Hello,
My name is Mark Skinner and I'm a freelance artist, frustrated writer and aspiring game designer. I'm currently working as a contracted artist on Rising Lords.
One of my main inspirations for this Game Design Idea is my love of the immersive power of games. I feel that with a lot of (AAA) games today there is so much emphasis on fully rendered 3D environments of epic scope and spectacle that some of the magic is lost. Coupled with a sheer wall of content to delve into I usually find it all just too overwhelming.
I think the key to immersive gaming is leaving enough room for the Players imagination, thus I want to strip everything back and focus on the 'text' elements of RPGs and Strategies. I'd like to then flesh out this text with a hand-drawn illustrative style, reminiscent of oldhammer/old-school fantasy illustrations. This game will draw a lot from games of old but with that I'd like to make something that is new and feels fresh.
I think part of the appeal of older games, specifically 2D ones, is that there is a lot more that is abstracted and left to the imagination of the player. The very fact that you are restricted to one plane with a fixed perspective (especially the appealing isometric view) allows players to remain orientated and at a good overview position to take everything in. With the added element of turn-based mechanics it allows for careful consideration and thought as well as the ability to take everything in, digest the information and act.
With plenty of text and 2D art to chew over, it leaves just enough room at the edges of the plate to mix the abstract and the blanks in with a tonic of imagination. Thus I believe that it is these key components that lead to a more truly immersive experience. This however could be purely subjective, but these observations are based upon my experiences as a player (30ish years and counting).
While this game will feature a main narrative (open and modular) and a pre-written lore to discover and learn, the places and the people will differ from game to game. Each game will consist of a lot of procedural generation but with a lot of hand-made content sprinkled in. Through my gaming experiences part of the appeal of games that use procedural content (including some Rogue-likes) are the incredible little narratives that seem to grow organically through the game-play. This combined with a rich immersive experience and room for imagination allows for players to connect with the characters they are controlling or commanding and to feel attachment and an investment in the context of the game.