This is a game design document for Anamnesis: The Eidolon Tapestries
The inspiration for this design is, essentially, my life.
Core seeds of a passion for role playing games and their design were first planted, very memorably, by Morrowind; and probably that demo of some space game immediately thereafter. I want to say it was Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter. Never played the full thing. Most of my science fiction inspiration comes from books and the usual film and TV classics.
Perhaps also thanks to Morrowind, I’ve always seen role playing games as a way to explore personal philosophy. Most of my early exploration of philosophy probably happened within games as well, because they formed a safe space for me away from the potential for blasphemy.
Beyond these basic elements, the vast majority of what has informed this design is essentially a distillation of my own real life experiences, and the world view I have developed in the process of grappling with them.
It is not, however, an attempt to impose my world view on others. The motivating idea of ATET is to create a philosophical playground, wherein the core dialectic is that of grounded reality vs. metaphysical truth, and players are free to explore the narratives they choose. It is a world where fact and fiction play on a level field, quite like our own.
The concepts presented here are meant to give a high level overview of the ATET mythos; from a designer’s perspective. The use of mythical language here is meant to help bridge the gap between this perspective and that of a player/a world inhabitant. Keep in mind, the core motivation here is to move beyond simply designing a marketable game and into the realm of creating a true work of art.