The Broken Hourglass Interview
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GB: How will inventory management be handled between party members? Do we have to worry about encumbrance? Jason: Yes, and no. Most items in the game have a bulk-weight (a figure which combines "how heavy is it?" and "how difficult is it to carry?"). Some items, like pieces of paper and so forth, have no bulk-weight.
Each character has a personal inventory, but every party in the game, including the player party, also has an inventory. Items carried in a personal inventory count against the comfortable carrying capacity of a character, but items stored in party inventory don't count against anybody--they're your quantum stash of goods, so to speak. The downside is that you cannot access the party inventory while in combat mode.
When your encumbrance goes over your comfortable carrying capacity, two things happen--you slow down, and you start suffering attack and defense penalties. You can get better at lugging things around by boosting your Carrying attribute, either by spending points in it directly, or by buying more Toughness and Strength, which both feed into Carrying. There are some traits which also make certain categories of items "lighter for you"--like armor. (And some which make items heavier. Joinable NPC Ruvanet suffers from the Lame Arm trait, which makes two-handed weapons and shields a major inconvenience.)
It's worth pointing out that in this system, it's not necessarily a "failure" on the part of the player if a character is getting Carrying-related penalties. If you slap full plate mail, a huge shield, and a heavy estoc in your hero's hand, there's virtually no way he's not going to be above his Carrying limit. But you might do that if, say, you felt confident that the high damage resistance and big Deflect bonus he will get from the armor and shield, respectively, outweigh the other penalties, allowing him to stand in front and deal more abuse.
GB: Will there be a genuine economy, fluctuating according to the amount of goods bought and sold or by the ease of access on the roads?
Jason: I may have an econ degree, but we are not simulating a real economy. Storekeepers have a bank which governs how much they can buy from you, but with a few exceptions owing to the difficulties of the siege-state Mal Nassrin, we don't make you worry about what the Federal Reserve is doing while you're out saving the city.
GB: Will we be able to join guilds, factions, or other types of societies? If so, how many at one time? What effects will such a membership have?
Jason: The player will have to interface with various power groups in the city in order to bring Mal Nassrin out of its troubles, but it's not so much about joining as it is about coercing, nudging, and pleading with them to do what needs to be done to save Mal Nassrin while your attentions are drawn elsewhere.
Really, the implication of the PC's role as Impromptu Vigilante Hero is that none of the other power groups are willing or able to solve the crisis, so we would rather let the player party operate a level above them, so to speak.
GB: Tell us about the game's "infinite dungeon" and "arena play" modes. Are these entirely separate from the game's main campaign?
Jason: Yes, they are completely different play modes. You can start an Infinite Dungeon or Arena game with the same character you started a Broken Hourglass game with, or define new characters just for those game sessions.
Arena mode is a simple "Can my guys beat up your guys?" test of power and skill. You must start an Arena game with at least one character, but from the Arena screen you can add characters and creatures from the game to your team, and build an opposing team from the same list. You are dropped into a special combat zone, given a gaggle of equipment in party inventory, and then combat begins. Simple stuff, really, but it seemed like a fun way to blow off steam.
The Arena poses an interesting design question for us because of that list of characters and creatures, which is of course chock full of spoiler potential. If this was a console game, I know exactly what would happen. Console games love rewards and "unlocking" content, so we would pop up a big screen saying "You've been playing The Broken Hourglass for one hour! We've unlocked the Vlastos Elite Guard for Arena mode!" or "You just won your 10th battle! We've unlocked the Greater Amoeba for Arena mode!"
For whatever reason, though, on a computer that sort of thing feels dreadfully out of place. But at the same time, I really don't particularly want to spoil the game's challenges for you if you happen to stumble into the Arena interface and just click on everything. I haven't come up with a solution that both respects the player's natural sentiment of "this is my game and my computer, dammit, so show me the goods!" and our natural desire to encourage players to encounter combat challenges in the narrative first before hammering at them in Arena mode.
Infinite Dungeon mode is a little different, although like Arena mode it's basically just an excuse to have a lot of combat challenges. The premise for ID mode is taken from old roguelikes and their early PC offshoots like Sword of Fargoal you are after the Object of Great Desire and, after you hack your way through X number of maps consisting of increasing levels of difficulty, you may find it and win the game. The maps are simply taken from The Broken Hourglass, but rather than leading to city neighborhoods, they are connected with one another in completely random fashion, and instead of being populated with our carefully-crafted townspeople and guards and dancers and so forth, are instead full of hostiles, as well as randomly placed traps and loot. As mentioned, there's still a little finishing work to be done on ID mode, but that's the upshot.
Thanks for your time, Jason!
