Hello developers, in this article, we will analyze the process of creating your universe step by step. Having determined where to get ideas last time, we will create everything from scratch this time. You can use the information from this article to develop fantasy and create your own game, universe, film, or write a book.

There are two chapters in this article. We will begin with theory; we will examine the origin of all ideas, consider design, come up with a name, develop a map, discuss musical accompaniment, and add diversity to our universe. In the second chapter, we will develop our universe in practice, develop our characters, develop our unique setting, and create the world of our creatures. To conclude, we will describe our universe’s main lore.

Chapter One  

Indie Game world Creation Theory

Let’s look at how ideas appear in a hierarchical order. At the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid, the easiest way is to copy or borrow other people’s thoughts when something brilliant or exciting comes to light. The easiest way for most to copy it, then it’s better to borrow various ideas along the hierarchy; this is when a typical composition is made up of a large number of different exciting mechanics. For example, you can take a Zombie survivor to add Parkour Craft to the ability to control the transport elements of melee and put it all in some of this post-apocalypse. In general, to put all the most exciting things together according to what scheme the mass entertainment industry works, be it movies, games, or music. Here the talent is manifested in the ability to combine everything from this stage, copied by those who made it first.

Below the next step, you can place where some mechanics originated. There are table, street, or sports games because they developed long before the advent of computer entertainment on the table; these are games like chess, gambling, and themed sports games, football, basketball, tennis, or hockey on the street. There are games like hide-and-seek, catch-up, and fights behind garages; in general, children play outside, and there are mental games like guessing the riddle or finding the differences. Some of the listed games were invented by chance, by someone doing something, and then seeing interest in it.

The next step of the hierarchy has no direct connection with the previous one. Books are the totality of all human knowledge from the moment a person learns to write the first book. The Diamond Sutra was published in 868. In books, the author embodies his fantasy. Many films were based on books, and in the same vein, the authors of the books transferred their life experiences to paper.

Here we have come to the top of the hierarchy, where life experience originates. Initially, all inspiration comes from nature. She is the device of the universe, and here you can object, thinking – what kind of nature do all these flower birds have here? We have an intense fight game with brutal men with massive guns, meat, swears, and murder; how do they correlate? And this is where our starting point begins.

Lamborghini Aventador. Lamborghini’s leading designer Filippo Perini drew inspiration from watching the green beetles and designs of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. The similarity of the fighter is also tracked in the creation of the Lamborghini Perdigon. Most supercars follow suit. They are designed according to the laws of aerodynamics that initially came from aircraft modeling. The first planes were designed according to sketches of the appearance of birds. With the development of aircraft engineering, the technical design of aircraft began to strive to reduce the coefficient of air resistance by simply streamlining. And the most aerodynamic shape is the shape of a drop. This form, which was formed taking into account the laws of the universe, is simply nature. You only have to look at the section of an airplane wing to see that it resembles an elongated drop.

Balenciaga sneakers have an attractive organic design and smooth envelope lines, just like those of animals or trees. Nike Air Jordan sneakers of the thirteenth model, namely, the design elements of the sole, resemble pads on the paws of the feline family.

If you want to come up with Indie Game idea follow the steps below:

If you want to come up with an epic Idea for your Game!

Step 1: Go to the forest and live there for a week.
Step 2: Observe plants, animals, or insects.
Step 3: See how bees or ants live.

— Alexander Gorbenko (@Lex_Gorbenko) January 26, 2023

They have a whole hierarchy there; there are a queen, workers, and soldiers who protect a hive or an anthill from uninvited guests. An insect capable of driving away sick individuals who are not helpful can also determine where their own and someone else’s are. If you are afraid to sit alone at night in the forest because bears may attack, then stay at home and watch National Geographic.

Observing nature, you can notice how everything is thought out here, and the question arises – who invented it all and how it all appeared? There is no specific answer to the concept of the universe. You can search in religious treatises of Vedic and epics or the works of various scientists. If the Bible describes the creation of the world as created by the creator, then physics propagandizes the theory of the big bang, string theory, and dark matter. In Vedic literature, the Earth can be written as a honeycomb structure where each cell is a separate World. The whole universe can be in the form of an egg half filled with water and a shell consisting of various matter. These can be layers of oxygen, water, or metal. Another exciting thing about the structure of the universe is written in the work of the academician Levashov, “Heterogeneous Universe.” a.k.a. Cosmological principle. Generally, the universe is described as a multidimensional matrix space, where there are many universes with their types of matter, the laws of physics of space and time, and the possibility of the existence of life, specifically in our world, a one-in-a-billion random case.

We can also draw another idea from ufology. Various interviews, for example, with Bob Lazar, a scientist who describes his activities at a secret American military base. According to him, his task was to study unidentified flying objects. In an interview, he describes their device. An even more exciting interview featured aliens captured by the military after they crashed in Roswell. There are a lot of such allegedly declassified materials. Aliens describe the universe’s structure, and in these materials, you can even find similarities with some of the works of our scientists. For example, aliens describe black holes as a point of intersection of two spaces for balancing matter. That is, where we have a black hole in a parallel universe is a star. Logically, a black hole sucks matter out of our universe, so there is no overabundance. With the help of a star, like a sun, it materializes in a parallel universe.

Academician Nikolai Levashov wrote of the same theory. You can treat this information as you like, but at least the work of Nikolai Levashov and the information from the interview with aliens sounds more plausible and logical than in religion and mythology.

Answer the main question – who created nature, all these birds, animals, and plants? We can say that perhaps they were some creatures like humans, only much more developed, who eventually reached such a level of development that they could create any animal or plant with the help of genetic engineering. Everything around us is the fruit of the creation of something, the mind of those who existed much longer than we have.

Where did the first entity in the universe originate? Was it just a happy coincidence? On the other hand, scattering Lego bricks on the floor can take countless amounts of time, but they are unlikely to assemble themselves. After it’s made, something like the Star Cruiser can lie on the floor until it disintegrates into atoms. Although who knows, maybe there is no starting point.

If you track the development of the design, you will notice that it becomes more ergonomic. Designers try to add more intricate details or at the same time be more concise. The Swiss artist Hans Rudolf Giger’s fascinating works have an organic origin. The artist liked to add elements of eroticism, which also emphasizes the nature of the birth of things from afar. Giger is known for his design work for the cult film Alien; the appearance of the alien is his design. Skorn has a similar design.

Here, the look of the environment, to put it mildly, looks unusual. The human brain is like muscles. The result will be impressive if you train it for a long time. Abstract from the hustle and bustle so that the excess does not interfere with your thought process. No wonder Google has a special place to listen to your favorite music; it can be something rough like Neurofunk. But wild music is destructive. At the same time, it is a call to action. Of course, it all depends on the person, or listening to something light, it can be classical music. It has a creative way how it works. Music evokes emotions from emotions triggers are triggered, and triggers pull memories out of your life. Your experiences are the bricks from which you collect your composition.

Take a look at our Recent Collaboration with IndieGame called The Shore, the music is EPIC

Collect references from sites like Pinterest, Artstation, or Ken and then collect and combine everything in the PureRef program to structure your ideas better.

Use mindmap for your Indie Game planning

Miro

Mindmeister

Milanote

Microsoft Visio

MindGenius

SmartDraw

LucidChart

Coggle

Xmind

Ideally, the name should characterize who or what it is referencing. As a basis, you can take existing words, names, or cities in different languages. You can pick up something close in meaning or beautifully sounding, then somehow combine them, modify them, or alter them to something consonant. For example, let’s define the city’s name and take the existing city of Riga. Let’s change it by swapping the letters. Riga can become Gira. We can add a prefix; now it is – Elvira. So far, it doesn’t sound perfect, so we’ll remove the last letter. In the end, we got Elgir. Alternatively, you can translate your native language into a foreign language or old, less well-known languages. The ancient literary language of India, Sanskrit, is perfect for this. What’s good on the Internet is that there is a translator into Sanskrit with transcription.

The next option is to develop everything from scratch in the order of improvisation. Just pick up any syllable, and sooner or later, something will stick. The last option is, if you don’t have time to study the mythology of foreign names, you can use nickname generators mynickname.com and a vivid example.

Map Creation for your Indie Game

To create your map, you can look at existing maps or trust your imagination. But still, some rules need to be followed. Let’s take a look at the world map. It consists of continents; once upon a time, it was one whole, connected with the movement of tectonic plates. The plates come on top of each other when continents collide, and mountains are formed along the edges. You can drive your map along the perimeter of the mountain range. It can also serve as a natural barrier. Place the river somewhere in the center. Rivers sometimes become a natural border in our world since trade routes pass through the rivers, and cities are based directly on the banks. The capital can be located in the center of the map on the river bank and smaller settlements downstream of the edge. You can add islands to reinforce your maps. Make the northern part of the world snowy and the southern region more desolate. All that remains is to add details of volcanoes, gorges, forests, and lakes; you can add them at your discretion. Roads usually diverge in different directions from cities. You can use the map generator if you don’t want to create everything yourself.

As for the musical accompaniment, everything is simple here. Music should characterize what is happening and evoke appropriate emotions. If it’s a mysterious scene, the music should be creepy. Accordingly, it is better to use something more dynamic for action scenes, scary for horror movies, and fun adventures have happy music. Sound can draw pictures in your head.

How do you like this example? The main character, a mouse on wheels, is riding along the federal highway in space between the Earth and the flat Earth. The task of the mouse is to take the throne and find all the Pokemon, but it will be challenging because the mouse is getting old, and the Pokemon will take its wheels. Add an absurdity or build on it ultimately. You combine the incompatible, something unusual always looks fresh against the background of banal things. You can love pizza as much as you like, but if you eat only it for a long time, then it will get very boring to you and you will no longer be able to look at it.

Add humor to your Indie Game universe: funny characters, funny situations, or jokes. The joke can be divided into two parts. The first stage is the introductory part, that is, the situation. The second part is a punchline, a shock line at the end, and an unexpected, abrupt change in the case, which makes the joke funny. For example, a man walks into a pharmacy and asks, “Do you have incontinence pills?”. “No, we don’t.” says the pharmacist. It was a setup outcome to which the man replied, “But then give me a Band-Aid.” This is a punchline contrast to let your world not get bored and add variety to the surroundings. You don’t have to make everything the same.

If this is the northern part of the world, then the architecture and landscapes should correspond to the regions of the north, those with a more intricate style, and in the south, everything is simpler. The more such contrasts are strikingly different from each other, the better. People will have the desire to explore your world. Don’t make the environment too sterile, or it will look implausible. Add scuffed debris and dirt. The listed information and sources can serve as a good resource for imagination. “The Lord of the Rings” world by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and the universe of “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling was invented based on religion and mythology. In turn, this is an observation of ancient ancestors. Who knows if this is true or fiction? Perhaps these creatures existed millions of years ago. We are unlikely to be the only inhabitants of the universe, but this is just my theory.

Fortunately, all the creatures are collected in a bestiary, a medieval collection of logical articles with descriptions and illustrations. Inspiration can also be drawn from there, as our universe is taken as a basis. The action can occur on Earth or some other fictional planet, in the past, present, future, or alternate times. To avoid the template, all this is modified. The fictional world exists in its own coordinate system. The author of an imaginary universe should make you believe in their world and pull you into it. You can work out the world in detail and justify it. If a spaceship is flying in the air, it looks implausible and prevents immersion in the world. It is necessary to somehow explain why it flies, with the help of what technologies, on what fuel, and where it is extracted.

But the author should not immerse a person in his fictional world at once, giving many descriptions and hints. It is not the story that matters, but the interaction of the characters with the outside world. It is necessary to tell about the world by exchanging the main character with other characters of the universe or the environment. The player or the reader, whether it is a game or a book, must gradually learn about the world by studying it.

Chapter 2 Will be available in a Week from now.

Learn more about Marketing and how to promote your Indie Game here.