Silverglade Village is a central hub where you can talk to townsfolk, collect quests and trade with merchants. You start the game at a wagoneer camp just outside the entrance to the village.
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| These foreign guards at the wagoneer camp don't speak your language and are of a grumpy disposition. Attempting conversation tends to agitate them. You can even get achievements for irritating enough guards. |
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| The roving wagoneers aren't popular with the residents of Silverglade. Bunco the Shark is the first general merchant you'll encounter. He's a rogue, but not the charming lovable type. |
There is a lot to do in the village and so one of the first things you're likely to do is to find and view the town map. There are various map types available to let you get your bearings and to give the world a sense of presence and permanence.
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| Oh looky, it appears to be a map! I wonder what will happen if you interact with it? |
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| And there it is, a top-down view of the village and the surrounding dungeons. This is very much a work-in-progress and will likely be replaced. I basically took a screenshot from high above and then used Photoshop filters to try make it look like a painting. It's passable for now, but not great. |
The villagers aren't always on the best of terms with one another and are prone to gossip and slander. Speaking to them allows you to learn more about the world and its history, though I suspect some players will simply gloss over the conversations (and that's perfectly fine). Some villagers will request your help and offer you quests. Others will happily trade with you.
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| This young rapscallion may not be well-mannered, but he's an amusing little chap. |
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| The armor smith and weapon smith hang out at the smithy area near the centre of town. It looks like the Shadow Mistress is trying to flirt with the poor armor smith but that's not actually a feature yet. |
There are various graphics options which can significantly modify the look and feel of the game. I'm not sure if I'll end up exposing all of the options since it may be overwhelming for players. Nevertheless, you may notice some images looking darker, brighter, gritter or with more glare.
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| Oh look, it's the town portal! If you're deep in the bowels of a distant dungeon but need to return to town to trade items and clear out your bag, this is where you'll pop out. The bloom option was set to extreme when I took this screenshot, hence the overwhelming blue glow. I kinda like it, but I suspect most prefer a subtler look. |
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| Aw, she's an animal lover! Just as you can get achievements for harassing enough guards you can also get some for interacting with enough animals. If you look carefully you'll notice a big, juicy dung patty on the ground behind the bull. How revolting! |
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| There are numerous treasure chests scattered around the village and its outskirts, many of them well hidden. |
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| There are collectible items called 'skull doubloons' that allow you to be revive as a ghost at your current location when you die. However, if you run out of skull doubloons you'll be forced to endure the inconvenience of being revived here at the Silverglade graveyard. |
That's enough of Silverglade Village for now. I have a bunch more screenshots but want to keep these posts fairly brief so I'll save them for later. In the next installment I'll discuss some of the development process and some of the technical aspects of the game.
Bleaktide Part 4: Game Development Process