In Search Of… The Wendigo

So, I spent some time this weekend with the toolset.

Some of it is amazingly intuitive. I sat down with no documentation at all, and within the space of a few minutes had created a largish forest. It had a road and a stream and some old ruins created by some ancient race. You know, a typical forest. I saved that forest, closed the toolset, then started up the game itself. I selected my barbarian character, and was set down in that very forest. The forest music played, a few leaves fell silently to the forest floor, shafts of sunlight shone down. I walked along the stream for a while–the stream I had set down a few minutes before–then clomped over the bridge I had made, then ran north up the road to the end of the world. The road I had laid down with a few mouse clicks. At the end of the road, I came to a sort of darkened reflection of the world I inhabited. I could see that the forest might continue on forever, but I couldn’t access it. It wasn’t really there, because I hadn’t yet created it. There was only the illusion of forest, evidently placed there by the developers so that it wasn’t so jarring when a player arrived at the end of creation. Had I taken one more step, I would have left the world entirely. But, of course, the game wouldn’t let me. Hmmm…how much like real life does that sound?

It’s an amazingly godlike feeling, actually, taking the role of an electronic humanoid and seeing firsthand the world you’ve just made. I’m sure that feeling will wear off in time, but right at that moment I couldn’t have wanted more.

A player, of course, having downloaded my creation, will want lots more.

So, back in the toolset, I started playing with buttons. I discovered a way to create a hidden entrance to a cave. Cool enough. I placed that in a corner of the forest, then went to create another area, this one a cave. I set my character down in that as well, and walked around with my torch. Caves, of course, are kind of creepy. Cave music is creepy too.

I even managed, after a bit of fiddling and a couple of false starts, to connect the respective doorways from the cavern to the forest. In game, one steps through the doorway and seamlessly arrives in the new location. In a well-made game, a player never sees the seams between the worlds.

Then, I went back to the toolset and put a rat in the cave. Then I went back into the game, and killed the rat with my hatchet.

Eventually, I got a little more serious and downloaded quite a good little tutorial from the folks at Bioware. One can, using that tutorial, create a complete (though quite short) module, involving a little village, an inn, and a mine. There are goblins and miners and of course a villain who originally seems to be on your side. I didn’t work through the mod completely, but I learned more about creating areas, area transitions, and encounters. There is a lot more to learn. The further one goes, the more complicated it gets. Paging through the last half of the tutorial is a little intimidating, actually, as it begins to deal with conversations with non-player characters, the in-game journal, and the scripting that one must do to pull off the more complicated effects.

I’m sure that it will come in time. One foot in front of the other. Little steps.

Along the way, I’m building “In Search of… the Wendigo.” I created about seven forest areas, and finally settled on one (tentatively) to go with as a starting area. Right now, there is a huge contingent of Slaan wandering around outside of an enclosed area within that forest. They are, for the moment, keeping our level one hero from getting where he needs to go.

Also, I’ve built a two-level cave. Our hero is going to have to enter that cave, it looks like, though he’s doubtful if what he finds there will be any friendlier than the Slaan.

I’m settling on a hook to get players into the story, and considering a couple of plot devices, and slowly making decisions about how the whole thing will unfold. There are lots of ideas in my head right now. It’s as if I’ve written them down on individual note cards and tossed them into the air. They will settle into some sort of coherence as they fall, but right now it seems pretty chaotic. How it all turns out will be as surprising to me as it will be to anyone else.