Behind the Liminal Pt. 2: Story - The Concept

Guess who beefed his intricately planned timing and has to drop two devlogs in one day yaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Prototypes

The concept of a Colors of Life prototype where you scale a multicolored tower dates back to last year. One idea I had but never started was about a boy trapped in a simulation who needed to complete seven colored rooms to advance. There would be one room for each planned color which would be exactly the size of the screen with no scrolling. Gameplay would be “compressed” and maze-like instead of like a typical RPG dungeon. While I never started it, this was the base for what would become Stuck in the Liminal.

I was never able to get a proper prototype out in 2022, as I kept overthinking approaches to prototypes to the point where they would become full-fledged worlds in their own right. While 2022 was a frustrating battle against my own ambition, come 2023 I finally said screw it, I’m gonna make the most basic prototype ever. I incorporated color changing, overworld camouflage, and even changing the color of your background just to test every possibility while leaving everything else pure RTP with no story whatsoever. I even used a default map since I was having so much trouble with mapping myself. I ended up speedrunning this prototype to completion when Ascent of the Allies was announced and I decided to commit to Stuck in the Liminal.

The Liminal

The idea of the Liminal came fairly quickly while thinking about how I could do a Stuck in the Past sequel where Reid is still powerless and needing to get home. Where else could Reid possibly end up after using the crystal other than a dimension in between? The white void was present from the beginning, but I originally wanted to do the tower as half temple half train station of sorts, almost as a central meeting point for souls neither dead nor alive. This ended up being too much to plan so I went with the more straightforward tower. I had some weird ideas to include spiral staircases and even try and make the entire building a spiral staircase like the Tower of Babel, the latter of which I loosely implemented. I also had translucent NPCs that uttered cryptic dialogue roaming around, but I realized they took away from the emptiness of the Liminal and quickly nuked them.

Obviously liminal spaces were a big visual influence. I mean come on, the Liminal and all. I wanted to combine the empty, vaguely familiar feelings of a liminal space with the vastness and sacredness of a temple. Whether I actually achieved that or not is up for debate. While in a rut designing the first floor, I even did that AI art thing all the kids have been doing to get some ideas. While I personally don’t support AI as a tool for asset creation, I can’t deny it’s fantastic for taking an out-there concept and putting it right in front of your face.

Existing liminal spaces also played a part in influencing each floor. The yellow floor, obviously enough, has some Backrooms vibes going on with the dull yellow. It also has monsters roaming around so it’s like that new Backrooms multiverse the kids have been going goo-goo over that just destroys the entire point of the Backrooms in the first place.

The blue room was inspired by the Roman Pool in Hearst Castle, which believe it or not is right here in the US! If I had a few extra weeks, I would have loved to work in those reflections.

The Story

I value story more than almost anything in a game. While I can understand games that focus more on basic gameplay than telling a story or spreading a message, I fall head over heels for games that make you feel like part of their world.

So yeah, Stuck in the Liminal’s story was half-baked and mostly improvised.

There’s a reason I’m not having story be its own devlog. It started off simple enough and stayed simple throughout. Reid is stuck in the Liminal and has to get out. Reid finds out he can’t get out of the Liminal, Harold jumpscare, Reid finds a way out through Harold. Even with the addition of party members the story stayed the same. There were also total excuse plot points such as Reid somehow being able to disappear because his soul got split up. Story definitely took a backseat to gameplay this time around given the purpose of SITL in the first place.

The word of the day is improvisation. So much that I feel redefined the story and dialogue came as a result of free-handing it as I went. A simple moral of sticking together no matter what got flip-turned upside down by Alex not as an intentional plot point but as a way to make sense of story ideas Violet suggested. Reid only needing 10 facets instead of a full crystal came out of nowhere and somehow managed to line up perfectly with the minimum and maximum facets you could leave the Liminal with. Of course I don’t think I exactly aced the story and its execution is lacking in my eyes, but I think I did okay. No excuses once I hop into a full-length game though.

Heroes

There was an internal debate over whether Reid would go at it solo with only his Aspects to help him or meet other party members along the way. I ultimately went with a full party since the game SITL prototyped also includes a party of four. I’m not the biggest fan of introducing huge parties in jam games right off the bat, so I decided to introduce them and their abilities one at a time while giving them an emphatic introduction that doubled as a rough type matchup tutorial.

It was pretty obvious off the bat that the party would be made of other adventurers who ended up in the Liminal and wanted out as much as Reid does. Coming up with heroes was easy enough since I wanted to use one for each elemental color outside of white. Alex was obvious and Ralph came easy after remembering I experimented with him in my first test game. Finding a yellow hero was hard, so I decided to do another MZ character who Reid would know from Emvi. Kasey had yellow hair. Boom. We’ll cover these heroes more in depth later down the road.

My idea for each party member was to have the inverse stat nerf that Reid would normally get from becoming their color. For instance, Reid turning yellow would boost his speed but lower his attack. Kasey would therefore be a zippy glass cannon. As for the party’s movesets, you’ll have to ask Violet Spinel. While I initially planned rough movesets for each of them, Violet completely revamped them. I’d say he did a good job; much better than I would’ve.

Up next is The Experience where we cover the gameplay features I prototyped and how I can change them for a full-length game!