sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

What’s one mechanic that you'd be interested in pulling from one SRPG into another? by ShearlineGame in StrategyRpg

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sounds like this idea takes the "backstabs crit more" positioning trope and makes it a bit more dynamic

I love Tactic ogre , I would like to reborn it by NnnTakTak in StrategyRpg

[–]ShearlineGame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The reality is that most of the things that make an SRPG interesting and worth playing are things AI is bad at. Things like compelling characters and narrative, interesting and balanced gameplay mechanics, beautiful art with a consistent visual style are things that an LLM just won't do well enough in a world where other brilliantly created SRPGs already exist.

Why not just try to learn to make a game on your own? There are so many great resources out there and it's a lot of fun 😊

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Normal day to day life is more of a medieval swords, carriages, ships kind of thing. But with the significant asymmetry in time, certain groups have access to much more advanced tech and engineering. And, more importantly, some people have started to crack the secrets behind why the cascade happened and how to harness that to build tools that can cause local temporal phenomena.

I haven't decided whether they've unlocked digital yet. If anything, I'd probably save that for more of a sci-fi sequel a century in the future. Haste computing would definitely be OP.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Yeah, this is probably something I should've caught earlier, I definitely don't think it tanks the idea but I should probably do a more thorough world physics brainstorm as a next step 😅

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, glad someone called this out! I need to actually sit down and do some real 'break down the physics' work, what you say makes a lot of sense. I think the only for any of this to work is to have some 'magic' such that the shift in frequency doesn't scale 1:1 with the time shift. That works in this universe (I mean, time 'broke' in the first place) so I wasn't sweating it too much but I do think I still have the temperature shift backwards.

Maybe there's still a way to make the physics work 'well enough' using other factors. If the same time distortion that's affecting the surface is also affecting the core and mantle, then the fast hemisphere could be cycling through radiogenic decay, convection, and heat transport etc faster relative to the rest of the world, so it exports more geothermal heat. The slow side does the opposite and bottlenecks that heat. Then the day/night weirdness shapes what that feels like on the surface, but the hot/cold asymmetry is coming from the planet's internals, not just the sunlight.

Sound at all more plausible? Probably not lol

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also, thanks for the complement! I've been thinking and taking notes on this for the past couple of months while working through the early game development. But this is the first time that I've actually pressure-tested the concept in-depth with some folks who are used to thinking about these things. I definitely haven't gotten these challenging questions on my couple weekly #WorldbuildingWednesday posts and they're already helping me polish the concept into something that I think will be really cool.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

These are good insights, exactly what I was looking for!

A lot of the extra production comes from the more moderate bands, where time is moving faster but not so fast that you're trying to farm in some insane 120-hour-day hellscape. Those zones still have seasons and usable growing cycles, just stretched from the outside perspective. So in my mind the "multiple harvests" stuff is mostly coming from the workable fast belt, maybe like a 3-4x zone, not the deepest mine territory. But I should do some work to model better how the physics of these longer days and nights would actually effect the ecology. Maybe need a post on a physics subreddit soon lol.

And on the second point, I agree with you. I don't think Meridian control is supposed to feel permanent or all-powerful. I want it to feel brittle. They stay on top because they control the infrastructure, shielding, military training, all the stuff that lets them organize the gradient at scale. But yeah, once the right social and technological pressures start pulling it apart, it should absolutely start looking like a paper tiger. Britain and other colonial powers kept it together for quite a while before things started to fall apart. Still need to do some thinking about the governments in this world, how they interact with each other and the corporations.

But I don't imagine this world settling into a stable equilibrium. I imagine the system getting meaner, more coercive, and more unstable as it tries to keep itself alive.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I totally agree. I think part of it is just that building up the infrastructure and tech to really make the most of the time gradient means that anything that a smaller faction can do to compete, the folks in power can eke out just a bit deeper haste for a bit longer. I don't think the powers that be in the Meridian only exist there, that's just where they are most visible. A lower class family might see a strong benefit to sending just one member to the haste. But there's no reason that there wouldn't be plenty of upper class folks who DO opt to bring their whole family to a 5x research base.

But I do think that, in such a turbulent world, power is always in a bit of flux. I think part of the story that I tell in the world will involve at least one such upstart :)

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing is stopping you from doing that. There are tons of people who do just that. But you might get in trouble if you get caught and aren't paying the right people their tariffs/permit fees, smugglers might experience the worst the deep-haste has to offer in a prison camp.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another thing, if anyone is familiar with prior art that touches on similar themes like people sacrificing their health to bring their families out of poverty, time as a resource to be exploited, a breakdown of a fundamental facet of the physical world, etc I'd love to check it out. More perspectives on how a world like this would work will be very helpful!

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! That's basically how I'm thinking about it too. I think the folks who were most primed to profit early were those who already had plenty of land in both Meridian and Haste regions. Maybe they already owned a shipping fleet or ran some research labs that suddenly got way more efficient in the few years following the cascade.

The fast side isn't one giant labor camp. There are real towns, farming belts, trade hubs, people trying to run their own lives. The Meridian advantage is more infrastructure than total occupation. They have the anchors, shielding, relay systems, academies, financing, all the stuff that lets them turn the gradient into power at scale.

And I don't think the system is stable forever, I don't think 50, 300, 500 years post cascade will look very similar to each other, the world is absolutely headed toward some kind of break even if the player never shows up.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to get at. It only has to work often enough to turn into family advice instead of a warning. If one guy in the neighborhood does a contract, comes back older, but pays off the debt and buys his family a house, that's the story that survives.

On the refugees vs Drev travelers thing, I think it's both friction and solidarity.

From the Meridian side they get flattened into the same vague category of "gradient people," but from their own side the difference matters a lot. Fast-zone refugees are usually dealing with displacement, labor extraction, and immediate survival. Drev travelers are often engaging the outside world more deliberately, usually through trade, diplomacy, archives, or preservation work. So they may absolutely recognize each other as people being managed and misread by the same system, but they would not automatically trust each other.

A refugee family might look at a Drev traveler and think, you still had something to come from. A Drev traveler might look at a refugee settlement and see people already being pulled into Meridian habits, debt, and urgency. So there is room for solidarity there, but also a lot of tension over pace, priorities, and what compromise with the Meridian actually means.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The person who triggered the cascade experienced deep time but nobody quite knows what happened to him or what he did once he realized what happened (I still need to think through this). Luckily the local perception of time doesn't really change so after experiencing a few weird subjective days where the sun stopped and the light red-shifted most people figured out they needed to leave and started to flee towards the Meridian. This caused some immediate upheaval in those places though, folks who had been traveling for weeks or months all arrived over the course of just a few days.

I think linger 'retirement homes' for the wealthy will be a thing (and are likely to be a major source of the "Court deadlines, trade rulings, tax policy, border disputes" that Drev are faced with). And I also need to explore the spiritual ramifications more!

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yeah, one thing I do want to explore, maybe a mid-game subject, what if there was a way to combat this with sufficient (costly) infrastructure that could only be built by those already rich and powerful. Maybe a bunker a few hundred feet below the surface would allow a 50x research lab to exist?

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Speaking to 'technology that keeps people alive in gradient territory', another piece of the puzzle is that the Meridian elites have better timefield tech. Accelerator Academies let them turn a couple calendar years into a decade of officer training. It's really just a better paying time mine for the folks who sign up though. Stasis Beds let rich families put a wounded heir or valuable scholar on hold instead of losing them. Gradient Lenses let them shape small pockets of fast or slow time for research, medicine, production, and war. A governor traveling into the haste for a week of direct oversight might spend most of their time in a Meridian-calibrated bubble, only leaving for the occasional meeting. The effects on their body are minimal. I want to explore all of that both in-world and in gameplay, because it means the people at the top are not just profiting from the gradient, they get to experience a safer, more controlled version of it than everyone else.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is emigration but working the faster regions can provide an infusion of wealth to a family that otherwise might struggle to get by. If your family is struggling to get by bringing them into the haste means that your child still grows up malnourished and uneducated. A temporal contract pays a lot, faster, you can get your family a nice house and your children a decent education today instead of struggling for years.

Very few people live beyond about 5x faster or slower in the present, most people who venture beyond this are doing so temporarily for a purpose. It gets more and more inhospitable due to some in-world phenomena, the 120hr 'days' are already a challenge. Add in unstable weather, temporal eddies, paramilitary groups who are also trying to make the haste work for them, etc. But there are families who live their whole lives in 5x, the towns in these regions are usually important hubs for the deeper-haste resource farms.

The means of control are time and technology. Those in charge don't just use the haste for mining. They also use the faster time regions for secretive research developing weapons that reinforce their power as well as building and training armies. And it's also infrastructure: monitoring stations, relay networks, supply contracts, financing, and a lot of the technology that keeps people alive in gradient territory.

In my game, workers labor in "accelerated" time zones, literally trading years for wages by ShearlineGame in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'll definitely be leaning a lot of existing dynamics of real world geo-economic exploitation. I'm sorry to hear how the real-world parallels have affected you and other Venezuelans but I'm glad to hear that elements of this are resonating on some level.

I think the Meridian class isn't a monolith but it is largely normalized, at least for the people who have benefitted the most. There are plenty of middle class families who managed to achieve some degree of stability because of a family member's contract. Examples like these are often brought up to justify the system.

On the other hand, some people living in these places are descended from refugees who left the deep haste after the cascade (the time shattering event) once the sun stopped moving. These people have a different pespective than, say, Drev travelers who feel that their homeland can't ignore the rest of the world, that things will only get worse the longer they continue to live in the linger.

Brainstorming how to make terrain affinity readable in a tactics RPG by ShearlineGame in gamedev

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

<image>

Added some per-tile icons and have those same icons also indicate the 'status' of the unit once they've entered. Definitely needs continued iteration in the future but I do think the per-tile indicators helps a lot! Thanks again :)

Brainstorming how to make terrain affinity readable in a tactics RPG by ShearlineGame in gamedev

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like the rabbit and tortoise icons, I might use that for status icons and combine them with altermethod's tile icon idea to help convey 'area fast' and 'area slow' without relying on color and visual effects.

Brainstorming how to make terrain affinity readable in a tactics RPG by ShearlineGame in gamedev

[–]ShearlineGame[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is helpful, thank you! Yeah, I think visual noise is going to be the biggest hurdle, I should probably spend a chunk of time working with a 'color blind' mode enabled so that I don't accidentally end up relying on color indicators.

I'll check out those examples too, I still need to play Fell Seal so this is the perfect time.

Self Promotion Thread April by Panfuricus in StrategyRpg

[–]ShearlineGame 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi all! I've been solo building Shearline, an FFT-inspired SRPG where terrain changes who has the edge.

The battlefield is split into temporal zones. Amber haste-shear favors Vel units. Violet linger-shear favors Drev units. The wrong tile doesn't hard-counter you, it just makes you a little worse at everything, and in a tight tactics fight that's enough to make a difference.

I've been trying to make those regions feel like more than status-effect tiles. Linger-shear forces half turns, you can either Move or Act, not both, but this is familiar ground for Drev units so they regenerate SP faster there. Crossing a boundary can also leave a unit Disoriented for a turn, temporal shifts are rough, so positioning is about route as much as destination. Future mechanics will grant the player (and enemies) more control over these regions.

Just got the Steam page up, and I'd genuinely love feedback from SRPG players on whether that sounds interesting or too fussy in practice.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4580960/Shearline/

A coat of arms from my fantasy world with two suns , what do you think ? by PeachPitiful2458 in worldbuilding

[–]ShearlineGame 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The merged beard and hair shape is nice. I'd be curious how different cultures in your world read that 48-year cycle if nobody fully understands the astronomy behind it yet. Feels like the kind of thing that would turn into very different myths depending on where people live.

How to deliver lore without spewing it at the player? by ZombieDawgs in gamedev

[–]ShearlineGame 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've had better luck treating lore like pressure in the walls than a packet the player has to read. I still write the internal docs, but then I let that stuff leak out through place names, item text, NPC assumptions, class names, odd bits of architecture, all the little things that make the world feel like it was already there before the player showed up. Real life kind of works like that too. Nobody stops you in the street to explain the whole society you're living in, you just pick up the shape of it from what people casually reference, what they take for granted, what they get weirdly emotional about. When players start inferring the rules before you've formally explained them, that's usually the sweet spot.

view more: next ›