Game Designer Beta was brought onto team to help balance the play experience in Book of Travels. Currently she's working on resources distribution across Early Access levels alongside colleague Andreas Wangler. We're super excited to have Beta with us all the way from Brazil! Here's her Q&A – we hope you like it, and if you want to ask her any questions, pop them in the comments section!

My arrival in Sweden happened in 2017, after working as a game designer in different Brazilian studios – Aduge, Aquiris and Black River. Here in Sweden, I studied Serious Games in the University of Skövde and worked at Attractive Interactive in Karlskrona.

After playing Tiny Echo, I got inspired to reach out to the studio. Joel [Studio Manager] was super sweet and invited me for a coffee. It wasn’t until 2018 I managed to get there, and it was such an inspiring day!

The nurturing environment and kindness of everyone. No wonder the studio creates such unique heartfelt experiences. It seems very natural to me that the games are what they are. After all, they carry bits of several beautiful souls.

To me it’s the fact that the game is built around the aesthetics of serenity. That, combined with the genre defying aspect – a TMO instead of an MMO – frees me up to explore so many unique designs.

Making more games? That shouldn't count, right hahah! A few years ago I rediscovered nib calligraphy and that's been a passion again. Either writing or drawing with nibs.

Kentucky Route Zero


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/


We hope this update finds you well. It’s been a long and strange summer for us all, and during its course the team realised they needed to make a new schedule for Book of Travels – that schedule means a bigger, better early access gameworld and a new programme of regular game dev updates here on Steam.


As you can see in the graphic above our next stop is going to be a gameplay video along with a major update in November. We're REALLY looking forward to this and we think you're going to love seeing the progress that we've made!








Your enthusiasm and anticipation really have been soul food to us through these trying times! And we're going to be much more present from hereon. With our new schedule in place we've been able to make space for a new series of regular, fortnightly updates which will give details about where development is at and how the game is shaping up as well as lots and lots of screenshots. They'll start on October 2nd and we'll be waiting for and responding to your questions and comments. Later in the year we’ll be continuing our series of insights into different aspects of the development process in our Ask the Devs videos.

We’ve also heard your desire for merchandise and will soon have an Art Station store which we'll be adding to as our library of artwork grows – we'll post an update when it's ready.

We're enormously grateful for all of your encouragement and kind words these last months and we're looking forward to connecting more on our travels on the road to release. Stay in touch!

Best Wishes,
Helen and the team at Might and Delight

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/
Sign up on our mailing list for news and an in-game treat in our upcoming game at https://m-n-d.games/BoT/Steam/30min/Traveller_signup.

The T in TMO signals an alternative to the more common industry standard MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) putting 'tiny' in the place of 'massive'. That means fewer meetings, which we think means more magic... Read more here: What is a TMORPG?!

Later this year Book of Travels will be available for Early Access on Steam. In Chapter Zero parts of the Braided Shore will be open, and among the places to visit is the gem of the region – the city of Kasa. Read more here.

Join our super friendly Discord to exchange ideas on all things Book of Travels as well as art, games and books. Join here.

You probably know by now that Book of Travels isn’t a game that fits neatly into any kind of genre, well the same can be said of the writing in the game. Together, the different modes of ingame text comprise the contours of the story world: the backstory, NPC dialogue, item descriptions and UI text all play their part in bringing Braided Shore to life. Of course we can say this about all game worlds, but Book of Travels is a bit different: it’s a non-linear, exploratory, immersive experience where questing isn’t centre stage. So in this case, the main role of text isn't to drive forward stories or point players through the next beat of an epic plot. This means we can have a bit more fun and allow it to enhance the experience in different ways.




One of the major differences between Book of Travels and conventional RPGs is that you won’t be able to converse with the NPCs you meet. In Braided Shore NPCs speak repeatable, poetic lines - they'll still do all the conventional work of lore seeding and world building but since they don’t simulate conversation the NPCs work more like two dimensional story characters than limited chatbots. We hope that by creating them this way players will have a less wall-breaking and more immersive experience, and with its pop-up book aesthetic and 2D feel Book of Travels feels like exactly the right place to invite the player to encounter text in this bookish way. For me, the more poetic lines echo the painted, two dimensional ‘scenery’ of Braided Shore - they add atmospheric detail and depth to the world as you navigate through it. Here a merchant and musician speak some character 'poems'.






Writing dialogue for NPCs is an obvious opportunity to enrich the fairytale picture book aesthetic of the game world, and the style and tone that we hope to have achieved is a mixture of folk wisdom, upbeat chit chat and lore-based whimsy. Each class of character has a range of ‘lines’ that are each designed to reveal a little about their role in the world along with a tint of personal attitude. We’ve crafted them to be a little bit poetic - some use rhyme, others use phonic or rhythmic patterns. The intention is to create a style that enhances the feeling of being in a picture book world at the same time as withstanding a fair degree of repetition. Players will also encounter dialogue that imparts something less ordinary, little parts of story or information. We wanted these to stand out a little bit and be less two dimensional so they are written in a tone that is more personal and direct - these are the aspects which signal happenings beyond the ‘scenery’ and rhythms of everyday life. Stories, if you like!


As with all RPGs, the text is a worldbuilding, ambient component of the game world and being so, must seed notions of the past history and current issues affecting its inhabitants. When I write dialogue I try to write it as though through the eyes of someone living its lore and history, so that fragments of these are revealed naturally when characters ‘speak’. This is one of the major ways that players will discover things about the magic, infrastructure and social practices of Braided Shore. There are a lot of unique and complex aspects to life there and they all matter to its inhabitants - we hope that over the course of your time there you’ll be able to learn from them and to piece together its unique culture. When I’m writing text I have all this in mind - the challenge is to seed little bits of lore without being overly explicit or compromising the integrity of character voice, it’s a balance I think I’ll always be in the process of perfecting!






While there’s no overarching questline in Book of Travels, there are intrigues to explore - eventually players will start to see signs of a region-wide drama, but mostly they are event chains with narratives that have the small-magic feel of folklore. Both will be seeded throughout the dialogue, so look out for hints or between-the-lines implications.





Finding the balance between subtle, naturalistic exposition and something more clearly revealing isn’t easy, so we expect to be working hard at that balance and we’ll be listening to your feedback to do so. Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below!

Helen x

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

We proudly present part three of Ask the Devs - this time Rasmus and Alex answer community questions about animating Book of Travels. (Get ready for some dancing...)

We'll be taking a break from video production over the summer, but we'll be back in August to let you know who will be next in the hot seat. If you have a particular area of game development you'd like us to feature, let us know in the comments and we'll hunt down a team member!

Thank you so much for all your attentions – we hope you're well and staying safe and connected.


Best Wishes from Helen and the team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

After some delay, we're pleased to show you part two of Ask the Devs in which Sofia and Jens answer your questions about programming Book of Travels. We managed to sneak this interview in before the beta launch, from now on you'll see a lot less of them as they are fixing bugs bugs bugs. But we'll ask you for questions for our next interviewees (and reveal who they will be) on Discord in the next few days, so hop in and join us there if you haven't already! Please let us know your thoughts or about any processes you'd like to hear about in the next video in the comments below!

That's all for now - we hope you are all well and staying safe and connected.

Best Wishes from Helen and the team

xxx

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

One of the most crucial parts of any RPG is the interface: your inventory, your character screen, your skill book. Today we want to share the progress that's been made and invite you to look, judge and comment on this omnipresent factor: the UI!

The interface is probably one of the more difficult parts to develop in any game, mainly because it comes with so many expectations. Its core purpose is functionality, but it’s also a vital visual component - one that appears on your screen almost the entire time you are playing.

Our idea is to make a somewhat classical interface that leans on many conventional solutions found in other games. But we also want to do it our way, adding flavors from the game’s ethos. One example is that we're using a lot of icons and symbols instead of text - not everywhere, and not only, but often. Together with inspiration from classical pen and paper roleplay, the style makes for an interesting mix of traditional and new. To get around the annoying inconvenience that symbols can entail, one can always press the question mark to read about a particular UI-screen or use mouse over to write out the name of symbols.







The look itself is inspired by paper and cards. Items and Skills are presented as cards and when creating your character you get to choose between different background cards that tell the story of your character. Being able to bring life to your character through its personality is vital for us, and we have added in many options to write your own custom information besides the choices of traits, origin and other factors that you must choose.

Skills and emotes are two major focal points of the ingame HUD and to always have access to these is very important. Their importance needs to balanced with the often large space of the screen they cover. So we've implemented functions that allow you to shrink, expand and hide individual parts of the interface - or hide it all together. Besides skills and expressions, energy and stamina status is visible in the top left corner, along with the “shortcut” buttons at the lower middle. Currently these include:

- Game view
- Character sheet, Stats, Custom info
- Inventory and equipment
- Skillbook and Reagents
- Map, Diary and notebook
- Take screenshot
- Menu/Settings



We hope you've enjoyed this first peek at the interface. As fans of the genre it would be amazing to hear your ideas and feedback regarding the UI. Together we can fine tune this part of the experience so that it fits the game that we are creating, and the people we are creating it for! As always, thank you for your time and commitment!

Jakob and the Book of Travels team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

We are thrilled to share another big piece of the puzzle that makes the core of our game design in Book of Travels - skills! This has been one of our focal points as of late and now we’re ready to offer a deep dive into their function in the game, shedding some light on what makes them special compared to other RPGs and how they look and behave.

Firstly it's important to keep in mind that we’re trying to build a roleplay experience that challenges many of the norms and structures that fans of the genre are taking for granted. It’s our hope that what you read here will shed light on our philosophy regarding skills and that you’ll be as excited about them as we are!



In order to start explaining something as complex an RPG skill system, we need to begin with the foundation. There are four types of skills that your character can learn. Knots, Teas, Abilities and Passives. They each have different tones, uses and gameplay orientation. What all skills share is that they are not all tailored to boost your stats or give you obvious advantages. Many skills are just ways for you to express your character and to use for roleplaying purposes in social situations.

The tying of knots is a magical practice in the game world and allows for a variety of wondrous effects and functions. The time it takes to tie a knot depends on its complexity, but after untying it, the effects of knotspells are often direct.

If the knots are the “scrolls” then teas are the “magic potions” of our world. Deeply rooted in the culture of the world, the brewing of tea is a common practice both among ordinary folk and practising mystics. It requires preparation and patience but the results are often rewardingly strong and may last for long periods of time. The only limitation is that just one tea effect can be enjoyed at a time.

These are skills that don't work by magical principles. Hiding in bushes, fishing, tricks and perks will instead improve everything from social skills, world interactions to survival gameplay. Some can be used all the time, others require special conditions or even tools.

Even if the term is common in RPGs we treat passive skills a bit differently in Book of Travels. Obviously they work on the principle of giving permanent bonuses to your character, but many of them can give you unusual and flat out weird bonuses if used correctly. Our idea is that players can use the other categories in conjunction with their passives to create tricky chains of bonuses. An example is drinking a tea that makes you unaffected by the elements, using a knot to call for rain clouds and then having a passive skill that gives you bonuses when standing in rain. With the amount of skills we are prepping, we are quite convinced that you can come up with some pretty awesome combos.







Besides the four types of skills there are four winds. These are a big part of the world lore and are considered divine or magical. Each skill, regardless of type, has a wind connected to it. The four winds all have their own “personalities” and they represent differences between skills. Skills of the Southern Wind are orientated towards physicality, interactions and trade. Skills of the Western Wind are often focused towards creativity, illusions, and strong magics. Northern Wind skills are cerebral and orientated towards science, protection and group aiding spells. Skills of the Eastern Wind are naturalistic, spiritual and often include animal skills and survival tricks.

Each character has an affinity for one of the four winds, making skills of that wind easier to learn.

Unlike many RPGs, your character won't learn skills per automation upon leveling up. Instead we have made gathering skills into something a bit more contextual and roleplay like (you are likely to learn the fishing skill from a fisherman, and a master at a tea house might teach you a magical tea blend). Of course there are numerous ways to acquire skills, such as learning them from NPCs, receiving them as rewards in events, trading for them, or finding them randomly in loot. A skill you write in your skill book must be activated or learned before it can be used. This is done by allocating points in the skills you want to use. Skills vary in how many points are required to learn them, and it’s up to you to balance your array of skills. Will you collect many cheaper, simpler skills, or a few more potent and rare?

Skills all have conditions on when and where they can be used. We are not very fond of “do whatever you like” type of RPGs and will prohibit players from assembling a fireplace on a wooden deck in a tea house. Besides the conditions of when and where, skills are used differently depending on type. Passives are always active. Abilities can be used freely without cost but work as cooldowns. Knots and teas both use the same fuel: reagents. These are things that you collect in the wind that you then use to craft knots and teas. A combination is often needed to complete a knot or a tea. “Dandelion” plus a “tuft of animal hair” to give one example. In our world the magical practises are somewhat alchemic and reagents are not always gathered from nature. Coagulated engine oil and driftwood dust are amongst the things you can expect to tie into your knots.

We hope you have enjoyed this summary of skills in the game. Please let us know your thoughts about them in the comments. As always we do actually read everything and will gladly use suggested skills in the future so feel free to brainstorm!

Much love from the team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

Much has been said about the art style, our pipeline and graphical process we use in making BoT. Today we're sharing a peek at some of our most recent assets - ones that we are now implementing in the game. It’s really important that everything you see in the game is carefully handcrafted and painted manually. This takes a team of four 2D artists working full time on the project. Some assets can be painted in a day, others take up to a week for one artist to paint. Below you can see two ancient trees that only appear in one place in the game world. Their names are Kesnan and Kham and they stand tall in one of the areas on the western side of Braided Shore. You can also see a tipping lantern, which can be interacted with via an Endeavour event and has to be created in several parts to be able to animate.

(Or scroll to go directly to the images)

In order to make all the painted assets of the game coherent we've created a meticulous 2D pipeline that ensures that the style is consistent and that all things visual are in sync. We use a specific brush for all assets and never stray from it or its size (15px). We also use a tricky hatching technique for the brushwork. It gives the art more of a textured feel and adds detail and variation to each piece. Besides that, we have also adapted a rather unusual way to underlight the objects, using brighter values low and darker ones high. This was inspired by A.J Casson who’s unique style is one of our major influences. The underlight helps to create an unpredictable and odd impression that we really love.

Once finished, our game designers can start drafting and implementing events that take place at or near these unique props.









We hope you’ve enjoyed this first dive into our process. We’d love to hear any thoughts, feedback or ideas about this or suggestions for things you would like us to feature here. Let us know in the comments section!

Thank you for your time!
Jakob, Marcus, Charlotte, Olle and the rest of the team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

A while ago we asked all of you on Discord (go here to join!) if you had any questions that you wanted our Lead Tech Artist to answer. Well, today we're happy to present the results! This is the first in a series of short dev interviews that we hope you will enjoy. Here he tells us about the unique perspective the game offers and some of the challenges it presented to the team. Take a look and do not hesitate to ask more questions in the comments (we will force Peter to answer).


Until next time!
The Book of Travels team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

We're happy to share the first of a series of mini posts that will take you behind the curtains of Book of Travels production. In the coming months we'll be sharing small insights into the production journey, leading up to early access release later this year, and towards full release!

Today we want to share some progress on the game design systems. As many of you have read before, Book of Travels balances a lot of contrasting gameplay elements and it’s very much up to the player to pick and choose which parts to engage in. One of the pillars of the experience that we’re currently working on is a multiplayer feature we call Endeavours.



Endeavours are special events that require players to help each other and cooperate to solve situations (players of Meadow will recognise traces of obelisks). The amount of players needed, the context, the goal and the rewards all vary greatly from event to event. Starting out, your character represents one “slot” in any endeavour (see the above screenshot), but as your character develops it might gain the ability to cover two. Some Endeavours can be solved alone, but others will require you to gather a large band of travellers before engaging. Some will reward you with small magical boosts or items, and other, rare Endeavours can be the starting point of larger adventures! Endeavours are divided into four categories; physical, mystical, mechanical and social.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/

These situations challenge your group with feats that require strength, such as operating a draisine cart, pulling objects out of a well, or clearing heavy rubble to uncover items.

These can be anything from praying by a shrine or singing at a graveyard to interacting with magical beings and invoking visions of the past.

Braided Shore is a land that inherited an ancient industrial infrastructure, some of it is still noticeable in today's society. Through mechanical endeavours your group can use ancient steam boats and train engines, unpick mechanical locks and use various mechanical devices in the world.

Examples of these are a merchant who doesn't give access to her wares unless a group convinces her to, or a scholar who can give lectures to larger parties earning them valuable skills and knowledge in the process. Social endeavours are about interacting with folk in the world and affecting their response to you depending on your numbers.


We’re currently developing these systems and plan to try some out in the upcoming beta. We truly hope that you like the idea of Endeavours, and we’d love to hear your thoughts regarding them in the comments right here. If you have ideas for other types of Endeavours we can add, please comment below and we might implement them! (And credit you for it in the final game of course!)

Thank you for your time!

Jakob and the team