In two weeks, this thread has become the third most popular thread of all time on BMD, even beating out the Arx thread. That means that since the birth of BMD, no other game has negatively affected MU* players as broadly or as painfully as Star Wars: Age of Alliances.
People have mentioned in this thread that Cujo seems like the kind of person to be obsessed with being the biggest and ranked at the top, so…
Congratulations Cujo, you’re finally #1 at something.
Based on how big the MU Peeves Thread is, I was expecting to run into a lot of issues now that I’ve become a game-runner.
To my surprise, I absolutely love it. Silent Heaven is one month in, and I love all the players. I haven’t run into anything that’s made me want to crawl away and hide. Making and running a game has been one of the most fun and rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life.
OVERVIEW
Silent Heaven is a small-town roleplaying game focused on personal demons amidst a backdrop of supernatural horror. The only people who find their way to the town of Silent Heaven are those who aren’t okay, even if they act like they are. Your character is among this twisted cast of characters. Everyone hopes to find that road to salvation, but temptations lurk around every corner.
Be bad. Be vulnerable. Embrace your sorrow. Will you face your darkest times and recover? Or will you succumb to the town and be lost forever?
The worst thing that can happen is getting comfortable with living here.
FEATURES
Silent Heaven is a unique world set in an unspecified location. It draws inspiration from many sources, including Silent Hill, LOST, American Horror Story, Omori, and much more.
Silent Heaven is made using the Evennia codebase with a custom gameplay system.
Gameplay Overview:
RPI-lite: MUSH-style RP + coded support for supplementary skills.
No Alts: You may have only one character at any given time.
No Grinding: XP is earned through logging in each day + bonus XP for roleplaying for about 30 - 60 minutes.
Simple Crafting: Craft a unique description and custom name for any item, giving it a bonus to its effect.
Simple Combat: A customized conflict system focuses on coming to solutions that don’t involve costly violence. Simplified locational combat allows you to spend more time RPing during and after conflicts.
Traditional Grid: Movement directions are only North, South, East, West, Up, and Down. Room sizes and shapes vary.
Character-driven storylines: The best rewards are for doing what would tell a good story rather than gaming the system or playing to win.
Characters cannot die: For some mysterious reason, if a character would die, even if they’re fatally bludgeoned, the town seems to keep them alive. Why? That’s a spoiler.
End of the road: When your character reaches max XP, a special Storyteller-run plot will help to determine the ultimate fate of your character.
Unique-ish Features:
Consent Checklist: A customizable checklist allows you to choose the themes you want to see in RP. Your character may be terrified, but we want to make sure everyone is having fun that they enthusiastically consent to OOC. Consent may be revoked at any time. Revocation will be respected, and you don’t need to supply a reason why you’re revoking it.
Whispers: The quietest voices spread around town via mysterious wind currents, making it difficult to keep secrets.
Shelter: Retreat to your safe space when you need downtime. Public locations become less safe as more characters gather in one spot. Don’t stay outside too long, either. There are monsters out there. Some of them even look like monsters.
Panic: Suffer emotional damage that can’t be healed through conventional means.
In-depth NPCs: Each NPC is a complete character with a history, goals, and fears. Though you may befriend some of them, NPCs almost always have an ulterior motive. They wouldn’t have found their way to Silent Heaven otherwise.
Intersectional-LGBTQIA+: Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. are unwelcome. Pronouns aren’t tied to your character’s sex, gender or outward appearance. You can even randomize your character’s pronouns.
Drugs & Toxins: Provide beneficial drugs to those who need help, or poison your enemies. Lace your creations into food, or even create chemical weapons.
Blood Tests & Forensics: Diagnose patients with mysterious ailments. Collect blood samples and other metadata from locations to find out who’s been up to what.
Rituals and fat͓̖̟̥̠̺̩̙̽̉̒͆̈͊͛̓̏͘ȓ̶̢̧͙̼͓͛̄̆̒͗͊̅͡͡l̮̮͉̻͎̰̘͛̋̓̚̕j̸̧̰̥̜͍̜̗̔̏̄̈̽̿͜͝o̮̻̗̱̻̖̎̌̇̉͒̐͝i̷̮͖͚̦̖̊̽͗̈́͗̈̕͘͜͡l̶̞͎̯͚̱̓͊̽͊͂̐͟͝f͖̬̻̩̜̾͛̒͐̌͝k̴͕̦͎͚̬̘̫͚͍͌̏̌̑̈́͗̐̚̚͠j̧̛͍͇͚̫̱̹͍̘́͊͊͑̀͘͠͝:̴̡̩̪̟̓͑͆̿͜͠ a̮̖̜̯̭͍͎̅̔̓̈̅͒̕̚͟͡ć̸̡̬̞̬̫̺̾̍̏̚t̖͓̻͉͌͋̅̆̽͛̌͘ͅǐ̧̛̤̱͍̱͈͍̾͆͂̽̀̿͘͞ǫ̶͇̦̮̻͕̣̦̠̽̿̈́̂̑͟n̷̢̧̛̹̗͈̯̞̈́̾͐͘̚͝s͎̪̤̠̗̫̓͑̏̈̔̅͂̂͘͝ h̷̨̺̠̱̮̤̯̰̯́̄͐̄͞a̶̺̤͍̘̤͑͌̾͆̔͌͘̚̚͡v̸̥̤͍͍̲͋̀̐͗̍̀̄͗͡ȅ̢̱͔͖̪̳͚̿̀̍̿͌̌̎̉͠ f̵͇͔̣̗̗̮͖͖̼̊͆́͆͡a̡͙̘̘͚̥̼͗̂̿̓͌͘r̶̛̯̟̗̙̳͑̓̅̉̈̏͆͞-̨̪̘̼͎̺̬̟͂͊̀́͒͂̚r̸͔̻̠̬̼͕̊̀̂͆̅͞è̸̢̛̗͔͔̬͈͋͂͡a̵̧̲̫͙̘̅̈̊̏͗ͅc̷̡̨̪̙̰̺͛́̃͐̑͐͛̽͢͠ḩ̸̨̹̫̞͖̲̳͍̱̓̄̆̉͂̆̎́͞i̸̢͙̪̦̱̥̰̯͙͎͑̑̑́̏̓̽ñ̵͈͈̠̬̜̙͔͈͊̀̀̕͘͞͡g̷̺̦̰͓͖͒̒̿̎̈ c̶̨̢͓̺̪̭̬͔̳͑̐̅͋̒̀͘͟ò͓͔͔̜̙̫̠͉̫̔̇̐̚̚͠n̵̨͇͖̱͋̐̉̌̏̋̾͟ś̡̟̺̻̥̩̼̟̏̔̉͢͞ė͖̞̻̠̟̑͆͗̄ͅq̷̨̜̺͌̋̉̃̍̈́̃̔͜͟͝u̵̞̯̱̹͙̫͌́͊̂̑̅̅̈́͟ͅę̸̖͖̦̼͒̔̄̉͒̏̕n͖͓̙̞̼͓͈̯̋͛̈́̇̚͡ͅç͎̟̦̰̜̑̈́̋́́̓̔͡ę̸̢̖̖̲̳̭̊̇̆͌͋̇̉̀̕͝s̶̛̖͈͙̺͔͑͂̕̕͡.̷̠͈̦̦͍̩̜͍́̃̓͛͛̽͌͢͟
CONFLICT BETWEEN CHARACTERS
Throughout your character’s story, your character will likely engage in conflict with other characters, whether they’re NPCs or PCs. Conflict helps move stories forward. However, there’s a firm line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
You’ve likely heard of Player vs. Player (PvP) gameplay, where you compete against other players in a game, whether it be via combat, social prestige, or deception. We don’t do that in Silent Heaven. As a community, we’re expected to be friendly, respectful, and supportive of our fellow players.
It’s important to be able to separate conflict between characters (CvC) and conflict between players (PvP). We’re all having a good time as players putting out characters into dangerous situations. We encourage OOC check-ins to make sure everyone is still enthusiastic about what’s happening, and coming to an amicable resolution if things are starting to get uncomfortable.
Overall, Silent Heaven is a dangerous place, and your character will naturally fall into CvC. Bad things will happen to your character just as often as good things. Treat each player with care and respect. Keep conflict in-game. Know your limits.
If this style of roleplay suits your preferences, then Silent Heaven is for you.
LORE AND WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Lore? There’s plenty. But you don’t need to know anything ahead of time. As a fresh resident to a mysterious town, discovering it all in-character is part of the excitement. Want to learn more about that church? You could ask someone about it, or find and read some literature about it, or even go there yourself to soak in some history.
It’s perfectly acceptable for your character to ask someone, “What the f—k is going on in this town?” In fact, it’s encouraged. It’s an excellent way to spur roleplay and delve into how your character reacts to the unknown.
If you like solving mysteries, this town has plenty of them.
LIMITATIONS TO WHAT YOU CAN ROLEPLAY
The following should be OOCly assumed to be true:
Your character enters Silent Heaven as a modern-day human with no supernatural powers.
Nobody who successfully leaves Silent Heaven can ever find their way back in. There are no ‘return visits.’
There is no way to ‘fix’ the town of Silent Heaven. While your character may have influence on the future of NPCs and landscapes, the backdrop of a hidden town full of cursed characters will not change.
Silent Heaven isn’t in any set location. Outside contact within Silent Heaven will never happen. For what it’s worth, consider the town to be on an entirely different plane of existence.
The timeline of Silent Heaven diverged from the real world in 2010, and anything after that never happened. Humans still exist. Scientific and technological advancements continue as normal. This alternate world history is intentionally an amorphous blob, because your character’s storylines will center around being in a town isolated from the rest of the world.
LAUNCH DATE?
My goal to launch Silent Heaven is December 2022. That’s 7 months from this post. Early 2023.
Coding is 85% complete. There are only 8 major systems left to code.
Building is 25% complete. All remaining NPCs, items, and rooms are fully planned out. It’s just a matter of writing them all and putting them into the game.
To those who’ve already read this post in the previous forum, thanks for putting up with the repost. I’ve updated it to better reflect what Silent Heaven has become over the past year. Everyone’s guidance and suggestions have been invaluable.
I’ll also be posting updates with all the new major features I’ve added in the past 3 months:
But for now, I need a breather.
In the meantime, please feel free to join the Discord server, where I post regular updates and a ton of screenshots.
Stay spooky!
One accusation is concerning.
Two unrelated accusations is a pattern.
Any more than that is unquestionable guilt.
I’ve never seen a callout that deviates from these rules.
After discussion in the Silent Heaven discord server, we’ve decided to restrict this mechanic to NPCs/monsters only. PCs will have the option to opt-in. By default, it’ll be blocked.
This is probably the way I should have done it originally. But I’m always open to changes, and I think this’ll be a positive one.
Springboarding off the MU Peeves Thread, where the topic was spreading plot seeds everywhere, I have something good to share.
I’ve lucked out with my playerbase. At first, I created this chart where I’d make sure every character got a plot seed, and each plot seed was duplicated across multiple characters. That way, everyone would feel included and have something to do.
I only had to do that once.
I can drop a plot seed on nearly any character, and when I wake up, the entire town knows. My players will run around shouting to everyone about every new seed I toss out, and nobody’s left in the dark.
Now, six months later, I don’t need to give a plot seed to anyone. I make one change to the grid, or move one NPC to another room, or hide an item somewhere, and within an hour, someone’s found it and is spreading that knowledge to the rest of the town and sharing hypotheses about what it means. I don’t even need to announce that a change has been made. They find it, they include newer players in their discoveries (or sometimes notice it and tell the newer players to go check it out), and everyone gets excited and has fun.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m thankful nonetheless.
Silent Heaven usually gets 1 new account created per day.
The day after Arx ended, Silent Heaven started getting 5 new accounts created per day. It has not stopped.
Around the same time, Andruid also posted an article about Silent Heaven! You can read it here: https://writing-games.com/silent-heaven-supernatural-horror-game/
I’m sure the player numbers will even out over time, haha. For now, though, I’m thankful that the core SH playerbase has been so supportive and accommodating to the new players. We’re doing our best behind the scenes to improve the game as well!
So I have to give my thanks to everyone who’s given Silent Heaven a try in the past week. Even if it didn’t hook you, I’m still appreciative that you gave it a try. And if you had a problem, my DMs are always open.
I was looking at the unread threads the other day, and I was amused that the other thread titles could be legitimate answers to this thread’s question.
Yes, all those things could definitely stop someone from running a game!
Wanna know all the features I’ve been working on for Silent Heaven?
There’s a lot. There’s so much that I’m almost done with coding! There are only 2 major systems left, plus a handful of odds and ends.
@Meg was excited about Cooking, so let’s start with that first!
Find a kitchen and type COOK. You’ll get to choose to cook from a recipe you’ve saved, or write a new recipe.
Let’s start by adding a new recipe.
First, you get to choose which ingredients you’re including in your recipe. There are lots of ingredients, so they’ve been sorted into 9 categories, for your convenience.
Your character’s cooking skill determines what ingredients they’re able to work with. More cooking skill = more ingredients to choose from.
Do kitchens run out of individual ingredients? Nope, we’re handwaving that.
Did I forget an ingredient you want? I’ll add it!
Once you’ve assembled all your ingredients, it’s time to choose your cooking method! Again, a higher Cooking skill means you unlock more advanced cooking techniques.
Now add some flavor, literally! Adding a flavor is just for flavor.
Almost done! Write a pretty description of your food!
Now that you’ve described it, how are you serving it? On a plate? In a glass? Maybe you’ve cut out a slice for someone…
Finally, give it a name!
Now you get to review and edit it and change anything if you spotted an error.
You good now? You like that recipe? Let’s get COOKING!
AMAZING.
Let’s EAT this masterpiece.
Your character will munch away in the background while you RP.
If you want to speed things along, you can STOP all that patient eating and finish it like a seagull.
There’s no penalty for doing this; it’s just flavor. If the cook’s skill is high enough, eating food will give your character a minor bonus for the rest of the day. It’s nothing crazy, just a little reward for chilling and RPing with your character’s friends who cooked this delicious food. Remember to say thank you!
You’re welcome to eat as much as you want, and you’ll get a little notification when your character is pleasantly stuffed. You can keep eating after that, but…
To keep your sensibilities quelled, I’ll only show the storyteller-side notification.
There’s a number of storyteller-side notifications like that so that any NPC witness can be animated and join in on the fun, if the scene calls for it.
That’s all there is for cooking!
As always, please feel free to join the Discord server, where I post regular updates and a ton of screenshots.
I would be ever so thankful for help with writing NPC, item, and room descs. It’s not at all necessary, but If you’re interested, there’s a channel on the Discord for writing requests. Give me a nudge and I’ll find a few things you can contribute to.
Stay spooky!
I want to congratulate all of us for our quick response to an unacceptable situation. In less than two weeks, we collectively rescued nearly everyone and set up our own shelter. Everyone who helped organize the exodus deserves praise.
Even in the final stretch, there’s still so much to do.
Two days ago, I signed up for a DigitalOcean droplet and installed Evennia on it, so we have a working website. And yesterday I learned a little bit of CSS and spent some time making the website look good.
Nine times out of ten, when someone is told to stop being creepy and they ask, “What specifically am I doing that’s creepy?” they’re not asking in order to fix their behavior. They’re fishing for ammunition to gaslight people into agreeing that the victim is overreacting and that they did nothing wrong.
There was one person who joined Silent Heaven to play a Korean vtuber who spoke in broken English. And not the kind of English one would pick up naturally, but the stereotypically offensive caricature of broken English.
I messaged her player, letting them know that being immersed in English for months should show an improvement in her language, and that she needs to have a better, less stereotypical grasp on English now, with improvements over the coming weeks. They agreed to that.
They stopped logging in shortly after the talk.
I figured I’d have the same questionable search history as everyone else since I’ve had to research a ton of topics that I knew nothing about…
But ultimately, I can only conclude one thing:
Anyone who reads my search history must think I’m an absolute dumbass.
Over a month ago, I received the worst apology I’ve ever seen from a MUing community.
This was from a community leader who shared with an outside party information about me that was only viewable by staff members. He also conflated the information to tell a lie about me. I found out about it through the grapevine. So I asked in public chat if he did in fact say what he said, and if so, to please stop spreading misinformation about me. And if he didn’t say it, I said I’d deal with it.
I expected a “No, what’s going on?” Or a “Yes, I’m sorry. I made a mistake and I won’t do it again.” Instead it exploded into a barrage of weasely statements like, “I have never lied in my life” and “This isn’t the right place to be discussing this.”
I said that this is how whisper campaigns start, and I refused to be a part of it, so I left the community.
The person in charge of the community reached out to me and said that the staff member had issued an apology.
Brace yourselves for this one.
I had to stare at that for a while. There’s just so much to it. Here’s a breakdown of what I found.
To spare him some shred of dignity, I won’t share what he said about me, because it reveals a lot about his character.
Plus, it feels antagonistic. The point of this post is to showcase the non-apology, not the person behind the non-apology.
Plus, he sent an actual apology after I told the person in charge that it wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t be in good faith if I ended the story here.
So, since it seemed like this staff member had never written an apology before, I wrote one for him, containing all the necessary points. I delivered it to the person in charge, with a note that said that the staff member could just copy & paste what I wrote, and that’d be acceptable to me. To his credit, he did in fact use it as a template for his corrected apology.
While it has some eyerolly parts and it claims that what was said was true, it’s better than the first one, and to me, it feels like he actually tried. So I accepted it, and I said I’d return to the community in three months.
Thanks for reading.
It’s a mild peeve when there are four people in a scene, each responding to four different conversation threads per pose. It’s a little difficult to follow along with in the moment, and worse when you’re trying to read a posted scene.
However, I think it’s amazing that we’re all able to suspend our disbelief of what’s happening and play out four separate moments simultaneously, without it ruining the continuity of the scene. Human imagination is magical like that!
@64bitjedi said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
First I would have to have any idea who made the complaints
No you don’t. You just have to know that complaints have been ignored and swept under the rug. You just have to know that harassment under Cujo’s watch has caused at least 8 players to leave the game due to discomfort with sex pests on the game. That’s a bare minimum, because 8 corroborated stories have come to light.
Imagine how many more reported things to Cujo which went ignored.
Imagine how many more left without saying a word.
Your game is dying because Cujo would rather keep 5 sex pests (including himself) than 30 non sex pests.
What are you going to do about that?
Six months without an update. Surely this project is dead? Far from it!
It’s almost done!
What’s left? Not a lot!
When I set out to make Silent Heaven, it was just a bunch of disconnected ideas. But I took more notes as I played more games, read forum posts, and even unearthed a Firan retrospective. One of the big takeaways I’ve learned is to give your players things to do during their downtime to enhance their RP and tell their own stories.
Tying systems together so that they all play off of each other has been an arduous ordeal, but somehow the game hasn’t exploded in my face! I’ve spent a lot of time researching gamer motivation profiles and I’ve made systems that will hopefully appeal to specific kinds of players I want the game to attract.
Overall, my goal for the vibe of the game is players having fun OOC by putting their characters in dangerous situations IC, playing off each other to create plenty of memorable events. Everyone’s comfort is more important than maintaining immersion.
With that preamble out of the way, here’s a handful of day-to-day activities you can look forward to doing in Silent Heaven while furthering your character’s storyline and getting into mischief!
LET’S GO SHOPPING
There’s currency in Silent Heaven. It can be used to pay for goods and services from your fellow citizen, as well as pay for additional residences and buy stuff from a vending machine.
How does this massive vending machine keep getting stocked? Good question.
How can it fit so much stuff? Let’s just say it was designed by IKEA.
What are those prices? Capitalism never makes sense.
Best $5 ever spent.
Bonnie and Clyde are my test characters. They’ll get into a lot of trouble as I put them through the rigamarole. Please forgive their one-liners.
Anyway, there’s a lot of stuff to go over, and this update will just barely scratch the surface!
WRITING
What better way to immortalize your poetry and screeds than through the time-honored tradition of writing it down!
Get yourself some paper and WRITE.
Pick the kind of paper you’re writing, give it a title, and write to your heart’s content!
It’s bread.
I didn’t know there was so much to learn about eating bread!
ART
Got some burgeoning artistic ability you’d like to flex? Your character can create works of art in four different ways!
(Note: Needlework had been added to the list above.)
There are only a few things essential to making artwork: The title and signature, the art itself, and how it’s to be presented in a room.
Can you use color in your artwork? Absolutely! If you’ve played Arx, using colors should look very familiar. In Silent Heaven, you type a % followed by 3 numbers to select a specific color to use.
The names of the colors, however, are ones I came up with. I ran out of ideas for color names partway through. If you look closely, you can probably tell.
When you type something like this:
It’ll come out colorful like this!
Art is more than just a pretty picture or sculpture. It’s said that a masterpiece carries a part of an artist’s soul, and that’s no less true in Silent Heaven.
CHEMISTRY
It’s not all creativity in Silent Heaven. There’s also science!
Do you like the scientific process? Drugs are a staple of many horror stories, and now you can be a chemist, producing all manners of drugs. Prescribe them to patients, sell them to strangers, host parties, or t e s t t h e m o n l i v e s u b j –
Start by getting yourself a synthesis lab.
You can use this equipment to SYNTHESIZE drugs. You’ll be given a menu where you get to choose the administration method, reactive compound, and synthesis temperature.
For those of you who are squicked by certain drug-related paraphernalia, I’ll skip to the final screen in the process.
What will this drug do? That’s where trial and error comes into play!
How is your character going to test the effects? Will they risk the possibility of symptoms and take the pill themself? Or open up RP opportunities to others and offer a clinical study? Or just leave it on a counter and see who wants their next high? What will your character do when they have many samples and not enough participants?
There’s a lot more you can do with drugs than just consume them, but let’s focus on consuming them for now.
DRUGS
Smoke something, have fun.
When you take a drug, you’ll first get a little RP prompt about how it makes your character feel, such as, “Your surroundings grow more vibrant. You see the colors of the air. Your confidence boosts as you feel yourself becoming one of those colors. But you feel a sudden repulsion to the colors red and silver.”
You can roll with that prompt as much or as little as you like. It’s all up to you.
During the time that the drug is going through your character’s system, they’ll get a bonus to at least one skill, and a debuff to another.
After the drug wears off, there’s a period of time where your character might experience side-effects, such as giggling, gnashing teeth, getting the sniffles, and so on.
Here’s a brief example of Bonnie getting a side-effect during her RP, “Bonnie sniffles once.” She plays it off as a cold in her next line, writing that her breathing sounds stuffy.
Side-effects are intended to add a light layer of unpredictability to a scene, but if you’re not comfortable with the possibility of side-effects being added to your RP, you can avoid them completely by never having your character take drugs.
Additionally, a higher skilled chemist will craft drugs that have longer highs and fewer side-effects. Plus, if your character take another drug, the side-effects will stop until that next drug wears off.
MEDICINE
There is a such thing as too much fun. In those cases, call in the doctors. With a medical station, a doctor can TREAT patients for a variety of symptoms, including deep wounds, injuries, bleeding, unconsciousness, and overdoses.
A doctor is also able to SAMPLE a patient’s blood to get a blood analysis report, which will give the doctor information about the patient.
TRUST
There’s no HIPAA in Silent Heaven, but there is a TRUST system. By default, there’s almost nothing another character can do to your character unless you explicitly trust them to do a specific action. Healing is one such action.
Another example is physically picking up another character:
Adorable.
GREETINGS
Your character is a stranger arriving in a strange town. Because of this, Silent Heaven features a greeting system.
Your character will initially appear as a shortdesc to everyone else until you type GREET in their presence, typically after you’ve introduced yourself via RP. Then they’ll forever see your character’s name.
GREETing is always truthful. If your character wants to lie about their identity, they’ll need to work on their Deception skill and wear a disguise.
DISGUISES
Is your character trying to keep a low profile? Do they want to try to talk their way into somewhere they shouldn’t be going? Looks like it’s time to prepare a disguise!
Wearing a disguise effectively turns your character into a new character that you get to customize. It even gives them a new display name, appearing ungreeted to everyone that you’ve previously greeted!
Here’s an example of Bonnie taking on the persona of Maylee, greeting her good friend Clyde, then surprising him with her ability to pull off a unique look.
Maintaining a disguise takes effort, and as you RP, it’ll become more difficult for your character to maintain the illusion. Eventually, your character’s true self will shine through, so be sure you get to a private spot before that happens!
INVESTIGATION
Here’s the last system I’ll touch on today, and it was a doozy to code.
Do you like solving mysteries and piecing together what happened? Grab yourself a forensics kit!
Your character can INSPECT things, rooms, and even other characters, provided they TRUST you to do so.
Here’s an example of what would happen if your character inspects a pair of fluffy boots.
Your character got a partial DNA signature off the fluffy boots! Someone’s been touching or wearing these boots recently!
DNA signatures aren’t the only evidence you’ll find. There’s a lot more, somewhere in the range of 100 different types of evidence.
Go forth and investigate!
ANGELS AND DEMONS?
So far, I’ve been talking about systems that are somewhat grounded in reality. So where’s the religious supernatural horror? It’s there. Trust me, it’s there. It’s practically omnipresent.
But at the time of launch, I’d like the town of Silent Heaven to be shrouded in mystery. The first “season” of the game will be all about uncovering the surface secrets of the town and finding your character’s place amidst the central conflicts.
It’ll be a spooky time.
WHAT’S NEXT?
There’s so much I’ve put into Silent Heaven that I don’t think I’d ever run out of updates like these. If you’d like me to go into further depth about a specific topic, I’m happy to explain further. There’s a lot that goes into each system, including making sure multiple characters with the same skills aren’t made redundant by a character with a higher skill level, anti-metagaming checks, and more. What I’ve shared above are very small overviews.
If you’d like to see everything there is, in greater depth, or you just want to get more frequent updates on Silent Heaven, please feel free to join the Discord server.
I’m giving myself a goal of launching Silent Heaven in May of this year. I’ve officially spent 3 years working on this game. It’s time to move forward. Pencils down. Turn it in for grading. Revise it after launch. Tell stories.
My thanks go out to everyone who’s encouraged me to see this project to fruition.
@KarmaBum said in MU Peeves Thread:
Guest-1 says, “what else do you do for fun?”
Nope, we’re not doing this.
A ghostly whisper of high school sports.
@Solstice said in What we can learn from video game tutorials:
I think this could be translated beautifully into a muck tutorial, where instead of being jettisoned out into an OOC lounge or onto the grid, you’re taken through a character creation process that teaches you the common commands by forcing you to execute them before you can leave the room.
I have a funny story about this. I got a few friends who don’t play MU*s to try out the chargen/tutorial of Silent Heaven. The results were staggering.
First test: The screen says that there’s “a way to the North.” Friend #1 has no idea that she needs to type N. I had to tell her what to do, so that’s no good. Let’s try again with a new friend…
Second test: The screen says that there’s “a way to the North” and in brighter text, “Type ‘N’ to go north.” Friend #2 tells me that N isn’t doing anything. Somehow he had unfocused the input box before typing anything. After I told him that he needed to click on the input box, he expressed with surprise that he hadn’t even noticed the input box.
Third test: Now it says “Type ‘N’ in the box below to go north.” Friend #3 tells me that typing N just makes the letter N appear and that nothing else happens. I sighed so hard and told him to press enter. Yay.
Fourth test: “To go north, type ‘N’ in the box below, then press enter.” Friend #4 types apostrophe, N, apostrophe. I cry inside.
Fifth test: I’m starting to run out of friends who are willing and available to blindly try this. It now says, “To go north, type the letter N in the box below, then press enter.” Friend #5 does it successfully! We did it! Confetti and streamers rain from the skies!
It was like this for every section of chargen. I had to edit the phrasing of sentences, add explanations for things MU* players tend to assume are common knowledge, and so on. I learned a whole lot and it was very beneficial in the long run.