After quite a bit of brainstorming, I have stumbled upon an idea for a new game project that I am very excited about. I have come up with a set of criteria for project ideas – largely driven by a desire to actually be continuously inspired by, and involved in, whatever I create (a feedback loop of sorts). This idea has stood the test against said criteria in that it is ↝

• Simple enough to get started quickly.
• Scalable enough that new content can continue to be created well into the future.
• Translatable to desktop, browser, and mobile experiences.
• A potential for a deep player community.
• An opportunity to learn new, advanced techniques and tricks.
• Something that I myself could enjoy playing even after creating.

As such, this marks the beginning of the development of Firetale – hex-style strategy role playing game with deep, procedurally-generated open-world adventures. No two play-throughs will be the same, and an endless number of strategies can be leveraged to complete the main quest without dying.

I have a lot of plans for this game, but the core of it is simple. Within a procedurally-generated world, the player will move amongst map positions towards a location where their main quest can be completed. At each position on the map, the player will have the opportunity to explore, hunt, loot, shop, side-quest, and more – all of which are also driven by procedural-generation. Standard role-playing elements – such as player development (skills and levels), items, and so on – will augment the experience. If the player dies, the game ends – adding another risky roguelike mechanic to the mix.

I plan to write occasional devlogs about this project. Sometimes it can be a fight to choose between working on a project, or writing about working on a project – but I will do my best to balance the two activities.

If you are interested in Firetale, please get involved here in the comments or in the discussion boards. My dream for this game is that a deep player community be established around it – and I believe that should start now.