Developer Blog

2023 January Update

Welcome to 2023 and an early January update date.

Process has gone sideways, but has not stopped. Instead Planet O-oot as a whole has gone in an unexpected direction. By the end of this year there should be a physical release of a product. This statement may sound mysterious, but it is not ready for an official announcement yet / full explanation. Basically something substandinal has occurred and we’ve hit a “break through” when previously we have been struggling to gain ground.

Sadly what can be said is it is not a guidebook to Planet O-oot, or a table top game book. But what we hope is that this finished product will provide a foundation and a starting point to then build on. I can assure you what we are working on now is not related to tokens or digital media, but physical printed media. It will either be sold as one solid object, or the first few chapters will be available for free digitally and the complete work will be a purchasable item.

Hopefully these are hints that are clear enough to give a sense of direction.

The current stage of this new sub-project / sister-project is that the first draft is about to enter it’s first revision.

Pages on the website will be continued to be updated, with additional graphics and new written content before the end of the first quarter. Because the primary new project is still set in this universe, it is as a byproduct of getting done creating more things that can be posted here on the site.

By march or sooner we will be able to fully disclose the thing; but we want to get the first revision or second draft / start of second revision done before going into detail. We are pretty certain of what the final published piece will look like, but there are certain aspects; such as wordcount / physical page count that need to be hammered out more before describing it wont require a bunch of future corrections / re-explainations.

Thank you for reading this message and we hope you are having a good new year so far; or that whatever bad stuff that carried over from last year will wrap up soon.

– Admin P.

Necessary Stand-in System

(this developer blog post counts as #1 of the NSiS Entires)
At first it seems like it would be a great waste of time to create a temporary game system to then be replaced later with the “real” game system; it just doesn’t seem sensible at first but eventually it starts to make a little too much sense.
If you were wondering why Planet O-oot does not have a lot of game mechanic information up on the site yet… That’s because it’s been horribly up in the air for a very, very long time. Besides switching systems more then once, we’ve had a lot of aspects half-baked and then set aside to be completely redone later (or forgotten and rediscovered). In an effort to try to create “continuous progress” instead of gaining ground and then having to re-gain that ground a second or third time; we will be creating a whole batch of temporary information just so pages can get done enough to be published on the website.

The most likely first place where you will see the NSiS (Necessary Stand-in System) are probably the “Step 3” and “Step 4” sections of character creation. You will also notice that entries of this developer blog will start getting tagged/categorized with that acronym as we are going to post a lot of “rough drafts” related to it before then putting a page together for each bit.

Given that this entry is the first to mention a Necessary Stand-in System, let’s explore some of the driving motives behind it’s current structure and some of it’s early features (that could entirely change later):

  • Start Simple, Build-Up Overtime
    We found that during play testing there was a lot of confusion around players doing heavy customization of their character’s stats up-front because they were not familiar with the setting, so often felt they “built their character wrong” only after one or two sessions. In an attempt to avoid this in the future, we are attempting to create a system that starts “narrow” and expands in choices as your character levels up. However, please don’t misinterpret this as trying to “dumb things down”. Rather, we are trying to create a direct connection between progressing through game sessions and expanding your character’s bag of tricks. 

  • Taking Focus away from improving Attribute Stats
    Each Player Character is meant to evolve in complexity as they level up; starting off very simple and uniform in nature. You will find that modifiers can be added on top of your base stat block attributes, but that none of your attributes, themselves, will change over time. This design choice is meant to streamline initial character creation, so that the focus will be on getting the first game session started faster, so that you can begin to get a “feel” for how you will want to grow and develop your character as they level up in the future. The core idea will be to enhance your character by adding new skills, abilities and better equipment to them over time but they will remain as naturally strong or fast as anyone else of their species or tribe.
    Hopefully this will lead to a sense of your character being “better” then non-player characters because of the time (and resources) they’ve invested in improving themselves, but that they are not now on an entirely different level of existence… Which hopefully means that NPCs might remain a more competitive challenge overtime and will never truly become easy to “mow” through.

  • Leveling up your character:
    Each combat encounter, puzzle solved and NPC interaction can and will generate EXP. In this game, experience points (EXP) will lead to the party collectively getting to level up. It sounds pretty standard (and it is) but the process will play out a bit different as described by some of the design choices listed above. EXP will function as the “currency” to “buy” skills and abilities to then apply to your character, OR the EXP will count towards filling a “meter”, which upon level up will dispense a certain number of points that can then be used to acquire new skills. This is still a very undefined, unexplored aspect of the system.

  • How Wisdom rolls work
    Often, in table top games, there will be a separate “wisdom” and “intelligence” attribute in the stat block. In this game, we’re trying to do it a different way; now intelligence remains a stat, but all wisdom-related situations are dealt with through Skills and Abilities. If a player has no wisdom-type skills or abilities, their roll will be based on their intelligence. However, if they do have a skill or ability that specifically fits the situation, then that number is added on top of the character’s intelligence attribute.
    The idea of a generically “wise” character fits in well with a Fantasy setting, wherein the world is run on a series of intersecting magic systems that a character could develop a strong general “understanding” of. Meanwhile in a sci-fi setting, the world operates in more realistic terms and most of the technologies in use are so complex or unrelated that it would be hard for one to justify having a broad sense of “knowing” or “insight”.

  • Awareness as an attribute
    This number represents both a character’s ability to perceive the world around them and their ability to be sneaky in the world. With other games, these two concepts are usually assigned to different attributes in the stat block such as Dexterity and Wisdom, but for our system we are combining the idea of being stealthy, being aware and being able to detect things into it’s own stand-alone stat attribute.
    This is meant to, again, reflect a difference in how setting genres work; biologically speaking, there are many creatures who are naturally stealthy while being incredibly slow, dumb, or not-nimble. The way stealth is usually handled in a Fantasy setting revolves around the assumption that the Rouge as a character class is a major part of the world ecosystem (like the Wizard, or Fighter character class). In this setting, most creatures and aliens who are “stealthy” are never “trained” to be so and might lack quite a lot of grace or cunning. 

For now we’ll stop and pick up more information musing later. The next NSiS specific developer blog post will probably either discuss aspects of how the actual stat block will work (with the six attributes that make it) or go into how in-game items/equipment will be organized through naming; that is to say the name of the item will have very particular information built into that tells you how it will work within the system.

Again, none of this is terribly world-shattering or completely new in concept. Our goal is just to create something that both works as a stand-in and as a way to start experimenting with ideas we might want to keep into the final version.

– Admin P.

Jan. 2022 Housekeeping

Updated the copyright stamp for 2022
This is not legally necessary, but it is a simple reminder that this website and the material hosted on it is not somehow abandonware or forgotten by it’s creator. Sometimes less then honest actors search for creative visions that were at one point shared on the internet, but forgotten, as the basis for their own business endeavors.

Added 10+ more Banner graphics to the banner shuffle
You may have noticed we like to tease actual art that will end up in future publications using the header graphic/ banner. There are now a bunch of new ones that use face images of non-playable characters from Township. Although the Township book project is slated for sometime after the Planet O-oot project, we feel like it adds a bit of intrigue to tease at far-future projects, as well as the ones actively being hammered out right now.

Published a Developer Blog Post about NFTs
It’s derivative to mention a blog post, inside of a blog post (this), right after posting previously mentioned blog post in the same day, But… It really needs to be made clear; NFTs are stealing a lot of art right now without permission and we’re trying to make it as perfectly, painfully clear as possible that Planet O-oot is NOT connected to any NFT projects.

All of the above out of the way, the future of Planet O-oot is looking bright. A new studio space has been established that will increase art output and a lot of time has been cleared off to devote exclusively to this project. The general update “chunks” discussed in May 2021 still stand as the most likely pattern of updates to come in the near-ish future (let’s say Q1 of 2022, fingers crossed).

The current major issues being worked on right now have to do with tables for character creation, how to present them graphically and to what extent there will be addition tables for each Tribe / Alien Species. The goal continues to be striking a balance between including as much information and gameplay elements as to enrich the overall experience, but to trim back enough fat to keep it accessible.

The intention is to keep the game easy to jump into initially, with the lore and worldbuilding naturally coming up and into play as it makes sense for when the player would want to know these things. Front-loading information is not inherently bad, but it can weigh down a lesser-known I.P. (intellectual property) as it tries to introduce itself to new players. Often, when something is better established in pop culture, you can bypass that initial easing-in process and go straight for the deep lore, the tiny details and the extra-ordinary bits that add layers of excitement; this is why a generic “high fantasy” setting has remained a popular choice over the years. Thanks to Lord of the Rings, Dungeons&Dragons, Warhammer and World of Warcraft; most people are very familiar with general concepts like “elf”, or “dwarf”. Creators often only have to add in what makes their particular flavor of elf a bit unique, while being able to save paragraph space from having to describe the fundamentals. Conceptual Shorthand is very useful if you want to jump ahead to focus on aspects besides baseline worldbuilding; especially in order to focus more on the game mechanics.

The simple truth is that, in most cases, we only have a finite amount of patience for absorbing new content before we get overwhelmed. Once we’ve decided to be committed to something, our patience can seem endless and our brains become more excited to absorb additional information to build on what it already knows, but that first stage of introduction has to be framed carefully as to trigger that sort of commitment and interest, instead of confusing and making the player feel hesitant in investing more time into this new thing.

Lots of developers would say that openly discussing these types of considerations comes across as pulling back the curtain too far; that it might be a bit too blunt to just say it and that it needs more buzzwords to smooth it out. On one hand, I do agree, but on the other I think being more direct between customer and creator can help build a bridge of understanding. Even at the risk of sounding offensive sometimes, I think having this kind of direct stream of thought communicated in turn helps the consumer understand what goes into the products they enjoy and to be able to empathize with certain design choices that could otherwise come off as “strange”.

– Admin P.

There Are No NFTs

  • There are no NFT (non-fungible token) projects connected to Planet O-oot.
  • There is no plan to currently become involved with any NFT project.
  • If you see ANY aspect of Planet O-oot being used in an NFT project, assume it is stolen content and please inform us on twitter.

If you are reading this and do not know what an NFT is, or have heard the term but would like to know more about it; we would recommend the video “What the hell are NFT’s?” by youtuber Josh Strife Hayes, published on Jan 15, 2022. (no hyperlink was provided as a future-proofing measure for your computer’s safety).

This announcement is important and required it’s own blog post because NFTs have been stealing art over the last few months at an increasing rate. Although there is a potential avenue for independent artists to use this new technological concept as a way to generate income (NFTs can be set to have a percentage-tax for every trade, sending some amount of the trade cost back to the original creator of that NFT), Planet O-oot will not be involved in any NFT project unless it is officially announced, confirmed and outlined on this website.

Planet O-oot will never embark on a project with any other company or individual without announcing it on the site first. If we ever do something involving tokens, it would be covered here in full with very clear, precise links and named names of exactly who or what is involved. If you see our name on something with no information here (on the website), then take that as confirmation it is 100% fake, stolen, so on. If you ever see our art or concept stolen, and it’s on a platform with some kind of fraud-reporting feature; please feel free to not only tell us about it but also report that individual account to the service that probably doesn’t realize they are hosting a scam.

Everything said above sounds very similar to our statements about fundraising events, which is to say (again and similar to above) that ANY fundraising, or subscription service, that tries to associated themselves with us should be assumed to be a fraud / scam operation UNLESS it is announced here first. In the event we ever did launch an official thing, but forgot to announce it on the website first, we would hope you’d still follow our advice and assume it’s fake UNTIL evidence here proves it otherwise.

May Housekeeping

Thank you for checking back in. We’ll include more of an explanation at the end of this list as to why we will be doing things in this format, but first let’s go straight into it! Below is a list of how we plan to update the website in the foreseeable future;

Tribes of Man Update, which will include:
– Lunars Page ( w/ “origins” roll table)
– Martians Page ( w/ “origins” roll table)
– Space Traders Page ( w/ “origins” roll table)

The “Tribes of Man” Update will include a page for each playable human faction. Terran Arms will not be playable, but eventually we will create/format the concepts of “cyborg” humans and “halfling” humans (Fay/Human hybrids) as playable. Each page will include an “origins” roll table, which will be a way for you to either roll a random background for your player character or to serve as inspiration for how you might want to write a custom/unique backstory. Even though these are just three pages, they will be lore and information dense, which is why they are blocked off as their own update.

Playable Aliens Update, which will include:
– Fay Page (w/ “Appearance” roll table)
– Neb Page (w/ “Appearance” roll table)
– Purr Page (w/ “Appearance” roll table)
– Saurian Page (w/ “Appearance” roll table)

The “Playable Aliens” Update will include a page for each playable alien species. We might add more aliens in the future, but the simple truth is that several aliens in this setting are extremely overpowered and would probably be very, very difficult to ever balance as a playable character that starts out weak and expands out their skill set over time. Each page will include an “appearance” table, which is actually two tables. Each of the two lists an aspect of that alien’s appearance (examples; hair color & eye color) that can then be combined to create a unique, but setting-accurate appearance for your alien player character. Again, you can also just treat the roll tables like a menu to freely choose from if you prefer not to risk the “random dice look”.

Planet O-oot Update, which will include:
– Geography of O-oot Page
– Caves Page (w/ “Mining” roll table)
– Forest Page (w/ “Foraging” roll table)
– Junkyards Page (w/ “Scavenging” roll table)
– Glock Island Page (w/ “Sweeping” roll table)
– Grasslands Page (w/ “Rooting” roll table)
– Oveen Poles Page (w/ ??? roll table)
– Swamplands Page (w/ “Fishing” roll table)

The “Planet O-oot” Update will probably take longer to put out, as it is larger and dependent on more information in the book that has yet to be finalized. The “Geography of O-oot” Page will function as the table of contents hosting the hyperlinks to all the other pages in the update, alone with more information about how the planet functions. Having this geography page will then allow the “biology page” to be re-done sometime later so that it reflects the wildlife more/exclusively. Each “terrain” or “biome” page will detail how that type of environment differs, as well as list common creatures that inhabit it. The roll tables will work as an optional action you can try while in that terrain / biome; allowing players to collect resources in the middle of their adventure that they can either use directly or combine with other items to create usual tools/objects.

Township Update, which will include:
– Politics and Economy Page (Lore, Lore, Lore!)
– Complete NPC List (an index for cross-referencing, basically)
– Shops and Places (more detailed, to be used with above list page)

The “Township” Update will act as three pages that work together to present a picture of the only Township on Planet O-oot’s surface. All three Pages will exist within the “Township” Page, which will be changed to serve as a table of contents for these and any additional pages about Township. The “Politics and Economy” page will go into some detail on the origins of the settlement, but mostly focus on describing the power structure that runs things as well as how they are trying to create a unique currency for this world. The “Complete NPC List” will act as a very useful index, given that all the NPCs of Township are meant to be interactable to some extent. We want to try and provide enough information to give game masters the freedom to focus on their story telling and to not have to waste time fleshing out an NPC on the spot. The “Shops and Places” Page acts as a cross-reference to the list; every shop and service is run by a named NPC that has a background and relationships with other characters.

Non-Playable Aliens Update, which will include:
– Agen Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Acitox & Que Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Distoes Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Makers Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Omrah Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Purr Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Snakah-Saurian Page (w/ NPC roll table)
– Terran Arms Page (w/ NPC roll table)

The “Non-Playable Aliens” Update is probably the lowest on the priority list right now. Each page will offer information that Player Characters would either know or learn easily about the Non-playable alien species in this setting. Each page will include an “NPC” roll table, which will be a list of NPCs the game master or the players can use to pull random members of that species into the immediate scene. Sometimes a player may reach out and try to talk to someone in a crowd, or the GM will realize they forgot to decide in advance who (or what) would be on the other side of that door!

All of the above being drawn out and presented, let’s return to discussing the plan for how all of this will be released over the next serval months (or years? oh no!). The plan is to stick with the packaged updates as a way to keep things organized. The one aspect of freedom we are allotting ourselves is not committing to which order they will be released in. As inspiration hits, each page will be filled out and re-worked. As one update “chunk” seems to near completion sooner then others, that chunk will get priority and be more likely to come out first. We are trying to find a balance in which creative freedom is funneled just enough into a focused point that things get done, but that it does not feel so restrictive as to cause or encourage a sense of entrapment.

At the same time, instead of keeping this list private information, we thought it could both encourage productivity and a feeling of better transparency to share this. Sometimes, when it comes to creative projects, a follower’s interest wavers if there is a strong sense of a project having no direction, or strategy to get finished. A lot of times developers do have very detailed plans and schedules that they keep private, making it look on the outside that not much is getting done. It’s hard to decide how much to share and how much to hold back, but hopefully this is a reasonable amount. Lastly, we’re going to try and keep with this idea of the update “chunks” as a way to better communicate in the dev blog what we are up to. I (and perhaps others) will try and always refer back to the update names given above to make sure everyone is on the same page. Keep an eye-out for blog posts specifically titled after the updates listed above!

In conclusion; thank you for reading this far. Your interest in our project is very appreciated.
– Admin P.

February Housekeeping

For many, 2020 was a very strange and overwhelming year to live through.

As of today we are back at full speed in terms of development and our first priority is to freshen up the website. There will be a few new icons and images added and in the coming days more pages will be added. A format for roll tables has been settled on and so both the individual “species” and “tribes” pages should be able to go up fairly quickly.

There is now a twitter account as well, @Planet_Ooot, which we highly suggest you tweet questions to. One of the terrible things we came back to after not working on the site for a while was a stack of HIGHLY inappropriate spam bot messages. In order to avoid these showing up again, we will be blocking the ability to leave comments under blog posts and will instead heavily encourage readers to comment through twitter.

Furthermore I would like to come out and say that I am Pierce Alstead. In the future you might see references noting who wrote what and so you might notice this name or shorthand sign-offs like “Admin P.” or “P Mod” or others; those are me. as more people get involved with the website there will be more public introductions to these individuals and their preferred names. We’ll make a point to have no overlap with initial letters used to try and reduce confusion.

Last in house keeping news will be to acknowledge that several blog posts from 2020 were deleted; these posts all contained the spam comments with links to very inappropriate websites. Originally I deleted all the comments manually, but then worry and my lack of understanding of how bots work got the better of me; so I made the administrative decision to delete them in case the actual posts were somehow “flagged” for bots to seek out and spam again (I noticed repeating posts every few days).

With all of this covered, there will be another blog post to follow within the next handful of days taking about content as it is published on the website. Several update “chunks” are lined up, though we are not certain of the exact order they will be going on. As a final reminder; twitter is our ONLY official means of contact right now. Please feel free to contact us through that service with any questions that come to mind.