WILD Dev Diary 2 - Current Structures and Past Inspirations

Last blog post I explained that I had a notebook filled with every note, inspiration and working-out I had since I started writing WILD, my RPG of dreamshare technology.

Seeing as the builders next door are using pneumatic drills to dig up concrete, my concentration for actually working on WILD is a bit fried, so I thought I'd continue my look at the old notes and see what I'd put.

My next couple of pages are a list of films, TV series and books that I considered inspiration for WILD. You'd probably recognise a lot of them as ones I mention frequently on this blog.

Inception, Suckerpunch, The Matrix, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, H.P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, Dreamscape, Sleepwalkers (TV Series), Assassin's Creed, Cell, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Mulholland Drive, Ink, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The City of Lost Children, eXistenZ, Life on Mars, Parasomnia, The Bridge (Banks), Awake (TV Series), Fringe, Lost, Vanilla Sky/Open Your Eyes, Paperhouse, Escape Into Night, Twin Peaks, House of Sleep...

I haven't gone back and added to this list in a while, and there have been a few I should add. Must do that.

On the next page, I have a list that just says - "To Look At:"

Under that, is "Dream Journals" - something I've done a bit of research into, especially considering the idea of solo gameplay in the WILD universe that involves journaling.
"Lucid Dreaming" - well, that kinda goes without saying, but this was early in the notes.
"False Awakenings" - done so many times in horror movies... "That was a horrible dream, ah, jump scare!"
"Eckankar" - a modern religion whose followers believe that the soul can leave the body and travel to other planes of reality.
"Interobjects" - the dream phenomena of encountering an object that is the merging of two objects but it's incomplete.
"Pre-lucid dreaming" - near lucid dreaming.
"Veridical Dreams" - prophetical dreams, or dreams that contain real events that the dreamer is unaware of.

After that is the page from the photo at the top. The Stages of Sleep (NonREM or NREM) through to REM.

I drew this weird doodle of what I thought the dreamrealms would look like, but it's nonsense. Just the doodles of an idle mind.

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That's enough of that for this entry I think. Don't want you getting bored.

CURRENT STATE OF PLAY

I mentioned before that I had a restructure of how the game works, and the game system itself, and I thought I was pretty happy with the way it was working out. I kinda came to a grinding halt actually writing it, trying to get it down on paper. I'd got the basics of it down, and I thought the best way to describe it was to give an example of the system in action.

The Matrix, obviously not WILD... 

So I had a basic example of a hacker trying to get information out of a computer before the guards arrived, and started writing how the "roll" works - I put "roll" in quotes as it's actually a pretty simple card draw looking at some tarot cards.

Then I thought - why make up the results just to show what happens? Why not actually draw cards and type it up? Win or lose, it explains everything.

A couple of draws, and our hero had failed to get the information - three guards burst into the room and she was trapped. Another draw, and she'd kicked one through the office door, smashing the glass, and punched another in the face. Another draw, and she'd managed to knock the second guard out, but the third guard got a shot off, and she was injured from the hit. A third draw, and while she managed to dive to get the memory stick as the guard continued to fire at her, he clipped her in the shoulder and she crumpled to the floor. She was alive, but captured. The memory stick hidden for now...

The "rolls" were super quick, the whole scene resolved in a matter of minutes with action playing out in a smooth flow.

Excellent.

I'm happy with the way the game system works, I just need to try to structure the rules so they are (a) interesting, and (b) easy to refer to - though the rules are so simple you'll remember it pretty quickly.

Right, I guess I should get back to it.

Until next time.

Keep dreaming.