All Things Small Web

i've spent the last day slowly figuring out the scope of what i want in this next project with gamedev....

see, it's always been a dream of mine to recreate tellius as a walkable 3D world. i like that world and characters, and think it'd be Neat. it's safe to say after twenty years i doubt i'll get bored with it anytime soon, so the low-level consistent drive is certinally there. but actually taking a stab at this does several additional things:

* forces me to learn blender beyond 'pick a video to do one small thing, flail a bit with copying it, and giving up out of boredom'.  3D modeling is one of the last frontiers creatively that i had been intimidated by, and this would create a consistent positive cycle with lots of mini-goals to tinker with, while not having to come up with ideas from scratch.

* obviously this wouldn't be sell-able in any way given the IP, but giving the game files to tellius old heads to have fun with would be cute. :)

* lowkey honest to god great reference for future tellius doujinshi/drawings.....

anyway -

finding PoR/RD's high res textures was an incredible boon because the bottleneck of most games is the sheer amount of assets needed, even if you're an artist. i like painting textures, but i was not looking forward to having to recreate .... everything.... this also lets me put in placeholders with fairly little effort as well as seamlessly matching the world i'd want to recreate.

 i'm actually considering using blockbench again for the initial wave of modeling because i had about a month or two genuinely having fun with it creating basic low poly work and painting my own textures to the point i made a walk cycle for one character and a basic environment with fairly little difficulty (this was right before gunter ate my brain in 2023 or so). perhaps working in that program there briefly could stretch those muscles again before attempting blender...

* in terms of NPC and general graphic complexity, i'd be happy with a majora's mask equivalent. this isn't no 'recreate elden ring/skyrim' scope creep. majora's mask felt dense and lived in, but "basic" enough with polygons and gameplay it won't eat my computer alive lol.

of course, since this kind of thing invites dreaming, the pie in the sky ideas my brain was running wild with last night: 

* what if a wyvern delivery service mini game that unlocks fast travel. creating crude weather systems (so a wyvern flight isn't a boring direct line between A and B) where there's a chance of lightning bolts to OHKO a wyvern, or a tornado like gust to likewise OHKO a pegasus (nodding to their weakness of lightning/wind reciprocally.)

* in terms of "filling up" the towns with characters we know, i was wondering if there'd be a cool system where there'd be a % chance makalov could be at any tavern in begnion, volke could have a lower % at any one in the continent in general.

* what if bright eyes gets a whole special combat system where you're encouraged to take damage to regenerate/counterattack. friendly to newcomers but also has a weird skill learning curve. (this is also making me think how cool would it be to incorporate my ashera's tower survival horror game idea.)