When designing all aspects of Rocklen, including game mechanics, story, levels, etc., we're consider the below pillars to ensure we're building the best game we can.
Players should feel like the "I want to be a wizard; I want to discover magic" itch is being scratched. The content should be high quality, rich, and extensive.
Players should choose their path. There should be multiple ways to playing the game. Who are we to say how magic should be experienced? Does everyone want to be the hero? Does everyone want to be the villain? Does it have to always be about fighting? By giving multiple experiences and agency how the player executes those experiences, we build a very large community and social universe.
Incanta is more interested in building a universe than building a game. The game is just a tool to interact with the universe. The game should be built such that new parts of the universe can be added later, whether through updates, DLC, or even sequels.
Being expandable also applies to even having out-of-game components. For example, perhaps some of the lore is only researchable in the web browser or in a pre-existing IRL book. We're still finalizing what exactly this looks like, but we know that there's a level of immersion to an ever-growing universe.
We want players to be able to experience Rocklen with others if they choose to do so. Social experiences, whether it's working together to overcome a monster, engaging in epic PvP (Player vs Player) battles, or just chatting with your online friends, we strive to make Rocklen an environment that has a vast, growing social experience. When we design different aspects of the game, we continuously ask ourselves questions such as:
It's very important to us at Incanta that Rocklen is accessible to as many players as we can. Areas of accessibility we're currently actively considering are:
We continuously revisit each of these categories for every new feature we design, and making sure that the design either accommodates for variety or is configurable to adjust for someone's level of comfort in that respective category.
Game studios quite frequently end up building a game that players scoff at for containing aspects that players just simply hate. Incanta is not interested in building a game that players don't enjoy playing. You would think this is obvious, but we see studios of all sizes building games for the wrong reasons or building games around incorrect principals. We're making sure that things we put in Rocklen make sense and are actually wanted by players interested in playing the final game.