The Video Game Vivesectionists: Persona 3: FES, "Pimpin' Ain't Easy Mode"

Disclaimer: The following dialogue was severely edited to make it easier to read in a blog post. Some, or most elements we discussed have been moved around to make the commentary flow better, while observations made after the fact were inserted along with dialogue fabricated to support it as part of the conversation. Other comments were removed entirely for the sake of brevity. With that said the spirit of the conversation was kept as close as possible to its original cadence.

Now I'm going to admit I don't know everything about video games, and one of the best ways to learn is to play games and analyse them critically. Having another perspective makes the analysis all the richer so I brought in my old friend Joe to tackle breaking down Persona 3: FES to see what they did right and what they could have done better. Me and Joe will be providing tag team commentary as we play through, learning what we can from a close examination of the game play and narrative.

Joe: My commentary will be in italics from now here on out, because italics are cool.

Right, let's get this game rolling.

Okay, this pre-game anime music video intro cinematic is pretty visually dynamic, although the upbeat lyrics contrast strongly with the grim phantoms of madness and symbolic suicide.

Maybe that's the point, a bit of J-Pop sugar to help the medicine go down?

Yeah, I'm starting to think the upbeat tempo and flashes of the characters having fun is to balance out the really heavy emotions were going to start exploring. There are some pretty strong psychological reading just from what we're seeing in this opening animated intro.

The title screen is white on bright blue, it's good to see that just because we're dealing with some dark themes doesn't mean everything has to be dark in the literal sense of the word.

Press any button to start.

Do they really mean that, I wonder? I mean I'm kind of swamped for options. I don't know if it's just sticking on this controller or what but I don't think it took my right shoulder button input.

Try all the non-standard buttons.

The "Analog" button doesn't do anything, that's a button and I know I pressed it. Alright enough messing around, the musical intro reset itself while we were being dense, the good news is you can skip it. While we're establishing a Save File, do you have any thoughts so far Joe?

A bit too early to make any serious calls, but I'm digging the art style. Everybody is tall and thin with a lot of sharp lines, the distinct characters we saw in the music intro had strong silhouettes where you could tell who was who just by their basic shape. Now that we're in the opening cinematic, it's carrying over with the environments too, that open air mall had a plastic, sterilized consumerist feel to it, while the train here goes from well lit and safe, to dark and scary with the light change from entering the tunnel, very well designed.

Going back to the open air mall for a second, the first thing we saw when the cut scene began was the protagonist passing by one of those LED video billboards, advertising some kind of soft drink featuring a woman in a bikini, then they smash cut right to one of the female leads frightened out of her mind fumbling to kill herself with a gun. Well, that's what it looks like, from the musical opening sequence we saw the characters summoning weird monsters by shooting themselves in the head, so I assume that's whats really going on here.

So what's your point? What's the bikini lady got to do with anything?

I think it's an intentional comparison, the commercial image of the sexualized female object versus the reality of the extremely sympathetic and human girl we are about to meet.

That's kind of a shallow moral though, it's been made better in more clear terms in other works. It's dropped right afterward to focus on the player's character.

Well yeah, but I get the sense they're really just setting the tone. I'm half tempted to believe we might get a serious and nuanced discussion of sex and gender in a video game.

Okay, you stay on the look out for that, I'll focus on the narrative. By the way to get you caught up we just got off a mystery train and are wandering around a forest of coffins... and now what I can only assume is the devil is asking us to sign a contract. Oh, that's a clever way to get the player to put in his character name, and I'm guessing this contract is going to come up later in the story, so we're kicking things off with a firm integration of story and game play.

I got distracted writing things down after the PA on the train told us we were going to die, what exactly is this contract about?

When did the PA tell us we were going to die? I didn't hear that. The contract was just about "taking responsibility for our actions," by the way.

It was real quick there, at the end of the station announcement.

I think you hallucinated that.

I think that's what the games wants me to think.

So the game made me not hear the PA say that?

Probably, it's a very good game, that's real immersion right there. Anyways what are we going to name this guy?

[After some pretty boring discussion we settle on Quinn McQueen some how].

Ah, one of those in engine cut scenes where you have to press X in order to advance the dialogue, I'm actually a big fan of these provided the information they're giving you is actually relevant. They keep you in the game world, the same space where you play is where narrative elements occur as well, you can see your characters effect on the world without having to shift into some other medium.

So do you think the anime intro on a train takes us out of the game? I felt it really established the tone and style of the game and gave us a lot of important plot information in a fun aesthetically pleasing way.

I'm of mixed feelings about it really, I understand the desire, perhaps even the need to show important events in a punchier style than in engine renderings. It makes sense to get the exposition out of the way as painlessly as possible and these lavishly drawn animations can make some of it down right enjoyable to watch. On the other hand, there is no reason we as the player couldn't have wandered around the forest of standing coffins after getting off the train, in fact it was the perfect opportunity to hand over control to the players. Considering everybody has been transformed into coffins and nothing was working, then the player would have no choice other than to make their way to the dorms to advance, getting a chance to wander around in this weird twilight existence, perhaps being menaced by the lurking shadow creatures to give a real taste of the dread they were trying to get across in the animation. They did a good job getting the feeling of creeping fear across in the cut scene as is, but if we were controlling the character just then, the horror would've been a lot more personal.

Maybe, but there is a lot of material for the player to cover already. Keep in mind we're at the beginning of a ninety-hour epic and some people just want to cut to the chase already. Speaking of which let's actually advance the in game dialogue.

Ooh, hey a red headed girl.

What was all of this about a nuanced exploration of sex and gender?

Well no, I didn't mean it like that, it's just that it's the title the game gives to her. It also called this other girl we're talking to, "Brown Haired Girl." It sort of seems to me that this is how the main character thinks of women, by their physical traits. Not that this is necessarily an indictment of the game, but rather just characterization of the main character.

I've got two issues with that idea Eddie, one that it's just a stand in title until we get their actual names. See now that they've introduced themselves the red haired girl is Mitsuru and the other is Yukari. Secondly the main character is definitely just a blank slate everyman who the player(s in this case), project themselves onto. I mean look at him, his color palette is equal parts black and white.

I stand by what I said, I'm willing to bet that if we meet a male character we don't know yet they will not be characterized by a physical attribute, but rather as "nervous man" or "smart student." As to your second comment, I wouldn't say he's not characterized at all, you can tell by his posture that he doesn't at all care to be here, he's drawn with a small mouth relative to the others meaning he isn't going to be saying much of anything and he's perpetually wearing ear buds, a sure symbol of social isolation in modern life.

I'd take that wager if I were a gambling man, also I think those visuals are meant to convey that Quinn here isn't being influenced by his surroundings, and it's just our input that affects what he does.

He might not care about what's going on around him, but this seems pretty interesting to me and to an extent I am him. If he's a silent protagonist then his expression should be more neutral.

We'll see if he's characterized any more down the road then, but I doubt it. Speaking of, how are we going to play this guy?

Good question, at the end of this cut scene I really want to rifle through other characters stuff. There's been so much plot so far that I really want to stretch my legs by invading other peoples privacy. How about you, how do you want to play him?

I don't know, from the few dialogue choices we've made so far, he seems like kind of a jerk or at the very least kind of arrogant, maybe the implicit characterisation you mentioned earlier is bringing that across. I also want to leave no stone unturned here, but more for practical reasons. They say this game is really hard and we're probably going to need every advantage we can get.

Yeah, I sort of limited myself to cursory knowledge of the game so I wouldn't stumble across spoilers. What exactly are we getting into here? What's game play like, you've got the box and manual over there.

The basic premise is you play through a standard school year as this kid. During the day you go to school and investigate the town, having conversations with people and stuff, while at night you can explore this dungeon fighting monsters and getting treasure, experience, you know the regular RPG stuff.

So does the day time game play cross over with the night time game play?

Well these Persona's the game's about get stronger based on the "Social Links" you make, and having the right Persona's equipped will help you make Social Links, at least that's what the manual says. Basically the daytime game is like a visual novel and nighttime game is a dungeon crawl.

Huh, it's cool that both modes of game play influence each other we'll have to see how they balance each other out. There seem to be a lot of juxtaposed elements in this game, the different play styles for day and night, the light tone clashing with the heavy subject matter, and I'll bet we hit a few more as we go.

Your starting to develop a gambling problem Eddie, I think it's about time for an intervention. Anyways, we're basically just manipulating peoples emotional attachment to us for our own personal gain.

That seems to be the long and short of it.

So basically we're a pimp.

Er...

I mean we should play him like he's one. Always taking emotional advantage of others and is just an entirely irredeemable jerk who insincerely plays to peoples emotions for his own good.

That's awful, but probably consistent with how he'll come across anyways, and it's not likely were aren't going to keep coming back to it even if decide on something else now that you've said that. Who knows, we might learn something from this.

I doubt it though. That school uniform sort of reminds me of a track suit, I'm imagining this guy as like one of those big hairy mafia guys with a cheesy gold chain who owns several, "gentleman's clubs," and dabbles in human trafficking.

I hope he's not above a few B and E's because we are kicking in the doors of any room that doesn't belong to us and stealing their stuff.

Go for it man.

What the hell is this crap? Most of these rooms are empty except for their furnishings, with nothing to take.

If I had to guess I'd say these are the rooms that other party members move into after you've recruited them.

Still though, there was literally nothing to steal, we actually lost money exploring the dorm by buying a soda. The rooms that weren't unoccupied were locked, they wouldn't even come to the door.

Well those two girls are still down stairs, I guess the dorm rooms have their own keys or card access.

Yeah, but that Akihiko guy didn't even come to the door, and I know he's in there.

What if there are not items to be had in the overworld except by buying them in shops or the like and you have to get everything else and the money to pay for them by killing monsters and exploring dungeons?

Whoa, that possibility hadn't really crossed my mind. I'm just so used to getting items right off the bat that it didn't really occur to me that was an option.

Maybe the game developers have enough faith in the world they made that they assumed you'd want to explore it for it's own sake rather than incentivize exploration based purely on mechanical gain?

A novel idea, let's see if this bears out.

Hey look, we're finally done with the first day, which we started in the extremely late evening. It takes the game a long time to get anywhere, huh?

Maybe it's just the plot parts that drag, I'm sure once we get into the game play the pace will pick up.

Whoops, spoke too soon, we got a cut scene. Looks like everybody in this dorm is part of a massive conspiracy to surreptitiously videotape us sleeping.

It's over now, that was basically just boiler plate "he's the chosen one," dialogue anyways, they had to get it out of the way early and by making it all conspiratorial it builds suspense. Now it's the first day of school, apparently Yukari is going to be acting as our Navi, telling us where to go every ten seconds. Oh hey, she actually left us, that was kind of rude.

You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone man. Now we've got to find the board with the class list on our own, times like these are when you wish you did have the annoying tutorial character to point the way. On the plus side, we've already raised a few eye-brows by walking to school with Yukari. Already building up our reputation.

I don't remember everybody being this childish about these sorts of things when I was an anime character enrolled in a Japanese high school.

Those were the days. Okay, we've got our class schedule, now we've got to check in at the office. FYI I tried robbing other peoples shoe lockers and nothing. Also of note is that we can't intentionally avoid going to the office, If I try to go up the stairs it says, "I should really go to the Administrative Office."

This does not bode well for my RPG kleptomania. Let's see what the home room teacher has to say.

Apparently we're an orphan, our parents died ten years ago. I'd like to think that after that we were left to learn hard lessons on the street and began our slide into the depths of crime.

And I'd like to think that we're the one who killed them, we're a self made orphan.

Wow, I'm just going to go ahead and pay attention to this school assembly. The principle is telling us that anything worth doing is worth doing well and to take the time to yada-yada. He also had something about responsibility in there, which has come up a couple of times earlier, seems to be an important theme.

I wonder if that'll come up in game play, maybe you get chewed out if you take on a boss monster you aren't ready for and you leave one of your party bleeding out on the floor.

Back at the dorm, we're still being railroaded with my all time favorite RPG plot advancement line, "Why don't you go get some sleep?" Because at midnight the world is going to shift into a day for night filter and demons will swallow my soul. Also because Yukari, the person telling me to get some sleep is visibly carrying a gun in an ankle holster. Despite all this I have no choice but to go to sleep and get murdered at worst, spied on at best.

Huh, I didn't think they'd show him being spied on a second time, although they're mostly just throwing around some plot words like Shadows, Persona and the Dark Hour.

School time and two girls gossiping about something called Apathy Disease, whose symptoms sound exactly like severe depression. Why they would call it a disease and not a disorder or syndrome is beyond me, let alone why they wouldn't classify it as a form of depression. However I'm fairly sure it's just what happens when Shadows eat your soul or whatever it is they do to you.

Maybe there are other symptoms, like a slight fever? Crippling melancholy and a temperature in the low 100's. More importantly who the hell is this Junpei kid and why should we give him the right answer to the question the teacher just asked?

Look at his bugged out eyes man, he's almost definitely the drug hook up at this school. On a more practical level we have to worry about getting those Social Links, but the I'm going to justify it as him being a weed hook up.

Well it gave us a Charm increase, which is cool, but I mean seeing how we correctly answered an academic question, shouldn't we get Academics points too?

Eh, that wasn't so much book smarts as pimp smarts.

Is there a difference between street smarts and pimp smarts?

Pimp smarts are smarter.

Okay after skipping through the rest of the "day," I think we're finally to some combat here. Evil monsters are assailing the dormitory and just about to batter down the door. Yukari and me are told to make a run for it, but I can just tell we're going to run into trouble. The backdoor is blocked off so we're heading for the roof, Yukari is trying to explain what exactly is trying to kill us, but following the first rule of horror movie exposition, no one ever starts to explain something in daylight, when it's safe.

Yes Yukari, let's do climb to the roof, that way we'll be cornered by the evil monsters for sure. Well at least we get into some combat here after another cut scene, I don't know why he thought it was a good idea to shoot himself in a head, with that device they made look like a gun for some reason. I mean I get the symbolism, but I wish they'd explain why it looks likes a gun in game.

Maybe they will, but right now we're stuck in a can't lose, "a slime approaches," encounter, it doesn't really show off the combat system in full, although from what I'm seeing it's all about summoning Persona's, rather than have them be a game stopping cinematic attack like in a Final Fantasy.

Annnd now we're in a coma, goodnight everybody. Hey, this Igor guy looks cool, I respect him as a pimp contemporary.

He does have a pretty sweet pad, and at least we're getting some straight answers out of him. I trust this trans dimensional, horribly deformed Fae creature implicitly. I get the feeling he deals on the square.

He respects our game is all. Wow, we were out for a week, after experiencing a few days in game, being out of commission for a week is really put into perspective, I feel like we lost something there. The passage of time appears to be a big deal in this game, with important story events tied to certain days, you really get the feeling that you should be making the most of your time.

Yukari is at our bedside when we woke up, I guess she just likes watching us sleep.

It's nice to have a hobby.

It's quality viewing, you know this show is just getting off the ground, but I think this snoring sub-plot is going places, but I hope they don't go a really corny route and write in night terrors for Sweeps just for the ratings.

I'll wait until they collect the whole season on Netflix, make a weekend out of it.

Okay finally getting the full story here. Apparently we are now part Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad. I'm sorry, Extracurricular? This is a complete joke of a shadow government.

It's a shadow student government. They rig student elections by using their mob connections to stuff the shoe box with a hole cut in the top with fake ballots.

Shake down the school choir bake sale for protection money, flipping over the table with the sugar cookies when they try and welsh on us, and not soft sugar cookies, but those hard ones with the overly granulated colored sugar sprinkled on the top that taste awful. Then we're off to put in the fix on the cake raffle.

Declaring war on Riverton Vocational without informing either house of the PTA.

We are going to abuse this power for all it's worth. Speaking of abusing power, I'm a little disappointed we couldn't call a nurse from our hospital bed just for the fun of it like Yukari recommended. There haven't been a lot of options so far.

It'll open up when we get to the game proper, we'll certainly appreciate all the choices a lot more after not having them for awhile, another intentional contrast I think.

I don't know, I think maybe they just didn't have the resources to make all these options available. By way of resources, I'm calling it right now that somebody else will end up in this exact same hospital room because it's too elaborate of a set to just use once.

Along with genre savvy, we seem to have the super power of rapid healing, because the same day we get out of a coma, we are back in school. Mitsuru is of course elected student body president, her opponents having mysteriously disappeared in weeks prior. Also Yukari seems to be pretty passive aggressive about Mitsuru being team leader, I smell a cat fight.

Nah, it's just a way to get back story in, explaining how her dad died ten years ago in an accident involving the company Mitsuru's dad owns. So much for your genre savvy.

Hey, ten years ago is when our parents bought the farm.

You think we killed them too?

No, I think they were all involved in the same conspiracy or whatever and we're inheriting their problems, seeing how they're all lousy parents. How's that for genre savvy?

I'd say that's not genre savvy enough, Yukari mentioned they never found her dads body afterward, right?

Oh, so you think he's still alive and just a dead beat? No pun intended.

No, my theory is that our character is actually Yukari's dad hurled backward through time and somehow reverse aged and we have amnesia. It explains our characters lack of back story completely.

I think you're being too genre savvy. And Junpei continues to just barely get by in school, by virtue of our residual pimp smarts. Oh and the on screen narration afterward is priceless, "You go home with Junpei, laughing loudly at inappropriate jokes." It's official, we're all kinds of spliffed up right now.

Any other 1950's jazz musician slang you want to throw at us?

Shh, plot is happening, there is a new member on the team, oh hey it's Junpei! Whoo, now I don't need to leave the dorm for weed. Although I'm kind of mad they just let him in instantly after discovering he can stay awake during the Dark Hour when they spied on us for the better part of the week.

Speaking of, I don't remember ever agreeing to be part of this organization, they're pretty much responsible for putting us in a week long coma and driving us to attempt suicide, we had no idea that the weird gun like device summoned our Persona, we were just trying to end it all before we got devoured by a shadow monster. That first time on the roof was self defense, but I'm not about to intentionally risk my life fighting these monsters, I'm transferring out of this mad house.

Come on man, if we sign up we get one of those cool guns and also we really don't have a choice in the matter, this Ikutski guy is pretty much pulling our strings here.

That guy with his lame puns, "The early bird gets the bookworm." Then later he says, "Please forgive the lame pun." No Ikutski, I will never forgive that pun, you knew it was a bad pun and went through with it anyways. I will see you dead by my hands before this thing is over.

Pimp justice is harsh, but fair. Anyways, let's get ready to dungeon crawl! Apparently Tartarus is the only dungeon in he game, it's just a matter of how high you go in the tower. Save up real quick and let's start killing monsters.

Well at least there's stuff to loot here, but the monsters are the same ones from the roof, no real variation. These fights do an admirable job explaining the basics of combat, but we're two hours in here. Also Mitsiru is a total spoil sport only letting us explore the first level of Tartarus. Just run us through the tutorials and let us at it for crying out loud. As much as the support character who always butts in and tells you way more than you want to know annoys me as a matter of practice, as a regular character Mitsuru is actually pretty compelling from what we've seen so far. She comes off as knowledgeable and capable, while projecting an air of authority, without becoming a stereotypical "ball buster," female commander.

And she drives a motorcycle... in a skirt for some reason. Although having her sit this first mission out makes her seem like kind of a coward, although it makes Akihiko look even worse by comparison, at least she's providing field support, he's doing a whole lot of nothing. Poor Akihiko, legendary ass-kicker got hurt fighting the shadows a week ago and is still too banged up to go on the mission. I was in a coma for a week and just got out yesterday you wimp. Does he have some kind of hemophilia or something?

That would explain why he's always wearing that band-aid.

Mission accomplished and Junpei picked up an item for us without us even telling him to, I officially declare him awesome. Okay back to school, whoops there's some kid who wants to talk to us.

Hah, you owe me a nickle, he's called "Kid in Striped Shirt," and not distinguished by any of his physical characteristics whatsoever in his title.

I totally didn't take that bet. Okay, stay awake in class for pimp smarts. Ooh hey, we can actually, like do stuff now, join clubs talk to people, wander the city, the works. But first Akihiko wants to meet him at the police station, after breaking the hearts of every young thing in the school yard. He is challenging our status as top pimp.

Hopefully we aren't going to the police to turn me in for the murder of my parents.

Well after trying to go everywhere other than the police station and having Junpei drag me away each time, it turns out it's this games equivalent to a weapons store, that's actually pretty clever, a store selling weapons to teenage kids wouldn't make any sense at all really. That and having the police on your bank roll really adds legitimacy to what was formerly a pretty sorry excuse for a conspiracy.

I don't know, it actually makes the SEES seem even more lame, this just one police officer, not the whole force, and he found us out on his own, we didn't like flip him or anything. It's not so much suborning the cops into our massive bootlegging operation, and more one cop who bought his nephew some booze at the package store to drink out in the woods.

I'll agree with that assessment on the grounds that it makes Akihiko look like a chump. Anyways now we're free to do whatever for real. Let's go watch a movie at the theater, by ourselves, like a total creep.

Sitting right behind one family, smoking a huge cigar and laughing really, really loudly I hope.

Naturally, also to make this even more pathetic, it's a film festival, we saw three films back to back without any friends, even Junpei wouldn't hang out with us.

Evening consular...

The games telling us to go back to the dorms now. Apparently we should to to Mitsuru if we want to go to Tartarus, or we can do our own thing, the curfew is lifted.

Huzzah, but we're just about out of time! My how three hours fly. Next time we'll have a crack at actual combat and revel in our freedom.

As all good pimps do.

Thanks for coming out Joe. We'll have to do this again sometime.

Shots At Random: How About That Weather We've Been Having? Part 2

Monday's post introduced the idea that making the weather relatively uniform throughout a game might add a strong element of continuity to the games theme and story. However it's not enough to let this theory stand on base assertion, actually providing a quick overview of a game with a consistent weather effect in place and seeing how it enhances the game setting.

In Darkened Skies our theoretical console action RPG, the previously idyllic realm of Delus is subject to non-stop rain, as a curse from the Gods for the mortals hubris. Clouds blanket the entire continent and no matter where the player goes they are subject to rain in one form or another, obviously this causes serious trouble to the inhabitants of the land, crops get washed out, floods are constant, huge collections of standing water are rife with disease and pestilence, not to mention the general malaise caused by the unceasing poor weather. Obviously it is up to the player character and his plucky band of adventurers to go on a quest to stop the rain and make all right with the world.

We're only one paragraph into the planning phase and already we've hit the standard fantasy cliches of Gods punishing mankind's hubris and epic quests overcome a curse. We will be using a lot of stock fantasy scenarios while plotting out Darkened Skies for two reason: Firstly, we want to focus on how the consistent element of weather improves the plot and having a familiar starting place will make that all the easier. Secondly, the narrative tropes are tried and true in hundreds of previous works of fiction and are often a great place to start when writing. Most stories have already been told by somebody, now all that's left is to put a new spin on these twice told tales to liven them up, here that little something extra is the rain.

To start out, a brief exercise to generate, let's say eight, locations for the players to explore in game, not straying too far from fantasy conventions. We could go back to my old trick of looking at water sources, but I'm guessing in this world just about any settlement short of a major metropolis can support itself with collected rain water, so we're free to get a bit more free form. First we paint them in broad strokes.

1. Obviously the people of Delus need some place to live, so let's start with a city, it's local geography isn't really important except to say it is on some manner of high ground like a series of low hills. To create conflict via architecture we'll say that the city, let's call her Stonewash, is built in two tiers, the upper city reserved for the elite of society, while the poor and needy live down below, instant class conflict. In order to keep the unwashed rabble down, Stonewash has a pretty powerful military, not to mention a healthy population of rich upper-crusters and a pool of easily exploitable labor down in the gutter means they're probably pretty well off economically as well.
2. Let's give Stonewash a rival city, more magically minded, with sorcerer powered street lamps, arcane arms and armor, as well as a whole "sufficiently advanced magic that's indistinguishable from technology" vibe. Stonewash's bitter rival, Highspire, innovates as opposed to the formers reliance on more traditional sensibilities, focusing on a smaller, more elite military and devastating battle magic. Citizens are treated ore equally in Highspire, the city is all on the same level, although some of the populous has moved below ground to out from the rain. It goes without saying that they are at war with Stonewash.
3. A wretched hive of scum and villainy tucked away far from the patrols that would have all in this den of thieves hanged. How about Withermarsh?
4. The Sword Plains, where great armies have met in battle and the unquiet spirits of slain soldiers stalk their former battlefield still fighting battles long since over, and new conflicts await on the horizon.
5. The Sorrow Ridge Mountains, intimidating slopes nearly too high to climb by man, said to be home to vicious monsters.
6. The Twisted Wood, a deep dark forest filled with the scarier parts of nature with many who explore it's depths never coming back out.
7. The Wracked Coast, a long stretch of coastline teeming with the beasts of the deep and pirates.
8. The Sundered Hills, located a short distance from Stonewash, this outlying region rests right on the contested border between Stonewash's and Highspire's territory and as such is heavily fortified. A few settlements lie in the region, mostly farmers eking out whatever they can in the dreadful climate, but some old ruins can also be found in the area that might be worth exploring.

We'll come back to these place in a moment, but first let's develop the general history of Delus to have some idea of what to put in these places. We will do this with a few bullet points consisting of no more than a sentence for each historical epoch, it's important to not get overly involved in histories in the early stages, you can always go back and add more to them later.

• In the beginning the Gods created the earth, and the most favored of their creations were the humans.
• For a time the Gods walked among men and taught them the ways of magic.
• Eventually the Gods got bored with humans and went back to the Skyhall, leaving the humans without much warning or instruction.
• The humans expanded their knowledge of magic to the point where they could control the weather, ensuring bountiful harvests.
• The Gods discovered the humans tampering with the natural scheme of things, which was generally messing with their divine plan, so they put an end to the humans weather magic and cursed them with unending rain.
• In the age of heroes, a group of powerful humans consisting of members from both Stonewash and Highspire set off on a quest to restore the weather to its previous natural cycle, they are lost to history and to all appearances the weather actually gets worse sometime after they stop reporting back.
• Stonewash and Highspire blame each other for the spectacular failure of the expedition and kick off a series of on again off again wars between the two great powers that still simmer to this day.
• Present day, your band gets together and heads out on their quest.

Alright, now let's take those places from earlier and add in the elements from the history and the weather as well as fleshing out each and giving them one defining feature apiece.

• Stonewash: The upper plate of Stonewash literally overcasts the districts below, continuing the the theme of having the sky blocked out. It occurs to me that having a roof over ones head in a constant downpour is actually a benefit, so let's say that people actually pay a premium for properties beneath the upper plate, most businesses are located their to keep their goods and clientele dry. The less fortunate are forced into the slums that surround the shelter of the upper plate to slog through the muddy streets and survive as best they can. The upper plate is naturally reserved for the wealthy and military leadership of Stonewash, enclosed in a glass dome to keep the rain out. To give it an extra little flavor we can say faulty drainage caused a bit of a flood in one section of the top plate, and the local supports couldn't handle the weight of all the water, causing that section to collapse onto the city below. The section has yet to be rebuilt, and now the few straggling columns of upper plate architecture and the homes below are still left to ruin, rife for exploration.
  Defining Feature- The wealthy of Stonewash have spared no expense to create a magical miniature sun for the upper plate enclosure, ensuring that they live in relative simulated comfort. This is a luxury that the lower classes can only dream of experiencing and is the crown jewel of Stonewash.
• Highspire: Located several leagues from Stonewash across the "Plain" of Swords, Highspire attempts to rise above it all. Treating it's citizens relatively fairly and subsisting on magically treated crops that withstand the drenching rain, Highspire seems to be coping with the curse of the Gods better than anywhere else. This is due largely to their surplus of magic, all bent towards overcoming the ill effects of the weather, magical heating apparatuses warm the soaked bones of the weary citizen, homes are built using techniques perfected by learned sages to prevent leaks and loss of heat. The local government is run by the most powerful wizards, ensuring the most is done for their citizens while ensuring that the world doesn't suffer anymore by preventing research into how to magically alter the weather least the Gods punish them again. Commerce is conducted underground, from where the stone for the cities large towers was quarried, in order to keep merchants dry and happy while conducting business.
  Defining Feature- The Spire of the Heavens is a massive tower that ascends into the clouds and some say even farther beyond than that. Constructed by the founding wizard of the Highspire Cabal, to contemplate the mysteries of the Storm of the Gods. The High Wizard Ivis just summoned it straight out of the ground and disappeared into it's heights some years ago and has not returned since. The winding stairs that lead to the top of the tower are filled with all manner of arcane enhanced monsters, combined with its staggering height have prevented any, save perhaps Ivis from ever reaching it's peak. (I see this as an optional dungeon slog where the reward will be more precious than any loot, a glimpse at the sun, a rare treat for the players, as well as some sick loot too).
• Withermarsh: The rain eventually gets to be too much for everyone in Withermarsh, the shacks are ill constructed and always, always leak, the precipitation comes down in sheets soaking any who venture out side to the bone and worst of all the wind howls like a beast of nightmare driving men mad. The residents of Withermarsh might be criminals all, but they're also raving lunatics and dangerous at that. Only two kinds of people go to Withermarsh, the desperate or the foolish, either they're so desperate they don't have anywhere else to go, or they're stupid enough to believe the rumors of treasure in the caves outside of town. Either way, both types go crazy eventually.
  Defining Feature- The Howling Caves in the bluffs just outside of town are a bane and a blessing to the entire town. The fast wind from the constant storms rips through the caves, creating a distinctive keening that some believe is the main reason most in Withermarsh go mad. However nearly no one would come to Withermarsh if it weren't for rumors of a treasure lying deep within the caves themselves, said to be a lost artifact from the days the Gods walked the earth. The truth of the caves is hard to discern, all that can be told is that the madmen who inhabit the town encourage the explorers who come to town with wild stories, but then follow them into the caves zealously trying to drive them out when they do enter. This odd dichotomy of actions inside the town and the caves seems to be the core of Withermarsh's madness, some sort of secret sect dedicated to advertising, but also protecting the caves.
• Sword Lake: Formerly the Plain of Swords the ancient battleground was long ago flooded when the unceasing tide of rainwater broke the banks of two nearby rivers. It is still an area of contention as it' the shortest route of conquest between Stonewash and Highspire, the means of battle is just a bit different these days is all. Armies come at each other in great battle barges, fighting over tiny scraps of islands in the lake to better launch their offensive from, although it is only a matter of time until the island floods over, so no army can hold them permanently and often lose any gains they have before they can capitalize on them. The dead from battles past still lie below the water, reaching up and grabbing whomever they can get their hands on, slashing them with rusty weapons from campaigns long forgotten. These skeletal legions sometimes come to bear in the armed conflict of today, often one group of undead warriors will rise up and attack any who blunder into their former resting place, although that is little comfort to the opposing commander who will probably have to deal with a counter attack from their unwitting allies former rivals. On top of that wrecks of battle barges play host to huge beasts grown fat off the taste of carrion provided in such abundance by these battles, if aggression has ceased for the time being they'll swim out on the hunt, often accidentally instigating another round of attacks across the border.
  Defining Feature- The Bridge of Battle, is a heavily fortified bridge split between the forces of Stonewash and Highspire. Nobody remembers who built it originally, and both sides have rebuilt their respective sides of it so often that the building style is inconsistent across the whole of the bridge. At times the two sides send out their champions to fight in the center of the bridge, which have caused some truly legendary battles in the past. Their are even tales of some unlucky traveler, trying to stealthily cross from one country to the other, getting caught in the middle of these two great warriors and having to fight his way out of their conflict.
• Sorrow Ridge Mountains: These impossibly high mountains are made even harder to climb due to their constantly rain slick cliff faces. The constant rains cause all manner of trouble for those trying to climb, mud slides are a constant threat, the weathering of the rock by the rain causes large sections of cliff face to give way. The difficulty in climbing has created an ecosystem of highly specialised (and deadly) wild life. With no competition for food at these peaks most animals have grown to extremely large proportions, while the constant seeping of the water provides plenty of shelter in the form of caves. This inhospitable climate is the perfect protection to keep the Valley of Light free of casual visitors.
  Defining Feature- Titan Falls, the constant streaming of water down the side of the mountain face reaches a confluence at one point, creating a spectacular waterfall. Behind the waterfall is the lair of a terrible rock giant, who hunts down those trying to cross the mountain range.
• The Twisted Woods: This extremely over watered patch of wilderness has become the prime example of how nature is adapting to the rain soaked reality it now finds itself in. Trees tower into the sky, grown large on the sheer volume of water they have consumed. Local wildlife has also taken a few strange turns, the large amount of standing water has done wonder for the insects, who have grown large over the years since the curse was enacted. With insect come disease, most of the dangerous predators are frothing with some manner of illness induced red eyed madness, becoming a danger to local residents. The forest seems especially deadly to spell casters, as the wolves seem to drag downed wizards into the depth to have their power become one with the land.
  Defining Feature- The Rune Tree is the largest tree in the entire Twisted Woods. Many years ago a wandering spell caster dies at its base and his blood seeped into it's roots. The tree took on magical properties and a sliver of consciousness, the tree now compels the creatures to hunt down more magicians to feed its powers.
• The Wracked Coast: The seas in this area are constantly bombarded by fierce waves churned up by violent coastal storms. These waves frequently dredge up leviathans from the depths, beaching them on the shore where they slaughter any unfortunate enough to cross their path. Few people visit except to charter passage aboard the few vessels crewed by those skilled and daft enough to navigate in the swirling seas to lands unknown.
  Defining Feature- The Storm Breaker is a large rock formation off the coast that absorbs the intense waves coming of the ocean allowing for the nearby cove to actually be used as a viable port. The rock itself serves as an alter to a capricious Sea God, with the treasures of an entire fleet of sunken ships offered as tribute in exchange for safe voyage.
• The Sundered Hills: The tops of the Sundered Hills now serve as islands in the flooded Sword Lake, a stable base to launch aquatic attacks across the waterway. The valleys below used to be home of a fairly large city prior to the rains that got flooded out when the Sword Lake formed. The large military presence in the area keeps away most grave robbers who would loot these ruins, but recent military activity has pulled much of the forces who patrol the area away, leaving them ripe for plunder.
  Defining Feature- The ruins of Bezra, the city that was flooded at the start of the rains. Bezra was also a military town, watching over the border just like the Sundered Hills do now. Their armories were well stocked still opened to any who care to take them. Of course any who want to ransack the waterlogged ruins will have to deal with the automated defenses and water born monsters that guard the buildings.

Phew, we could go on from there, but as we can see the addition of rain leads naturally into a lot of different ideas, with cool spins on what are essentially bog standard fantasy locations. A lot could be done with the games tone, after all the heroes main quest is to do something completely impossible, that is change the weather. The weather could even characterize the rest of the characters pretty well, with most people pretty negative about their prospects, the rain having gotten them down. Also you can construe the failure of the first group as the old joke, "Well at least it's not raining too hard..." and then have the weather get much worse.

We might come back to this later on, but for right now use it as an example of how to think about your games environment.

Shots at Random: How About That Weather We've Been Having? Part 1

There are a lot of small details in video games that designers and programmers are often tempted to assign randomly. The items dropped by a killed enemy, the number and type of enemies in a given area, local geography and weather all assigned a random variable corresponding to some table somewhere. While assigning these features at random isn't necessarily a bad thing, for example any one of those considerations could be relatively unimportant in the larger scope of the game and handling them through chance makes them dynamic enough to be interesting without spending a lot of time on them. I would even go so far as recommending a game designer use this tried and true method if this is the case in their game, but before implementing a feature using randomized tables, designers should spend some thought as to whether these things are better off directly under their control.

All of the issues mentioned above, item drops, encounter mix, area layout and weather are all important on some level or another, there needs to be some system in place to handle these things or else the player will notice they're absence. If the weather is always sunny, the players are going to notice this and want an explanation other than "it's the easiest lighting scheme to produce in engine." Likewise if enemies only appear in groups of similarly typed monsters the player will get bored.

These considerations can also take on a deeper meaning with a little more creative control from the designer, in quite a few ways. To give one example, consistently having the low level muggers in the slums turn up paltry sums of money and cut rate equipment is a nice touch that will drive home the desperate economic situation in a fantasy kingdom in a way that spitting out the standard treasure for their level wouldn't. This line of thinking could be extended to the whole game by applying a very detailed economic scheme to the whole game and you can bet that a certain subset of players will really enjoy the thought put into the process.

The downside to this is that systems like this are going to take a lot of development time to implement and a good chunk of disk space that might better be put to use in other aspects of the game. Randomizing these sorts of things might not be ideal, but it is cheap in terms of memory usage and programming hours. If a designer wants to implement these features on a very fine scale they better be a very core component to the game play. This new ongoing series Shots at Random will take a look at when and how to implement bringing elements traditionally left to random generation can be implemented in a more controlled manner.

Let's start with the weather, obviously there needs to be some sort of weather occurring if a game has any sort of exterior environment. Weather can serve to enhance the atmosphere of an area, an ominous storm can permanently rage outside the villains hideout, the starting village can be eternally bathed in warm sunlight to let the player know that this is the happiest most peaceful square corner of the earth and boy would it be a shame if anything bad ever happened to this place. This kind of window dressing is fairly common when designers want to evoke these or other feeling in their players, but what about those generic grassy plains between cities where player characters have random encounters with wandering monsters, the player is going to fight them rain or shine, so does it really matter? What about places like the large trade hub city where very little occurs except for selling off the players loot and stocking up for dungeon runs? What kind of weather evokes a sense of crafty commerce? Sunny weather is a boon to market stands and bazaars if that's how you want to play it, but London is a commercial power house and it's weather is notoriously, (or at least stereotypically depicted as being), terrible.

Assigning weather based on what's thematically appropriate at any given time or location becomes a chore, you're adding something else to the heap of details you have to consider when fleshing out any given area. This can also create the problem of making the weather as a whole inconsistent, the starting village is perpetually sunny but the villains disc one doom fortress a few screens over is smack in the eye of the storm of the century. Weather patterns don't vary this much in a small geographical area in real life and mood weather like this does little to unify the tone of the game as a whole.

What if instead of having the tone of the game dictate the weather, the weather dictated the tone of game? If instead of varying the weather from region to region it was the same everywhere and this was a major aspect of the game world? This way art assets for the weather can be shared from area to area, (although their would obviously be some variation on the general theme, enough would carry from place to place to save considerable art development time), similar weather throughout allows for stylistic consistency from area to area and the weather itself serves as a jumping off point for ideas on how to build the game world.

Admittedly this is a lot of, "what ifs" and speculation, so a proper demonstration might be in order. Come back Wednesday for Part 2 of this article, for a sketch of Darkened Skies, and see how a little rain can go a long way to making a fantasy role playing game setting stand out.