May 29, 2020
WoMen in Science - ben
Once again, no weekly update while I’m focused on the full-gamepad support, but a little post about some of my sources of inspiration.
The world was so realistic that you could decide—instead of being an adventurer—to harvest wheat, mill it, put the flour on a table, add water (or beer!) to make dough, and put it in an oven to make bread that you could consume or sell. It would quickly become boring, but there was a special feeling associated with letting your weapons aside and just craft for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOfzind4xCA
Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley are definitely the main source of inspiration for WoMen in Science, though. Graveyard Keeper (2018), the dark humorous farm-sim game where you manage a cemetery, is where our point system comes from.
Another—maybe more surprising—source of inspiration is Baldur’s Gate 2 (2000). In the dialogues with the imp Cespenar, the game will scan your inventory and branch to funny comments depending on the objects you carry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-RhrMlnklw
I implemented a similar system when you bring an artifact to Carl Von Linné in the museum, so that he will not just explain the artifacts but also make comments on other items. In the future I’d like to build on this system, and create something like a small database of all that happens in the world, so that NPCs can react to it in surprising ways.
“Blooming Chestnuts”, the title of the summer soundtrack, is inspired by that time. The teachers would tell students that they need to start studying for the finals before the chestnut trees are blooming. Once you see the flowers, it is too late, you failed already, they said. The funny thing was that for the untrained botanists we were trying to be, the blooming happened quite suddenly, triggering the unprepared into a panic state.
The winter theme, named “Nelligan’s garden of frost”, is a reference to my emigration from Belgium to the province of Quebec (Canada), 20 years ago. One of Émile Nelligan’s most well-known poem is “Soir d’hiver”, where he describes his window being a “garden of frost”. He’s not talking about the Canadian winter though, but about his own vulnerability.
I hope that this little incursion into my world was not too boring! There are of course many more things that I find inspiring. So many in fact, that I have a notebook where I have been writing every idea that comes to mind since the beginning of this project, and that will inspire future updates.
PS: If you read the post about Anne Droyd, you already know that many of the scientists' characters were part of a card game I worked on in 2015. I forgot to mention that there is also a https://luanagames.itch.io/wis-card-game.
Games
When thinking about farming RPGs, the Harvest Moon (1996) series and Stardew Valley (2016) inevitably come to mind. But for older gamers, there are even earlier memories of RPGs that included some agriculture and crafting. For me, it was Ultima VII (1992). That is probably the first RPG game where most objects could be moved or interacted with, and the player was free to explore a huge world filled with non-linear adventures. The world was so realistic that you could decide—instead of being an adventurer—to harvest wheat, mill it, put the flour on a table, add water (or beer!) to make dough, and put it in an oven to make bread that you could consume or sell. It would quickly become boring, but there was a special feeling associated with letting your weapons aside and just craft for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOfzind4xCA
Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley are definitely the main source of inspiration for WoMen in Science, though. Graveyard Keeper (2018), the dark humorous farm-sim game where you manage a cemetery, is where our point system comes from.
Another—maybe more surprising—source of inspiration is Baldur’s Gate 2 (2000). In the dialogues with the imp Cespenar, the game will scan your inventory and branch to funny comments depending on the objects you carry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-RhrMlnklw
I implemented a similar system when you bring an artifact to Carl Von Linné in the museum, so that he will not just explain the artifacts but also make comments on other items. In the future I’d like to build on this system, and create something like a small database of all that happens in the world, so that NPCs can react to it in surprising ways.
My own life
I think that it’s important to put a little part of yourself in what you create. I was always interested in agriculture and biotechnology, and that was actually my first career choice, before I went into software development. I played with hydroponic and aeroponic setups, and a few other elements that you will find in game in real life. In fact, the game’s university is based on Gembloux Agro-Bio-Tech, in Belgium, where I was a (far too unreliable) student for a time.
“Blooming Chestnuts”, the title of the summer soundtrack, is inspired by that time. The teachers would tell students that they need to start studying for the finals before the chestnut trees are blooming. Once you see the flowers, it is too late, you failed already, they said. The funny thing was that for the untrained botanists we were trying to be, the blooming happened quite suddenly, triggering the unprepared into a panic state.
The winter theme, named “Nelligan’s garden of frost”, is a reference to my emigration from Belgium to the province of Quebec (Canada), 20 years ago. One of Émile Nelligan’s most well-known poem is “Soir d’hiver”, where he describes his window being a “garden of frost”. He’s not talking about the Canadian winter though, but about his own vulnerability.
I hope that this little incursion into my world was not too boring! There are of course many more things that I find inspiring. So many in fact, that I have a notebook where I have been writing every idea that comes to mind since the beginning of this project, and that will inspire future updates.
PS: If you read the post about Anne Droyd, you already know that many of the scientists' characters were part of a card game I worked on in 2015. I forgot to mention that there is also a https://luanagames.itch.io/wis-card-game.
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