It’s been about six months in the dark, and I think its time I showed people. I’m making a game about exploration for exploration’s sake. In most open-world RPGs indeed you explore, but it doesn’t quite feel like you’ve found anything unless there are things to kill there. The rewards received are almost invariably items with which to kill more effectively. Even side professions often yield rewards that aid you in killing one way or another. To put it technically, I’d like to attempt to make a game where the core reward loop is exploring itself. Exploring rewards you with things to help you explore more. As the combat in other RPGs can be a worthy experience itself, rewarded or otherwise, traversing the environment will be the worthy experience in Eastshade. I have some ideas about how I might make a world interesting without combat, but I’d be delusional if I held any certainty about it all working the way I plan. There are likely going to be changes along the way, and what I end with may not be what I initially set out to make (I’ll be elated if I can manage to end with something at all). I invite anyone reading this to come on this journey of making something weird with me, perhaps to see it turn into something worthy, or perhaps to see it train-wreck spectacularly.

Eastshade-open2

Eastshade-river2

Eastshade-watchtower2