The concept of bluesky started a few years ago, I wont go into detail here but in short it was the concept of the tower from Dazombes' Tower project. Id made some sketches of my own for the project, but never submitted them, and that whole process kind of got me started on the thought train of expanding the world of rainworld past a simple region mod.
From there it kind of expanded into this concept of no mans land, progressing through long streight tunnels like pilgrim's ascent towards a ruined battlefield of trenches and forgotten bodies lost admist the mud, with a ammunition factory standing tall above it all. Then it progressed into a concept around a grand tower which morphed from a science lab into grand halls and musical chambers as you climbed, making the player question the culture of who built it. I actually sitll have the dialog of a pearl for moon I wrote:
Its a collection of diary entries by an exterior group calling themselves Speckled Shaft. I’m not sure how nomadic your kind are, but I doubt anything that can move as great distances as you would want to live near us, so you must usually live quite some distance from us. The exterior is just as effected by the rains as anywhere else, but it took a long time for things to get really bad, so for awhile groups that disagreed with the idea of living upon us for whatever reason found their own lives atop their own spires built into the wilds.
It’s a set of very old journal entries from a fringe cult who rejected living in the iterators in the short period between our introduction and the scouring of the surface ecosystem. Predictably it was usually for non spiritual reasons, the centralization around the government atop each of us left little room for high minded zealots to amass influence over their acolytes. Those who’d already established their cults simply rejected us, and sought to live as kings atop their own spires.
The group these journals came from was more interesting however. They sought a kind of ideal state of music which they belived couldn’t be heard anywhere in which electricity was used, something related to generator and transformer feedback- ah, you may not know what that means but I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of strange noises traveling through me and my neighbor.
The journals trail off, referring to the sacred music less and less until they end with them leaving the tower they'd built, writing of plans to perform a series of concerts utilizing our rainfalls as an instrument. Our creators could be a fickle bunch, it seems likely to me that they simply lost interest after realizing finding whatever they were looking for would require either more time or resources then they had, if it could be found at all…
While I’m sure there’s plenty of knowledge to be found out there, must you go to such remote and unstable places? I can’t imagine there’s much food or safety there, I’d hate my indulgence in reading these to be what gets you killed little creature. Nothing much ever came of those colonies.
I'm not the biggest fan of it, but who is of their old work? Regardless, the concept has evolved again, and this time much closer to my goals I think.
I'm a big fan of Andrew FM if you cant assume, and his early work in creating the miros vulture has always held my interest. I'd love to create more animals, I just have no clue what I'd even make. The ecosystem already feels so... complete. But if noodleflies can fit, then so can whatever else I come up with.
And, what better place to add new creatures then a new setting? Free of the pre-occupations of the base game lore and gamefeel?
I know you'll say, Parameter, you havent finished a single project in your life, why aim this high? Well, its honestly because it feels like my biggest problem so far has been a lack of ambition. Its hard to do anything when you're trying to do nothing after all, and worst case scenario I just drop this project in silence and no one ever sees these blogs.
Bluesky 1
Technical and Art References