After wrapping Harmonize up it was time to set sights on what comes next, and while there are multiple things looming over the horizon, perhaps the most interesting among them is the next, big project - the one that unlike Harmonize will not be just for learning, but rather to be developed through to completion, whatever challenges may come up along the way. And that project, I am glad to announce, is the temporarily-named Project Orion. An internal name merely for use during development, it nonetheless has a meaning: Orion here refers to our galactic neighbourhood, the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and for good reason. Project Orion is my take on the building/management genre, with a distinctly space and sci-fi theme - it is a Space Port Simulator!

The idea behind Project Orion is simple enough. From movies and series to comics and games, in most works where space travel is commonplace the idea of space ports is ubiquitous - these are places where ships stop while in their long voyages to resupply, where characters cross paths with other individuals and ideas that populate their galaxy, where freelancers and mercenaries find work and hopeful spacers find crews. In a way, the space port is the space version of the fantasy tavern, and just like in the ever present RPG inn, all sorts of characters, stories and troubles are bound to come into port sooner or later.

While the general outline of this project has been living in my mind for quite a while, many of its ideas are still thoroughly underdeveloped, so I am taking the time now to do some groundwork on the concept, and laying down the game design foundations that will help the project go from some neat ideas to a playable, engaging and fun game.

As a first step in this process, I chose to create a relatively simple one page game design document where I could lay down some of the basic ideas for the game. I opted to compose an illustration of what a scene from the game could look like as a way to convey a general vision for the game, what sorts of elements will be present in it and a glimpse into how they might interact or work.

The original plan was to focus on a main image and go from there, but I ended up with a lot more text than I had hoped. Still, for a first document I think it does a decent enough job of introducing some big concepts about the game - the premise, and certain main components of it - while also illustrating a simplified version of what it could look like.

As with any design doc, this is meant to be a living document, so the proposals made in it are liable to evolve and change as the process of game design progresses. As for next steps, I am now working on a more extensive, mostly textual document detailing the fundamental mechanics and dynamics of the game: what the player does, what their motivations may be and how the game reacts to it all and presents new information.

With all that said, I hope this look into this brand new project and its first steps was in any way interesting! I will see you next time with another update on Project Orion, or maybe a piece on the other subjects I have been studying, such as a certain rising star in the world of game engines.