercy; opposes Wrath (anger, violence, brutality)

    • Spirit Humility, detachment, faith, simplicity, idealism; opposes Pride (vanity, narcissism, selfishness)

    • Metal Temperance, frugality, moderation, survival, balance; opposes Gluttony (excess of resources or ideology, luxury, waste)

    • Chaos Hope, optimism, perseverance, resilience, flexibility; opposes Despair (depression, futility, lack of anything worth living for)

    • Order Patience, remembrance, chastity, tact, restraint; opposes Lust (uninhibited passion for anything not just sex, impatience)

    By following these thirteen sets of Virtues, the Islanders are able to wield magic to protect themselves from the hostile spirits of the Island, and even mold the land around them so that it was more hospitable. Virtue magic also had the benefit of raising virtues within spirits and people, allowing them to realize their mistakes and do penance.

    The Islanders

    Over time, the Capital simply grew too overcrowded for everyone to stay; and so the people migrated to each region of the island in masses, settling in villages and towns. Due to the various terrains of Alto Pyrenis, the people soon found it to their advantage to know a certain magic, and therefore certain Virtues. Soon, they developed distinct cultures of their own, relatively isolated from one another. An atmosphere of xenophobia and mistrust grew due to the different emphasis on Virtues, with tribes often looking down on one another and claiming superiority. Each tribe was independent of one another with no centralized form of government, resulting in many conflicts between tribes. This disunity set the Islanders up for one of the worst disasters to befall them: the arrival of the Founders.

    The Founders

    The Islanders are not the only people to have fallen into Limbo and survived; indeed, on many a far off continent, many societies have risen and fallen, having discovered magic and technology for themselves. As later arrivals from a circa 1950s Americana town, the Founders have a leg up in technology though not as advanced as some of the magitech developed in Limbo. However, the Founders stand out in that their magic is unique; rather than learning Virtue from peaceful spirits, they instead learned Vices from hostile spirits. Vice magic, similar to Virtue, manifests itself as forces of nature but corrupted in a way.

    With their twisted magic, they conquered and enslaved many other societies around them, letting hostile spirits thrive while forcing peaceful spirits to find sanctuary elsewhere. Soon, the Founders’ Empire grew to span multiple continents. Upon arrival at Alto Pyrenis, the conquerors found the Islander tribes to be fragmented and mistrustful of one another- perfect for conquest. In no time at all the entire island was subjugated, with colonial authorities set in place to keep the natives enslaved and Founders sending people to settle on the island. Some of the tribes, however, they saw as long-term threats to their empire, bringing a risk of rebellion. The three offending tribes were swiftly dealt with: the Chaos and Order Tribes, keepers of hope and the Islanders’ traditions respectively, were deported and scattered amongst the Empire’s holdings. Faced with harsher living conditions, the Metal Tribe buckled into the pressure and assisted in the Spirit Tribe’s genocide, dangerous due to their ability to manipulate minds and emotions. The Metal Tribe were then assimilated into the Founders with a few holdouts.

    Faced with these tragedies, the nine remaining tribes stayed subjugated, watching as their children slowly became assimilated into the Founders’ wicked culture and losing their own. Though once relatively uncommon, hostile spirits flocked to the island, making life even more dangerous. Though the most isolated villages managed to cling on to their culture, it truly felt impossible to escape the grasp of the Founders.

  • Skills

    The skills Val can use in battle can be found in the Skills page, with 4 branching paths within the Skill Tree. The first branch is the ACT branch; skills in this branch increase your attack power as well as unlock stronger attack skills. The FOC branch boosts MES recovered when meditating as well as unlocks healing skills and Virtue-changing skills. The defensive tree, the RES branch, lets you use status blocking skills as well as create in-battle shields that weaken enemy attacks significantly. The final branch is the AGI tree which focuses on increasing speed, evasion, and adds status inducing skills.

  • Spirit Region

    Nomadic tribe whose focus on spirituality allowed them to unlock the consciousness of all of their past lives. By doing so, their greatest fear, death, was basically nullified since in a way they lived forever. Living a simple life with little regard for how they appear to others let them to focus on spiritual matters. However, their disconnection from earthly things meant that they were apathetic to the world around them, including the troubles of the other tribes.

    Region: Plains

    Aesthetic: Sioux/Mongol influences

    Dungeon: Asphode Plains

  • Stats

    • MES mental stamina, your HP and how tired you are; if this hits zero, the battle is over

    • ACT action, affects the strength of your attacks and chance of inflicting status effects

    • FOC focus, how much Virtue or MES you gain when meditating as well crit hit rate

    • RES resilience, the defense of your MES against enemy attack or status effects

    • AGI agility, affects turn speed as well as evasion rate; unaffected by Virtue

    • Virtues these are your “elemental affinities;” the higher one Virtue is the stronger your attacks and defenses against one type of vice attack become but the weaker it becomes to another vice

    TLA Virtue Strong Against Weak Against
    CRG Courage Fear(FER) Wrath(WRA)
    UND Understanding Ignorance(IGN) Greed(GRD)
    INT Integrity Deceit(DCT) Envy(ENV)
    KND Kindness Greed(GRD) Gluttony(GLT)
    DLG Diligence Sloth(SLO) Despair(DSP)
    JST Justice Malice(MAL) Pride(PRI)
    PCE Peace Wrath(WRA) Deceit(DCT)
    LYL Loyalty Apathy(APA) Fear(FER)
    GRT Gratitude Envy(ENV) Ignorance(IGN)
    HUM Humility Pride(PRI) Apathy(APA)
    TMP Temperance Gluttony(GLT) Malice(MAL)
    HOP Hope Despair(DSP) Lust(LST)
    PAT Patience Lust(LST) Sloth(SLO)
  • Summary

    Death is the ultimate mystery, with people holding on and coming back to life while others move on into the afterlife. In that split second decision, what if you choose neither life nor death? Welcome to Limbo, a mysterious and gloomy dimension where hostile spirits lurk about and your Virtues manifest as magic, a place where how good you are as a person is judged by whether you survive or not.

    Play as Val as she tumbles head first into Limbo and fights her way back home, saving a civilization of diverse and quirky characters from imminent destruction under the Founders along the way. Featuring a unique twist on the traditional RPG battle system as well as an art style that hearkens back to the PS and N64 era, prepare to wise up and take action: welcome to Ennea.

  • Sundyu

    A prepubescent child who acts as the Nature Tribe’s leader as no one else stepped up; he wants to fight back against the Founders’ destruction of their forest but does not want to upset his people

  • The Banker

    The snide woman in control of the Dark Tribe’s resources and trade. She is manipulative and has gotten the mafia and some of the tribe’s trust, but doesn’t care for her pawns at all.

  • The Curator

    She is the one in charge of choosing which of the Air Tribe art guilds receives patronage for the entire year following the Gallery Show, leaving the others to starve. She lies to each of the guilds to bring up their hopes, but cruelly chooses only one guild. She fuses into a cloud, rock, and electric/clockwork monstrosity.

  • The General

    Though they put up some bravado, they actually are very cowardly, hiding behind walls of Fire Tribe soldiers and blocking Val’s way rather than facing a small little girl head-on. He uses fear himself to keep the soldiers and villagers in line to the detriment of the rebels.

  • The Island of Alto Pyrenis
  • The Judge

    A corrupt judge who uses dishonest methods to subvert the Ice Tribe’s dedication to morality, leaving them permanently enslaved to the Founders. Her spirit fusion combines fire, plantlife/wildlife, and ice into a snake/dragon being.

  • The Mayor

    A deceitful man envious of the joy the Light Tribe has; he has made it his personal mission to kill that joy by kidnapping their children and sending them to other areas as workers. When he fuses with the spirits, he becomes a water/dark/light monstrosity.

  • The Overseer

    A man who is in charge of the scheme to enslave the Earth Tribe to the mines, forcing them to work longer hours by lowering their wages. Stingy beyond belief, he hordes the best for himself while leaving the village to starve.

  • The Principal

    The headmaster of the Thunder Tribe’s academy, this snappy woman is the reason why so few are excelling while so many others are breaking down and crying, creating an unforgiving curriculum where only geniuses can succeed while everyone else is forced into labor in the clockworks. Lazy herself, she prefers to let the others do her work for her, unwilling to help the citizens.

  • The Prophet

    Proud and extravagant, the Prophet thrives off of telling the “good news” to the Founders’ villages, receiving riches in exchange for the promise that the donor would be able to got to the “promised land.” It was his humiliation to a Spirit Tribe man that led to the tribe’s destruction all those years ago in revenge.

  • The Scribe

    The Scribe is the keeper of history for the Founders. An anomaly of lust and despair, he has no faith in the world of Limbo and as such does whatever he wants at the moment, whether that be recordkeeping or killing people regardless of whether they are friend or enemy.

  • The Trustee

    An ignorant man who does not respect basic rules of science, preferring to stay behind in his own closed world of money and luxury. Because of his detachment, he has no qualms about forcing the Water Tribe scientists into working on his project and letting the village starve.

  • The Warden

    A vengeful and violent woman who sneers at the Nature Tribe’s nonviolence. Her bloodlust is her primary motivation for the destruction and extraction of regions wildlife, and is happy to satiate it by destroying the tribesmen.

  • Thunder Region

    An entire clan of busybodies who dwell in the cityscape of their homeland. Their society despises being worthless and so prioritize diligence and hard work above all else. The higher your place of power or the more famous you are, the better, leading many to becoming inventors and merchants. However, they are prone to losing themselves to the desires and expectations of others, deceiving themselves and others about their true nature and intentions.

    Region: Mech

    Aesthetic: Victorian England

    Dungeon: Coulombyn Clockworks

  • Valerie Ahn

    A timid young girl, homeschooled, naive, and protected by her mother; does not know how to think for herself nor does she have a set of beliefs to follow, relying on her mom for everything. She does not speak in words, but instead has speech bubbles with childish drawings.

  • Virtues, Vices, and Elements
    Element Virtue Opposing Vice Vice Cause by the Focus on One Virtue
    Water Understanding Ignorance Greed
    Dark Loyalty Apathy Fear
    Light Gratitude Envy Ignorance
           
    Fire Courage Fear Wrath
    Nature Peace Wrath Despair
    Ice Justice Malice Pride
           
    Earth Kindness Greed Gluttony
    Thunder Diligence Sloth Deceit
    Air Integrity Deceit Envy
           
    Spirit Humility Pride Apathy
    Metal Temperance Gluttony Malice
    Order(Time) Patience Lust Sloth
    Chaos(Space) Hope Despair Lust
  • Water Region

    A tribe that seeks to archive, experiment, and explore everything there is to be known. By figuring out how Limbo works, then perhaps their tribe would not be caught unawares and left helpless- thus the great scientists and explorers of the Water Tribe continue to compile science, history, and everything else in the Grand Library. Their sheer focus on research has however left them with little desire to use what they learned or do anything else- Water tribesmen are loathed to sacrifice both time and resources to others, doing just enough to keep themselves and their research alive.

    Region: Jungle/Island

    Aesthetic: Polynesian/Indian influences

    Dungeon: Tidewater Labs

  • Water Region Concept

War

  • Bharata Fauna Sketch
  • Marvana Fauna
  • Marvana Tech
  • The World of War Biome Map
  • The World of War Biome Political Map
  • The World of War Physical Political Map
  • The World of War Political Map