Story Ideas - mjfalkenstein/GameProject GitHub Wiki

Setting

Game takes place on a tidal-locked planet orbiting a red dwarf, creating a planet that is half-frozen and half-scorched, with a narrow belt of livable land that encircles the planet. This belt is broken in two places, once near the north pole by a large mountain range, and once abount 1/3 of the way around the belt by a large ocean (unsure about ocean, might not be geologically possible).

Some cool ideas about tidally locked planets that might be interesting to keep in mind. You're right in assuming that the tidally locked planet will only have a hospitable zone in between the light side and the dark side. However, there are a few interesting effects:

Liquid water can only exist in the habitable zone. The freezing temperatures of the dark side would lead to much of the atmosphere condensing into solid form, whereas the hot temperatures of the light side would keep most things in vapor form. This creates a huge pressure difference. The result of this would most likely be massive and endless storms between the two zones. (In reality this would probably make the "hospitable zone" inhospitable, but it could be a cool setting thing to keep in mind) a. As a spinoff of this, if you wanted to keep in mind the storms, you could have a significant portion of the life existing underground. Also, the crazy winds would lead to some hardcore erosion and crazy geological formations, so that might be something to keep in mind for concept design. Since the planet is locked facing the star in one direction, there is no day/night cycle and the hospitable ring is in endless twilight. Probably this would mean the star is very low in the sky, and the already red light from the star would be accentuated by the atmosphere to cause the sky to be red all the time in this zone. (Depending on the makeup of the atmosphere, it'd probably still be blueish in the light area) ########################################################################################## People living on the planet are humanoids (as opposed to alien-looking). Are the remnants of near-future humans who were searching for a planet to exploit for resources.

The ship they used to get there crashed on the planet, with two main surviving parties separated by a mountain range. Those who lived near the crashed ship use it as a reminder that they need to escape the planet, and come to worship the technology inside. Those on the other side salvage what they can and accept that it's unlikely they will ever leave. Those who stuck near the main ship have developed some level of advanced technology (dieselpunk?) by emulating what was in their ship. However, they are in the smaller portion of the planet, and so quickly exhaust what resources they have.

The conflict arises as the resources available on the planet begin thinning, and people are trying to figure out how to venture out into the frozen and desert lands on either side of the belt in search of resources. The technologically advanced people attempt to cross the mountains to the north, and run into their forgotten neighbors.

The planet has a slightly higher oxygen concentration than earth, so a lot of the early colonists end up dying of Hyperoxemia, explaining how so much knowledge was lost over the relatively small timespan of a couple hundred years. Those who survived adapted, but it remains a disease amongst the uncivilized half of the planet, with high mortality, based on essentially random chance. This also means that the insects brought for terraforming in the colony ship were able to grow to really huge proportions.

Characters

Guy who's sister is frail because of the disease, learns that the invaders can treat it and sets off to find out how.

Girl who scavanges the wastelands for tech artefacts

Guy who was a lieutenant in the diesel shock troops but grows dissillusioned

Swordsman with anger issues

Priestess of the earth on pilgrimage

Runt who wants to be in the resistance