A Township Tale at it's core is an RPG survival game. With an open-world, a day/night cycle, and a variety of dark and bright locations we need an easy lighting system. What naturally came out of that, was our fire mechanics. Provided you found a source of fire, you can light torches, which can then light campfires, dried grass, fire arrows, dried roots, and more. All of these motions came very naturally in VR, it’s just a matter of holding a torch up to the target. But starting fire without any form of UI was a unique challenge.

We took on the age-old concept of flint and steel. To make a fire, you actually need to find some flint and steel in the world, strike them to make sparks and ignite various objects. Part of the challenge was if you could actually recognize what flint and steel looks like.

Currently, we’re using the physical shape of the object to describe what objects are, where you can hopefully make the connection with how they look in other medias. Flint is a sharp looking stoney object, with a bit of a glimmer to it. And we pretty much let you use any ores to strike it with.

Once you do have fire, you’ve got to keep an eye out on it. Naturally, fire dies out over time, lowering in intensity and the flame wanes out. Keeping your flames lit is crucial across many portions of the game.

Here is a GIF of Joel being very productive with torches.

As I mentioned in last week's blog LAST WEEK's BLOG POST, there are numerous areas of the world for you to explore, and numerous roles you could take up. Fire’s extremely important for a lot of these roles and during exploration. The fire's light is essential when exploring the mines or other dark environments, other activities however, such as blacksmithing and cooking, really make use of fire beyond lighting. The forge’s fire heats up metal, and campfires will be able to cook, bake and roast foods. Fire will allow players to unveil areas blocked by dried roots, or even start chain reactions if objects are positioned a certain way.]

We want to bring some interesting dynamics to the various elements, with things like fire, ice, electricity and other fantasy-adapted concepts into a format you can actually manipulate in VR. Stay tuned, we’ll be going into more detail on the power of fire soon!