Monolithic

2019-2020 / PC (Steam)

Role:
Lead Designer

Date:
Fall 2019 – Summer 2020

Created In

Unity 3D, C#

Summary

“In the sands of the desert, all mortal things are eventually lost.
   Cities rise and fall. Kings are birthed and buried. Tales are told and forgotten.
   Yet above it all, the gods stand alone.”

Monolithic is a head-to-head multiplayer strategy game about  gods warring throughout the ages. Players take control of several stone-bound deities, using their powers to raise cities, gather followers, and strike down opponents in the brawl to end all brawls.  It’s a winner-take-all battle across the eons – provided there’s anything left for them to take.

Project Details

The gallery below contains images from various points in Monolithic’s development. For more details on everything that I did, select an image and open it’s description. Images go chronologically, left-to-right.

An image of 3 tall stone monoliths in a desert. On the left, a square one with multiple angluar faces. In the middle, a tall, rectangular monolith, whose round facemask is backlit by the pale sun. On the right, a curved monolith with a humanoid head, wings, and horns. The top and bottom margins are red, the latter containing text reading "CONSTRUCT CITIES | GATHER DEVOTIONS | DESTROY OPPONENTS
A black and white, ornate ring pattern, like a sun whose outer edges are made of blades. At the center, a face with a vaguely bovine shape.
A venn diagram of three rings. A blue ring, labelled "Strategy", containing the words "forethought, management, and progression", a green ring, labelled "Divinity", containing "Immortality, Omnipotence, and Worship", and a red ring labelled "Rocks", with the terms "Durable, Sluggish, Inert". The intersection of green and blue is "Control". Green and Red is "Timelessness". Red and Blue is "Resources". The center of the diagram reads "Scale, Strength, and Creation".
Picture of a catan board - 19 interlocking hexagons with natural terrain art, forming an island. A series of red and blue blocks form roadways between the hexes.
A black page with white text, reading: God Blocks Prototype 3 - By Fowl Machinations. What is this?: This is a strategy game about ancient, stone deities in the brawl to end all brawls - literally! Each player plays as a stone deity, founding civilizations, gathering followers, and waging holy war against their opponent. The last empire standing wins! Pieces: 1 Game Board 1 Age Marker 2 Monolith Pieces 10 Ruin Markers 10 Settlement Pieces 10 Village Pieces 20 Spirit Markers 10 3-Spirit Markers 20 Wandering Soul Pieces 15 Walking Tomb Pieces 15 Earth Titan Pieces Setup: Get out the game board. Put a blue Village Piece on the Blue Square Tile, along with 1 spirit marker. Do the same for the Red Tile. Put the monolith pieces in front of their respective color Villages. Divide the Wandering Soul, Walking Tomb, and Earth Titan Pieces evenly amongst players. Finally, place the age marker on the furthest left side of the Age Counter.
A black page with white text, reading: Steps in a Turn. 1: Check Spirits. At the start of your turn, check each Settlement you control. If it has less than 3 spirits on it, place a spirit on it. If it has three or more, remove the settlement from the map and replace it with a Village. Add 1 to the Age Counter. Place 2 spirits on each Village you control (maximum of 6 on each). 2: Move the Monolith. Once per turn, you may move your Monolith a single hex tile. At any point, you may also: Collect Spirits - Take any # of spirits from an adjacent settlement or village you control. Construct - Pay 1 Spirit to turn an adjacent Ruin to a Settlement, or 5 to make your Settlement a Village. +1 Age Counter. Convert - Pay 3 Spirits to make an adjacent enemy Settlement yours. Destroy all spirits on it. Adjacent Enemy Servants block conversion. Create a Servant (on an adjacent Settlement or Village) or Cast A Spell (Paying their Spirit & Age Counter Costs). 3: Move Your Servants. In the third step, you must move all of your Servants along the roads of the map (hex corner to hex corner). Servants move a fixed distance each turn, and cannot move backwards. When Servants land, they automatically fight any enemies present. (If the defenders’ total attack is greater than the attackers health, it dies, and vice versa. ) After landing on a Ruin or Enemy Settlement/Village, Servants automatically Construct/Convert (if possible) and then die.
A brown board with a patch of golden-colored sand at the center of it. The sand is divided up into 19 hexagon tiles, with roads running along their edges. Several cities and units - represented as blue and red boxes and lumps - move along the roadways.
A barebones game scene - a pale, tan plane surrounded in a semicircle by gray rocks (cubes) hovering against a gray skybox. A few rocks and pyramids are strewn across the map, as well as two small clusters of buildings, each with a green ring around them. There are 3 obelisks on the map - green, orange, and blue. A small, low-poly tornado whirls diagonally across the map.
A vaguely oval-shaped desert, with golden sand and a solid wall of jagged rocks along its top. A thin blue river runs along the bottom of the map, mirroring the line of the cliff above. A spiral network of black roadways connects a handful of brown circles around the map - with a large, 3-sided pyramid at the center. Three stone monoliths sit on each end of the arena.
A close up picture of a corner of the desert map, with the river along the left and a brown cliff covering the background. The three monoliths are visible in increasing distances from the camera. The one in front is pink, with wings and horns. The one in the middle is gold, with two sun-shaped masks, and the one in back is a green cube.
Picture of a tall golden monolith, sitting in a ring next to a small city. Three buttons hover above the monolith's head. The left button reads "Take 30 Devotion" while the top button (greyed out) reads "Need (75)!"
A tan screen with black text, titled "Documentation Design Plan". There are three sections, each showing assorted documents. They are labelled "Primary Design Wiki: Basic design goals, Reference for all team members". "Detailed Docs: Detailed system descriptions, reference for design, programming, for members working in engine" and "Notes & Reference: Rough notes and drafts for quick work, used to update proper docs"
Picture of a the desert, now darkened. All of the towns around the map are slowly burning with orange flames. A timer in the top right hud displays a shattered sundail, and declares it "THE END TIMES".
Image of a two-faced, golden monolith, burning in a desert. The blue sky is darkened in comparison to the orange flames.
A banner by Samantha Arehart showing our 3 original characters: Vaktul - the horned, angel like storm goddess, Arat - the golden-masked sun god, and Yurisar - the three-faced god of lies and sand.
6 Monoliths Standing in front of a range of mountains in the desert. From left to right: a sedimentary stone with a fossilized spine and skull sticking out, a rounded column with a horned mask and wings, a cube with multiple angular faces, a rectangular sun-masked obelisk, a large, 8-face pyre, and a small, smiling-masked statue.
The bottom left corner of a desert landscape, with a network of black roads connecting ruined cities. In the top left, two cities named Uruk and Ur are visible. along with a tall, winged monolith.
Two monoliths - one tall and rectangular, the other a cube - lay seige to a city (Karak). The tall monolith is flinging a large, golden ball of flames down at a small monolith protecting the city from within its walls.
The end of the ingame world. The desert is darkened, and the golden sundial that tracks time is cracked and splintered. In the bottom left of the screen, a massive cloud of dust rises where a city has collapsed into the earth.

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