kronic
e362aaeb43
Add BefourStudios SciFi environment packs, Gabriel Aguiar VFX, and the ShaderCrew Toon Shader embedded packages, plus combat/enemy/wave/death gameplay systems and supporting vault docs/screenshots. Rename 11 vendor textures from uppercase .PNG/.HDR to lowercase so the case-sensitive Git LFS filters (*.png/*.hdr) match on case-sensitive filesystems (Linux CI, case-sensitive macOS), not just locally where core.ignorecase=true masks the gap. Each .meta moved with its asset so GUID references are preserved. All ~1000 binaries tracked via LFS. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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tags, status, updated, permalink
| tags | status | updated | permalink | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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draft | 2026-06-02 | gamevault/01-vision/identity |
Game Identity — Frontier colony (sci-fi)
The fiction that turns the Pillars into a place. Decided 2026-06-02 to bridge the "tech-demo → game" gap. It is a skin over the locked pillars — no mechanical rework: every pillar already built (M1–M5) keeps its systems and gains a fictional role below.
One-sentence pitch
A 2–4 player co-op action-RPG about holding a frontier outpost on a hostile world: twin-stick combat against the Husk swarm, a shared base you build and automate, and production chains that keep running while you fight.
Setting
An off-world colony foothold — a small crew anchoring a survivable outpost on a frontier world that does not want them there. A spreading corruption — the Blight — turns drones, machinery, and fauna into aggressive Husks that probe and swarm the perimeter. The outpost is the safe anchor you grow and defend; beyond it lies the blighted frontier you push into for resources.
Player fantasy
A frontier operator: mobile, lethal twin-stick gunplay; you and your friends raise an outpost, wire up automation so the colony compounds even while you're out fighting, and push the perimeter back against the Husks. Setup is rewarded over grind (per the automation pillar).
Tone
Grounded near-future industrial sci-fi with an edge of cosmic/biotech corruption. Not cute, not horror — tense frontier survival with a power-fantasy payoff. Reference feel: Helldivers frontier grit × Factorio logistics satisfaction × V Rising base-growth loop × Diablo / PoE combat readability.
Art north-star
Dark, readable, high-contrast. A desaturated industrial world (metal, regolith, dim ambient) so that bright emissive gameplay elements pop and bloom:
- Cyan / teal → the player crew, friendly energy, owned structures.
- Hostile orange / red → Husks and Blight corruption.
- White-hot → impacts, muzzle flashes, deaths.
Silhouette-first readability (ARPG legibility from the top-down frame), bloom on emissives, vignette to focus the frame, ACES tonemapping. Primitives + emissive + post-processing now; stylized low-poly hard-surface (crew/structures) and corrupted biomech (Husks) later. The palette is the identity even before real models.
The enemy — Husks
Corrupted rogue drones/lifeforms driven to swarm the colony. They are the threat that makes combat combat and gives the base a reason to exist.
- First Husk (this slice): a melee charger — seeks the nearest operator, closes, strikes. Server-authoritative interpolated ghost.
- Later: ranged "spitters", armored "brutes", a "broodmaker" spawner, and eventually a corrupted-fabricator boss. Wave/threat director over time.
Automation flavor
Colony fabricators, conveyors, assembler drones, and power — the self-running production chains of the locked automation pillar, fictionalized as the outpost's industry that keeps growing while the crew fights and expeditions.
How it maps to the locked pillars (no rework)
| Pillar (Pillars) | Fictional skin |
|---|---|
| Action-ARPG combat (twin-stick) | Frontier operator gunplay vs. the Husk swarm |
| Co-op base power fantasy (V Rising feel) | The crew's outpost — built, defended, grown together |
| Automation as progression | Colony fabricators/drones/conveyors compounding output |
| Persistent base + instanced expeditions | The safe outpost anchor (BaseAnchor) vs. the blighted frontier beyond |
Audio / UI identity (direction)
Industrial synth, weighty impacts, a low hostile drone for Husk proximity. UI reads as a clean diegetic colony-terminal — functional HUD (health, ability charge, threat count), neon-on-dark.
Related
- Pillars — locked mechanical decisions this fiction skins.
- Established in the "First Blood" game-feel slice (2026-06-02) — see the session log + decision record for the presentation/enemy architecture that first expresses this identity.