Terraforming (Part Two) -- The Video Game That Never Was

This isn’t the origin story for Naviim. Well, technically it is, but it’s not an “In the beginning there was the word and the word was with God and the word was God” type of story. It’s a “here’s how the concept was created” story.

Video games are complicated. That much should be obvious. But a few friends and I thought we had enough free time and enough of a working knowledge of the Unity game engine to try and make some semblance of a medieval tactical game. I was not completely non proficient at programming, but I was far enough behind everyone else that I was designated as head writer and coordinator, while also taking part in the mechanical design process (“Designated” might be the wrong term; I was certainly more interested in these areas of design, but it’s still closer to the truth). So after the initial meeting, I opened a notebook and started crafting the world:

Daniel, on a pilgrimage to the western capital of Camaralin with the intention of pleading with the king to reinforce his hometown of Karkus, hopefully rebuffing the demon scourge that harrases the village, runs afoul of a group of highwaymen who beat him, strip him of all food and valuables, and leave him for dead.

I’ve never been one for town names. They always end up sounding a little too “made up” for me. This is probably because they don’t have as much information surrounding them as “Rivendell” or “Tatooine.” At least not yet. To counter that, I tried to make each character name an actual name (no Aerith and Bob situations for me!). The most obscure name, I think, was Thomasin, which is a name I’ve appreciated since seeing The Witch.

Daniel is saved by an angel named Joan, who is in the middle of waging a revolution against Camaralin. Joan then recites a prophecy which predicts Daniel’s involvement, ascension to the throne, and inevitable downfall (how I treat prophecies themselves is the topic of another essay). From there, the plot would have basically been various excuses for battles to take place. It was all very straightforward.

My biggest problem with this story, looking back now, was how little it used of Naviim. It started smack in the middle of its largest continent, and only really uses points west of that, never travelling along the eastern coast, and only really mentioning other continents in passing. At this point, almost a third of the world was completely blank. I sketched it out later, but I never really went anywhere with it in the text.

Naviim could have died when the project fell through. My friends and I had all been a little too naive, and we had bitten off more of what we could chew. But I still had this notebook full of characters and a third-full world. And I still had time to fill it. If you forgive the pun, I had all the time in the world.

-F