Age element ideas

[belford]

This is not an idea for an Age. It's my notepad of ideas for things to put *in* Ages. (They're mostly visual, which is why I'm posting here, but some puzzle ideas are mixed in.)

I expect to do a lot of tiny little example Ages which contain just one element each. Mini-museums, sort of thing.

These ideas are open to anyone. Steal, mutate, reuse, recycle.

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Terrarium format: a series of identical small islands, floating in void. Each is a walkway around a ten-foot circular area, which can contain anything.

- A diorama of a field with a stone fort in it. Glowing diagrams appear above it, with circles and arrows and lines, showing a sequence of assaults and counterassaults. (Narrative by diorama.)

- A forest of fungi. Gradated textures and colors on upright blooby things.

- Layers of frost, receding downwards.

- Still pool of dark water. Occasionally a drop of water falls in, leaving ripples.

- Cracks, with light shining upwards.

The Starship of the Imagination. Simple swept white lines and sketched control panels. Overhead (or ahead?) layers of stars zoom past. Maybe you can see the stars ahead from the bridge, and to the sides from a walkway extending rearwards. It may be useful to restrict side-to-side movement, to keep the illusion strong.

Tiffany lamp. Do something with this.

Dichroic pane of glass. Blue transmission, with red/gold environment reflection on top. (Ideally, mutate the reflection specially, so that lights come out gold on top of a general deep-red tint.) The glass stands freely in an area with strong light-dark contrasts around the edge (pillars?) so you can compare the effects.

A true prism? (Another optical effect.) Can we get refraction as a variation on environmental reflection? Throwing in a cast rainbow would be amusing, if not really consistent.

The simple mirror would be the first optical effect. If we can reflect the player, all the better, but that's probably not in the cards.

Iridescence: dark surface with three colored-highlight overlays whose brightness varies serially. (Based on angle? Position?)

Electrical landscape. Saddle-shaped island; the high points nearly meet overhead. Charge builds up on them (faint blue glow, humming sound) and then discharges with a lightning bolt and falling sparks. Probably there's a wooden deck extending out to the side, so you can get a good view upwards.

Two-phase maze. Identical layouts, in two different worlds. (Yellow sky above reddish mist; ultraviolet sun above grey mist with blue-glowing currents.) Books scattered around (same layout) let you link back and forth. Towers stand above the mazes (different layouts? Or the same?) They happen to lack front railings. Some let you fall down to the maze paths. One lets you switch phase.

Spiral "maze". Doors are placed slightly less (more?) than every 360 degrees around the spiral. Shortcutting through the doors brings you to one result. Spiralling around the whole path, no doors, brings you to a second. Reverse-spiralling, but cutting through doors so that you reach the center, is a third. (Only that doesn't work. However, you could have two spirals with opposite curvature, each tilted slightly on a common horizontal axis, so that they interpenetrate.)

Clusters of shiny black crystals sticking up. Some have a faint colored glow inside. (Visible only when you're close?)

A bridge, with lights coursing down the span.

Blinding light as an environmental effect? Boring area, then blast of light.

Different illumination effects: sparks of light circulating along a tube, instead of one spark stuck in a lantern. Rod-shaped lights (curved, free-standing).

Light-image projected from a lens down across walls/floor. Change periodically, or turn on/off.

A metal sphere rolling beneath a magnetic rail.

A marble-clock made of spheres rolling in tracks.

A flattish cone of crystal (crystalline surface, anyway). It is surrounded by an apron of the same crystal. When you walk on the apron, light flows from the base up to the apex, at that point. Run around the apron and you can get a whole sheet flowing up.

Colored shapes of light (polyhedra) hanging in the air. Some are at ground level; if you walk through them, they flare up. Or, if you don't want slow graceful drifting, have them pop up out of the ground and dance around in a mad-puppet way for a few seconds.

Baskets. (Striated or woven texture; lay in a curved or knotted stripe. Get fancy -- trefoils, mobius strip... Texture could be partially transparent?)

Also, big earthenware pots -- because we like them. Heavy red pots; modern black pots. Korean "moon jar" celadon pots.

Big blobby white ceramic shapes with colored light shining out of the holes. (Continuous funnely holes.)

Different lighting cycles? A sky which is reddish on one side and bluish on the other; but over time, the red and blue light concentrates in the middle. At "noon" they focus to a thin white band, with the rest of the sky starry black.

Panels with light radiating out from behind them. Because they make good lamps.

Also, a geode slice with light behind it. Make it flickery candlelight -- moving slightly, changing intensity.

"Garden in motion" -- heavy balustrades and posts which move around you, slowly, along tracks.

Ganzfeld: a rough, heavily textured area (stone columns) with a featureless magenta circle on the far wall. If you enter this, it turns out to be an open area with featureless magenta illumination. (Try to get some sense of "glow", rather than flat polygons!) Maybe stuff hidden on the rear faces of protrusions.

Also the "dark ganzfeld", which is black but has dynamic elements. Transparent black "fog" moving and countermoving, maybe.

Light garden: an area of pathways laid out over dead (nicely textured) stone. When you turn the lights out, glowing foliage slowly appears. (Over the course of a minute or so!) The light switch, of course, is on the far side of the maze.

Or light-foliage which appears slowly, over a few minutes, after you link in. Your eyes adjusting to the dark!

Painted desert: wind over sand dunes. (Particles streaming off the dune ridges.) Every few minutes, another layer of sand peels away, revealing a new color.

[Paradox]

Let me add to this list:

Kinetic sculpture! (Basically, a track with various balls that roll around and that keeps repeating, preferably without resorting to any Python scripting and using only the Physics Engine)

[Pryftan]

This list is fantastic. Almost like a challenge list I'll want to come back to if I get some more modelling experience under my belt. Very cool to read and envision.

[orrinjelo]

I'd also like to see an Age designed and built according to the golden ratio, or the Fibonacci ratio. It is said that it makes things more attractive and easier on the eyes...

[AtionSong]

I took some of the ideas mentioned and added some inspiration from the ideas and created a little age model from them. There's no name, as of yet, but, like everything else in the age, it' s open for suggestions.

Okay, so first, here's a picture of the age layout + some concept art I sketched out (once again, remember that I am not the best artist in the world).



ABOUT THE AGE
First, let me explain the general layout of the age. The age has three general areas: The mountain, the garden, and the mine. Players link-in at the base of the moderately tall mountain (next to the area marked "door" in the picture). Ahead of them, is a path leading to a bridge that strattles a long chasm which divides the age in half. Brilliant lights are shining up from below the bridge. When over the bridge, players can try to look down, but the light is blinding, and nothing can be seen in the chasm. The rest of the age is farily bright as well, although it's more of an "early dusk" type feel.

On the other side of the bridge, there is a garden/forst of sorts. A path leads into a forest of somewhat unusual trees (see concept art). A little way through the trees, there is a strange, raised circular platform surrounded by three pillars, which are covered in colored mirrors. There are other assorted plants and flowers in the garden as well, but not much else to see. If players walk to the other end of the garden, they reach the edge of the playable area; though the age is not an island, there is a sharp dropoff for several hundred feet into a rocky, foggy area below (if they jump, they automatically relto out).

The mountain is the most complicated area of the age, and its where most of the story and puzzle elements take place. I'll start the explanation from the area where the players enter. If the explorers are smart enough, they will notice a panel in the rock wall that's appears to be slightly cut out from the rest. Touching it reveals that there is a panel beneath. Pressing the button on the panel opens the door on the side of the mountain. Players now find themselves on a platform, with stairs leading upwards and downwards.

Upwards one floor takes them to the sparse living quarters for the creator of the age. Only the necessities are here; a bed, a sink, and a desk and a chair. On the desk is the journal of the age (if somebody wants to try writing one up after reading through the explanation of the age, that'd be pretty neat). The journals explain the research that was being done in the age. The creator was using the crystals found in the age (more on that later) to try to develop a 3-D message system, similar to the one that Yeesha uses in the Cleft. He plans to use this technology in other ages, such as the means to a game, or to attract creatures with images of mates so that explorers can view them.

One floor up from the living quarters is the projection room. This room is fairly complicated. There is a "window" that has been carved into the side of the mountain, in front of which are two large, white crystals. Behind that is an interesting "projector" device (see concept art). The projector contains 4 different colored crystals, which can be rotated in their concentric circles. The arrangement of the crystals ultimately is used to calibrate the projection (once again, more on this later). A button on the pedestal of the projector causes the entire setup to rotate (and, eventually, the projection to rotate around as well). Behind the "projector" is the light which shines forward. Finally, there are two switches in the room. The first one, when pressed, causes a cover to move across the top of the mountain, sealing off the room. There are lights on the roof, however, which keep the room well lit. There is a second switch that turns on the projector light, but not the lights on the roof.

It should be noted now that, when a projection is taking place (i.e. any time the projector light is on), the projection will appear on the circular platform in the garden. However, an actual image projection will not take place unless the exact circumstances required are met. From what has been discussed so far, a projection will not occur if:
* The overhead lights are on in the projection room. This sends too much light through the crystals, and the projection is just a large splotch of light.
* The colored crystals on the projector are misaligned. In this case, an prism of colors appears on the platform.

If the stairs are taken back down, past the entrance door another set, players find themselves in the "darkroom". This room has an air-tight lock (a valve on the door must be turned to enter). The room is nearly pitch black, except for a red light which can be turned on with a switch next to the door. The contents of the room are arranged on work tables near the back of the room; crystals of all colors, like the ones in the projector, are being used. In the center of the room is a table, on which, currently, a glass of water is placed. Around it are 4 odd devices, which appear to be stationed at random places in a circle around the table. In each of these devices is one of the crystal "rods", like the ones in the projector, each a different color. There is another switch next to the red light switch, covered by a glass box. When the box is raised and the button is pressed, a brilliant flash of light fills the room for less than a second. For those who haven't figured it out, this is the dark room; the room where the age creator imprints crystals with the image he wants to project before taking them upstairs to the projector.

If players take the stairs down one more floor, they find themselves in the crystal mines. As opposed to the small crystal rods in the projector, this room contains huge crystals like the ones in front of the window. They vary in height from one to about four feet tall, and they are all letting off a brilliant light. What is curious, though, is that some of the crystals give off a light that is slightly tinted a particular shade. Upon close inspection, players see that in the center of many of the crystals is a mysterious, glowing ball of color (this is where the crystals in the projector come from- the crystal is chipped away and just this "core" is used). The sight is spectacular, awe inspiring even.

But there's more to the mines than this. There are lights all along the mine, (which is a cave that stretches the entire length of the playable age, but no more) but these can be turned off by flipping a large power lever at the far end. This turns off all the lights, not only in the caves, but in the entire mountain, save for the projector light. After a few seconds, the crystals begin to dim, and become see through. About a minute later, they turn a deep black, and now begin to emit a strange dark light, almost like a dark energy. It's a little creepy, but not ominous.

If players return to the surface of the age, they will see that it now looks like night in the age. All projections now become much clearer now (even if everything else is correct, until the crystals turn black, the proper image cannot be seen on the platform).

GETTING THE PROJECTION
Once the crystals are turned black, every tool is in place to get the proper projection. I'm not going to give away yet how the proper projection is obtained (you can figure out most of it from the above description, but there are a few things that would be unnecessary to describe above which are needed. All in all, I figure that, without intermediate steps such as opening the door to the mountain, there are 5 separate steps to getting the proper projection, of which 3 could be deduced from the above). However, the projection itself is rather interesting, and would do for a little description.

If is mentioned near the very end of the journal that the creator of the age is suprised at the power he discovers that the crystals contain. Here's why - the projection that is created once the proper conditions are met is a very paticular object: a linking book to another age. One would think that a projection of a linking book would simple show the book, and nothing more. However, for some reason that the creator of the age doesn't understand, the link from the book can actually be used...

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So, there you have it. The general concept of the age, based on a lot of the ideas listed above. What does everybody think? Now would be the time for questions, comments, suggestions, development, etc. Thank's for reading this all - the gift shop's to the left.
-AtionSong

[AtionSong]

Did a fun build today of the projector. Working on a model for the whole projection room. How does it look?

[AtionSong]

Renders of the projection room can be found here.

[belford]

Nice.

The image in your earlier post doesn't show up, though.