All I can say is wow, the graphic design and illustration work you have so far, is far beyond what I'm seem from fully released indie games, fantastic job.

I love the central idea of this vicious cycle and exploration of lions which is something I never really wanted to understand and reflect on.

And damn can I say I love the idea of Manie the interactive UI element, just well done all around. Also as an amateur board game designer I just love design of those tarot cards. Obviously there purpose are different I'm assuming from that in a deck for a tabletop game, but regardless great job.

Good luck with the rest of the project, excited to see it develop.

Don't apologize, appreciate the response. The side quest system makes much more sense now, I really like the idea of integrating the story into what is required from the quests and that these will be more subtle than the stock quest marker and tagline of exactly what one should do. Especially for a rogue-like, which are fantastic experiences don't get me wrong, but are usually driven by mechanics to the detriment or exclusion of story.

Just found this devlog, really loving what you have so far, the speed and movement of the game just looks fantastic. The designs of these creatures and the player character is really something. I need to go back and read the rest of the devlog, to see what else you've done with this project, but I'm definitely excited to see where this goes.

One thing I will mention and this is probably a personal preference rather than a truly qualitative one, but I was wondering if there was something else you could do for the reaction of the enemy when you hit them. I feel like you have this great overlay for the player character and then when you hit the enemy they just turn white. Obviously a very small thing, but I just thought I would leave it there.

Thanks again for sharing!

I adore this concept. Eager to see where something like this might go.

Great to hear it! Gonna try to create some mock ups for the interface in photoshop and Blender this weekend as well try outlining some situations in twine.

Really love the idea and the artstyle, the flow of the animation is really catching my eye especially the will-o-wisps type enemies. I get wanted to do the name change, but for the life of me I can't quite thinking of everything different.

In terms of the interconnected world, will there be a linear structure in terms of some areas being immediately understood as being more challenging or simply different types of challenges?

What kind of side quests were you thinking about, haven't seen something like that in a rogue-like like this (Spleunky, Rogue Legacy), would they be akin to challenges like or where you have to retrieve items from a certain location?

All in all it looks like its coming together quite nicely even at this early stage.

Good luck to ya!

[So what kind of game is this really?]

The Year is 1934.

The brunt of the Great Depression falls over the United States, the streets are littered with the unemployed, local food kitchens always have lines stretching far throughout the city. Hundreds of Thousands are without jobs and the few who do are left to scrape by. You are the head of a small local union. Your workers look to you to not only help them keep there jobs and but to hopefully make them worthwhile. The industry your workers toil in, is hard and unkind and the owner refuses to take his boot of their throats, what will you do?

I pitched this game, The Union to my university two weeks ago and they approved it, I could work on this as an internship for the university for their public history program. I want to clarify here that I'm not a game design or CS major, I'm a history major. My professor when approving it said something to the extent of "I can't wrap my mind around it, but let's give it a shot." And I can't say I felt any different than that in regards to myself.

Honestly, as she approved it, I was scared, I thought for sure it would either not be approved or I would have to fight tooth and nail to get it to this process over the coming months. Now I was expected to create this thing, for which I have very little foundation of what the hell I'm doing. I don't know much about labor unions, programming, game design, game art, and if anyone would even want to play this.

And in that fear is something fantastic, I'm actually expected to finish this, I can't kick the can down the road with this, my ability to progress in college is based partially on how this project goes.

So what kind of game is this really?

Like I mentioned the player takes on the role of labor union leader, and how the game will function is based on research I do through my universities archives. With the process of starting my research, I've narrowed down the game will function akin to a game like Papers Please (2013) or the prototype Dear Leader(2014) led by Anna Kipnis where the player is presented with difficult choices that then have long lasting consequences from those choices.

For example: The workers of your union want to strike against the terrible conditions in the mine they work in, you can approve said strike to help create solidarity among the workers and possibly bring about change, but you also know that the business they work for, is vehemently anti-union and will take the opportunity to fire all your workers and then replace them with non unionized laborers. Obviously this is an extreme example and the hope is that I will have built a system that processes multiple small choices that will then lead to more devastating choices later on as a consequence or an accumulation of those choices.

So where do we go from here?

At the moment I've been in extensive research mode, using my universities archives on local labor unions to slowly get a handle on what it was like to run a union and be in a union. What I have to work with is pretty extensive with the minutes of these meetings, internal documents and a litany of all kinds of information.

Example of a primary source I'm working with:

The information has provided me with some great starting places to develop ways the player can interact with his/her union.

Resources: Union leaders will have to vie for resources in the form of dues from their workers, fundraising, and from the businesses themselves. These resources can then be put into potential strikes, hiring other to help the union, legal help, etc.

Conflict with business: The player will be given access to information on the businesses her employees are working for like how they see unions, how much they pay their workers, their working conditions and then based on that information they will be able to perform actions and make choices to rectify those situations within these businesses.

Legislation: The player will be updated with what local laws are coming up in the statehouse, that the player can try to influence or shoot down if it hurts their workers. An example of legislation would be the creation of a minimum wage or the creation of a state police.

Community Engagement: The player will be given the opportunity to form bonds with the local community which can create more union workers and more pressure on businesses that try to fuck over your workers. One of the major things I found at least in the Midwest region I've been researching was just how big the labor day celebration was for informing the needs of labor in that region.  So, I'm thinking that a labor day parade would be a way to build popular support, using your resources, you could create a day that unites workers and shows your strength collectively.

I also found that many labor unions created their logo to be put on products and businesses that were created or are operated by unionized workers. So a barber shop would display a symbol like depicted below on their shop window, to not only advertise the union. but for those sympathetic or apart of unions to patronize those businesses.

I'm thinking these could be created by the player themselves using a collection of templates that they could move together in a very simple drag and layered interface (This will probably way more complex and challenging than I'm anticipating it to be).

Beyond all of these introductory steps forward, I know I'm doing the easiest of it, looking through these archives is essential, but at the end of the day there's this big chasm between the simple ideas I have and how those will come together into a worthwhile experience.

Like I said, I'm coming from very little programming and game design experience, have done a lot of work on board game prototypes though, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know!

Thanks for Reading,

Nick Fiore