World Lore
This page of my blog shows the writing task that I carried out to explain the lore of my group’s game.
Below you will find the process I took when writing, and then below that you’ll find the section of writing that is the world lore.
Why did I do this task?
The hopes of this task, at least for me, was that when reading the world lore, along with the level/location descriptions, the reader would be able to understand the different levels within the game, but also have more of an understanding of some of the major events that have happened in the game world itself, before the time that they story portrays the world.
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How did I do this task?
To begin with I decided to briefly look into what ‘world lore’ actually meant, as I felt that would be fitting in hopes of ensuring that I would be writing about the correct topics. This section of research will be shown under the research section of this page.
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Once I had a general idea of what ‘world lore’ was, I started writing. However, this was a mistake because I didn’t really have a set idea or event in mind to talk about, and so I ended up starting again. But this time I decided to make use of a list to make sure I wouldn’t run into the same problem. I decided that this would be effective, as I had done this with a number of other tasks, and each time I had found it beneficial. That included this time as well.
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The image below shows some of the planning for the key areas I wanted to write about in my World Lore.
When writing this list, I was able to think of and list some of the main areas that I wanted to write about for the lore of the world, but most of these concepts consisted of the antagonist and its minions (and then the story of their uprising), and how their appearance in the world ignited a change in the world, which would then explain why the world within the game is how it is. However, these ideas didn’t explain the start of the world itself, but how the existing life changed some time ago in the past (with this change being extremely impactful). But although my concepts didn’t include this, the main area I wanted to write about was the impact event of the antagonist/minions and how that changed the world, as that would explain the antagonist and minions, which also explains why the world which wouldn’t seem too advanced had robotic beings.
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I did, however, have a few concepts for how my game world could have formed and how life came to evolve and adapt, but a concept was all it was at this point.
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The concept was at one point the planet just consisted of water/ocean, but over the course of millions of years the water level decreased, allowing bodies of land that had been underneath the ocean to pierce through and appear above the water. Then passing on more time, life began to appear on the islands, and then evolution (similar to what is said about how humans in our world came to inhabit this world – evolution) began until eventually humans inhabited the world.
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So I had a concept, but it wasn’t the most developed of ideas. But it was what I decided to go with. However, I still planned for the main focus of the writing piece to be the mecha shark/minions, as I had developed those beings to a further level, and felt that that was the more important section of lore regarding my world.
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Another area that I knew that I would need to somehow explain was the planet in which my game world is on. For this my concept was for the game world to be Earth, but then to make use of the sci-fi and fantasy themes by setting my game world in an alternate version (like an earth from another universe), meaning my concepts would be fitting for Earth, as it’s not our Earth, but a different one with different history and events that occurred.
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Decision making
One of the main decisions that I made was that I wouldn’t spend as much time on this task as I did/planned to for some of my other tasks. I decided this as I wanted to focus on some of the other tasks that I needed to do, which because I’m the only writer of my group, meant that for some tasks (such as this task) I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked to spend on them. However, because of this I did manage to complete this task and move on to my next task without using too much of the little time I have, and so I feel as though this wasn’t a bad decision.
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The other decisions that I made were in regards to the concepts that I was writing about. When beginning the world lore, I realised how there were certain aspects to my concept that I had never really thought about before, such as the planet the game is occurring on, and how it formed. I was able to come up with a few varying concepts for both of these. One initial idea was for the planet to be set on an alien planet (a fictional planet), but then for simplicity’s sake, I decided that the planet would be Earth, but an alternate version (which was fitting for the sci-fi theme). Then once I had this established, I needed to finalise and pick the concept for how the world formed/came to be how it is now. I thought about how my island is mainly ocean, with the only bodies of land being islands, and so I decided that an effective concept to base this on would be the sea itself, and so I decided that the concept would be sea level decrease leading to the islands appearing/forming, and then life evolving.
I felt that going with these concepts would be effective, as they aren’t confusing, which therefore means my audience or anyone reading would be able to grasp the idea, but also because the concept was somewhat simple, which would allow me to save the time (which, as previously stated, I didn’t want to spend too much time on this task, meaning this decision benefited me).
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Problem Solving/Solutions
There have been a number of problems that have been mentioned throughout the posts above, but I will pick out some of the key problems that were encountered during this task.
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The very first and probably the main problem that I encountered was how I began my writing, and then realised that I didn’t have a set idea in mind, and so the writing was rather poor (as I didn’t have a set topic that I was talking about, which meant that the writing didn’t really have a form going from one topic to another, but instead was all over the place).
However, I solved this problem by going back to the beginning of the task, and writing a concept list that listed the key ideas/topics that I wanted to write about during this task. I had found that this was an effective solution to this problem, as I could refer back to this list when I wasn’t sure what to write, and so I didn’t encounter the problem having nothing to write about as I had a list of ideas/concepts.
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Another problem that I encountered was that there was a number of areas that would be needed to be talked about for this task that I hadn’t already planned for (such as information on the world/its formation). This again was a simple solution, however, as It just meant that I was required to take a step back from writing the lore itself, but revisit my planning (this was when I decided the planet would be earth, and the appearance of the islands/people would be due to sea level decrease, as explained in the above sections).
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Another problem I encountered was a problem that wasn’t directly about this task (of writing the world lore), but became apparent around the time of writing it. While carrying out this task, I realised how few days were left of the project (or at least college days), and so I felt a sense of urgency to complete this task as I knew I had a number of other areas that I wanted to focus on more, as I felt that they were more important to me (such as my script improvements/editing). Because of this, I decided that I would dedicate less time on this task, to allow time for the remaining tasks to be carried out (as well as the improvements I wanted to make to previous tasks). This did mean, however, this task wasn’t able to be as detailed as I would have wanted it to be, but it did mean that I was able to manage my time for the project more efficiently (which was majorly important, as being the only writer in my group meant that I was required to complete all of the tasks, which also meant that time management for tasks was crucial).
Although, saying I spent less time on this task then I would have liked to, I still feel as though what ended up being written/created was still effective, as the writing portrays the key areas I wanted the writing piece to portray.
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How research impacted me while carrying out this task
To begin this task, I carried out a quick and simple piece of research where I looked into what ‘world lore’ actually meant. For this I just looked into some definitions of the word ‘lore’ and looked at some what was shown. A common result was as shown below.
The word ‘lore’ means “traditional knowledge and stories about a subject” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017).
Thanks to this, as well as some of the other definitions looked at, I was able to have an idea of what I could write about for my world lore (it was then after this that I planned out my world lore and began writing).
One of the other important areas of research I carried out was into writing a game world. Although from this specific section, only some of what I found was useful for this task. An example of a useful section is shown below.
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“Once you’ve determined the scope of your world, you’re ready to begin developing the backstory. Though you may be like me and not prone to developing backstory, this is just as essential as understanding the scope of your story.”
“Without a backstory, you’ll find it difficult to give meaning to objects, interactions, cultures, and so forth. When players wander your world, it will appear void of anything deep and very surface level without a backstory.” (E.M. Welsh, 2019).
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From this research I was informed of the importance of developing a story/backstory to the world, and so that’s what I aimed to do when writing the lore, by trying to show the major event (of the mecha shark/minion) that has occurred in the world, and the impact it has had on the world/its people in the times since the event occurred.
Also, I felt that by getting linking the enemies to the lore of the world, it would also give them more of a reason and importance for their appearance in the game (as well as also giving and explanation for their appearance).
Reflection/Evaluation
This is one of the tasks where if I have time towards the end of the project, I would like to go back and expand on this task by adding to it, or even go back just to improve it.
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However, this isn’t because I feel that the outcome of what I have written is poor, but more because I know that there’s still more I could add to make it a more effective and interesting piece of writing.
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I’m still somewhat happy with the world lore that I have written, as I was able to portray a number of different areas of the world that the reader or player off the game wouldn’t know otherwise. Some of these are shown in the image below.
Because I created the list of areas I wanted to write about, I pretty much managed to stick to what my initial plan for writing the world lore, although I did end up focusing more on some areas than others (the mecha enemies and their impact on the world).
Because I created the list of areas I wanted to write about, I pretty much managed to stick to what my initial plan for writing the world lore, although I did end up focusing more on some areas than others (the mecha enemies and their impact on the world).
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If I end up coming back to this task, there could be some large changes made (if I have the time, but also feel as if this is necessary), but I will make another section talking about any updates, if there ends up being any.
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Now I have went over the process of my world lore writing/creation, the writing task itself can be found below.
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My World Lore
Although planet Earth at the present time has human beings that inhabit it, it wasn’t always that way. And when I talk about Earth, I don’t mean the very planet that you and I stand on as you read this, but instead an Earth that exists in one of many alternate universes. The Earth of this universe isn’t quite like the Earth of ours with a lot of difference to the conditions on the planet itself and the events occurring, although there are some similarities between them.
In the early years of the planets existence, the surface of the whole planet consisted of water. There wasn’t a single island or region of land that stood above the oceans which covered the whole of the planet’s surface. But eventually, islands began to emerge across the world.
It took many years for the sea levels to eventually lower, but as it did bodies of land began to pierce the surface of the water. The lands of this world had finally emerged. This lowering of the sea and rising of the land continued to occur to a millennia until these sections of land became big enough to be classified as islands, and not too long after life began to develop as the conditions of the world became ever so more suitable for life to develop.
Now moving ahead to the present there are more islands, some being mountainous islands and others still being smaller basic beach islands, however one thing still remains being that the majority of the planet’s surface is taken up by water.
Moving on millions of years to when the islands first started forming, and humans now inhabiting the world, there was one event that occurred that forever changed the ways of this world.
There was an island that cut itself and its people away from the rest of the humans of the world. Many people sought this island, but few could find it. This island held technologies that were much more advanced than the technology that could be found elsewhere. It was a mystery to the rest of the world. But the people of this civilisation soon created the means of their own downfall which also ignited a changed around the world. They created controllable mechanical creatures with the intent of using them to protect their island. They modelled these machines after beings of the ocean. Some small creatures and some large. Some of the mechanical creatures were capable of manoeuvring the land and others capable of manoeuvring the sea.
To begin with these mechanical beings were all that the people who created them wanted them to be. But this soon changed when they began they became sentient and fought back against the civilisation of the island. Although the people of this island possessed technology far greater than the technology known to man elsewhere, it still wasn’t enough to save them against their latest and greatest creation. To begin with, they were able to fend off the mechanical monsters that they had created, but this soon came to an end once the largest and now most dangerous creation began its relentless attack. The Mecha Shark had begun its first rampage. The first of many rampages to come in the following century.
The Mecha Sharks rampage ended with the destruction of the island. The mechanical creatures only ceased their attack once there was nothing left of the island. But this destruction wasn’t enough for them, and so they travelled the world to find distant lands and civilisations. Lands that could be destroyed. This is what then bought around change to the world.
With the mechanical creatures now roaming the seas, they soon began to appear to the rest of humanity. Many ships that sailed the seas encountered these monsters, and few managed to escape, and others encountered them on islands and tried to fight back.
Although the people who encountered these creatures struggled hard to survive, they eventually managed to defeat these monsters. But this caused a change in the world. The technologies found in these mechanical monsters were the technology of the now lost civilisation. It was technology that the rest of the world had not had access to or knew of. Engineers became interested in the technology used to create these machines, and began furthering their own technology with these new findings. It didn’t take long for the humans to have used the mechanical monsters that they encountered to further their own technology, and begin to make use of machinery.
And so, the ships that sailed the sea began to receive mechanical upgrades to stand a fighting chance against the mechanical monsters that now roamed the seas, and eventually, even limbs that had been lost could be created using this technology as a basis.
But although humanity had begun to progress, the monster that ended a whole civilisation still, and to this day, roams the seas in hunt of its next meal. Few believe of the Mecha Sharks existence, and few have seen in. But even less have lived to tell the tale.
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