Season V, Episode 5: I Think You Like It

Worldbuilding in any work of fiction is not something to be trifled with. It takes a lot of effort to construct a believable world that you can immerse yourself in, but it takes almost zero effort to yank you out of that illusion. Consider a science fiction work in which an entire planet is covered

Continue reading Season V, Episode 5: I Think You Like It

Worldbuilding in any work of fiction is not something to be trifled with. It takes a lot of effort to construct a believable world that you can immerse yourself in, but it takes almost zero effort to yank you out of that illusion.

Consider a science fiction work in which an entire planet is covered by one urbane society entirely populated by individuals of one race, for instance. Every nook and cranny in this behemoth of a city is streamlined to such an extent that everything appears to have mapped out from the very start. I can think of several examples myself, but what I’m trying to get at is: is such a world really a believable scenario?

It’d better be, cause I just described Milton Keynes, the UK.

Weird Brexit townships aside, our guest this week, Konstantinos Dimopoulos, says no. Konstantinos comes from a background of urban and regional planning, and he’s using his experience to inject some life and believability into game worlds. He has also published enough articles and papers on the subject to make Gareth cry big, fat PhD-tears.

As Konstantinos says himself, cities are messy from a planning standpoint, and something in the cityscape that may appear to have been planned may just be a happy accident. How can we avoid the situation outlined in the first paragraphs and add this “human” touch to our urban environments in gaming? Of course, while keeping an eye on the technology that brings our visions to life.

“There it is. The Citadel. Too bad most of it is closed off for repairs come the next game.”

That is the big question we try to tackle in this episode, adding just a dash of Dutch pornography sound bites as we go along. The Patreon gang will get more than they bargained for in regards to the latter, and the rest of you can listen to the episode below this post, or on YouTube.

On behalf of my fellow co-hosts and per the episode title: I think you’ll like it. May God have mercy on our souls.