The world survival games take place in often becomes a memorable part of the experience the game provides. Realmwalkers in the upcoming survival crafting game Nightingale will have the chance to shape that world.
Nightingale takes place across the Fae Realms, worlds of magic players are forced to navigate and survive as they seek the beacon of civilization in the city of Nightingale. Using Realm Cards, players will be able to manipulate these realms into one of 20,000 possible variations. Game ZXC recently spoke with Inflexion Games developers about Nightingale’s Fae Realms, including art director Neil Thompson, lead designer Bjorn Taylor, and Inflexion CEO Aaryn Flynn. The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Nightingale's Fae Explained
Nightingale developer Inflexion Games details the antagonistic Fae forces players will encounter during a recent preview presentation.
Building the Fae Realms
Q: How many overall biomes are present in Nightingale? How many possible Fae Realm combinations?
Thompson: At launch, there are three biomes: Forest, Desert, and Swamp, but with players’ ability to use realm cards to change the parameters of each realm, the number of possible variations goes up considerably. If you don’t include vaults there could be around 20,000 realmic variations.
Q: How much freedom of choice do players have to experiment with different Realm Card combinations?
Thompson: A huge amount! It is only limited by players’ desire to seek out card recipes and craft them. Biome and Major cards can be used in any combination to open a portal to a realm and then Minor realm cards can be used at “Realmic Transmuters” within the realm to make further changes in real-time.
Q: The Fae Realms are said to become increasingly difficult. How might this interact with Realm cards and what does more challenging realms provide players?
Taylor: As players play through the game, the major realm cards will have increasingly powerful enemies as well as scaling overall enemies' health and damage. In addition, players can adjust the difficulty to their preference, easier or harder. The more difficult a realm is, the more they can acquire essence (used as store currency) and the resources available in the realms will be more powerful.
Q: How did the team approach balancing the rich lore of the world with its survival crafting gameplay experience? Did they mesh together well, or were there elements that required more iteration than normal?
Thompson: Whether they mesh well or not will really be a question to ask our players! From our perspective, it seemed like a very natural fit. The lore is there to provide a premise within which our players can role-play and tell their own stories in the context of the world that we’ve given them.
This is still an open-world experience and the lore should never be so heavy-handed that players feel they are forced to engage with it. Our NPCs can offer quests and provide information about the realms and the wider world of Nightingale, but players should also be self-directed in their realm-walking activities; you don’t need to know anything about the lore to explore and have fun in the game; what we hope is that we’ve found a balance whereby our narrative aspects enrich the experience for players.
Progressing Through the Fae Realms
Q: As players create new realms to explore, how does their progress carry over from realm to realm? Will they need to start from scratch?
Flynn: Progress in Nightingale is character-based. You'll progress through Nightingale by completing main and critical quest objectives and then upgrading and crafting new equipment for your player character. Upgrades are achieved by collecting resources and picking up Essence.
Essence is picked up by individual players and given out separately after players complete environmental puzzles and points of interest in a Realm, so progression is not gated by solo or coop experiences. Essence can also be collected by gathering resources.
Environmental puzzles and points of interest are Realm-based progress - to do new environmental puzzles and point of interest activities, you will need to open a portal and travel to a new Realm.
Q: Is there a point where players may wish to settle down in a realm permanently and work on their homestead, or is it mostly encouraged to keep progressing through portals on the way to Nightingale?
Flynn: Players create a respite estate in one of the three biomes at the end of the tutorial. They will have the option to move to a new Realm later if they so choose. We encourage players to explore and work on their estate.
Q: Aside from the obvious progression based on harvesting resources and crafting, how else do players grow in strength over time?
Taylor: Still related to crafting, but various game systems unlock as the player progresses to the Watch. Enchantments, Firearms, Potions, Charms, Respawn Points, and Personal Portals are all systems players will gain access to, which enrich their experience.
Q: In addition to enemies to face and resources to gather, Nightingale’s fae realms feature puzzles. What sorts of puzzle mechanics can players expect to encounter, and will they require specialized equipment or abilities to complete?
Taylor: A couple of our initial puzzles consist of Memory and Glyph Puzzles. Memory puzzles require players to locate a series of tonal artifacts and memorize the order they play their tones. They must interact with each other to unlock their reward. Glyph puzzles are simply a matter of finding all the glyphs and interacting with them. We do not currently require any specialized equipment or abilities to solve the puzzles. However, they may be in hard-to-reach places, so equipment such as climbing picks, firearms, and mining picks may all be of help in solving them.
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Nightingale
Nightingale is a PvE survival-crafting game developed by Inflexion Games, which is composed of former BioWare devs. Players must make their way across the Fae Realms, find their new home among the Realms, and discover what happened to the titular city. They can do so solo or via co-op, all under the guidance and tutelage of Puck - an ally, but can players truly trust him?
