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Trip the Ark Fantastic | Exploring the wastelands of the Animal Kingdom

Total Posts: 14

Joined 2020-04-15

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Luhr28 - 06 June 2020 01:27 PM
Pero_Gamechuck - 28 May 2020 06:42 AM
Cicerone53 - 27 May 2020 07:11 PM

The German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei,” meaning “Work Sets You Free,” was famously set above the entrance to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. There’s no conceivable way that the use of any variation on that phrase isn’t a reference to the Holocaust, especially when discussing labor camps.

Ah, yes, the phrase is a reference to the German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”. The game tackles a lot of events from our own history, but if you think that we are “glorifying” the Holocaust or Nazi Germany, no, that wasn’t the idea.

Similarly, we have a big reference to Burkina Faso and its revolution; ie, how once a horrific regime came to be a land of the free.

I’m sure no-one thinks you are glorifying the Holocaust. I have no view one way or the other, but maybe look at it this way - if you’ve been through a traumatic historical event, one that people have tried to deny or diminish the significance of; and you see references to it in a fictional world with cuddly talking animals… well, let’s just say it’s not totally outside the realms of possibility that someone might not appreciate that it isn’t being taken seriously enough. People can be sensitive to their (or other people’s) suffering being downplayed or taken lightly.

Noted, and I do understand your point. Although the game itself is far from “cuddly talking animals”. Yes, the visual style is as you have described it. The topics, the dialogues, and the setting in the game are, on the other hand, all quite serious, history-based, and some of them rather grim.

     

Total Posts: 14

Joined 2020-04-15

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This week’s lore post is about the various mysteries that Charles will encounter (and hopefully solve) in the southern continent of the Animal Kingdom while searching for the origins of the Ark Fantastic (this being the second act of the game).

Since we don’t have many art assets for the southern continent yet, this blogpost will be filled with pictures of the step-by-step artwork process for our first artwork ever – the three protagonists exploring the southern jungles.

This artwork was done way back in 2018 when we still had many different ideas on what exactly we want out of the game, and served as one of only a few mock-up pieces we sent to our Creative Europe application in 2019.

In a way, the pictures tell their own, separate narrative from the text, and hopefully, both are equally interesting.

The Mysteries of the Southern Continent

For as long as collective memory serves, the Kingdom has been a large landmass, surrounded by sea on all sides. This is the continent we now call Kingdom Proper. However, a new southern continent was found during the recent times of King Michaël.

This caused major ontological and cosmological troubles for the scholars of the Kingdom – how to fit this new continent into the world we thought was just a single landmass surrounded by sea and nothing else? Many hermeneutical ideas about the Ark myth had to be done away with, and many more had to be re-framed to fit newfound truths – such as the existence of monkeys, crocodiles and various birds found on the southern continent, all of which bear no mention in the Ark myth. At least not in its modern form.

If you like what you see, read the rest of the lore post on our development blog  Smile

     
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Total Posts: 355

Joined 2017-03-09

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I think it’s great you’re being so open and transparent about the game’s lore and other aspects aside from how it looks. A lot of development blogs are 99% about the graphics, which leads to a great looking game and then a lot of the other (crucial) parts come up short. If you are listening to feedback - and it looks like you are - then your game will be all the better for it.

Keep it up!

     

Total Posts: 14

Joined 2020-04-15

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cyfoyjvx - 18 June 2020 12:25 AM

I think it’s great you’re being so open and transparent about the game’s lore and other aspects aside from how it looks. A lot of development blogs are 99% about the graphics, which leads to a great looking game and then a lot of the other (crucial) parts come up short. If you are listening to feedback - and it looks like you are - then your game will be all the better for it.

Keep it up!

Thanks for the positive words! We’re trying to share as much as we can about the game with the community, and I’m really happy to see you like our content :-)

     

Total Posts: 14

Joined 2020-04-15

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Ark Fantastic stories: Legion of the bloodthirsty undead

Unlike in some other RPG titles, you should not believe just everything you read, and not everything is a part of the game lore. Or is it? As a reputable scholar, Charles will often be in a position to debunk such stories, or, better yet, use his scholarly reputation to prove them true!

In this Ark Lore, we bring another tale from the Animal Kingdom, written in the form of a diary by an unknown hero, who fought a legion of the Undead.

Author’s remark: The images seen in this blog may not be related to the characters or the places of the story.

“How I defeated the Scourge of Blavgoz and his legion of bloodthirsty undead” – A true story

Dear reader, How I would love to tell you of my successful infiltration into the wolf’s den!

Infiltrating the lair of the villainous monstrosity has become quite easy after using my superior intellect.  Letting the poor townspeople deliver me in an empty casket of wine, as an offer to the wolf, was really an ingenious plan!


The hero is unknown, but his diary has been preserved. Legends about his adventures are still alive among the town folk who occasionally talk about the grim past of the Kingdom. But, they are just legends, after all.


But now came the more difficult part of my quest: finding and destroying the ritual foci so that these bloodthirsty undead might finally be put to rest.

Unfortunately, I found myself in quite an ordeal: They had delivered the barrel right in the midst of their living quarters and from the sounds permeating the thick oaken barrel, I could hear their vile gurgles and cries, as well as smell the thick rancid stench coming from the decomposing bodies of the undead soldiers.

The only thing that stopped them from breaching the barrel this instant was a speech from their master, the dretched scourge of Blavgoz himself!


The legend says, some herbs can protect from the “blood-suckers”. Garlic is the best, apparently.


I was sure that I could take out a dozen or so of these creatures with my martial prowess alone. (My rapier was left behind in Blavgoz as the still wine-coated inside of the barrel would taint the fine steel of the blade, a risk I was not willing to take.)

There were, going from the sounds, hundreds of those creatures just waiting for their master’s speech to finish! Even my formidable abilities would be tested to their utmost limits when faced with a horde of that magnitude!

And suddenly, in a flash of insight, I connected every puzzle piece and clearly understood what I had to do. From my satchel, I took the wooden doll I had found by the roadside. This, dear reader, was the doll that started this entire adventure, the doll of which I had traced the origin the entire way to the downtrodden village of Blavgoz.


An ominous-looking gate.


All the while under the impression that I had to find the poor little girl to whom it belonged.  Nothing could be more false… I actually had the ritual totem on me all the time and I didn’t even realize it!

I took another look at the doll and clearly saw the vile miasma surrounding it, why hadn’t I seen this before? I made my decision and snapped the doll to pieces in a single, fluid motion.

Suddenly I heard bodies collapsing on the ground, at least a hundred of these bound creatures were finally free from their wretched curse. The wolf almost choked in the middle of one of his sentences and it became quiet…. Very quiet…

[img]https://www.tripthearkfantastic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/tents-768x413.jpg
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If you want to hear some scary stories from the legends of the Kingdom, camping is the best activity for that.


“Well”, I thought, “Time for some fine ass-whooping!” as I burst from my barrel in a cloud of oaken shards and metal fringes. And let out one of my world-famous battle cries. Before beating the ever-living snot out of the still bedazzled scourge of Blavgoz.

     

Total Posts: 14

Joined 2020-04-15

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Exploring the wastelands of the Animal Kingdom

Even though the environments we publish on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are often beautiful, lush, and “friendly”, some of those can be considered rather unhabitable and hostile.

We are talking about the wastelands Charles will explore in Trip the Ark Fantastic. As you may have seen in the “Mysteries of the Southern Continent”, Charles looks like he is embarking on an adventure through the jungle with his friends.


Looks pretty neat, right?

Well, this part of the game will require some navigation skills, as you’re going in an uncharted territory which is literally uncharted. There won’t be any maps guiding you to go up or down, right or left. You’re on your own.

The wastelands are a dangerous place. They used to be a lush forest, but have turned into a scorching desert in the last 1000 years. Charles, being a hedgehog, can’t survive in this blazing heat, but we’ll leave this part of the game to you, the player.

There is an interesting lore background for the wastelands.

Over 3000 years ago, the lions tried to usurp the hierarchy and failed which resulted in the usurper family being banished north over the mountains – which is considered a death sentence.


The so-called snowy wastelands. If you end-up there, well, good luck with that.


The usurper’s son Antimocles the Red was the father of Alexander the First who founded the Animal Kingdom. The split (and the harsher climate) made the lion’s rule weaker and in the following millenia they eroded from a powerful force that ruled over everyone in the southern territories to just a lion tribe in the caverns ruling over themselves with Nerva as Emperor.

After a couple of generations in the southern continent they decided to leave because they saw they could not prosper in the monkey civilisation which was thriving and they went over the land bridge to the northern continent and started subjugating the primitive cultures of smaller animals (rodents, birds et cetera).

After a few generations, they had built the Animal Kingdom that spanned the entire continent, subjugating also the great cats. Some animals were still very resistant because they weren’t used to living under the centralised rule and so after many generations, one lion family had invented the Ark myth after a failed bloody rebellion by other animals.

Following the change of the ruling branch, the myth was thought to be true even by the ruling lion family, and the way it was fabricated was lost to history.

By that time, the land bridge to the southern continent had already collapsed after centuries of diminishing because of the rising sea levels. The ice melted, which led to warming in temperature.

What do you think, with Charles being a hedgehog, how can he pass through the wastelands?

     
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Total Posts: 278

Joined 2012-12-22

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This sounds really interesting. Looks nice too.

     

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