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[Iggy_Gamechuck]

DESCRIPTION

Trip the Ark Fantastic is a story-driven role-playing adventure set in the Animal Kingdom on the verge of both industrial and social revolution. The story follows Charles, a hedgehog scholar on a mission by the lion king to save the monarchy, but his decisions could end up helping reformists or even to bring about anarchy.

The first teaser trailer

The story revolves around an ancient myth that forms the basis of the Animal Kingdom’s caste system - the myth of the Ark Fantastic. As the myth goes, the ark was built by lions millennia ago to save all animals from a great flood. The king’s gambit is that, amidst whispers of reform and revolution, a reputable scholar such as Charles proving the existence of the mythical ark might sway animals toward a royalist stance, and thus uphold the monarchy.

Charles is accompanied by the king’s trusted advisor Philippe the Fox and the captain of the royal guard - Andre the Boar. Their task will lead them to the fringes of the Kingdom and beyond, in search of elusive truth.

LINKS

Ark Fantastic on Discord
Ark Fantastic official website
Ark Fantastic on Twitter
Ark Fantastic on Facebook
Ark Fantastic on Instagram

DEV BLOG UPDATES

Locations

The Burrows

Ark Lore

The Mysteries of the Southern Continent
The three game factions explained: Your choices WILL matter so choose wisely
Prisons, Gulags and Work Camps in the Kingdom
What do animals of the Kingdom eat?
Biography of our main character, Charles, the hedgehog scholar
How we created the society in our game
How we made (and named) our fantasy calendar?
The tale of Coriolanus the eagle
Surviving the coronavirus if you're a bunny
TYRANNY in the Animal Kingdom
The myth of the Ark Fantastic
The Lav Rebellion
Day of Bells
The Lynx Rebellion

Development

This is how we make sounds for Trip the Ark Fantastic
The tools we use for Trip the Ark Fantastic development
Godot Game engine
Speedpainting a character portrait
Our plans for Ark Fantastic in 2020



FEATURES

• A deep and immersive secondary world set in an Animal Kingdom on the verge of industrial and social revolution, content-rich and filled with intrigue, side-quests and flavor at every step
• Completely original gameplay mechanics based on the scientific method: research, discuss, experiment, and finally publish arguments in the Animal Kingdom's papers
• An exploration of how myths, science, and philosophy can influence society, and how monarchies, democracies, and anarchies view power, authority, and legitimacy of rule
• Gorgeous art including frame-by-frame animation and vibrant landscapes inspired by the golden age of animation, as well as music inspired by the works of R. Wagner
• A gesamtkunstwerk approach in which the art, music and gameplay all tie closely to the story of scientific discovery and the role of myths in different types of societies
• The entire development completely done in open-source technologies, including Godot Engine, Krita, Ink and MuseScore, among others

GAMEPLAY

The player progresses through the game by solving the Kingdom’s various problems and mysteries, but his method of solving them is a scientific one - he publishes compelling arguments in the Animal Kingdom’s scientific papers to prove his theories and disprove those of others. Only arguments with sound logic and solid evidence will have the power to sway public opinion and change the course of history.

Research

Sifting through the archives of the local library can reveal some important clues as well. Investigating the location of the hidden Parrot Enclave? Maybe check out the logs of the explorer’s guild!

The evidence itself can be found by talking to the local denizens (after learning their language, such as squirrelese), by using scientific equipment (a microscope, or a chemist kit), or, as a true scholar, by “standing on the shoulders of giants” and using evidence from the works of other scholars found in libraries across the Kingdom.

Scientific Equipment

A picture is worth a thousand words, so taking a photograph is often the most compelling evidence. But the camera is just one of many tools at the player’s disposal!

The player’s main challenge will be finding all the relevant evidence and then choosing the right conclusions, which are then published and reviewed by his peers, potentially resulting in a boost to his scholarly reputation.

Languages

Sometimes, the player will need to question other animals for more clues. However, not all animals speak the common tongue, so becoming fluent in the local language goes a long way towards solving the mystery at hand.

Additionally, since Charles’ scientific conclusions can have large-scale consequences on the Animal Kingdom and the monarchy in particular, there is a looming moral dilemma over whether the player should publish a certain argument or not.

THEMES AND INSPIRATIONS

We draw inspiration for the game from modern fables of classic literature, such as Animal Farm or Watership Down, as well as deep story-driven games from the roleplaying and adventure game genres, and games with unique and experimental gameplay mechanics.

Our goal is to use the game to explore various types of society (monarchy, democracy, anarchy) and to tackle questions such as how rule is legitimized, what role myths play in the shaping of society, and so on.

The animation is drawn frame-by-frame to be reminiscent of early animated classics, and the music takes cues from 19th century romanticism with the use of leitmotifs inspired by Wagner and gesamtkunstwerk opera.

The game is developed using open-source software, such as the painting tool Krita and the Godot game engine. Gamechuck studio is also a sponsor to both Krita and Godot Engine and, in the case of Godot Engine, actively contributes to its development.

WHEN IS IT COMING AND ON WHICH PLATFORMS?

The game is still in an early phase of development, but our goal is to release Ark Fantastic in 2022 on PC/Mac/Linux and consoles.

MORE TO COME!

If you have any questions in the meantime, I'll be glad to answer!

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Hey guys,

Every Tuesday we'll (do our best to) bring interesting nuggets from Trip the Ark Fantastic lore, so you can get a better idea of what's going on in the game and why.

The centrepiece of the Animal Kingdom is the myth of the Ark Fantastic. Thousands of years ago, the lions built a sturdy ark that housed all the animals and saved them from a giant flood.

As the myth goes, the lions built it, the noble cats administered it, the strong animals protected it, the weak ones worked hard on keeping it afloat, and only the untrustworthy vermin had no role but destruction and chaos.

This myth has provided the mythological basis of the caste system in place in the Animal Kingdom for millennia - the lions on top as kings, the noble cats governing over provinces, the [burgher caste new name] as guardians of the land, the commoners as hardworking freefolk, and the vermin as slaves and serfs.

This myth has legitimised the role of Lions as Kings for centuries, but as the Animal Kingdom has modernised, fewer and fewer animals believe in it, opting instead for reforming or even breaking the caste system.

The story of “Trip the Ark Fantastic” starts with Lav, the Rebel King, sending Charles, an esteemed scholar, on a journey to find the remnants of this mythic vessel, in a hope to maintain his seat of power.

Here is part of the myth in its modern form, the part which in essence legitimizes the caste system:

As the entire land was covered in water, there was only the Ark housing all animals.

The Ark was kept safe by the lions who ruled over all with compassion and much wisdom.

Below them were the great noble cats, they too were wise and benevolent rulers, carrying out the will of the lions for the benefit of all.

Under the noble cats lived the guardians, responsible and loyal animals. For their duties in protecting the Ark they were later given the responsibility of keeping the dry lands safe.

All the other animals worked hard on keeping the Ark afloat under the diligent instructions of the guardians and for that they enjoyed the privileges of carefree life.

In the crooks and bowels of the Ark lived the vermin, lazy and mistrustful beings. For the good of the Ark, these animals were not allowed to roam free.

It was only due to the leadership and wisdom of the lions that the Ark did not collapse nor fall to anarchy and finally, when the waters receded, the Ark stranded and the animals spilled forth and came across the northern place we now know as the Animal Kingdom.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

The tools we use for Trip the Ark Fantastic development

Hey folks. Every week we'll (do our best to) publish some kind of a dev-blog/shout-out article with a hashtag #arkblogthursday. For now, this seems doable, but if we run out of stuff to write about... well, we probably won't :-D

Btw, Ark Fantastic is on social networks too, so we'd really appreciate a follow or two

Ark Fantastic on Discord
Ark Fantastic official website
Ark Fantastic on Twitter
Ark Fantastic on Facebook
Ark Fantastic on Instagram

ANYWAY, December is an open source game appreciation month.

Since that's the case, we wanted to give a shout out to all the open source tools we use! Of course there are so many, and December only has a few weeks so we decided to focus on three of our most important open source tools - Ink for interactive dialogues, Godot Engine for code, and Krita for art.

This weeks shout out goes to ink, a wonderful markup language for writing interactive fiction. It's perfect for character dialogues, but we also use it for stage directions during the dialogues and even triggers for characters scene behaviour.

What we love most about it is the fact that it’s easily readable by a writer, even when it has many different options. Check out this snippet for example:

This is a much more complex example than basic Ink but it also shows its power.

Ignoring the codey part and starting from line 12, you not only see that there after a few starting dialogues there are 3 options to choose from (indicated by * stars) and what the answer is for each of them, but you can also send function calls to the engine running the game.

In our example, the {s(“A”)} and {s(“P”)} functions change the portrait, voice, and animation of the character currently speaking (especially useful in a tavern where a dozen characters interrupt each other constantly!)

The most wonderful fact is that it’s simultaneously human readable and computer readable and when the dialogue writing starts it has almost zero overhead (just text with an occasional symbol here and there to denote some function or something).

This is how it looks in-game:

On the programming side of things, the folks at Inkle studios unfortunately don’t directly provide an integration package for the Godot Game Engine. Luckily the community has our backs and we would like to give a shout out to Frédéric Maquin who has kindly supplied the FOSS community with a direct port for Godot!

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Hey all!

It's Tuesday, which means it's time for another nugget from Ark Fantastic lore. This time, we are talking more about king Lav.

Find out more about Ark Fantastic on our Discord, official website, and social networks.

Ark Fantastic on Discord
Ark Fantastic official website
Ark Fantastic on Twitter
Ark Fantastic on Facebook
Ark Fantastic on Instagram

The Lav Rebellion

A score ago, the rebellion ended. Leopold the Lion, also called The Tyrant King, was overthrown by his brother Lav. Like his father Leonard, Lav is a gentle and enlightened monarch, versed in the sciences as well as the nuances of politics.

The rebellion was led by Lav, a lion, but it was a rebellion that included all castes of society. After years of war, a vast alliance of animals finally reached Blackbark, Leopold’s capital. The capital was well stocked and could endure many years of siege, giving it enough time to regroup and defeat the rebellion. When they were besieged, Leopold had sent all the citizens not in the armed forces out of the city to flee, knowing that Lav would have to take care of them and lose food and other precious resources. Lav decided to send them all to Pride, the hometown of the lions, and enter the city by force, thus ending the war then and there.

What isn’t common knowledge is that a famous scholar of the time, Herbert the Hedgehog (father of our protagonist Charles) was instrumental in ending the rebellion. It was he who devised a way to enter the city through a back entrance - researching old scripts on Blackbark’s architecture, he found a way to enter the city through the sewage system, and thus enter the cities defenses.

In the ensuing battle Blackbark burned to the ground, and Lav decided that all the animals who left for Pride could just stay there. He opened up these ancestral homelands of the lions to all the animals and declared Pride the new capital of the Animal Kingdom.

As King, Lav ushered in an age of freedom and reason. This had the adverse effect of making the divides of the kingdom more pronounced. The noble cats gained a political and economic foothold that they are now using to spread word of reform, and the lower castes are even speaking of anarchy. Will the rebel king’s rule end in rebellion as well, or will he find a way to placate unrest? This, and more, will be at stake in the game.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Hey y'all!

So this week for open source game appreciation month we would like to pay some tribute to our game engine of choice: Godot Game engine!

Find out more about Ark Fantastic on our Discord, official website, and social networks.

Ark Fantastic on Discord
Ark Fantastic official website
Ark Fantastic on Twitter
Ark Fantastic on Facebook
Ark Fantastic on Instagram

When comparing Godot to other solutions on the market, one is quick to notice that it is a relatively new engine (first released in 2014) that hasn’t seen any big game releases yet (although it did, for example, port Deponia to PS4 and iOS). As a result, choosing Godot as our main engine might seem like a daring decision and it is one that has thus seen some critique from others in the game industry. The things that made us fall in love with Godot go hand in hand with benefits that are deeply intertwined with the essence of FOSS (Free and open-source software).

The most logical one of these FOSS-related benefits is of course that any missing feature or, inevitable, bug present in the engine can either be requested from the community or even be implemented/fixed by yours truly. Avoiding any of the abhorrent ticket systems that plague the proprietary game engine landscape (and most proprietary software in general). During development of “Trip the Ark Fantastic” we make full use of these advantages and hope to help Godot grow alongside our project.

As this is but a simple post there is but place for a single one of Godot’s features that we would like put in the spotlight: Tool scripts! Explained in a layman’s fashion, these are scripts that can run inside of the editor without having to run the actual game, facilitating debugging and development tremendously.

Another, equally important reason for us, is that we actually really like working in Godot as it is, in our opinion, one of the more intuitive engines to prototype and work with that is out there. Godot supplies a wide arrangement of tools such as a mature animation system, fully native 2D support, a python-like custom scripting API, a node and scene system unlike anything found in other game engines and lots of other features that make the engine a joy to work in. But don’t take our word for it, try it out for yourself!

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Welp, it's yet another #ArkLoreTuesday where we talk about the backstory of Trip The Ark Fantastic. Considering it's a festive season around, it's a perfect time to tell THERE IS NO SANTA IN ARK FANTASTIC LOLOLO

Anyway, let's get to it!

While the counting of years and the year of the Ark myth is firmly established, the exact date when the Ark was found is based on pure speculation, and therefore the date of the new year is calculated purely based on ceremonial reasons. Usually, it is the birth-date of the current king, but there are a few instances in recent history when this wasn’t so - during King Michaël, the date of the New Year was set to the discovery of Ark Island (corresponding to our mid-June), and the current New Year coincides with Pride’s Day of Bells. This day marks the beginning of the Lav rebellion, and is a holiday festivity across the Kingdom, in celebration of Lav’s victory over tyranny and oppression. It corresponds to our own late September.

There are no Santas or Christmas decorations in the Animal Kingdom, however, there is one tradition held for over three decades now - the Day of Bells is celebrated at noon by ringing all the bells in the entire Kingdom, which you will be able to experience yourself in the game (be careful about the volume on your earphones though!)

Snowy snowy and coldy coldy wastelands in Ark Fantastic​

The Day of the Bells refers to the start of the rebellion when Leopold's emissary arrived at Pride. Usually, when royalty is at the door, the gate bells ring three times (and twice if it's nobility, and once if it's a non-noble delegation). When the bells end their ringing, the gates open. But the beller at Pride knew that something was wrong, that Leopold must have heard of Lav's quiet plot to overthrow him, and that opening the gate would probably lead to his imprisonment. So he rang once, twice, thrice... And just kept ringing, so the doors never open.

The royal delegation had not expected such a defiance, and, faced with a closed gate, turned back for Blackbark, while Pride armoured up for war. This day is thus considered the start of Lav's Rebellion, and the beginning of the end of Leopold's tyranny.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Hey y'all.

First, I wish everyone Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

For this devlog, let me introduce Serena, our character artist for Trip the Ark Fantastic. Serena will talk about Krita, an open-source program for painting, that we use for Ark Fantastic.

Serena, the stage is yours!

Hi, I’m Serena, the character artist for Trip the Ark Fantastic.

This week for open source game appreciation month I’d like to write a bit about the tool we use for making the art of our game – Krita. It’s an open source program for painting which can be used in various ways – from portraits to comics to game art. It’s compatible with most graphics tablets and is easy to set up.

Prior to this project, I haven’t really worked with Krita, and learning it was really no problem. The interface is very easy to learn – which makes it great for beginner artists and animators but also those already working in the industry, since it uses similar UI features as other professional tools.

Krita deliberately focuses on digital art, so it does not have a varied palette of photography tools as PS for example, but it’s for the best – it gives artists what they need most without cluttering the software with unnecessary features – just a professional tool for digital art.

Personally, I’m in love with the right click pop-up palette which makes my workflow faster and easier and the brush customization option which is really simple to understand even without any knowledge in the area.

Here you can see an early speed paint of an art piece I made in Krita, the portrait of king Leonard the Wise, father of King Lav:

It’s impressive what independent developers can put together. By building this program and contributing to its code, those developers are giving an opportunity for everyone (regardless of any political or economical constraints) to learn digital art using a full version of professional software – for free.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Our plans for Ark Fantastic in 2020

First and foremost, on behalf of the whole Gamechuck development team, I wish you a happy New Year!

Now, onto the topic of our new development blog - our plans for this year.

In many aspects 2019 was crucial for us – we decided on all the main story beats, finally found and gathered the entire team which (crossing our fingers) won’t change for the rest of the game’s development, secured funding and started working on the project, even releasing a teaser trailer and going public with the project. It’s been great, a lot of good feedback and even some early fans on our Discord.

Our first Ark Fantastic teaser trailer

As we enter the roaring 20s, we prepare ourselves for the coming year and our plans for it.

Drafting the entire game in 2020

On a productional perspective, 2020 should see us finish drafting the entire game (sounds ambitious but since we’re working on this full time, it’s doable).

We should be done prototyping most of the mechanics (dialogues, languages, science, research, reporting, exploration, day and night cycles, etc), and that would leave 2021 for making sure they work seamlessly together and that our hunches were correct. Once this is done, our plan is to produce a demo that showcases how it all works, and then keep tweaking it until release in 2022.

Bunnies are super cute. This one serves as an example of our quest for finding the perfect character animation frames per second

The story and dialogues should be completely drafted in 2020 for all the (three) acts of the game and should leave 2021 for revising and tweaking the script where needed, adding fluff and so on. We have finished the draft of the Burrows, Scurries and started on the largest city in the Kingdom – Pride, but we still have a lot more to go. Ideally, we will start on the Colony (Act II) sometime in the summer, and Act III mid-autumn.

A very, very early in-game dialogue preview

Artistically, we are slowly creating characters, locations, and UI for the game, trying to wrap our heads around the idea of musical leitmotifs for various themes, characters, and locations and have it all work in tandem with the story, which is proving to be a very difficult job, but we hope to have some kind of musical prototype of how this works by spring.

Finding the publisher

On an organisational perspective, we’d like to find a publisher with a deep understanding of what we’re trying to do here (on a thematic, narrative, artistic and gameplay level), as well as better understand where our potential player-base resides (since what we’re doing isn’t a clear cut genre, this has been difficult to pinpoint so far). We will keep producing content for this blog since it greatly helps us organise our thoughts and, naturally, keep a steady momentum and maintain a dialogue between our three avid fans who read this and us.

Since many have clamored to see more gameplay in our trailer, we will try to produce a “gameplay trailer” as soon as possible, maybe even some time in the summer if we’re lucky. Some things, like the reporting mechanic, are going to be extremely difficult to craft and hone, but until we capture that fine line between fun game-like reporting and actual dull reporting, we will just use the examples we know must work.

More trailers and gameplay

We will also start going to game events in Europe and showcasing our trailer(s) and gather feedback on them. Most probably we will not go westward to the Americas, so expect us in the major European capitals such as Vienna, London, and Berlin, as well as all over our immediate neighbourhood in cities such as Ljubljana, Dubrovnik, and Belgrade.

Our other projects

On a final note, the year 2020 will be interesting for our studio from a different perspective as well – we will release the interactive comic books and retro games we developed in 2019. They might not be as huge of an undertaking as Trip the Ark Fantastic (all of these interactive comics are short 20-30 minute experiences), but if you’re here because you’re fans of interactive story-telling, these games are something you might be interested in as well.

Hopefully, some of you reading this will stick around till next year and we’ll see how well we managed!

[Sayrui]

Oh GOSH, this is so BEAUTIFUL

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Oh GOSH, this is so BEAUTIFUL

Thank you so much Sayrui 

Yeah, we're pretty proud of our art team They're doing an amazing work

Much, much more to come

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Hey everyone! It's Tuesday which means one thing - it's #ArkLoreTuesday again!

In today’s Ark Lore Tuesday we want to talk about the Lynx Rebellion. This is an event that took place hundreds of years before the game takes place and therefore does not feature in the game.

However, the event is one of the bedrocks of the current social order of the Kingdom and has shaped the Kingdom into what it is today.

While the Animal Kingdom is a monarchy, the noble families still have some control over their own territories. This relative autonomy came about hundreds of years ago as the aftermath of the Lynx Rebellion.

This rebellion started after a series of imposed regulations and levies in the Kingdom by the lion king Red. The lynxes pushed back on this, declaring complete autonomy from the crown and thus a long struggle ensued, sometimes called The Third Northern War.

In the beginning, King Red believed the rebellion will be squashed soon and gave it no thought, but similar rebellions were soon beginning to spark in other regions of the Kingdom as well. That's why Red decided to send his son Nathaniel to help the royalist soldiers squash the rebellion.

As the story goes, Nathaniels carriage broke down near the battlefield so he stayed at a village nearby for the next few days, healing his broken paw and instead of regrouping and continuing the fight, he decided to solve the problem in a different way - he rushed back to Blackbark and told his father about their problems and how the policies and regulations imposed by the crown are hurting them.

Advised by his son and heir, King Red started a series of reforms, which his son finished, which transformed the unitary nature of the Kingdom into a more decentralized way so that the nobles have more autonomy over regional issues.
He also established permanent embassies in Blackbark for each noble family where their envoys can discuss grievances over issues pertaining to the Kingdom (these Embassies have since moved to the new capital Pride).

Read the whole lore article on our dev blog

Also, a cool tidbit about how Snowy Wasteland scene came to be


A sketch


Work in progress


Final scene


Animated scene

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

We have a crapload of lore and background to share, and the perfect days for that occasion are Tuesday and Thursday when we have our so-called weekly #ArkLoreTuesday and #ArkBlogThursday. Well, since there is much more lore to share, this Thursday we'll share more of it, instead of some technical stuff about the game…

Anyway, this article is more about the previous leaders in the animal kingdom, and King Michaël was the first one to find the Ark Fantastic… Sort of.

It’s hard enough figuring out the politics of the Animal Kingdom. Even though, we decided to clue you in on a bit of history as well. So in January we are going to go through the rulers of the Animal Kingdom one by one.

The lions ruled the Animal Kingdom for millennia, but the elder line of kings has been mostly lost to history. The past few centuries, though, are very clear. This is due to several factors:

• the influence of Dabrovit, a scholar who worked at the court of King Michaël
• the relative peace and prosperity that ensued after King Marius
• the invention of the printing press which helped preserve historical manuscripts

So we will start with King Michaël, the first king of whom most information is known without doubt. Like all kings, scholars posthumously gave him an epithet defining his rule – King Michaël the Zealous.

King Michaël

The King Who Found the Ark!

Michaël inherited the kingdom in great unrest from his father Marius. However, Michaël actually spent less time dealing with the unruly nobles and more time obsessed over the ark myth. At the time, a young scholar beaver named Dabrovit has popularised the scholar’s method in the Kingdom. The scholar’s method (similar to the scientific method in our world) is a methodical way of approaching the Kingdom’s mysteries. Inspired by Dabrovit’s method, Michaël funded many scholars and explorers and tasked them to find the mythic Ark Fantastic.

Eventually, after many failed attempts, one scholar returned with good news. He found the wreckage on an island shore southwest of Pride, with evidence suggesting it is the Ark Fantastic. Along with its great historic significance, this had a surprising effect on quieting the kingdoms unrest. Many historians believe this discovery was what ushered in centuries of peace in the Kingdom.

If you want to stay informed, be sure to visit our Facebook, Twitter or Discord.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

WE HAVE MOAR ANIMAL KINGDOM KINGS LORE!!!!

As we wrote about Michaël the Zealous in our previous lore article about the Kings of the Animal Kingdom, today we are continuing the saga with King Valent the Scholar, the longest-ruling king. His biggest legacy is finding a huge unexplored region whose location was lost in history.

Prince Laurent was oft ill and short-lived, and so he died before he could succeed to the throne. His son, Valent, took on the Kings mantle at a very young age, and was thus the longest-ruling king in historical memory, being known as The Scholar King.

King Valent the Scholar

Even as a child, King Valent was tutored by Master Dabrovit, and fell in love with science and exploration from an early age. He funded many great expeditions to all sides of the Kingdom during his long reign and remade the kingdom in the image of science.

He funded academies in every regional capital, and built the largest library in Blackbark, holding copies of every book found in the Kingdom.

His biggest legacy, however, is finding the southern continent, a huge unexplored region whose location across the sea was lost in history.

[ThemsAllTook]

Oh wow, this all looks amazing! I'd be super into playing this once it's ready.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Oh wow, this all looks amazing! I'd be super into playing this once it's ready.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! :-) And apologies for not replying earlier :-) Ark Fantastic still has a while to go in the development, but I'll make sure to update this dev log with everything interesting that's going on with the game :-)

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

The most brutal King of them all, also known as "The Tyrant King" reigned over 30 years ago, but the Kingdom still resonates from the consequences of his reign.

King Leopold, The Tyrant

The steam engine changed much of the industrial landscape of the Kingdom… This, along with the vast resources coming from the newly discovered colony, all gave rise to new powers. Not all of these new powers were satisfied with their newfound wealth, and some wished to secure even more power.

Feared of being usurped, and to secure his hold on the Kingdom, Leopold, the Tyrant tightened his grip. He slowly transformed the royal newspapers into a mouthpiece of the monarchy. In his later years, he also funded a secret spy network that operated throughout the Kingdom.

Read the whole story about Kingdom's Tyrant King on https://www.tripthearkfantastic.com/ark-lore-tuesday/kings-of-the-animal-kingdom-king-leopold/

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

In the past few weeks, we spoke of many kings. There was Vincent, the beloved Explorer king. Before him, there was Valent, the scholar king tutored by master Dabrovit. Before Valent, there was Michaël, the king obsessed with the ark. Leonard, on the other hand, had no ambition towards exploration nor science nor mythology.

Known in the Kingdom as Leo the Wise, he focused on Making Things Work. In his reign, all parts of the Kingdom were developed and connected. Leo oversaw the implementation of intricate systems of sharing goods and information across the Kingdom.

King Leonard funded the bastions of modern civilisation such as the Elephant Transportation Company and the royal newspapers. The printing press was brought to every major city of the Kingdom, and, after the steam engine was built.

Leonard's great deeds and accomplishments cast a large shadow on his two sons – Leopold and Lav, of whose reigns we will speak in later posts.

Read more about King Leonard on our dev blog: https://www.tripthearkfantastic.com/development-blog/kings-of-the-animal-kingdom-king-leonard/

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Well, EXCITING TIMES! It's been a while and we're ready to talk more about the place that you're gonna find yourself at the beginning of the game. And it's called...

The Burrows

The burrows is where we start the game. Here in this quaint little mining town, our protagonist (Charles, the hedgehog scholar) has his lab.

This is an early map we’ve made to showcase where the first part of the first act takes place, close to the capital city Pride:

We’ve made this map using the cool freeware program Inkarnate which is really cool if you are running DnD campaigns or just need to make some cool reference maps for your upcoming RPG masterpiece (like us)

It’s in the introverts goldilocks zone: far enough from the capital to be left alone by pesky colleagues but close enough so he can get his hands on all the latest scientific equipment on a whim.

Most rabbits in the burrows work as miners and live in the residential area below during the workweek. The rooms are very humble and simple but Charles’ has built a large lab for himself here:

The smith of the Burrows is Quince, a downtrodden lizard belonging to the vermin caste, the lowest caste in the Kingdom. He replaced the former rabbit smithy who got ill due to the poisonous fumes eroding from the metalwork. This is where the player first has a chance to explore the societal differences in the various castes of the Kingdom.

A short way away from Quince we have Orville’s mansion. Orville is a badger who is the foreman of the mine. As part of the highest caste in the Burrows, he is in charge of the entire mining operation, and de facto owns the whole underground site. He finds himself constantly competing with other mines and digsites and trying to stay afloat but the industrial landscape is changing fast and it’s hard for his little mine to keep up.

Thus, the Burrows serves as an introductory place to start the voyage into the world of Trip the Ark Fantastic. Here the player learns of the caste system, the way things are in the world and how characters react to it.

Since the Ark myth is central to the story of the game, its underlying hierarchy is important to understand as early as possible.

[Iggy_Gamechuck]

Well, long time no see!

In the last week or so we have tried to re-evaluate what are we going to do with the Ark Lore, and is there enough interest in it among the community.

So this time we're going with...

Science and technology in the Animal Kingdom

As the game begins, the Animal Kingdom is far from its humble animalistic beginnings. It’s a brewing civilisation on the very beginnings of the industrial revolution and (possibly) a social revolution as well.

Science

As for science and the scientific method, it has been steadily advancing since at least King Valent. However, in the Animal Kingdom, there is no difference between science, engineering, history, and other intellectual pursuits – all thinkers are called “Scholars”, whether they are scholars of botany or scholars of machinery or scholars of the Ark myth.

You play the game as Charles, one such scholar of the Kingdom.

Charles doing his science stuff

A botanist by trade and son of the famed scholar Herbert, you have always been in the spotlight which you’d rather avoid. Here’s a peek at Charles’ lab:

Our protagonist Charles is a botanist, and gained fame after he invented an indoor plant irrigation system, more commonly used in the kingdom as – the shower!

As previously considered, the difference between engineers and scholars in the Kingdom is vague so Charles doesn’t only work on the theory of botany but also works on the greenhouse technology that would help preserve plants from the cold conditions on the outside. His wish is to create a stable environment for growing crops even in winter-time, but he is still far off from that goal.

Technology

The industrial revolution made steam engines available in many mines and centers of industry throughout the Kingdom, including Charles’ hometown – the Burrows. The usage of steam engines made coal production skyrocket and made it possible to dig deeper and deeper into mines. Luckily, the rabbit miners didn’t meet any Balrogs down there, but the health hazards of being so deep might be just as deadly!

Complex machinery operating on steam and helping run the elevator down to the Burrows coal mine.

Other cities use steam machinery for other things, such as connecting the various treetop dwelling animals with their ground-based friends in the small squirrel trade town of the Scurries.

Yet another steam-powered elevator!

The Kingdom hasn’t (yet) started building railroads or any other steam-powered vehicles, mostly because of the convenience of travel by paw (due to the small scale of the Kingdom’s mainland), and the larger distances are traveled by using the royal Elephant Transportation Company (which has been known to stifle innovation so it could stay in the transportation game).

There are some technological issues we haven’t decided on yet, such as whether the Kingdom has learned to use powder for guns and weapons.

They certainly use dynamites, but guns seem too modern for a fantasy setting to some in our creative team, even if our fantasy world closely resembles the 19th century which was FULL of guns…

[RichSG]

wow this looks really cool and I'm LOVING the gameplay aspect of science and evidence gathering! Look forward to reading more about this and the first demo! Keep up the good work!