"Magic" in a Steampunk game

[mfraze02]

I only just skimmed your blog but as I did another idea came to me, one that would allow you to very easily take the crafting system anywhere.

break all the items down into a certain amount of base elements, these base elements are going to be your basic building blocks, you could have as many or as few of these as you like, but these are what you would keep common to the crafting system, everything else can vary from game to game.

so say you had something like ateliers cauldron, you can throw items in and the cauldron would boil them down to the elements that make the item, so a sword might give iron, and you might through in a feather, and when you use a catalyst (or whatever to retrieve what is made) you might get back a sword that is now imbued with air or something.

course the idea would need a bit more work but once you had the base elements down you could make it a fairly portable system.

[jack1974]

Yes exactly, that's how I would do it too. Of course need also to check with coder first. Sometimes I get too carried away designing things without thinking that someone has also to code it

[FenCayne]

An interesting idea to combat this would be to use something similar to a very old game I played, in which you could scavenge for items that you could combine to achieve spell affects.

For example a fireball was 1 part brimstone 2 parts ash. if you had the items in your inventory it would allow you to cast the "alchemy" or spell

there were other things like heal was 1 part root, 1 part water

anyway the game I'm talking about was on the SNES called Secrets of the Evermore, it was an action rpg and it featured probably around 50 "spells" they referred to them as alchemy formulae, and the requirements for using the spells was you needed to find someone who knew the formulae and could teach you, and then you needed the ingredients.

they also had a level system for the spells, the more you used them, the better you became at using them, it was quite a good idea, meant you only got out what you put in.

anyway here is a link to all the spells from that game so you can get a bit more of an idea.

http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/snes/soe/alchemy.shtml

Thanks for the reference. Jack and I have discussed implementing a crafting system and this will be subject of a future Sneak Preview in the Roger Steel forum. I think, taking into account the capabilities of the game engine we're using, it's possible we could well do something like this.

[mfraze02]

on the note of the whole base elements thing, I now know why I'd thought of the idea, its cause I'd recently seen it, about 2 months ago, I'm sure you have played minecraft.

anyway there is a mod "Thaumcraft 3" now I know stealing/borrowing ideas may not be what you want to do, but it may give you some more ideas for future planning.

Thaumcraft has something like 50 base elements

anyway if you have half an hour to an hour, here is a mod spotlight to check out the stuff, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOj2PteDEMU

it does take a little while for him to get to the crafting but you kinda need to watch it to not get lost.

[P_Tigras]

I'm reminded of the alchemy crafting system in The Witcher. While you could buy a lot of stuff in shops, it was much cheaper to mix your own potions and weapon "greases". You also could made your own bombs, and those were always fun. The alchemy crafting system involved learning the formula, acquiring and selecting the right "base" as well as the necessary ingredients, and then spending some time mixing them together. It was also pretty neat that the potions often had side-effects, and drinking too many could make you really sick.

[jack1974]

Yes that was fun
In most RPG crafting is a side thing, and probably will be like that too (I mean you can still get the most powerful items through questing/looting). Would be nice to have some crafting-focused games though, but not sure if every player likes crafting...

[Franka]

The Atelier JRPGs are certainly niche, but that's probably for more reasons than just the crafting gameplay.

[jack1974]

Yes, but I am willing to experiment, indeed Amber Magic Shop will be similar to those games as settings (even if honestly haven't played any of them... another thing I should find the time to do!).

[DunKalar]

I think that magic (or some abomination of it) does not fit into a steampunk world. Magic ruined shadowrun for me, after I read the Neuromancer Trilogy, because it makes the game feel too much like "Cyberfantasy" to get the fantasy fans into playing Sci-Fi games.

I thin steampunk should focus on crazy inventions and strange looking devices that the people can use/interact with. And the world should be dirty with lots of smog and many slums. Magic just feels displaced in such a world for me.

[Lonestar51]

I agree with DunKalar on this. Well, mostly.

Nothing against magic per se, and it can be fun. But a game which has both magic and steamships is not a steampunk game, it is a fantasy game. And I would ask myself why people would bother to build big, complicated, dangerous (to the passenger/crew) and most of all expensive dirigibles, if magic allows flying. Breaks a bit the immersion.

The following quote sums very good what I consider Steampunk to be as well:

I thin steampunk should focus on crazy inventions and strange looking devices that the people can use/interact with. And the world should be dirty with lots of smog and many slums. Magic just feels displaced in such a world for me.