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loren schmidt

@lorenschmidt.bsky.social

9.1K followers 4.5K following 12K posts

i make art, mostly with computers. currently working on an open world RPG with roguelike roots and an experimental bent. cat mom. she / her or they / them.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · Nov 25

i am making an open world roguelike.

i have been imagining this world for years, and i want to make this game so people can go there and live many lives in it!

the game features whole-cloth, accessible design, deep mysteries, and a meticulous generated living world.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 37m

wait what

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 52m

right? there are these amazing lateral leaps and flights of fancy or just common sense steps which can elude us if we're too intent on filling space.

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 56m

i have that urge too- i think one tool is that you can work things out and then have player / audience facing materials have more deliberate points of contact rather than throwing all your reference material at people.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

oh i love rolly pollies! how nice.

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

see that's just like the surface-cow.

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

oh i know! i've met it.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

and thank you! i'm really trying to stick with drawing regularly and challenge myself.

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

i like seeing the different places people can go with an idea! they're often so different as to be independent objects. they often can exist side by side and not necessarily even be recognizably from the same conception. one of the many reasons i think trying to "own" ideas is a fruitless endeavor.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

the temple is built across a causeway over a body of water because it is intended to stimulate process, to be experienced temporally. it has multiple aspects and chambers because it is intended to allow multiple modes of engagement. it is a space for ritual because knowing does not end.

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

i can /absolutely/ understand that counting the bricks in a temple (or making them) might be integral to some vital process of engaging with it, but the temple isn't the bricks, and the meaning of a temple is not contained by that answer.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

but these aren't indicators that the point of art is to solve the art or to eat it, to end the process. it's like saying "i solved the temple. this is 233,035 bricks".

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

there often aren't right answers to questions we find in art. we always respond by map making, heuristics, naming. that's intrinsic to any response to good art, whether you're just siting with it intuitively, looking at the craft in detail, approaching it more cognitively.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

the answer is in the "holes" in the lore, the similar names of the characters: Malenia, Melina, Miquella, Marika, Maliketh, the strange way multiple times exist at once. it resists encyclopedic interpretation. it is unknowable on purpose. but it welcomes process.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

attempting to pursue it as something encyclopedic, rigid, and chartable.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

what will make a ten minute click worthy video? what works as repeatable formulae for content? so while this is indubitably fueled by real connection and real passion, the platform ends up incentivizing something orthogonal to what is vital in the setting:

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

there's a lot of vital relationship with setting here. now if you go on youtube, there are hundreds of videos about this. is this the same thing? it's continuous with it. but one notices patterns. 7 parallel videos about characters. 9 videos about religions. a list of gods.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

an example of this is the setting of Elden Ring. thousands of people have spent years and years steeped in the world: finding meaning, drawing connections. who is Melina, what is the scarlet rot / Malenia, who is (or isn't) Marika, what are intent and emotion to gods who are multiply incarnate.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

(and for yourself)

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

but i think the life of any setting is in its internal processes, and in the questions one has when spending time with it. creating a complete roll call of species or kingdoms or characters, while it does feed some sort of categorizing urge, is actually antithetical to providing life for audiences.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h

in world building, i think sometimes (especially when one is convinced one is making a /product/) there is a pressure to be encyclopedic. to fill the ledgers of the world.

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Reposted by loren schmidt

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 11h

early concept for an [aphid cow]

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 9h

ha it does sound like a technical term

loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 11h

they're kept now by many species. but historically they were kept by [shepherds], with whom they have a mutualistic relationship. [shepherds] have a limited evolved ability to communicate with them chemically.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 11h

these are a somewhat arthropoid species weighing 4-10 tons. they are kept as livestock. they secrete beads of honeydew, which can be consumed directly, used in cooking, or fermented.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 11h

early concept for an [aphid cow]

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