Tidbits on Golden Treasure et al.

(These are chat messages collected from the Golden Treasure discord. Unless specified, they are from Ludwig.)

DRAAKS

(Isaac)
To us, there are only two draak with canon genders [Darktooth and Green Flame]

(Isaac)
Here is a fun early concept art that shows approximate sizes.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/658302869031747607/659078007880810506/dragon_growth.jpg
Elder dragons grow to get bigger than the Mature Draak shown here, but, that really gets down to how they cultivate themselves.
So, the Matured Draak is as far into the size we projected with this art since the game spanned the first ~100 years of the player draak's life.
Elders can get pretty big, especially if Many Times Burned has anything to say about that.

Green Flame is [the] correct [name of SK's birther]. And I know it's a bit inconsistent. Sorry about that.

Bloom is very ridiculous and very impressive.
Ridiculously impressive.

All Kin are born coppery with bright accents; it's not until they shed their first skin during their first hibernation that you can tell just which subspecies they belong to.

Draak can fly after their second Great Sleep, in which they fully come into their adult bodies, wingspan and feathering. By then, they're the size of a large horse or a buffalo, not counting the tail and wings. It's a few years before the first great sleep and a few decades before the second (I had to fudge that a little in the game, of course).

60 [years] or thereabouts would be average [for the age of an adult Draak]. 40 would be a developmentally rapid Draak, but it's not impossible. I think you can use 40 as a minimum.

Note that all dragons are reasonably amphibious - the Water Elemental encounter in Act 1 said as much. And even Sapphires can't breathe underwater - they are simply optimized to function very well there. There's even a theory that it's the environment and experiences of the dragon in infancy which determine its subspecies... that the body somehow "senses" how it's being used and adapts... but that's just an academic theory. Most Draak-Kin don't believe it.

It's not quite like [what Darktooth said] in the game. Dragons don't always take after their mother. It's triggered by the biome they spend the most time in as hatchlings. Onyx and crystal are a little different; onyx is a rare mutation, and crystal... well, I'll keep that one a secret. But there probably won't be any more of those after Allmother.
[Hatchlings often take after their mother] because the mother usually hides the eggs in a biome of her own type, and so they tend to drift in that direction. But it's not certain, and a few dragonesses take care to hide the eggs in places that will make them a different type.

Crystal Kin are most excellent fliers and tended to favor the high mountaintops where their coloration could blend a bit. Onyx can frequent any biome, so to speak, though they are strongly nocturnal.
I think that most, if not all, of the Crystal Clan would have sharper lines given their incredible strength in the Dreaming and the Astral, but they tend to be weaker in Fire and Water than in Air and Earth.

(Isaac)
MTB endured many natural misfortunes, and eventually an unnatural misfortune that solidified it's rage against the Others. That seething rage and pure will from those moments gave MTB a focus that eventually becomes a religion to itself, the will to survive.
While I cannot describe the more about the moments that took place that forced MTB to hold itself together, it is related to the Others and it is not nice.

> Is Darktooth's namesake the same kind of memory storage as the Emerald Flame's tooth?
Oh. Yes. Yes, it is. But it's a much more... advanced model, so to speak.

Once a Kin reaches Elder stage, they have almost always learned some technique or techniques for life extension, and they already live a very long time anyway. Ultimately, however, every Elder tires of life, at least in its current form, and a deep wish arises to become something new, or at least not to be what they are anymore, and that's when they usually die.

[The Ruiner-Empress] transcends clans.
The image [of her in the history tablets] changes when she becomes the Ruiner.
Before that, she was a lot... smoother.



GT AS A GAME

> What made you create this beautiful and admirable game?
It all enters through the Dreaming Door. I only channel and shape it as it comes into being.

I prefer the term "life simulator", but I accept other terms as valid.

As a teacher and professor of world religions, it is no mistake that the verbiage [in the lucid Dreaming events] resembles holy texts.

The writing and the art had a purpose of attempting to shift your mind to that of a draak. We can replicate how a draak sees or thinks, not truly. But we can emulate the experience of no longer being a human.

There is a Seed which sleeps within. The Great Green is something I crafted over years to send healing and hope to those who carry the Seed, and to broaden the inner horizons of those who do not.

We were intending on having [GT] on phones/tablets, but we didn't have enough capital. We tried to put it on Switch but were flatly rejected. Same for GoG.

Ah, health and damage. Well, your maximum health is your natural Earth (not including any bonuses or maluses). Damage is usually your Fire multiplied by a decimal appropriate to its description... a small amount of damage might be Firex.1, moderate might be x.22 and large might be x.33. I think .5 is the largest multiplier in the game. If you win the clash, it multiplies the damage by 1.25x or so for the winner and .75 for the loser.
Some attacks like Mindscream use Air instead of Fire for damage. There are other exceptions.
Armor directly reduces physical damage taken. If you have 5 Armor and the enemy does 12 damage, you will take 7.
[Battered/Injured/Crippled] thresholds are set at a simple 75%, 50% and 25%, at least originally. There is a possibility we changed it later, but I think that's still accurate.
And for the Onesong Tarot, you gain 10 Armor across all playthroughs, enough to shrug off damage completely in many cases when compounded with the Earth bonus levels.

The intent was for [the Elements challenge system] to imitate life. There are things you are certain you can do (green), certain you cannot (red), and some things you are not certain about (yellow). In the end, however, there is no RNG here... you can do it or you can't. Partial levels definitely count. The "target number" can absolutely be in the middle, and often is.




HIEROPHANT

The story of Hierophant takes place several centuries after the Draak-Kin arrive on Newhome. The Dragon Empires which they found are very influential. Have to give them a little time to set up.

No, not all of the native races are accounted for [in the teaser image], only the Kaga (whose city it is, obviously) the Tapa, and the Luxa.
And it's rare to see a Tapo dressed that way these days. Most wear neon glow-necklaces and loud clothing and such. That one's an idealogical rebel.
It's from the player's perspective. The entire city is bowing down to you. Get used to that... Hierophant is a game about being a dragon who also happens to be a living god to the Kaga people.

Darktooth's ultimate fate will be discoverable [in Hierophant], and is quite important.

Dragons will play a major role in Hierophant. The player will encounter the civilizations they have built, and they will be very, very different.
Descendants of certain dragons from GT1 (or perhaps even an actual dragon or two) will play major roles in the story.

Interestingly enough, Hierophant was originally conceived as a VR game. One where you could look to the side and see a dragon reflected in the polished marble, or look out over your city in all directions. I had a meeting with someone from Oculus two weeks ago, so I put a page up for that as well.



OTHER GAMES

I assume you mean how the story will go in the game which proceeds from [the Survival] ending. I treat that as an alternate timeline; the story for that one takes place on a Tailless-free Earth much later. The player is a Sapphire Kin who is exploring the oceans of the world, which is populated by both familiar and unfamiliar lifeforms at that point. But do note that this is subject to change. The subtitle is planned to be "The Great Blue".



LUDWIG

I'm a teacher and professor of mythology. I just finished teaching 13 years at a certain school of moderate renown. I've taught over 850 students.

I do enjoy Dwarf Fortress as well.

> Is it worse to be a game creator, making a character only to kill them worse than being the player experienceing that?
No, it is not worse. I love everyone I create, and they all live in me forever. I love their beginnings, and I love their endings, and they all take place again and again in my mind. Death is an ending, but endings don't cheapen stories; they give them meaning.

Yes, that [in the Hierophant trailer] is my voice. Believe it or not, I'm a trained voice actor, though that was just a quick one-take on a bad mic.