Kemoverse Online

As you know, Kemoverse Online is a game that's mainly composed out of two sides: Kemoverse, being the exploration of the worldbuilding project, and Online, being the online socialization aspect, with the resulting marriage of those two sides to create an earnest, immersive virtual home with the purpose of making you feel like a Kemonae - with the use of cinematic storytelling, meaningful interactions with characters and systems, while sharing the experience with others.

The great challenge is how to realize this concept in to an actual, playable game. The difficulty is not only to make (as in, programming, drawing, etc) a game that is intuitive and able to be played, I know how to do that, but that it feels good and has a purpose to it; an underlying reason justifying why you should do the things you do and encouraging you to continue... to look beyond the facade. That's one of the reasons why I've taken such small steps over the years developing the story, that has only accelerated in pace for the past few months as the overall concept has matured - because I want it to be of good, believable quality. With this maturing  came a more definitive visual design, such as NPC student designs, the tasks of each NPC teacher, the campus design, the wall, and many other things that you can see for yourself in Alpha 18 - but also an abstract conceptual design of how you play the game, what you get out of playing it, and what kind of rewards there is.

Therefore, I will present a graph that outlines the gameplay design that I want for Kemoverse Online. Click to see larger version.

Let's start with the big picture - the entire game has, as I mentioned, two large sides to it: on the left side, Story, and on the right side: Online. The online side is obviously composed out of interactive systems to encourage socializing and make it entertaining, while the story side is less defined and only getting started. With that said, let's begin with the story side.

Story philosophy

The story's purpose, and well, the campus' purpose, is indeed to teach you to become a Kemonae. You are taught to understand your place in this world and to eventually return to the town, where the real Kemonae life begins - taking place in a small town situated in an exposed geographical location on Earth, where you can very clearly see that the earth is no longer exploitable, and instead, you, the town, the Kemonae are the lowered ones, nature is the one with the upper hand here. You are on the path to becoming part of the horde, to keep surviving - there is no "hero power fantasy" to be found here.

Thus, the campus has a purpose for all its students - but that doesn't mean everyone follows it. In fact, most of them were sent here for a certain reason, just like you and Sera. The difference with Sera is that she's clearly disapproving of the status quo, while you and other students (mostly) roll along, and even teachers too with their own reasons for staying here. The point I'm making is that every character is designed with a believable role and purpose that comes  from their life experiences in town. They aren't one dimensional simple characters - they are persons, just like you and all the friends you've met in this world.

How do I present this as gameplay? It's a really good question. How do I tell a story that's not meant to instantly reward you with a success? You start off weak, and you will grow, but it will not be short, sweet, and a triumphant "win". Instead, what I'd like to focus on is a calm, direct, and personal way of immersing. Speaking, talking, socializing with the game characters and learning about the Kemoverse world. Seeing, holding, and manipulating objects in the world that hints at the Kemonae attitude and values. Reading, enjoying, and thinking over the senses in the Kemonae's reality.

You exist as a Kemonae. You are treated as a Kemonae. You are meant to immerse as  a Kemonae. You are part of a community on the scarred earth, and that's how it is. You do not have any choice in this matter. All that's left to do is to involve yourself with it. And in the case of the story side of the game, the left side of this picture - this primarily means interacting with environments and characters.

Story gameplay

There are two larger character roles at play: Teachers, and Students. Well, also the Main story too if you want to count that.

Teachers are fairly passive and static at this point of the story. They are there to  get every player on an equal footing and to provide a structure for you to become a Kemonae. Kind of like a real teacher, but harsher in tone. At this point in the story, all they want is for you to gather food for the foodraise, and to attend lessons. That's not too much.

Lessons are basically paced gameplay tutorials, but meant to be heavily infused with lore and storytelling... the teachers explaining the world to you. There are twelve of them, with the last one being a final "test" to prove yourself to finally get back to town. The lessons give you an opportunity to attend them with other online players, but more importantly, their purpose is to slow down the story with certain requirements - whether it is by requiring tokens, or waiting for the events, or to require multiple people. I haven't finished the design yet, but it is meant to gradually introduce requirements from you.

After you finish a lesson, you will unlock a less rigid "in-between" chapter of the  storyline, where there will be a variety of different storylines to follow, which I call "post-lesson quests". They will be primarily led by students, so I will speak about it after this.

Anyways, at a later point in the game, say, the later half of it, the teachers will give you more difficult tasks to pry the Kemonae out of you. Which means challenges with some sort of stake - ones that can have deeper consequences, such as fainting or losing items, or questioning your Kemonae moral compass and stance that can risk your relationship with the teacher. I have some vague ideas of what sort of environments and challenges that will be involved, but I know for certain that it should involve other players, almost forcibly so. Thus, it would be collective teamwork challenges. This crosses in to the "Adventures" part in the online gameplay, so I'll speak about it later.

Students are the flip opposites. They are just like you and me, and each have their believable personalities and backgrounds and take part in the same duties as you do. Between the lessons, students will offer their "post-lesson quests" (PLQ for short) - character specific storylines that you can do at your own time and leisure offered by multiple characters. All of them lets you dig more in to the living part of the Kemoverse, the characters: what they think, what they feel, and offering a look in to their reasonings and behavior. Most of these PLQs are optional, purely for the sake of enjoyment and most won't lead to the next lesson. Only one storyline will work to continue the main story - and if all you wanted was to progress, you would want to find and follow that specific path of characters. 

Another purpose of doing personal PLQ with a variety of characters would also be to grow your social relationship to them, which would be recorded and saved in your savefile. And so, then again, the line between the story and online gets blurred - you and other players are not meant to be treated like a special hero, therefore, that also means you befriend game characters on an equal level - and not in an obvious, game-ified way of presenting an obviously good or bad option. Subtle, casual or even unimportant socializing with game characters should also count - because if you like a character, you will want to spend time with them. It's a personal interaction between you and them.

They should be simple in structure but unique - nothing like MMO fetch quests. I don't even think of them as quests, as it's just a technical moniker. They're more casual. Like helping Lorah catch some bugs, spending time with Takar and walking around the campus, or learning some jokes from Temk. Some can be more involved and physical, but the point is that they're relaxing. And the purpose of the personal relationships? Well, you get to enjoy their presence and to be their friend. I was thinking of social rewards such as being able to hug them, let them follow around you, or have them share items with you. Not gameplay advantages, but rather, keeping in line with the social and empathetic theme of the game.

The rest

Aside from interactions with only living characters, there's the environmental storytelling too - the design of various places, old worn ruins, forgotten books and tools spread around the world. There's not much in here yet, but the goal is to slowly decorate/refine every area, piece by piece, over time... perhaps even designed and influenced after the behavior of real players. Who knows, maybe there's already things in the world that has been impacted by past players.

Finally, the underlying foundation for both of these roles is the main story, which tells the story of how you become a Kemonae together with your peers, and the entire journey, from start to end. Friendship, commitment, duty - and the assimilation and understanding of the world as experienced by you, as a Kemonae. Suffice to say, the initial journey you take on campus is only meant to be the start of the much, much bigger plot at hand. That's all what I'm going to tell you.

Conclusion

This is getting way longer than I thought, but as you can hopefully tell, there is a big, fundamental reason for the world being the way it is, and for you being at this location at this specific time. Not only does this lend credibility to this world feeling real, your reasons feeling reasonable, but also that the game will have artistic integrity.

And what does this mean? It means, that even if the game financially fails, this world, story, concept and goal will always be here for you to return to. It means that I feel a personal duty to work on the game until it reaches completion. It means that you can play the game and let yourself be immersed as a genuine experience without fear of being mentally abused.

Does reading this make you feel different? Good, that's the point - I'm just here to do the hard work. For now, I'll leave the gameplay descriptions and design for a second post, as it has a pretty complex set-up and reasoning behind it - I know it looks big and complex and you might be wondering if I can do it - all I can do is to let my actions speak for themselves.

Thank you for playing, and see you in the Kemoverse.