Hey everyone!
People have been asking to see some of the game, so I've put together just a few screenshots to update everyone on the progress toward a public demo. Keep in mind that everything you see in these screenshots could change even before a demo version is ready.
Title Screen and Interface
The GUI is clunky, and doesn't yet display everything it needs to. What's there has been added as I need to track things while test playing. The entire interface will change, putting things like the equipment paperdoll display in their own closable windows, and making the play screen much larger.
The title screen is very basic, only allowing for entry into the game. There is no save system in place yet, as I haven't needed to save test characters with everything changing so often, so when you click the start button, it just plops you down into world.
Speaking of the world...
It's almost completely procedurally generated. Every time a new server is created, the map will be entirely different.
Thrive or Die takes place in a medieval fantasy realm that I have been imagining for over 20 years. I have written stories, created a geography, have developed entire geopolitical systems, and more. The world itself is an archipelago, a world of islands, one shattered by a cataclysmic event in the realms long history.
Players will spend most of their time in Garund, "the new land". Undiscovered until recent years, Garund is unsettled by any major kingdom, and is a completely new frontier ready to tamed by those who can handle the perils it has in store for them. The world map for the game will always be the same. Certain things like the shape of islands and landmarks should fit with the background story. Other than that, all the way down to how many apples spawn in a particular tree, will be random. Even I won't really be able to tell you where the best place to find gold ore is until I've scoped out the world, which could take days even with a small map like I'm using for testing (250x250 'tiles').
Not all monsters of the same type will have the exact same number of hitpoints, or attack with the same ferocity. When you craft multiple daggers, unless you're incredibly skilled at it, they probably won't all deal the same damage. Randomness will be the name of the game, and if it can be procedurally generated, it will be.
You'll need to be resourceful to survive.
You can kill animals like turtles and rabbits with your bare hands, but try and take on something like a wolf with no protection, and you might win, but it won't be pretty.
The crafting system will be incredibly in-depth. You will make things the same way you would in the real world, or as close as possible. Just to get started, you'll need to find rocks and sticks, sharpen your rocks so you can strip the sticks of their bark, make lashings, then you finally have what you need to make crude tools. The game won't be easy, but I believe it will be very entertaining, but I'm somewhat biased...
You will also need to keep hunger and thirst at bay, or you won't last long. Forage or grow food, and collect water to stay alive. A planned feature will be seasons and body temperature. You will need to stay warm in the winter, and your chances of dehydrating will increase during the summer.
Thrive or Die will have something for everyone!
Whether you plan to explore this new world in search of fame and fortune, want to live the quiet farmer life, or anything in between, the possibilities will be endless. The game will be a complete sandbox, manipulated by the actions taken by players. You will become more skilled at just about everything you do, the more you do it, and character development will be open-ended, meaning no rigid "classes" to hold to.
Just a reminder: I will soon be seeking funding to turn this game's development into my full time job. To do so, I will be selling "shares" of the profits generated from all of the game's current and future monetization. Follow 