Fenya's Dream - The Journey Begins

• Last edit: April 20, 2023

To put it with some popular words… where to begin?

Fenya’s Dream will be a game about exploring a dream of some sorts. You are going to play a very curious fox tracing the steps of a civilization long gone. Whether the whole game will be purely a dream or not is not something I want to disclose as many variants will work and I’d like players to bring their own fantasy into the world. That said, I am probably not sure about it yet either.

All of these ideas are subject to change while the game evolves. I have had a number of iterations already, but kinda settled on some details when I still liked them on the following day. That’s a good sign, right?

The character

In the first article I want to write about the protagonist. Fenya is… a fox. Sometimes not really a fox as the original idea was some sort of shapeshifter. But to not blow the game’s scope out of proportion, and have different very detailed player character models, I will most likely keep her a fox.

I later learned that the name “Fenya” has a slang meaning referring to a code language used among thieves and that so perfectly fits a fox cliche that I will definitely keep the name now!

So Fenya, it’s a female name, right? Actually, I am not going to define that. Similar to her shape, she is neither she nor he. Originally I started to write the story constantly switching between he, her, his randomly, sometimes within the same sentence, to express that feeling. But it didn’t read that great so I might just keep her as she most of the time. But you can call her as you prefer and assume whatever you like most.

I have chosen to keep her a “real” fox. Walking, running, jumping on four legs which will create a significant change in how she interacts with her world. To “cheat” that limitation a bit, the inventory is going to be purely virtual. Items needed to interact with things will be downloaded into a sort of archive she has. Carrying physical items will be limited to what she can can carry in her mouth or push, pull, roll along the floor. Same as pressing buttons or panels to operator doors will be done with paws.

Despite the game world being SciFi centered, Fenya won’t be a “cyborg” type of character, even though she has the ability to interact with computers and machines in the game. Think of them more like a spirit character in a world where technology and energy blended into something else.

As for her looks, she will be a true red fox. There will be the ability to “recolor” her with various red fox morph colors. Those will be unlocked from toy collections in the game. I will probably do one per game world level so if you are like me and absolutely must find that last collectible before moving on, you can probably play each part as a different colored fox.

I don’t really want to go too “cartoony” on her look. Although the game will use a very vibrant color palette, I’d like her to blend into a more technical world. Things decided already for now: extra adjustable ears and a rather long tail. ^.^ Originally I wanted to use two tails, but it adds complexity to the technical part and also animations and I am not sure it will add anything to the character. I will see once I’ll start to create her new model.

So what’s her character like? The game is about exploration. And she is thrown into this dream right at the start with no knowledge whatsoever just happened. Her main motivation will be to escape this strange world, one way or another. At the same time it will hopefully be intriguing enough that her curiosity wins to explore that realm and find out what it actually is. Dream or not.

Most of the time she will be an observer of what happened to this world, playing a true neutral position in it. But the more she learns about it, the more she will automatically be steered into one direction or path. Which is where the player’s traits and decision will take over. But that is probably best told in another development chapter about the story.