Lemma Soft Forums

Hi!
Recently I have been creating a new world to set stories in. I am creating a series of shorter games and comics exploring this world. While I am not completely done, I feel as though your feedback would be very much welcome. I want to include you peeps in the development process.

What is it?
Rooted follows a town built on top of a giant creature wandering through the world.



The town is mostly self sufficient - they grow crops and trees on the creature, harvest the giant fur to sew clothes and other materials, and mine the horns of the creature to create more sturdy things such as weapons and foundations.

Every once in a while, the creature ceases its endless trot to slumber. For a short while, the giantfolk can visit the ground to trade and mingle before the creature wakes up.

To the people living on the creature there are two worlds. The familiar and constant soft and furry world of the town set in the fur of the creature, and the ever changing, moving world of the ground. The world of the ground is always different , forever changing as the creature continues walking onwards. The creature folk are forever moving this way, but also forever rooted to the creature.

Intent
I want to explore how life on the creature is. To explore their world and use that in context of my own worldview to gain a better understanding of myself.

Does the townfolk ever feel trapped? Do their youth run away to the unknown ground world? Does the town traditionally reproduce with people from the ground world to increase their gene pool? What does the ground world think of the creature? What if a city is trampled down, does people get angry and what do they do about it? What happens when they meet another creature with a townt? What if their giant is a predator, for example a spider?
Those are some potential plotlines set in this world. For now I am still creating the world and establishing just how it works though!


View from a small settlement on the edge of the giant.

What do you want from me?
I am involving you in the development of Rooted, if you would like to!

Here is how it works;
Every week or every other week, I will post a new update on the project. I will give you guys a script, a comic, a prototype or simply some artwork. In the same run, I will provide a feedback form, you will hopefully give feedback, and based on your feedback I will pivot accordingly!

While I have a vision, I believe it is important to listen to your audience and iterate from there. If you’re into it, I would love to take your opinion into consideration.

Okay, let me join!
You can leave some feedback and sign up as a tester here - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... Q/viewform

Who are you?
My name is Sebastian Larsson. I am a game design student from Sweden. I am into creating things ranging from games, to comics, to stories. I have been working on Rooted independently for the past couple of weeks.
You can follow the development of Rooted here - http://rootedstory.tumblr.com/
..or hit up my twitter here https://twitter.com/Mnniska

Thanks a ton for reading, let me know what you think

Mnniska wrote:Does the townfolk ever feel trapped? Do their youth run away to the unknown ground world? Does the town traditionally reproduce with people from the ground world to increase their gene pool? What does the ground world think of the creature? What if a city is trampled down, does people get angry and what do they do about it? What happens when they meet another creature with a townt? What if their giant is a predator, for example a spider?

These are all interesting questions. Will they be answered through a single story, or multiple short stories?

I'm also interested in how you will explore your fictional world. Is this a multimedia project that combines comics with a visual novel, and perhaps other forms as well? Or is this simply a VN with some other art on the side to get people interested?

Finally, let us know who's involved in the story. Talk about the people in your world, and how they affect (or are affected by) the story's events. Especially if you're focusing on characters who have important roles. Even if you're writing short pieces about characters who never appear again, provide information about them.

gekiganwing wrote: These are all interesting questions. Will they be answered through a single story, or multiple short stories?

I'm also interested in how you will explore your fictional world. Is this a multimedia project that combines comics with a visual novel, and perhaps other forms as well? Or is this simply a VN with some other art on the side to get people interested?

Finally, let us know who's involved in the story. Talk about the people in your world, and how they affect (or are affected by) the story's events. Especially if you're focusing on characters who have important roles. Even if you're writing short pieces about characters who never appear again, provide information about them.

Hiya, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it!

My current plan is to make it a multimedia project, however exactly what format I am starting with is not clear to me yet. I have done webcomics and videogames before while visual novels are new and intriguing. From my point of view, a VN is pretty much an interactive comic leaning more on the text side, so it feels like a natural step

I agree characters are super important to establish. Right now though, I am trying to get a better view of how the world works so that I can understand my character's perspective better. For example, if the creature folk has to fight hard to get water to their crops and save up their rainwater, it changes the tone of their daily lives entirely and that will have affected them. In short I am getting some perspective before revealing the roster. Does that make sense? Internet communication is hard..

Updates! Lots of updates!

In my latest blog post, I establish some conditions that must be true for the aesthetic I am aiming for to be realized. What are their religion? How much do they work? How many are they? All will be revealed! Or at least vaguely hinted at.

http://rootedstory.tumblr.com/post/1529 ... ure-people

let me know what you think! C:

What an incredibly charming setting! I love gentle fantasy worlds with unique setting gimmicks.

I'm excited to see more from this project

What a wonderful project! I'm a big fan of world-building, and all this is just so intriguing and charming in a way that somehow reminds me of Ghibli films, fantasy novels, fairy tales and the like! Quirky and pretty cute in my opinion :D I'll definitely be following this! (I've already sent in feedback and signed up~) Really looking forward to see how everything goes!

And I know it's kind of a dark thought to consider so early on in development, but I'm curious as to what happens when the creature eventually passes away. I mean, I'm pretty sure that it has a very long lifespan considering its' size, but still...

I love the art of your game!