About this image

I've been working pretty hard on Exode: Chronicles since my last post! Just take a look at Dawnshire in all its latest glory..

This is the town square. Notice how the cathedral is a part of it now. I liked the dramatic effect of having it in the distance, but I eventually brought it inside because I felt obeying the lore was more important -- the people of this city are fairly religious and it would make more sense to keep it in a central location.

There's a lot more grass and general vegetation here now as well. I started experimenting with a more organic city design and I ended up really liking it over the cold urban look. Seeing the wilderness creep into town like this seems to keep the player in an adventurous mode of thought, or at least it did for me anyway.

I've also started experimenting with a warmer color palette and the usage of Mania flora, as seen in the image above. Note how I actually set the Mania 'stellar cluster' texture beneath the vanilla clouds. In this way, the player is more inclined to think that they are atmospheric particles rather than distant stars. Planting these orbs of light in the clouds retains the idea of a "magically charged" atmosphere, as described in the book, but in a way that really does seem powered by magic. Before, I was using lightning, and this still seemed too Earth-like. That said, there is no further need for distant thunder sounds. I plan to use solely magical chimes for background atmosphere.

Finally, I'm working on a lot of things in the mod right now, but the biggest has to be the way I've totally redrawn the map. I've decided not to post any images of these changes to the map because I'd like to keep it a surprise! However, I will say that there are a lot more bodies of water, cliffs and valleys. I decided to really go forward with my inspiration from classic RPG world design and re-sculpt the world in such a way that the shape of the land would guide the player.