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What is The Conservatory?

Nothing on this page is a promised feature or guaranteed to be in the game.

If you are seeing this warning bubble, here is a reminder that this project is in early development.

Anything you see here is NOT a promise or guarantee. Features on this page WILL BE ADDED, REMOVED, OR CHANGED WITHOUT ANY SORT OF NOTICE. If I find you on twitter.com saying how I "broke promises" because you saw something on this page that I removed later, I will point at you and laugh for being a dummy idiot doodoo bref dummy head, a real stinker, perhaps dare I say, a poopyhead even.

  The Conservatory is a narrative-backed, voxel-based universal sandbox game. It is the first game I have developed mostly on my own rather than with a team (see Credits), as a challenge to my skills acquired over the past 15 years.

The Developer and The Inspiration

This section is largely optional.

This is a huge autobiography and a bunch of shoutouts to media I like that helped influence the design choices I've made (or plan to make) to the game.

It's a good read if you really want the extra detail, but if you just want to figure out what the game is (as in, what it's like to play, what it'll have in it), skip this section!

  My name is Xan (not to be confused with Xanax. Still pronounced /zæn/, though). Another name I go by is "Eti" ("eh-tee", /ɛ'ti/), though I rarely use this name any more. The Conservatory is partly a love-letter, and partly an attempt to build upon, a very specific genre of game I both love and want to see more of.

  If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I love media that focuses on the evocation of feelings, I love worldbuilding. I love it when my worlds feel alive, when they have substance, when you can interact with them. I have been writing stories since I was a little kid, and indeed Xan is actually my first persona who is almost as old as me.

  The Conservatory is not only an attempt to grow upon genres I like, which I will cover later down the page, but it's also a game for me personally. There's a game I have always wanted to play, but which does not exist. The exact feeling I aim to capture is a level of immersion that feels open. That is, I don't believe a one man army is good enough to beat the best of the best when it comes to making immersive games, but I do think I can create a system to facilitate that for those who seek it. I am someone who does a lot of roleplay in games, as a seasoned writer it is one of the things I find very fun.

  You see, I want a world that acknowledges who the player is. If I'm going to have a space station, I want niche and borderline comical accommodations for random races. I want multilingual boards in alien languages, I want to see the world morphed to fit the people that visit.

Sources of Inspiration

  If you are in this list, consider yourself honored, at least by me! These are various pieces of media or games that I strongly recommend having a look at, seriously!

VRChat Worlds

By far the largest of these sections.

  For some context for those who have never played VRChat:

  • VRChat is free on Steam (press here to open it directly in the Steam app).
    • You do not need VR to play it, you can play with typical FPS controls on desktop.
  • It is largely dominated by furries and the sort. For average Joe, the takeaway here is that you can imagine most players as a member of some selected species, a bit like aliens in a sci-fi universe.
    • Everybody is their own thing, but typically based on something real or made up and shared by many others, and so there is uniformity in groups of people. These common species are often called "avatar bases", as they serve as a common "base" for people to customize their avatars. So if you see me using that term, "avatar base", think species or race.
    • This is useful because a significant amount of the worlds linked below play on this fact.
    • You do not need to find a special avatar to visit these worlds. You can visit in anything, default avatar included. Just jump in!
    • It is worth it to note that in VR social games like this, the body people use is significantly closer to the sense of self for the user, so while in a typical PC game such strong emphasis on your character may not be important, in VR it is especially important for some people.

  Anyway, the worlds:

  • Qoo H. Bocuma International Airport, The Pact, and Hokyl Night by hdorriker, DekaWolf, and Fraxul (collectively). These three worlds take place in one universe. This captures a certain lighthearted attitude about sci-fi worlds that I wish wasn't so rare. I'm not going to lie to you, I'm pretty tired of the crisp, perfected future species, but I'm also tired of the grunge criminal-run megacities. I want something funny in my bowl of future. Why's it always super clean or super filthy?
    • Qoo H. Bocuma International Airport covers both international and interstellar travel. It contains hilarious gags for specific families of avatar bases, and a bunch of jokes for the tight knit and the public alike. You can also ride the (sentient) baggage system. Eurobeat included for the carts.
    • Hokyl Night is the city that the airport is in. And when I say "the city", I mean "the city". The whole thing. Like you get floating point rounding error artifacts near its borders (thanks Unity). It's the whole city.
    • The Pact is an embassy for the races that make up the universe, and it's a treasure trove of the little jokes and hilariously creative humor that scratches the sci-fi itch. Bureaucracy is so boring. That's why they host office kickball tournaments with varyingly possibly-ill-ideologically promotional posters, of course!
    • It's worth it to mention that while humor is a huge part of these worlds, they are still serious! It's a bit like Hitchhiker's Guide with its humor, in that the world is coherent and has legitimate things, but they aren't afraid to put a promotional poster that says "Do you hate pooping?" right next to a travel ad (I am not joking).
  • Wild Flower ｜ 野の花 , Nest ネスト, and I N I T I U M  ⁄⁄⁄ イニシャル by Artsy Glitch. These worlds also share a universe (*as far as I can tell). They have a particular artstyle that definitely influenced my style for Kirivian architecture. It's this weirdly relaxing mixture of refurbished post-apocalyptic bunker x solarpunk. Honestly the feelings that this set of worlds evokes are too difficult to describe with words, in particular I urge you to visit these yourself.
    • Wild Flower ｜ 野の花 is a somewhat large bunker with varying living accomodations ranging from antique furniture to neo-material furniture that just screams "space age" to me. It has a TV, botanical observatory, indoor firepit, and a bedroom. I'm not trying to sell you a house, pinky promise.
    • Nest ネスト is another decked out bunker, but this time it's single room, intended to be made your VR home world in all likelihood. Very cozy, same aesthetic as the previous world, but far more personable.
    • I N I T I U M  ⁄⁄⁄ イニシャル is an interesting world whose lore is not entirely clear. It seems to be taking care of(?) some strange tree which is closely related to evangelical occurrences? They do seem to have frames for futuristic angels laying around, which is pretty sick.
  • Antiheat's Apartment by Antiheat (who woulda thunk) is, despite the name, an entire city rather than just the apartment within that city. Antiheat's universe here intermingles with that created by hdorriker et. al., and captures a slightly-more-serious tone. It's one of your more typical sci-fi worlds, but it has a feel to it that I really like knowing it's an extension of a universe I already really love.
  • Furality Sylva: Treehouse Village by Furality Team is a virtual convention world. This one was a huge, huge source of inspiration for the style of the Kirivian people rather than their architecture. This perfectly captures that nomadic vibe. I am very thankful that the team uploads archives of previous years' conventions for public access.

Film

  I'm not much of a TV/Movie guy so this will be considerably smaller, but of those that I have watched, some of them have managed to weasel their way into my writing.

  • Star Trek: The Next Generation is basically the only TV series that I have actively tried to watch the entirety of. I'm picky! Mr. Roddenberry's vision for the series and his usage of real scientists to make the show at least somewhat believable made a night and day difference between this and the series that were inspired by it.
    • Star Trek made me realize the importance of coherent rules in the universe. He answered the question of "why can't you just..." for a pretty significant amount of cases where certain technology exists, and even if the coverage wasn't perfect, it still made a difference and it shows.

Other Games

  Four games were the "core" inspiration for this, so they are in their own section below. Honorable mentions are here.

  • Rain World is a very important title. Despite my love (and qualms) toward the game, it is undeniable that it set a pretty significant precedent for what it means to be an immersive game. It shows just how much the little details matter. That's why it's popular! A bunch of the little details that make the ecosystem feel real in the constraints of what it is, have set it head and shoulders above other games in its league, and it is very highly regarded for this fact.

What's the game like?

Remember...

Things here will change. Please refer to the top of the page for more information.

  Probably what you are here for. What's the gameplay like? How does it work?

  The Conservatory is a sci-fi/fantasy themed, voxel-based sandbox game, with a very small, simple, narratively-driven progression. It mixes magic and tech, something I have always loved together. It should have multiplayer if all goes well.

  The game's world is procedurally generated, and exists in a multiverse. However, the game's storyline reserves only 2 of the 18 quintillion universes available to you (a total of \(2^{64}\) available, to be exact). Accessing the others is possible.

  The player will be able to build freely a bit like Minecraft and can also build on their ship; each player has a ship tied to their save file. There will be voxel materials (blocks), which can be carved to cut out (or add) any of the 8 corners. Some voxels are rigid, forming smaller cubes (like stair blocks in Minecraft), and some voxels are smooth, forming slopes. There will also be props, which are complex, mesh-based objects that can be placed in the world for decoration, function, or both.

  Players will need to make progressively more and more complicated machinery and tools to progress through the game, adapting their home base to fit their needs as they learn and progress.

The Inspiration

  For some perspective, here's some popular/well-known titles that directly inspired my design, and why they are sources of inspiration.

  • Minecraft
    • This is kind of here out of moral obligation. Every voxel game is a Minecraft clone, no exceptions. Running gag.
  • Starbound
    • Starbound is incredible for the writers and roleplayers with its absolutely lovely art and music, and vast universe.
    • But... I wouldn't even wish the agony of trying to mod this game upon my worst enemy. It's rough.
  • Empyrion: Galactic Survival
    • Empyrion is a lot of fun and scratches the Robocraft itch. You have to build your own space ship out of blocks and such.
    • But... The game is kind of bland. It's missing a lot, it's buggy, and gets old quick. The developer, at least as of writing, is actively against the idea of code modding. So even modders like me can't add new stuff.
    • And... It's missing that lovely feel that Starbound has which helps it to feel well rounded and cozy. It feels "cheap", for lack of a better term. So much work has gone into it but it's just not quite there yet.
  • No Man's Sky
    • NMS is a technical marvel and basically the best of the best of all time when it comes to procedural generation.
    • But... It is very difficult to facilitate writing and roleplay in because it's not well suited for it. It's a game to play, not to be a part of, so the entire universe feels more like a display case than something to integrate with.
    • And... It's missing that freedom of building that you can get in voxel games. It instead uses prefab-based building, and while decoration options are in the hundreds, it still always looks the same as you go between bases.

The Design Goals

  • I want good storytelling and art, to feel involved. I want to be a part of the world, and to be able to control the world for the sake of presentation and immersion. I want to facilitate the ability to write your own story for your character and be someone.
  • I want the ability to freely interact with the world, typically best expressed through voxels. Everything should be buildable, even your ship, and it should be buildable in as many places as possible.
  • I want people to be able to painlessly mod my game. I want mods to be natively supported and easy for anyone to make.

The Story

  Well, this is awkward. So originally the story was in this section, but I have since moved it to its own page because there's a lot there: The Story.

The People Involved

  Same thing here. It was here, but now it's not. See: Credits.