The Wonj

Devlog 0: The Wonj, and the RPG it's making

The Wonj is making an RPG, played over the shoulder, on its own engine built from scratch, with no engine or libraries underneath but SDL. Everything below is the plan: what the game is meant to become, not what exists today.

The Vision

The aim is a living world. People trade, travel and raise families across generations, and the market moves with real trades: prices come from actual supply and demand, never set by hand. You are one family among many, starting with nothing, no class and no kit, and becoming what you practise. The world would carry on without you.

Most of the time you're out in it, leading a party of companions you hire, exploring and gathering. Between outings you come home: at first a room in town, one day a keep of your own. Over the years there is a family to keep, a marriage, heirs, a household that outlives you.

The world is meant to be huge and rich, generated, and big enough that most players never see all of it. Travel should be a pleasure and still cost something, so goods are worth more far from where they're found. The setting is low fantasy, roughly medieval, where magic is the world's science: lawful and costly. Combat is real time, but you're never forced into it. It's single player, and it has no ending unless your line dies out.

This devlog follows the build one small step at a time, each step its own entry.

Seen from high above, a grey rock cliff with grass ledges rises out of a forest, trees along its top and the player standing on its edge, with rolling grassland, snowy pine hills and fog beyond.