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[Panurge]

Huzzah! Just alerted to this by the magic of twitter. That is a perfect little cameo - thank'ee kindly, sir!

[jO]

Now that you suggested him, you could also help coming up with his special abilities.
He was a many of many talents...what would you consider him within our game?
Adventurer? Translator? Spy?

What could be actions that only he could perform?
What kind of equipment would he bring to the expedition?

[pluckyporcupine]

How would you guys feel about adding someone like Gregor Mendel? Could be great for debuffs or something!

Haha or could you imagine Sigmund Freud? Confuse enemies into attacking each other or something like it. xD

[Eigen]

That new character looks awesome!

Maybe he could be really good at making maps plus translating ancient manuscripts to reveal sweeet treasures.

[miketucker]

Looks amazing, hope development is going well. And if you ever need a build tester mark me down!

[jO]

How would you guys feel about adding someone like Gregor Mendel? Could be great for debuffs or something!

Haha or could you imagine Sigmund Freud? Confuse enemies into attacking each other or something like it. xD

Mendel is a good one!
Freud is definitely on our list :-) Confusing enemies is a good idea, but there's also enough room for a specialist that can take care of the treks sanity (which plays an important role for each unit, along with health)

[pluckyporcupine]

Freud is definitely on our list :-) Confusing enemies is a good idea, but there's also enough room for a specialist that can take care of the treks sanity (which plays an important role for each unit, along with health)

I must have missed the point where you guys mentioned sanity (don't see it in the OP) but that makes sense to me!

[jO]

I must have missed the point where you guys mentioned sanity (don't see it in the OP) but that makes sense to me!

Yeah, we haven't talked about that in detail yet :-)
But we mentioned it : "Manage your resources to keep your trek alive and morale high..."

I'll see if I can dig up some examples of it's role in gameplay anytime soon.

[Panurge]

Now that you suggested him, you could also help coming up with his special abilities.
He was a many of many talents...what would you consider him within our game?
Adventurer? Translator? Spy?

What could be actions that only he could perform?
What kind of equipment would he bring to the expedition?

Burton was like the ultimate all-rounder but I imagine his particular talents would be as a linguist and diplomat. He would be ideal for interpreting and dealing with native tribes (or perhaps infiltrating them). I don't know if you're including weaknesses but if he had one it could be a tendency to become too friendly with the natives. I can imagine sending him on an information-gathering mission and not seeing him again for weeks...

As for equipment, I'm not sure. Disguises? Pet monkey? In fights he could use a pistol or a sabre (he was an expert swordsman).

His accounts of his travels make for awesome reading, by the way - it's a real shame his widow burnt all of his unpublished papers after his death.

[rickardwestman]

What about Ivan Pavlov?
yet another psychologist, but his conditioning research is quite interesting. Could probably be applied to battle too, where he could condition certain character/enemies to act upon reflex to a given sound or something. Kind of like a subconscious command ability.

Haha, would love to hear conversations between some of the recently named characters. Or just some short battle comments between them would be fun, referening to their specific traits and such.

[Trystin]

This looks really promising, the art and game play looks great

*cracks whip* now work

[jO]

Burton was like the ultimate all-rounder but I imagine his particular talents would be as a linguist and diplomat. He would be ideal for interpreting and dealing with native tribes (or perhaps infiltrating them). I don't know if you're including weaknesses but if he had one it could be a tendency to become too friendly with the natives. I can imagine sending him on an information-gathering mission and not seeing him again for weeks...

As for equipment, I'm not sure. Disguises? Pet monkey? In fights he could use a pistol or a sabre (he was an expert swordsman).

Those are excellent suggestions!
A pet monkey would be awesome; reminds me about the class from Monaco. I think making him a swordsman would work nicely, so far all of our specialists are more ranged combat based.
I'll keep you updated on the his state, thanks again so much for your input :-)

What about Ivan Pavlov?
yet another psychologist, but his conditioning research is quite interesting. Could probably be applied to battle too, where he could condition certain character/enemies to act upon reflex to a given sound or something. Kind of like a subconscious command ability.

Haha, would love to hear conversations between some of the recently named characters. Or just some short battle comments between them would be fun, referening to their specific traits and such.

Yes! Pavlov! I gues we'll end up with a lot of psychologists, but hell, expeditions require a lot of care for mental health :-)

Having conversations between the specialists is something we actually want to include, so you're perfectly right with that.

[happymonster]

Harry Houdini

[MegaLeon]

By reading the title, I tought of this cool net yaroze (obscure early PSX programming language) game:

anyone remembers it? It was so cute 

[jO]

Help us choose a new name!

We really love the name "Terra Incognita" for our game.
However, the term is pretty popular; it is not only very crowded on any web search, there is even a game named this way, which was re-released not too long ago on iOS. This is kinda bad and made us think about changing our name already quite some while ago.
Finding a good name is really hard, so it took us some time to find anything that would fit as good as "Terra Incognita".
We now have 2 candidates that we both like a lot, but have a hard time deciding between them.

That is where you could help us :-)
I've set up a poll on the names right here, please go there and vote for your favourite choice.

I'll briefly describe what each name means to us:

The Curious Expedition
First off, it has the word expedition in it, which is pretty good since that's what our game is mainly about. The word curious has multiple meanings, all fitting perfectly to the tone and mood we'll want to accomplish with our game. Last but not least, it sounds old in a good way and reminds us a lot about those old Jules-Verne-esque movies which serve as a huge inspiration to us.

Here be Lions
(latin: HIC SVNT LEONES) This is a classical phrase utilized by ancient Roman and Medieval cartographers to mark unknown territories on maps. It implied that those regions were very dangerous to explore, but also held potential for great discoveries and treasures to be found. The spirit of this name is closely resembling the orginial "Terra Incognita" and we also like the little WTF moment it creates upon first confrontation.

[Mef]

You seem to have messed up the link for voting.

How about:
"Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" for the title?
 

[jO]

You seem to have messed up the link for voting.

How about:
"Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" for the title?
 

whops! fixed.
Something similar, with Livingstone WAS on our list, but was too specific, and also missed the fantasy/mystery aspect we really need for our name :-)

[Panurge]

I've voted for The Curious Expedition. It does seem a shame to lose Terra Incognita because I felt that fitted the game perfectly, but I do understand your reasons.

[jO]

Thanks to everyone who voted already!
Those that haven't yet - please vote, we're really interested in your opinion.

Unrelated news: We've had a small playtest a couple of days ago with some friends.
As a proof, we have those completely featureless photos.

[jO]

Thanks to everyone who voted already! Voting is still up until Friday (I think), so if you haven't voted for our new name, please do so.

Anyway, some updates on our development:

• We have implemented the first version of an icon based inventory. The HUD and basically all icons are still rough WIP versions, but it feels much more tangible now seeing the actual images of the items, instead of only having the text information.

• We've been busy with adding elements to each specialist to make their roles in gameplay really unique. Each of them now has his own starting equipment, and multiple special actions are available for each specialist. Some examples (not final, still WIP):

	The Anthropologist: Can convince chieftains of a native village to let the trek rest in the village. This is very helpful for not getting attacked by wild animals during night and also restores a lot of sanity for each member of the trek. Starts out with the book "Homo Ludens". This book grants an XP bonus and regenerates a small amount of sanity for all members of the trek each day.
	The Botanist: Can try to catch fish on shallow water fields. Starts out with additional healing herbs. Has a high chance to find additional herbs every time herbs are discovered. Consumes less food than average per day.
	The Occultist: Starts with a whip. It can be used to whip any porter of the trek, which will severely hurt the unit, but increase sanity for the rest of the trek. Can sacrifice 2 porters at stone circles and transform them into the "Abomination" unit. Can sacrifice 1 porter at stone circles to reveal nearby locations.

• We keep on designing, discussing and implementing aspects of the word generation. Right now it is very much focused on the chance of certain locations appearing, such as villages, stone circles, temples and such.
  However, we are also creating more designs for tackling the world generation in general, for example a more complex river generation (see following post)