Livly and world building visualization

Further in game exploration

I looked around the walkable plane catered for photography and although some if most where similar they had minor changes in the environmental that differentiated itself from one another. The game usually matches up its aesthetic with the current season and event, so in this case, most of everything was decorated  with easter in mind. In terms of place making, a good example of this in game is the added optional riddle hunt it has every month. This is where for a reward of over 2000 gp is given to players who can identify and find that certain landmark in an area of the 25 locations in the map. Besides this specific location are easily recognizable by payers from the iconic structures surrounding the land in screen.  So what i did was i looked and hunted for the area that had the reward and was excited to roll for the current banner with that gold. 

After a long while of hunting i managed to find i and decided to do weekly's which this game has, which is a mechanic in the game that gives a small reward for daily tasks. After doing so i rolled for gacha and surprisingly got a good result. i was incredibly excited and bragged to a friend who played the game as well. What i really loved about the game as well is the way you can roll for music and bgms as well as an accessory and i thought it was a fun way to make the atmosphere for personalization even more immersing. I also thought how it would be a nice change of pace for the ears because since how it looks is constantly changing a stagnant bgm could be a bit tiring to listen on repeat to. I tried speaking to some people and they did respond with the best of their abilities and it was very brief but kind of endearing.

Word building visualization

After  30 days of investigating and observing Livly and its community, I will finally start visualizing what kind of world I want to build based on what i gathered from my experiences with livly. Since lively communities are mostly targeted to people above 18 and older who usually foster skills in creativity and freedom, I want to make my world that enables that sort of community.

To be specific I want them to have the freedom of creating a private or public city in the world. This concept is inspired by Livly's customizing variety and I wanted to extend that into the world and to the avatar as well, having a simple aesthetic that can be altered to fit the user's preference. Instead of just an itinerary of a home I wanted to see people create on a larger scale and build a city that could emulate existing places or that of imagination. Unlike the compact world where movement is limited to the screen, I believe making it an open world could add more immersion and interaction with the decorating features of this land. Grabbing some elements into livly such as an open chat and visit feature to make interactions more prominent. Of course, with more interactivity comes rules that don't involve restricting creative freedom but to avoid harassment and cyber crimes.

I believe adding specific rules and degrees of consequences is appropriate in lessening these actions. I noticed that Metalivly had a negative response from how it uses crypto and NTFS and  its existing notorious reputation. Hence, it is best to add rules that heavily enforces consent and to avoid third party interferences.

Moreover, a market system like any other world is inserted to have that exchange and motivation to earn in-game currency, as a sort of added goal that lets people stay longer and invest their time in the world. This open-world aspect helps make it more lived in and makes people roleplay all certain types of scenarios or just customize them for aesthetic purposes. Of course from a technical perspective, it must be well programmed and secure to prevent security breaches and hacking, therefore maintaining a safe environment. Visitation from friends and strangers who enable the visit feature for the public is accessed and a fun way to see how others have personalized their city. The inclusion of NPCs might be a fun way to bring believability, of course, it is an optional feature.

Since my world is inspired by livlys customization diversity the npcs are in itself an optional accessory of the world rather than to talk or communicate to. I think adding a real-time seasonal change could be an interesting way to bridge the gap between reality and a visualized world. Lively achieves this through gacha banners specific to that season but I think adding weather and seasonal changes brings more depth to my idea of a world. Livly is an art-driven community from the aesthetics of the game and its cute appeal. Making the world a mix of 2d and 3d elements creates a unique and charming style that can help stand out. I thought of making the environmental plane 3d whereas the avatar is controlled in 2d, with a prime example inspired from Octopath which merges both stylistic choices cohesively and interestingly, along with realistic lighting which enhances the feel of the game and livlys eye catching simple and versitile style for the avatars.

From this, it can help attract the attention of an active user audience and activity surrounding it similar to Livly and its creative fanbase. In terms of place-making in my world, because it is up to the user's preferences they can create their landmark that helps direct visitors to a certain area through the assets in the store. Livly and its music discography was something I really enjoyed from the game which is applied to the itinerary and I believe that this in particular shows how important music and auditory senses are in a world aside from the visuals.