GDD: Shrines and Interactive World Elements

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Shrines and Interactive World Elements

This section will cover all of the objects that exist in the world which are static parts of the level that the player can interact with. Many of these types of objects will be shrines to ancient Greek deities. These shrines are a specific subset of all interactive elements that will be discussed first.

Shrines - These elements of Asterion's level allow the player a means of trading goods for abilities or power-ups. In the abstract, shrines work the same way a shopkeeper would work on a more traditional RPG. In other RPG's the shopkeeper is a mechanism where the player can offload their useless or excessive possessions in exchange for things that are actually useful to them. Where in another game, there might be in-game shops that a player would visit (like a merchant, an apothecary or a blacksmith) players in Asterion visit shrines. There are five Greek gods that are featured predominantly in the game, where one god presides over each type of shrine. Each type of shrine can perform a specific function, which will be listed here with a description of function (for a description of the corresponding deity see the 'Characters' section):

Each type of shrine listed here has (in this order) a function, a description, an associated deity, an input, a cost, an output, and a description of how many times the player can use the shrine.

Repairing the strength of gear

This type of shrine can take armor or weapons which are in shoddy condition and fix them.
Hephaestus controls this type of shrine
Input: Two pieces of gear (gear being either weapons, items, or armor). One piece of gear is destroyed while the other is made stronger.
Cost: One of the pieces of gear placed on this shrine is selected as a sacrifice, this piece is then 'spent' as if it were currency in order to improve the other gear
Output: The piece of gear which was not destroyed (which is now repaired by some amount proportional to the value of the gear that was destroyed)
This type of shrine can be re-used

Permanently increasing the maximum strength of gear

This type can also improve the strength of gear beyond the strength of weapons and armor that are made by mortals.
Hephaestus controls this type of shrine
Input: A specific type of trinket or object that is specified at the shrine, and a piece of gear of the player's choosing
Cost: having to go find the object that is described by the shrine.
Output: The piece of gear that the player chose (which now has an increased max strength).
This type of shrine can be used once.

Redeeming health

This type of shrine can refill the player's health back to normal, or in some instances permanently increase the player's health
Apollo controls this type of shrine
Input: Any piece of gear
Cost: The piece of gear that was used as input
Output: The player's health will be redeemed by an amount that is proportional to the value of the gear that was sacrificed
This type of shrine can be re-used

Permanently increasing the maximum health

This type of shrine can refill the player's health back to normal, or in some instances permanently increase the player's health
Apollo controls this type of shrine
Input: A specific type of trinket or object that is specified at the shrine
Cost: having to go find the object that is described by the shrine.
Output: The player's max health will permanently increase by some predetermined amount
This type of shrine can be used once.

Increasing strength in combat

This type of shrine can permanently increase the player's maximum strength in combat.
Ares controls this type of shrine
Input: this type of shrine specifies a certain type and number of enemies that must be slain
Cost: the player must carry out the task of killing certain enemies
Output: the player's max strength in combat is increased
This type of shrine can be used once.

Blessing mundane objects

This type of shrine can take objects which were useless and make them powerful (possibly for use as an item in combat, possibly as part of some kind of Daedalus contraption or some other puzzle)
Poseidon, Zeus and Hades control this type of shrine
Input: Any item
Cost: this type of shrine does not cost anything
Output: If the object is potentially a divine object it will become usable in combat or for puzzles
This type of shrine can be re-used

Guidance through the game's puzzles

This type of shrine can be consulted by the player in order to get more specific guidance on how to proceed through the game.
Athena controls this type of shrine
Input: nothing is required to use this type of shrine
Cost: this type of shrine does not cost anything
Output: Athena will give the player a hint for how to proceed through the labyrinth
This type of shrine can be re-used (hints can be repeated if the player forgets)

Quick traveling

This type of shine can be used to quickly travel large distances that the player has already traversed several times.
Hermes controls this type of shrine
Input: Nothing is required to use this type of shrine (but players can only quick travel to shines that they've already discovered)
Cost: This type of shrine does not cost anything
Output: Hermes transports the player to another Hermes shine
This type of shrine can be re-used

Other Interactive Elements - Interactive elements in Asterion include any other type of interactive item, other than shrines, that the player can use. This section will discuss these game elements in generalities because each item can be approached by the player in the same way, but each will have different properties. Interactions can be different for each object, and are based on the types of thing that a person could do with that type of object. For example, an interactive door object might prompt the user if they want to open the door, while an interactive chest object might prompt the user if they want to look inside the chest. These types of objects can have behaviors that respond to things in the player's inventory. Again for the door example, the door might respond to a specific key item the player might be carrying.