BoundWorlds
The Collaborative Mutliverse Project
Videos:
Open Alpha TrailerEarly Gameplay Video (Protea Demo)Early Gameplay Video (Harlequin Epicycle Battle)Detailed Features Explanation VideoLegendary Dungeons TrailerTutorial Video PlaylistWhat is BoundWorlds?BoundWorlds is a "massively single player" browser-based RPG/exploration game/level editor with a twist.
In it, you play as a nameless traveler who wanders from world to world through portals called 'Gates', meeting NPCs, solving puzzles, overcoming obstacles, and exploring the collective dreamscape that is the BoundWorlds universe. But that's only half of the game. Because all of the worlds you explore are drawn, designed, and patched together by players such as yourself.
Unlike most 'design your own level' games, the BoundWorlds 'Hub' is not a point where all the levels are accessed. Instead, it serves only as the starting point on your traveler's journey. When designing a world, you can create exits that lead to whichever world you choose. BoundWorlds has a cohesive, network-like geography as a result.
You don't have to design a full game to create a part of the BoundWorlds network. One player's dungeon can become a part of another player's overworld. An artfully designed hallway can serve as a corridor between two separate worlds. A painting-filled castle in the sky can become a nexus for multiple levels designed by different players. And so on...
You can explore the BoundWorlds universe without logging in, but you need to log in to save data or create worlds.
Arrow keys: Move
Space bar: Interact
Shift: Lock on
Z: Dash/Attack
X: Defend
C: Dodge
Escape: Pause
Q: Menu/Inventory
Create worlds, rooms, and gates to link them together
Tag-based random path system - use tags to describe the location of a Gate and the location you want it to link to, and the game will try to find an appropriate target
Media file sharing system - upload custom images or sounds for your own use or for other players
Media credits system - Associate a media file with one or more names and websites for use in an automatic credits reel.
Create unlimited layers in any room - allows multiple tilesets and pseudo-3D geography (by moving the player between layers)
Upload parallax-scrolling, transparent, and rotating background images for panorama effects
Built-in object interaction system allows easy creation of talking NPCs, switches, collectibles, healing pads, mutators, and more
Built-in combat customization system - customize enemy behaviors and techniques
Transform the player into any custom object or creature
Gain points by players passing through your world and collecting sparks
Advanced Scripting system allows you to make collectible items, key doors, jump/teleport pads, cutscenes, custom variables, collisions, and more...you can set almost any in-game variable directly!
Flowcharts for creating extensive dialogue trees and cutscenes
Collectible items that can be used to run custom functions or equipped to give the player custom abilities
Item shops
Custom status effects
Packaging system lets you share your objects and tilesets for other players to import into their worlds
Persistent items that can store data over multiple sessions
Persistent rooms
OpenGameArt.org has a ton of resources, most of which fall under a Creative Commons (CC) license. You can use these legally provided you credit the author using the media file credits system.
Sparks are the game's "basic collectibles". You can increase them using the scripting system (by targeting the @.$ variable) or through basic player interactions. Sparks can be saved between worlds, but there are limits to how many sparks a player can collect. This is to prevent world builders from simply loading up their worlds with sparks.
The total sparks a player can collect when leaving a world is capped by the number of seconds they spent in that world.
In addition, the world builder gains sparks from players passing through their world, based on how many sparks the visitor collects, up to one fifth of the cap. Any sparks the player collects exceeding this will reduce the sparks gained by the world builder. If they reach the cap, the world builder gets nothing.
This means that, to maximize their benefit from visitors, a world builder should make it impossible for a player to collect more sparks than the number of seconds they are expected to spend in that world, but make it easy to collect one-fifth of this amount. You can estimate the amounts by opening the menu (Q), which shows you the amount of sparks collected and the amount of time you have spent in the world.
Note: By its very nature, BoundWorlds uses "Loose Canon". The lore written here is merely a starting point for world builders who want something coherent to build on. Feel free to reinterpret or ignore it.
Worlds are connected through the Void. Travel between them is generally impossible except through Gates, which form spontaneously between worlds.
Gates typically appear in caves, holes, and out-of-the-way places. Most inhabitants of worlds cannot see Gates and most worlds are unaware of their existence.
The entirety of the BoundWorlds universe (including both worlds and the Void between them) is sometimes called "The Great Dream" or "The Matrix of Creation" by those who understand its nature.
Some lone wanderers may travel to other worlds, but this is rare.
Thought and reality are unstable in the Void. People who pass from world to world may be transformed into a shape reflecting the way they think of themselves.
Gates are connected in both time as well as space. When returning to a world after leaving it, wanderers will usually find themselves back in an earlier time.
As wanderers become more aware of the inconsequential nature of their actions, many become detached from humanity. Over time, many transform into formless wisps or monsters.
The player may take on the form of lost wanderers by absorbing or touching the wisps they left behind.
Mementos - physical objects representing the memory of actions - can allow those actions to persist even when travelling between worlds. Travelers who hold onto mementos are therefore less likely to become monsters.
The Ancients lived in the distant past of many worlds. They built labyrinthine structures (called both "temples" and "dungeons") but most people don't know why.
The reason for these structures are to "draw the attention of gods". They believed the gods took on human form and sought out challenges. By creating labyrinths to challenge them, they would remain in a world.
The Ancients also believed in a "World Eater" that would devour any world that failed to draw the attention of the gods.
The World Eater is believed to be at the "center" of the Great Dream, and may be trapped by it.
The Ancients performed a "Ritual of Ascension" that would allow their bodies to be possessed by these gods. Such possessed bodies are called "Icons". You (the player) are one of these. Very, very few people should be aware of this.
Fragments of incomplete worlds drift through the Void. Acolytes are often found at the boundaries of these incomplete worlds.
Acolytes are similar to monsters, but they have chosen to help the player. They have a degree of "meta" knowledge and may convey out-of-game information when applicable.
More advanced AI behavior
NPC allies and RTS-type controls
Using "drop" tiles to create platforming sections
Transition effects
Auto-generated Credits reel
Pathfinding AI for NPCs
More stock puzzle behavior - block puzzles, etc.
Particle and lighting effects
The Pendragon series (original inspiration for a "multiverse connected by gates" game)
Yume Nikki (made me realize that a disjointed patchwork universe game could work)
Illusion of Gaia (some story elements and aesthetic choices)
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Topic: BoundWorlds: An action-adventure game with an insanely powerful level editor (Read 148551 times)