Worldbuilding Revisited, Internal Logic /  by Matthew Marchitto

This is an old post from my blog, originally shared in the eon past of 2016. It was apart of a short lived worldbuilding series I did. Looking back, I have mixed feelings on some of the entries I wrote, but feel this one holds up. Anyone who’s been writing SFF likely won’t find anything new here, but I like to revisit the basics every now and then.

An important caveat about the original worldbuilding series, but also with anything that orbits writing advice:

This series was about the things that I've learned, or am learning, about worldbuilding. It's me trying to level up my craft, and documenting the process. These posts represent my personal approach to worldbuilding, and the way I do it might not be right for you. I'm not an authority on writing, and so everything in these posts should be taken with not only a grain of salt, but a heaping bucket of saline.

Worldbuilding, Internal Logic

Can the manticore bite through steel? Does the dragon’s fire melt stone? What happens when someone gets hit with those mage fireballs? Any piece of fiction that has fantastical, sci-fi, superhero, or any variation of those elements needs to have consistent internal logic. It’s the thing that keeps us, the audience, rooted in the world even though Strongman is swinging a bus like a baseball bat. 

I see internal logic as the rules of your world. If you have a fireball flinging mage, then the damage of their fireballs should be consistent. That way the reader knows that when the fireball hits a wooden shield it’ll char it, but if it hits a steel shield it won’t do any damage. Things like that, that remain consistent throughout the story, are what help keep the reader immersed in the world. If the fireball doesn’t do anything to a wooden shield, but turns a steel one into a pile of molten goop, that takes me out of the story because it doesn’t seem to make sense without an added explanation. If later in the story the fireball turns a wooden beam to ash, then I’ll start to think the writer doesn’t have any internal rules that govern the mage’s fireballs, making it hard for me to get into the story because it feels like there’s no consistency.

I’m using things mostly associated with fantasy as examples, but this really applies to any kind of story. It can be extended to all kinds of things in a whole variety of genres, from character traits, to tools, sci-fi gadgets, or even laws and the consistency with which they’re enforced. When any kind of “rule” is introduced to your world, you should stick to the general parameters of that “rule” throughout the story.

Rules could be things like:

The fireball cannot melt metal

The comm-link requires wifi access

The yeti needs to eat, like, a *lot* of food daily 

And so on. The rules can be loose, or more like guidelines that can be bent this way or that, but in general there should be some consistency to their implementation. Maybe the mage fireballs can only melt metal if their being cast by an elder mage. That would be a good way to bend the rule, or add an addendum to it. 

And I prefer to know the limitations of these abilities or powers. It makes it easier to build the world around them, to know how they would act in most scenarios. It feels like you’ve laid out your tools, and now it’s just a matter of how you want to use them.

Does it hold up?

I think the idea outlined here is solid enough. I will say that the bounds of how magic works in your world can be bent and molded however you want. How stringently you want to adhere to consistency might also change whether you have a soft or hard magic system. Although, I’d ere on the side of caution with letting a soft magic system be an excuse for excessive leniency. I think there should still be limits understood by your readers. If vaguely understood magic keeps solving problems, then the conflicts presented to your characters will feel lackluster and their solutions unsatisfying.

Anyway, I’m still learning. So take this all with a grain salt.

If you enjoyed this post, then subscribe. You can also check out my archive to see the other topics I write about (it’s a lot of RPGs).

Warhammer 40,000 and brutal simplicity /  by Matthew Marchitto

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 just released a little bit ago, and it looks awesome. I’ve wanted to play it, but unfortunately my CPU is too old. So, I decided to go back and replay Space Marine 1.

I’ve always been interested in the WH40k universe, but never really dove into it. Lately, I’ve been engaging with it way more. Not only did I replay SM1, but I also decided to play through Dawn of War 2. That, alongside watching lore videos and ogling Ork miniatures, I’m pretty sure the Warhammer universe has its hooks in me.

Something that struck me about both games though, is how each is streamlined in their own way. Making both Space Marine and Dawn of War 2 good entry points into the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Space Marine

Brutal, and to the point

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is a straightforward experience filled with brutal action. It drops you onto a planet with a single mission, evacuate a titan as the world succumbs to an Ork WAAAGH!

You then proceed to eviscerate Orks with chainswords, thunder hammers, meltaguns, and the classic bolter. It’s a satisfying experience to fend off hordes of enemies, and the pacing never edged into dull. There isn’t an upgrade tree, but the game managed to keep things unique by slowly introducing new weapons throughout the experience. Meaning there’s always something new around the corner. Combine that with the temporary jump pack upgrade sprinkled throughout key moments, and it keeps combat engaging.

It was refreshing to play something that’s straightforward. Space Marine nails its core gameplay, creating a satisfying experience that can be repeated over and over. It doesn’t need superfluous mechanics or mini games, if anything that would likely mire the pacing. We drop into an Ork horde and get to let loose. The guns feel impactful, the melee weapons visceral, all coming together for an adrenaline-fueled bloodbath.

One of the ways Space Marine facilitates this is with executions. There’s no cover system here, instead you’re encouraged to get in the thick of it and lay waste with melee attacks. This provides opportunities for you to initiate context sensitive executions, which when performed regenerates your health. This is a brilliant way to encourage an aggressive playstyle, as you benefit from taking risks. It’s also incredibly satisfying to land executions, making you feel like a rampaging juggernaut.

I think Space Marine is a phenomenal game. Its satisfying, brutal, and straightforward. This is the second time I’ve played through it, and I doubt it’ll be the last. I also think it’s a good introduction to the world of Warhammer 40,000, as it gives a good foundation of the tone, and a few of the galactic actors. It doesn’t infodump an overwhelming amount of information, nor does it rely on an expectation of you already being knee-deep in WH40k lore. All that said, I definitely recommend it.

Give us an Ork game

Listen, I can’t be the only one that wants this. I know there are a smattering of other Ork games, but I think we need one in the style of Space Marine. Let us control a Nob or Warboss and go ham on the Astra Militarum. Space Marines might be the most popular faction, but our Ork boyz need some time in the spotlight.

At this point, I’m just trying to will this into reality. I’m sure there’s an audience for an action oriented Ork game. Give us an excuse to WAAAGH!

Dawn of War 2

RTS, but not really

Dawn of War 2 has been in my steam library for years. I’ve bounced off it twice before, for whatever reason I just wasn’t connecting with it. But this time around, it got its hooks in me. Maybe because I’d been going deep into lore videos and genuinely engaging with the world of Warhammer 40,000.

DOW2 is structured like an RTS, but doesn’t quite play like the ones I’m familiar with. The biggest difference is a lack of base building, DOW2 is squad based. Instead of hunkering down to harvest trees and gold, your squad drops into a map and goes straight for the objective.

At first, I found this jarring. I was used to the base building of Warcraft and StarCraft, but this squad-based gameplay ended up being much faster and more engaging. Each one of your squads, led by a named Space Marine of the Blood Ravens, has unique abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. There’s a scouting squad that can go invisible and plant explosives, one that’s melee based with jump packs so they can get in and out quick to be disruptive, and so on. Each of your Space Marines has a talent tree, and can change loadouts with new weapons, armors, and accessories. All of this makes DOW2 more akin to an RPG than a traditional RTS.

Each mission feels more like loading into a dungeon, with a faster pace than hunkering down and building a base. My only complaint is that in the original campaign it’s not always clear what weapon types are effective against which enemy types. But the subsequent expansion, Chaos Rising, improved this by providing more info in the mission briefing. I also think Chaos Rising is where DOW2 really shines, as the missions are paced better, and structured in such a way that really forces you to take advantages of your squads’ strengths.

I’m glad I gave Dawn of War 2 another try. This time around I’m really enjoying it, and much like Space Marine, find it to be an engaging and straightforward experience that prioritizes intense action. DOW2 also doubles as a good entry point into WH40k. Overall, I’d highly recommend it, just don’t expect a typical base building RTS.

Conclusion

Both Space Marine and Dawn of War 2 streamline their respective genres into a satisfying laser focused experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with each, and plan on trying out the other two Dawn of War games. I’m also looking forward to eventually getting to play Space Marine 2, when I finally upgrade my CPU. Hopefully by then we’ll finally have an Ork game in the style of Space Marine, WAAAGH!

Final Fantasy II, the bad one /  by Matthew Marchitto

Final Fantasy II is the one entry in the series that is rarely talked about. It always seemed that when listing oldschool FFs, you could find people who had good things to say about one, three, and everything after. But FF2 was oft skipped. I didn’t give it much thought until recently, when I started to become curious. It’s the only game that I knew nothing about. I had no concept of FF2’s characters, villain, abilities, anything.

Most online sentiment for FF2 is not very positive. Particularly for the original release, which was apparently brutal. But, the pixel remaster fixes all that and makes the game far more playable. So, I finally gave FF2 a try.

Too many random encounters

This is agony. The encounter rate is atrocious. It’s way too high, every few steps triggers a fight, making exploring dungeons a chore. The fights themselves are also really easy and straightforward, to the point that I played nearly the whole game on auto-battle. I wasn’t engaged with the combat, just auto-attacking through everything. With such a high encounter rate, I can’t imagine what it would be like if each fight was difficult. I probably would have tapped out and not finished the game.

The high encounter rate makes the pace of the dungeons grueling. Each dungeon is built like a maze, with multiple floors of winding corridors and dead ends. The exit to the next floor isn’t clearly marked, and is usually hidden behind a door. The game loves to fill dungeons with empty rooms, that means you’ll be going in and out of doors with little to no reward, butting up against dead end hallways, and doing it all while the high encounter rate bogs down the whole experience. This makes dungeons a frustrating grind, which is unfortunate considering there isn’t much else to the game other than its dungeons.

Thankfully, the pixel remaster gives you tools to mitigate this. You can turn encounters on and off with the press of a button. And, there is a boost option in the configuration menu that allows you to apply experience multipliers, so you can level up faster by doing less fights. I still find it frustrating that I have to go noodle in the options menus, and turn off combat—a core feature of the game—to enjoy it. I’d much prefer having the encounter rate reduced overall, with more exp from each fight, so we could just play the game from beginning to end without any hinderances. They could’ve added a classic mode for those who wanted to play through a grinder like the original release.

Flat characters

I didn’t find the main cast interesting at all. There’s not much to them, nothing interesting is revealed about their past, and their relationships with the other characters are sterile at best. This is true for almost all the NPCs in the game, from the princess who gives you your early quests, to the final villain. There’s no substance to any of them.

The rotation of guest characters doesn’t fare much better. They all fall into the same category, uninteresting and flat. The only intriguing thing about guest characters are their interesting visual designs, but that only goes so far. Even then, they lack a sense of uniqueness in combat, since each character has the same moveset and spells. Unless you keep the guests with their original weapons, like the dragoon with a spear, there isn’t much that differentiates them. They don’t even get special abilities like jump, steal, chakra, or any of the other Final Fantasy staples. All this makes the guests feel like just another unit, easily replaced with a blank soldier rather than a named character.

Proto-Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy II has many of the hallmarks that would become the norm for the series, like guest characters and character deaths. But, being an early entry in the series, none of it is fleshed out yet. The characters and villains are loosely tied together, but not in a way with any meaningful depth. The guest characters feel shallow, and the deaths are often lacklustre (except one that I thought was well done). All in all, FF2 very much feels like a proto-Final Fantasy. An early version filled with all the narrative beats that would become standout moments in the following games. The characters and story arc even feel like an early version of Final Fantasy IV, like FF2 was the rough draft to FF4’s final edit.

Conclusion

I thinks it’s fascinating from a historical perspective, but on its own I can’t say it’s a good game. I would not recommend playing it, especially if you don’t already have an interest in the history of the series or that of JRPGs. If you do play it, I’d suggest making shameless use of the experience multipliers in the boost menu, and turning encounters off whenever they start to annoy you.

The boost multipliers and toggle for encounters help a lot, but I still find it frustrating that I have to turn off a core aspect of the game. The most fun I had was when encounters were off and I was only fighting monsters from chests and bosses. Which made me wish they’d modified the encounter rate and experience by default, and then gave players some kind of classic option for those that want the grind.

Despite all that, Final Fantasy II grew on me in the end. This is clearly an important part of Final Fantasy’s foundation, one that future FFs would build off of. Even if I can’t wholeheartedly recommend FF2, I’m still glad to have experienced it.

Darkest Dungeon and Narrative Context /  by Matthew Marchitto

Darkest Dungeon combat, Hellion strikes an enemy.

Darkest Dungeon is the best game I’ve played that doesn’t have a plot, and yet has a story. It’s a peculiar distinction to make, but it’s the only way I can think to describe how Darkest Dungeon’s narrative and themes are laced throughout every aspect of the game, without having a point A to point B plot.

Darkest Dungeon is layered in a gothic Lovecraftian aesthetic. You find yourself pitted against tentacled horrors and warped pigmen. The whole game has an oppressive feel, bearing down on you with inescapable hopelessness. It’s phenomenal. This is all communicated with an amazing mix of art and sound that comes together to create a vivid experience.

The final knot that hold the whole experience together, is the ancestor’s voice over.

Conflict and Tragedy

The ancestor’s voice over narrates the entire game, from combat, to the Hamlet (the game’s hub town), and all the little pieces of exposition we’re fed over the course of the game. It’s a low, pained tone that haunts us as we try and clean up the ancestor’s failings.

Darkest Dungeon is inextricably tied to the ancestor’s actions. We see the remnants of his dark rituals, grotesque experiments, and disregard for the townsfolk who were his charge. Each dungeon, each boss, and every broken thing about the Hamlet is the ancestor’s fault.

This is where conflict and tragedy intersect, rooted throughout the game’s design. Each boss is tied to the ancestor’s actions. When you enter a boss dungeon, the ancestor narrates a snippet of that boss’s history. They are always created by the ancestor. A problem that was the result of his greed. And you are there to clean up, throwing body after body at horrors to fix his mess.

In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings...

—Ancestor

The ancestor starts in a position of power. A leader of vague title to the surrounding town. He’s wealthy and wants for nothing. But then his greed and selfish fascination with the Darkest Dungeon drives him to more extreme actions, until his end (this is all shown in the opening cutscene). Which is when the player, as the descendant, enters a derelict and broken Hamlet.

The ancestor starts as a powerful leader, but we enter after the tragedy, when he has already brought himself low and expired from this world. The ruins of the Hamlet, the dangers of the dungeons, are all that’s left of him. And it is all failure.

The minute to minute gameplay is laced with this subtext. Every raised undead and grotesquely summoned monster is reinforcing the ancestors actions. He may be gone, but his failings haunt us. The player is partaking in the tragedy, at the very tail end of it, by throwing heroes into the fray. And our frustration, either when a leveled up hero dies, or we run out of gold, its all part of the hopelessness that hangs over the Hamlet. All initiated by the ancestor. His actions still affecting us.

Plot vs Story

I wouldn’t say Darkest Dungeon has a plot. It may be possible to very loosely apply the boss encounters and build-up to the final dungeon on a plotline, but that feels like a stretch. Really, the game is about grinding out levels while partaking in the gothic fantasy atmosphere. But there is still a story.

The discussion of what plot versus story is can get convoluted, it depends on who you ask. In this context, I separate plot as being the story beats that make the backbone of a narrative. Hero leaves town, meets mentor, encounters villain, climbs Mt. Doom, etc. But lacks all the characterization, worldbuilding, and atmosphere that makes a story complete. The two are so intertwined that is makes sense to not break them apart outside of noodly conversation around narrative.

For games though, the way stories are presented can be very different than other media. Darkest Dungeon might not have the player following a clear route through a plotline, but it’s still enmeshed in story. The narrative permeates every aspect of gameplay. Heroes permadeath frustrates us, makes us angry or hopeless, even feeling like we wasted our time. The background sounds, especially when the torch is at 0%, evoke horrors just beyond our sight. And all of this, the reason we’re sending heroes to die in nightmare wrought landscapes, is because of the ancestor’s actions.

The game design is the narrative. Grinding levels is part of the conflict, a result of the ancestor’s tragedy. One the player strives to push against, despite the consequences of our predecessor’s actions constantly bearing down on us. Each dungeon run has narrative conflict rooted in its foundation, and supports the ancestor’s tragedy. The narrative and game design are so expertly interwoven that it creates an amazing experience. There’s no part of Darkest Dungeon that feels out of place.

If you can’t tell, I’ve been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon lately. I went through the same stages many players do, where at first I got incredibly frustrated, considered dropping it, but then ended up hooked. It’s a peculiar game that can shift from infuriating to comforting once you learn the tactics to deal with each enemy type. But I was particularly struck by how the narrative is tied to the gameplay, it really is phenomenal.

If you haven’t tried it, and you like the sound of a turn-based rogue-like, then I highly recommend Darkest Dungeon.

Make bad art /  by Matthew Marchitto

Photo by Christa Dodoo on Unsplash

I’ve been in a slump recently. Dragging my feet across all metrics, staring at manuscripts, books to-read, blinking cursors on blank pages. I lost it, the urge to keep going, keep writing. Putting one word down, and then the next, seemed so insurmountable. One brick at a time, build that wall.

I think there’s only so many failures most people can take before it grinds them down. The threshold is different for everyone, but there’s a threshold nonetheless. I was confident I’d hit it. Tired of trudging through the muck, knee deep and going nowhere.

And then I ran into this twitter thread, from an account I’d barely ever heard of. For some reason, it flipped a switch. Wtf was I doing? Agonizing over whether my work was good or bad, if it would fit this market or that. I’d lost the plot, started comparing myself to other writers, convinced there was nowhere to go but down.

Fuck it. Make art. Make bad art. Make shit, and then make shit again and again. And when you’re done, start over and make more shit. Just keep making.

I guess sometimes we really do need to hear it from someone else. To see there are others going through the same thing you are. We’re all trudging through the muck together, it doesn’t benefit anyone—least of all yourself—to stop. Keep moving forward, keep making, inch by inch. We’ll build that wall, make some shit, then do it again.

Anyway, I’m probably self-publishing another novella early next year. So subscribe or whatever if you want to know when it happens.

For A Vast Future is really good /  by Matthew Marchitto

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up For a Vast Future. I saw it recommended in a Quartet Kickstarter email, and picked it up on a whim. Advertised as a compact, Gameboy inspired RPG, I couldn’t help but give it a try.

A Vast Apocalypse

For a Vast Future takes place in a beautifully crafted apocalyptic world. You start out as Chel, an orphan who spends her days looking for scrap, until she encounters a cyborg who can’t remember his origins. Promising to help him, and maybe get some loot on the way, the two set out, kicking off the story.

The worldbuilding is fantastic, creating a world scarred by corrupt governments and a desperate war. But to really dig into it, you have to read the optional logs that can be found on bookshelves and interactable computers. Each is short and to the point, but they do an amazing job of laying out the context of the world, revealing the intricacies of the apocalyptic war and the experimental tech that grew out of it.

There are some weaknesses though. I’d describe the game as having a strong plot, but weak story. We move through the twists and turns at a fast clip, and it’s a satisfying pace. But there’s a lack to the character interactions and their role in the story that makes it feel plot driven, but not character driven. It’s a letdown, but not a dealbreaker. And the gameplay more than makes up for it.

Ammo, scrap, and wargear

Combat is turn-based and works around a simple but elegant ammo system, where each character has access to the same pool of ammo types. There’s basic, burn, ice, shock, which are some of the traditional damage types. Then there’s the interesting ones like delay (move enemies’ next turn further back on the timeline), vampire (absorb hp), desperate (deal more damage at low health), and so on. There's also an EXPLODE damage type. Which I find both hilarious and awesome.

Enemies can have strengths and weaknesses, where certain damage types deal more or less damage. The difference between a strength and weakness is significant, so it’s incentivized to try and exploit weaknesses to keep battles from turning into a slog. Especially after the first quarter of the game, because spamming attacks with basic ammo starts to do much less damage.

Then there’s wargear, which is stuff like first aid kits, grenades, and items that invoke a temporary weakness, like the oil can making enemies weak to burn damage. To my surprise, the simplicity of all this together made it so that I would be regularly using wargear, as it’s extremely effective, especially when you upgrade a character’s dexterity stat (it increases wargear’s damage).

In most games I tend to ignore damage items, but in For a Vast Future I used them constantly. It was made more fun since you can craft wargear with scrap. So if you need more grenades or tasers, you can get it from a junk-o-tron as long as you have the requisite scrap. And you get a ton of scrap, I never found myself wanting for basic items.

All of this works together in a simple yet satisfying system. Defeating enemies by using their weaknesses, getting a bunch of ammo and scrap after each battle, then stopping at a junk-o-tron to craft more wargear to defeat more enemies. I found it to be a lot of fun. There’s an elegance to the simplicity of its design.

Do I recommend it?

Yes.

The only letdown are the characters, who I wish we’d gotten more time with to fully flesh them out. Otherwise, fun combat with a straightforward ammo and crafting system, a fascinating apocalyptic world, and a compact 10 hour playtime make this an easy recommendation. For a Vast Future is a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone looking for an old school RPG experience.

Check it out on Steam.

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Ebooks on sale until January 1st, 50% off via Smashwords /  by Matthew Marchitto

My novellas, Moon Breaker and The Horned Scarab, are both on sale for 50% off via Smashword’s 2022 End of Year Ebook Sale. And it’s not just my ebooks, there are tons of titles in a whole variety of genres on sale. If you like indie books, or are looking for something new and weird, then now’s a great time to peruse Smashword’s catalogue.

You can find all the ebooks enrolled in the sale here.

Moon Breaker

Koll doesn't want to be a leader, and he doesn't want to be like his father. But he's too afraid to change, to speak.

His cowardice may destroy his home.

Koll must hunt a Stone Eater, claim its hide, and become his tribe’s Moonwarden. Can he overcome the beast’s terrifying power, or will he never see his home again?

Nala hates tradition, hates the way it binds her people and roots them to the ground. When her brother, Koll, leaves, she's left alone and isolated amid burgeoning lies.

No one will listen.

A mysterious death leads Nala to uncover long buried secrets. Her trust has been misplaced, and the people of her tribe aren't what they seem. The truth will bring justice to her people, but might tear her family apart.

Grab a copy of Moon Breaker here.

The Horned Scarab

Arn knows better than to get embroiled with the city's crime lords, but when a monk turns up dead and a panicked old friend fears for his life, Arn has no choice but to set things right. He'll get dragged deep into Ghorad-Gha's underbelly, where the biggest, baddest crime boss reigns, The Horned Scarab.

Ghorad-Gha, once magnificent city of clay and bronze, crumbles. Those prosperous few burden the shoulders of the downtrodden. In a city of forgotten glory, the lawless thrive.

Grab a copy of The Horned Scarab here.

Keep an eye out for the next issue of my newsletter, where we’ll get back to video game shenanigans. This time with a Gameboy inspired RPG.

Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale 🚀 /  by Matthew Marchitto

Smashwords Read an Ebook Week sale is kicking off! There’s a whole bunch of indie ebooks in the the sale that you can snag at a discount. From 75% to 50% off or even free!

And I’m participating!! You can get 50% off both ebooks of The Horned Scarab and Moon Breaker. The discount codes are automatically applied to all enrolled ebooks, so all you have to do is purchase them via Smashwords. AND! The great thing about Smashwords is you get DRM-free files, so you can load these ebooks onto whatever your preferred device is.

You’ll have to login or create an account in order to checkout, but once you have an account all your purchased works will remain available for re-download.

Check out The Horned Scarab

Check out Moon Breaker

Thanks for reading!