The Background to Underland

The concept for Underland started out as a pirate game.  The reason for this was simple.  A friend of mine wanted to make a game and had purchased an 8-bit pirate-themed graphic pack.

I wanted to make a procedurally generated RPG, so I took the pirate theme and hinged the backstory on that.

For this reason the original working title for this project was: Dread Pirate Booty.

The idea of being 'forever cursed' to hunt for buried treasure is because, aside from sail the seven seas, buried treasure is pretty much the standard pirate trope.  X marks the spot and all that.

So I did a bit of research. 

It turns out that the Dread Pirate Roberts referenced in (the excellent) The Princess Bride, was based on a real pirate - Bartholomew Roberts.  We gave Bart the nickname Booty, because, as the Beastie Boys said: what's another name for pirate treasure? Mmm, I think it's booty!

And obviously booty also means ass, and we all like a bit of ass.  Wait!  What?  Where did that come from?

Anyway, moving on swiftly.

So, the game is intended to be PC / console, with a companion mobile app - we'll come to all this later when I basically copy the Game Design Document onto this blog in chunks.

It's also ultimately going to be co op with perhaps a small amount of PVP in it.  In some situations additional players will be able to play monsters pitted against the main players - which should be fun! And in other cases we may afford players to come across other players if they happen to be journeying around the same real world location.  But we'll go into this later, too.

A pirate backstory informs the design of the game a little.  People expect pirates to possess certain equipment.

So this is what we did:

As a pirate you have the following:

1. A pirate hat
2. An eye-patch
3. A hook (for your off hand)
4. A cutlass
5. A peg-leg
6. A parrot
7. A treasure chest

Each of these can be crafted, enchanted and upgraded in particular ways.  They form the essence of your character, but most can only be used whilst Booty (the protagonist) is in humanoid form.  You can't have eel with a peg-leg!

All of these bestow certain abilities on the protagonist, and there are different versions of each, making the full set of pirate gear extremely versatile in combination.

For example, one type of eye-patch projects light like a lantern, a different version highlights items of interest in the environment, traps and switches and the like.

The last two items are somewhat different.

We decided we wanted to inject the parrot with some personality, so we decided to make it your girlfriend.  Wait!  Cursed to be bound to the shape of a parrot.  Of course her name is Polly.

Pretty Polly has her own upgrade path, and can be pretty (if you excuse the pun) useful in most situations.  Upgrades for Pol consist of the ability to collect small valuable items, draw attention to certain environmental content (levers et al), and even attack certain foes. However, she is also insanely jealous of any other attractive females, and will act with extreme hostility when she comes across them - sometimes drawing Booty into danger. She has a particular hatred for mermaids!

The treasure chest is where Booty stores everything he finds.  It is an arcane item in its own right, and can materialise out of thin air whenever Booty needs it.  Items he collects are automatically stored in the chest.

Okay, so that's the backstory in brief, as I said, more detail on that later.  Going forward we are likely to create alternative starting personas to provide players with a choice of base character.