Dev Blog #9 - Remembrance

From lost remnants of the Old Kingdom, scattered through the Open World, you will collect Remembrance, the primary resource in Winterfall.

The RPG & Development mechanics of Winterfall hinge on that very value: as the elucidating the past is the core of Winterfall, you will use Remembrance to recall what once was. With it, you will restore your sanctuary, write your characters' histories, craft memories and even reshape parts of the world in which you will venture.

When the Old Kingdom was evacuated in favour of its remote sanctuaries, for reasons you will investigate and decide for yourself, lost vaults, obelisks and places of meaning were left behind as markers of past events. Those are what we call "Remnants", the "resource nodes" for Remembrance.

The very purpose, at least initially, of each of your characters' journeys down into the wilds of the Old Kingdom is precisely to collect Remembrance from such objects.

But the temptation will also be great to "spend" that Remembrance in order to restore ruins and faded things in the environment around your character. Things that may grant immediate boons and advantages, or things that may betray you.

For instance, a river may be impassable now that its old bridge has collapsed. Will you find a place to ford the river at, or will you Recall the bridge, spending Remembrance, into the shape it once had?

As you come by the ruins of a village, will you Recall the village to its past state, spending Remembrance in the hopes of finding valuables there?

Remembrance, however, is lost not only through spending but also through your misadventures in the wild. Indeed, Winterfall is not a game of death and punishment. It is a game of awe and wanderlust and so you will contend with those very things during your character's journey:

Remembrance is what keeps your character aware of her role and her mission. As you spend too much of it or diminish it through misadventure, your character will grow forgetful. First of the way out of the wilds and back home, then of the very fact that she embarked on a mission in the first place. At that point, she will become lost, unable to make her way back, unplayable.

In order to save that character from its state of unbound wandering, you will need to go on an expedition, with another character, to find her again. Where will you find her, what will have become of her?

Venturing through the wilds of the Old Kingdom, you will soon realize, however, that not all things should be remembered and that there sometimes are deeper consequences for bringing faded things back into the world.