What is Venexia all about?

Venexia does not have a central story arc like many games do where a character progresses from  one goal to the next until they reach the credit screen. Rather, it's ambition (or mine for it) are to be able to tell interesting stories in a historic setting with a cast of characters you can relate to and get to know over time.

Therefore the unstated goal for Venexia is something like: Allow the player to experience the life of a Sangue (vampire) in 18th century Venice from their transition in  1715, until the demise of the Republic in 1797.

Will we ever get this far? It is unlikely that this game will actually be able to encompass and give the ability to go this far into the history of Venice and Lucrezia, but it is the ambition that drives the project forward. Eventually the game will have enough material to at least cover multiple years of in game content (right now it is a few months of story).

But if we do not have a central story, then how does this sandbox work? That's what I want to explore here.

Major spheres of Quests

The current quests in Venexia are attributed to four major spheres detailed here.

Pax Venetiae (Business)

In the Peace of Venice are stories that depend so much on this delicate peace the Republic's political and foreign policy aim to provide. They are stories related to commerce and business.

Venice is and remains in the 18th century one of the most import trade capitals of Europe (and indeed the world). Riches flow from Venice and into Venice. While it is in a state of retraction from its heights int he 15th century, Venice still remains powerful, however, the the discovery of America and the sailing around the Cape of Good Hope have made a real impact on land-based trade routes from Asia into the Levant and into Asia Minor from where  Venice once imported most of the wares to Europe.

Nevertheless, the prosperity of Venice and the Republic depends very much on trade, so it is no surprise that Business interests play and important role in the game as well. Many characters are intimately involved with  it and benefit from it.

Signori della Notte (Power)

Lords  of the Night are stories of power and control. The stories within this sphere are related to seeking power in politics and the games that Sangue play with each other, solitary predators at their core, but social beings by their mortal shell.

Sangui have a complex government structure, just like mortals with many factions vying for power and influence. Yet also their influence on mortal politics is immense. As such, many stories center around this sphere of topics. The other related threat is that of outsiders taking the riches of Venice away from her, which is an important topic for Venice in the 18th century with many wars and conflicts, one of which is already introduced right off the bat  with the Ottoman war lingering in the oversea provinces in 1715 as Lucrezia is transitioned.

Scuole Grandi (Knowledge)

The Great Schools are  stories of seeking Knowledge and Truth. There are many who, given the burden of immortality, would see it as an opportunity to learn more about the world and their condition, about the life and death of mortals and religion. Venice, as all prosperous places, has always been a sponsor of exploration and truth seeking.

Stories of Knowledge are concerned with the metaphysical relationship of how Sangui work, about truth in religion and the sciences of the Renaissance.

Spettacoli Cittadin (Social)

Spectacles of the Citizens are stories of social events and intrigue. What Venice is likely most known for except their merchants and business, is their sponsorship of the arts and the excesses through which they consumed all that is beautiful.

Stories in the Social sphere deal with the relationships between Sangui and mortals, as well as the festivities and social rank.

How characters relate to major spheres

Now how do these spheres relate to characters? When I created the world of the Sangui, I paid attention to the fact that all characters have tendencies to fall into one or two of these spheres  and they will usually operate in stories related to these spheres when it comes to interaction with the player.

Of course characters are multi-faceted, so even those who do not fall into a sphere can appear in stories related to them.  As the player will learn during play, Lucrezia's Sire Veronica Franco is mostly operating within the spheres of Power (Signori della Notte) and Business (Pax Venetiae) by her own choice, but she is also a formidable Social character, which an avid interest in festivities. It is simple in her current state of being no longer her primary focus and as such she will allocate her time usually to her own endeavors rather than lingering in the theater's of Venice.

Minor spheres of quests

Minor spheres for quests are quests that fall outside of the upper definition and they will be shorter stories that serve as flavor, whereas the major spheres carry the mood and atmosphere and character interactions for the most part.

Hunting

Hunting and Feeding  are an important topics for Sangui as for any Vampire type. As such there are some stories related to Hunting that are worth exploring. Currently the hunting stories are procedurally (i.e. randomly) generated.  This gives us a good variety, but structurally very similar experience for them. This is a "good enough" solution for right now, as I would have felt very bad to release even a first version of a game centered around vampires that does not even have any feeding mechanic, but it is something that will be expanded upon bit by bit, adding more variety, and more scripted encounters.

Stories at Saint Mark Square

In the upcoming release for 0.1.1, I will also add the first story of this new flavor pack, which will center around some stories in the region of Saint Mark Square, the beating heart of Venice, where the administration and the Ducal Palace are located. This will eventually be one of many location specific story packs that gives some option to explore stories outside of the usual quest structures.

Ghost Stories

Ghost stories is a flavor story pack I center around some of the stories inspired by the book "Venetian legends and ghost stories" and introduces (currently badly) some mysticism into the world.

Future Ideas

Of course many new quest types will come up during development and some of them will undoubtedly be more complex. One example I  can share is Radiant Festivals, where it would of course make a lot of sense to once a year attend such feasts such as the Venetian Carnival.

Crafted vs. 'Radiant' Experiences

One big question that will need to be tackled is how much of the experience of the game will be hand-crafted and how much can be generated in the future.  Recent experiences with procedural generation have always yielded radical results where some games like Minecraft strive of the variety of it, while others such as Skyrim end up as a "random fetch item from cave quest" generator at some point. This will be a hard balance to strike, but I think there will be a lot of room to introduce randomness to spice up the content and increase the replay-ability.

Support for Modding

Another big topic to tackle will be modding support to allow others to craft stories in the world if they want. The good news about this is that it already is build-in from the start, as all stories of the game are packaged in such a way that they are modular and that hopefully it is flexible enough to allow customized packs to be loaded if they are created (e.g. for modding or premium content or something like that).