Yakana
GeneratedA survival game set on a lost island-state in the Amazon River Delta, roughly twelve thousand years ago, after the dead rose.
Setting
Yakana is explicitly mythic prehistory, not a historical reconstruction. Research informs the ecology, the materials and the visual language; it does not govern the mythology. The island is a warrior state that chose to exist in spite of the gods, and the legend of its war against undeath outlives the magic that made it possible.
Iron ties the myth together. The intended high-tier source is meteoric, so the best metal in the world falls out of the sky.
The island
The world is authored rather than generated for its own sake. One port city, four temples, twelve villages — three villages to each temple region, and each temple the seat of one magic domain.
Every settlement holds exactly one trade as its focus, and a region’s four settlements hold four different ones. That single rule does the work: every region reliably has all four trades, exactly one of them can reach the third tier inside that region, and the capital is the only place where all four can. Twenty-eight shops across three tiers, and no shop that can never be improved.
Quipu and magic
Quipu — knotted cords — replaces books. Spells are kept as knots: a belt carries every spell learned, two are worn at a time as bracelets, and they can only be changed somewhere safe. Four domains: Life, Pyre, Death and Water.
The list is designed. Its balance is not, and this page will not imply otherwise.
Skills and inventory
Eight skills: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Endurance, Vitality, Vision, Focus and Luck. Each has stated effects rather than flavour; the system draws on D&D, Fallout’s SPECIAL and GURPS, and the magnitudes remain open.
Eight inventory slots is a hard requirement. Resources stack to eight or sixteen, arrows to thirty-two, equipment never stacks, and weight is carried rather than waved away.
Night
Settlements defend themselves. They are not guaranteed to survive, they do not ask for help, and they will not warn you that tonight is the night they fail. Night can only be skipped from inside a refuge, so reaching shelter before dark is part of the route rather than a menu action.
Status
| stage | Design and prototyping. No playable build is being presented. |
|---|---|
| perspective | Top-down, flat terrain, built for readable combat, spell areas and sound. |
| world generation | The settlement and shop distribution rules are settled and machine-checked. Terrain, dungeons and settlement layouts are not. |
| magic | Twelve spells across four domains are defined. Balance and implementation are open. |
| skills | Effects are stated. Magnitudes and perks are open. |
| economy | Barter and shop tiers are defined. Whether a currency exists at all is open. |
Current boundary
This page records settled decisions and names the open ones. It does not describe a completed game, and where it and the working design disagree, the page is the thing that is behind.