Megastructures, Alchemy and Ragdoll - Devlog #1

In this devlog I talk about the idea behind my next game and show what I've done so far.

Here are other pieces of lore so you can understand more about this universe:

World-Shaping:

The World Echo Elixir is a breakthrough of alchemical engineering. A volatile solution infused with the elemental sequence of another planet. When poured onto foreign soil, the elixir releases transformational vapors and liquids that begin re-sequencing local matter, rewriting it molecule by molecule to mirror the template world. Once activated, the elixir gradually propagates across the terrain, reshaping earth, air, and water into the desired patterns. The transformation is slow but inexorable: approximately one year to fully convert one square kilometer.

            The Bad Echo Elixir is a World Echo Elixir that bears the elemental sequence of barren worlds unleashed in the early wars to overwrite fertile lands with sterility. Poured upon soil or sea, it spread its withering pattern, unmaking life and leaving only dead matter in its wake. Its use was judged too cruel and too absolute, and by common accord among the kingdoms, the Bad Echo Elixir was forbidden.

Mirror Gate:

           The Mirror Gate is a triumph of photonic engineering. By capturing and concentrating the rays of a distant star within a chamber of flawless mirrors, its light is bound into endless reflection. Under these conditions, photon pressure and resonance build to a threshold where spacetime itself begins to fold, opening a corridor to the source of the star’s light. Once stabilized, the gateway anchors a passage between worlds, guided by the stellar signature encoded in the photons. Each destination requires precise tuning, for a single harmonic misalignment can dissolve the corridor into raw radiation. The process is demanding and fragile, yet when successful, it grants near-instant travel across interstellar distances.

Star Key:

            A precision artifact of navigational engineering. Encoded within its lattice are the spatial coordinates of a chosen destination, inscribed through resonant harmonics that bind place to pattern. When interfaced with a Mirror Gate, the Key imprints its sequence upon the photonic chamber, guiding the gateway’s folding light with flawless accuracy. With a Star Key, a traveler need not rely on fragile manual tuning: the Gate aligns itself to the encoded signature, locking onto a location as small as a city square or as exact as the interior of a chamber.

Interplanetary Colonies:

When a Mirror Gate is opened, the elemental sequences of the star’s attendant planets are drawn through the corridor and inscribed. From these signatures, alchemists discern the mineral strata, atmospheric composition, and surface conditions of each world. A candidate planet is then chosen, and a vial of World Echo Elixir dispatched through the gate. Over the course of a year, the elixir reshapes one square kilometer of terrain into habitable land, air, and water, forming the seedbed of life. Once stability is secured, an alchemist and a cadre of settlers follow with a second Mirror Gate, extending the world-shaping process outward from the first enclave, thus establishing a permanent colony and a claim upon the planet.

Time Crucibles:

Binary systems where a star and a black hole circle one another, Time Crucibles are regions of intense temporal distortion and the richest sites of Time Mass formation. The planets bound to these systems are seeded with harvest colonies, their miners anchoring themselves against causality as they draw crystallized time from the distorted light of the crucible. These colonies are perilous yet immensely valuable, for no other regions yield Time Mass in such abundance.