Zomia
| Zomia | |
|---|---|
| Developer | globalcitizen |
| Theme | Ancient history / fantasy |
| Influences | Angband, Brogue, Dwarf Fortress |
| Status | beta |
| Released | v0.0.1 |
| Updated | September 17, 2016 |
| Licensing | GPL3 |
| P. Language | Lua |
| Platforms | Love2D (Windows, OSX, Linux, Android, iOS...) |
| Interface | Tiles, Keyboard, Sound and Music |
| Game Length | Unknown |
| Official site of Zomia | |
Zomia was conceived as a roguelike loosely based on the ancient history of the Zomia region, centered on Yunnan, in what is now far southwest China. The area borders Tibet, northeast India, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam and is a naturally spectacular setting. This is the author's first roguelike.
The overall concept is fairly large, spanning wilderness, factions and procedurally generated plot and therefore means Zomia is a potentially long term (read: unfinished/unfinishable) project.
A first, cut-down version (v0.0.1) was released for 2016 ARRP. Because time was short the decision was made to simply focus on dungeon mechanics and ignore the town and wilderness, despite those both being quite well started and critical to the larger concept. Therefore it is currently more of a coffee break style playable dungeon with critters in more of the standard fantasy genre than later game versions.
Later game versions should be relatively less fantasy-inspired, more historically accurate with much more backstory/town mechanics/above-ground exploration/plot development.
Inspiration
The inspiration comes from twisting my ankle in Vietnam, having too much time stuck on the couch and wanting to learn Lua. But... err... also from my research in to Yunnan history which has been slowly progressing for about 15 years including a currently underway re Wikisource translation of a 1000 year old text from the Nanzhao period and a narrative, synthesis-style ancient history book that I am writing on the region. This information, already hundreds of pages, will eventually be used to inform the game world.
Development preview
A development log is available, and you can also check out the brand new (September 12) beta gameplay preview video! (No audio unfortunately... as the in-game audio really is pretty damn good!)
Interesting features
- Arcade visual effects
- Sound and Music
- Tracks / footprints
- Procedurally generated tile graphics
- Attempted port of Brogue's dungeon generation to Lua