Is there a plot or overarching storyline? If not, why?
First off, I am REALLY loving the game, having played many many hours of the game's inspiration, the Dragon Quest Monsters series. I started my first Siralim file with randomization on since it sounded like a cool idea, but this led to a jumbled mess of options and progression, at least to me.
After 9 hours I just started a new file, no Advanced options aside from default. I could see the starters in my first tier, and I started off in the Heaven realm (or whatever it's called? Need to look it up again), and the first tier is very basic and noob friendly, as intended I'm sure.
That said, what's the endgame or goal for progression in Siralim? I know the premise is your father passed away and left you a kingdom to protect, and I like that idea. But...is the progression in the game boiled down to just building more and more of the kingdom and more and more taming until I'm bored of it? I'm assuming that's the case since I've looked high and low for info on the subject of narrative but to no avail.
Even the DQM games had the Starry Night Tournament and other central plotlines, aside from "unlock all the gates to get all the monsters", and I feel that Siralim could have an interesting narrative about some impending threat that your character's father passed the knowledge of to you, on his deathbed...or something of that nature.
Mind, I plan on playing Siralim extensively regardless of established plot or not. I'll be making my own progression track, with unlocking a few monster tiers per main feature like the gates in DQM. Also planning on slowly unlocking the realm types after each set of 5 or so tiers, and imagining my own narrative reasons as to why lol. Makes it more fun to me that way.
TL;DR: I'm a sucker for narrative and would love an overall storyline in Siralim, but it appears Thylacine Studios did not want to have one as the backbone for Siralim's progression. Am I missing something here or was that the dev's intent? If so, would Zack or another Thylacine dev like to comment? I'm eager to hear your rationale.
Posted Jun 17, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC
Personally, I'm just tired of playing games that try to shove a story down your throat. Did you ever play Dragon Warrior Monsters 2? For me, the story part was really boring and even tedious at times, and all I wanted to do was beat Darck so that I could get to the randomized key worlds where the game truly started. That same vision was carried over to Siralim, where the focus is entirely on gameplay, exploration, and experimentation rather than story. I think that if a game encourages players to learn things on their own and experiment, it allows them to create their own unique goals and ways to play the game. A story would only distract from that purpose.
Aside from that, my #1 goal for Siralim was to create a game that could be played forever (whether that's "infinite" hours spent on one save file, or restarting and playing on multiple save files), and that goal conflicts heavily with having a story of any kind.
This is an interesting design philosophy to me, as someone who tells stories and loves to enjoy a well-spun yarn as part of the force that drives me to the end. I can see how fostering that imaginative spirit creates a personal, customized, unique experience for each player; coming up with my own rules to play the game my way has been very fun and rewarding.
If anything, I might write up a post on the forum or here with my track, kind of how people post up their own Nuzlocke challenges for Pokemon. Looking forward to delving deeper into the realms!
EDIT: Also wanted to say thanks for your insight and involvement with the community that plays your game. It's refreshing to see developers passionate about their craft and resolute in their vision, accepting of genuine inquiry and responsive to it. Looking forward to your future works.
I like Siralim so much because of these reasons. I love pokemon, and always have and always will, but the amount of dialogue in some of the games is ridiculous. Especially if you try to go for multiple play throughs. Me and my buddy called ORAS "Dialogue: The Game" for a while haha.
AHA! I knew Pulio and Unicorn Vivifier weren't a coincidence ;)