looky looky

what's up it's me again

these babies are gonna be weekly now, dunno if i mentioned that in my last ramble. anyway trucker's atlas is coming along!! it's still in the prototyping phase, but i have a couple of the game's core systems down (travelling place to place and random events) and i have been concepting stuff out like crazy. locations, characters, and vehicles up the wazoo!

look at these bastards!!!

doing all these concepts and things has also given me a bit of time to really sit down and consider the world and lore of the place y'all will hopefully be trucking around in. if you don't mind, i'll give a brief rundown of  what i've got in my brain hole as of now:

the game takes place on a moon orbiting a gas giant, in the far future. the only reason this tiny moon is inhabited at all is because pretty much one whole side of it is a siphon that sucks gas from the much larger uninhabitable planet right next to it, and ships that gas off to all the other planets that use it as fuel to generate electricity. on the other side of this moon is pretty much all desert, and one big fuckoff crater that everyone lives in. people are sent to this moon and are stationed there for 5-10 year shifts, working maintenance on the siphon and handling the logistics of shipping it all off. well, at least, they should be...

somewhere around a decade ago an uprising was started against the corporation (unnamed as of yet) that operates the siphon due to poor working conditions, lack of supervision, rampant drug problems and the threat of 15-20 year shifts becoming the norm. the game takes place at the tail end of this uprising, in a time of great tumult with the corporation's presence on the moon in its death throes vs the free trade union and the vast amount of minor bandit factions that were united against the corporation. the player comes in to the equation when a turf war results in their moisture farm being taken over and in a bid to avoid being executed, they steal a truck from one of the bandit factions. this truck turns out to be full of drugs, and stealing it has majorly pissed off the bandits. the only way out is off the planet, and the only way off the planet is with a spaceport ticket. trading and misery ensues.

that's about it!! i have other ideas but they're sort of nebulous. the player will spend all their time sort of bouncing between the three factions and working up goodwill with those they can, avoiding those they can't, and trying their hardest to live with whatever actions they decide are right. i really want to put the player in a situation where they'll be desperate enough to do some really unethical stuff, but never force them to do it, and i think splitting the world into three morally diverse factions is the way to go with that. whichever one you're in the good books with affects where you can trade, where you can rest and the quality of the trades you make, but each one also has specific needs and things they produce, so relying on just one is nigh impossible, while at the same time being a friend to all is also very close to impossible.

as you can see it's not that nice a place

this world lives and dies on the backs of the traders. as such, how you decide to act and what you decide to sell will have a big impact on the state of the world. trade too many drugs and you'll see economic downturn, more unpredictable random encounters and worse reputation. trade the things people want on the right routes, you'll see better reputation and trades, and altogether better economy, with less unpredictable random encounters bothering your travels. truckers really are the blood in this planet's veins.

anyway that's enough dumb blathering from myself, it's currently five in the morning. i guess i've gotta sleep.

later amigo