Enormity Design Diary #2: An Enormous World of Terror and Wonder

A creak of a strained girder. The flickering of artificial light burning out. A hollow clang as something gets loose in the gaping liminal space between superstructures.

Old ships are like old houses. Creaking. Cracking. Knocking. Drumming. Settling, hardly silent.

An inhuman wail echoes through its abandoned corridors.

Because just like old houses, old ships are often haunted too.

Imagine you are stranded on a derelict starship lightyears from home, with no way of going back. Imagine exploring the mysterious vessel, deck after decrepit, oppressive deck, and uncovering its disturbing secrets. Imagine it’s dark and cold, and the air is thin. Imagine you are not alone.

Enormity is your ultimate dark science fiction fantasy. It is inspired by the greats of SF literature, cinema, and games, but charts its own course into the unknown. Our games are lauded for being the biggest, the most engrossing and the best written, and Enormity is not going to be an exception. If you ever wanted to feel like an intrepid group of unlikely heroes, trying to survive in a dangerous, strange universe, facing unimaginable threats, from the technological, through the alien to the very eldritch, armed with powerful, state-of-the-art weapons – which don’t seem so powerful all of a sudden - a floodlight and a jerry-rigged scanner showing ominous blips swelling all around you, Enormity will provide you with that experience, and so much more.

 We’ve spent considerable time realizing Enormity’s unique hard SF setting. When you explore the massive NASF ship, The Shepherd, you will move through diverse environments, from stylish and squeaky-clean sections of the C-Suite to the poorly-lit, dirty and suffocating backend of engineering, processing and maintenance, to completely alien biomes, where the Intruders have gained a terrible foothold, and where even the laws of physics bow to Antinomy…     

The unfinished space stretches out before you like a black gaping wound. How could a starship with structural deficiencies so glaring be allowed to leave the shipyard?

 And then a thought occurs to you, as dark and vast as the abyss you find yourself on the precipice of.

 What if it didn’t? What if something tore these hollows later? Out there. In the void, where the Shepherd was all these years…  

We’ve spent an equal amount of time designing and streamlining Enormity’s mechanics, so that they do not get into the way of immersive play, of your adrenaline-fueled descent into the bowels of the ship – and beyond – but that they still provide both challenge and depth.

Enormity is a dungeon crawler that unfolds over dozens of interconnected locations, like a true metroidvania, with hundreds of passages, rooms, secrets and shortcuts, hundreds of gear and weapons to salvage or craft, with alien ecologies that evolve in real time based on your actions.

Let’s talk about those gameplay spaces, locations of the massive NASF ship, The Shepherd. With Enormity, we wanted to take the dungeon crawling experience to the next level, to keep you constantly engaged with the exciting gameplay and emergent story.

In Enormity, there is only one board: that of the mysterious starship itself. This board is made of unique, hand-crafted locations that sprawl into a near infinite maze of interconnected sections, hidden passages, shortcuts and arenas. Even your downtime – the part of the game where you develop your characters, craft gear and make startling technological breakthroughs – happens on that very same board, in safehouse-type locations, with your actions and opportunities reflected by the equipment provided within, right there on the board page!

In gameplay terms, we achieve this by using several ring-bound Location Books that you use in tandem to expand and explore the map in real-time. That’s right. Whenever you move to your current location’s edge, providing there is a door or another type passage, you will instantly unlock another location. And another and another. You are free to explore at your own pace.

Enormity’s locations are not scenario-based. You have total freedom of where to go, how to go there, what objectives to set. Your extraction runs are limited only by the growing opposition from the Intruders, and your need to rest and expand your power base.

In other words, Enormity’s board is one giant dungeon crawling map made of dozens upon dozens of sections. Of course, there are rules that will make sure the gameplay space does not overwhelm you or your table - and that only a few of the locations remain in play at a given time. Those left behind will hide in a fog-of-war-type Veil, but can always be revisited (well, unless you chose to blow a whole section up to halt the alien onslaught, that is. In that case you will have to look for a detour…).

For true immersion, just like your characters, Intruders are not bound to their starting locations and can follow you as venture deeper and deeper into the space hulk.

Wet smacking and a low thud, as something slithers from an airduct and falls to the floor. Big and bulky, like a dog, but oily, shining in the dim light. Nothing so big could’ve squeezed through that duct!

Yet it did. It rises on all fours, chirping and hissing.

 Nothing of old Earth…

 This enormous, expanding and modular experience is made whole by the existence of various transition spaces, like the safehouses you will visit between your dungeon-crawling and boss battling, as well as special locations hidden among other game components and… stickers.

 Stickers will modify how the Shepherd looks, opening and closing passages, introducing completely new spaces, new hazards and new opportunities. All based on your choices, to provide you with the ultimate experience of a persistent, evolving world. And don’t worry, these are re-usable stickers!

So, imagine sneaking through an enormous spaceship, weapons in hand, deciding where to go and which sections to avoid. Imagine uncovering a giant, intricate, interconnected map that tells its own story of the purpose, past and future of the ship. Imagine the ship’s layout evolving over time, becoming more overrun by an infestation of an alien lifeform… Imagine engaging those Intruders in thrilling firefights - nail-biting retreats from overwhelming forces and daring raids to cleanse nests or shatter the interdimensional hold the outsiders have on our reality.

 And I haven’t even mentioned away missions to alien planets, and planes, and our immersive fast-travel system…

 Stay tuned. Something enormous is coming.

 Your hurried footsteps echo on the metal floor of the service corridor. That thing… it was almost human. Almost. But stretched, a rubber suit worn too many times by too large a thing. Stretched impossibly long and thin. Thick cables move in the dark. Like black snakes. Or-

Enormity is coming to crowdfunding this Winter. This diary marks the first of several we will publish as we get closer to release. Before the game lands, you will be invited into the dangerous, oppressive world of the Outer Dark, learn about all the new and unique gameplay mechanics that will shake the dungeon crawler format, discover the new ICP, see the fantastic art from some of the best artists in the business, like Lius Lasahido, Abrar Khan or Igor Kieryluk (yes, we’re doubling-down on hand-crafted art!), marvel at the miniatures, watch a trailer, read the rules and possibly play the Dark Side of the Sun Demo yourselves! Stay tuned for more soon.

Thank you for supporting our art, and dreams, over the years,

Marcin Wełnicki, Head of Into the Unknown

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