Time Travel Temple Design - Zone02

Today (actually about 2 weeks ago by the time this is posted! I had it delayed a bit to show some more Mount Bloom stuff!) we spent a grand total of 7 hours sketching the second time travel area, as well as deciding where and how everything was gonna happen, including another step of the main quest we hadn't yet decided on when we had the other meeting last week. 

An Early Sketch

Let me tell you, designing this area has been an instant headache! You have to keep track of which places are blocked off in the present and which ones are blocked in the past, plus what happens to place x, y or z when you change thing a, b or c. And, for some reason, we ALL just feel like the ruined place feels more "past"-like, and so we always, ALWAYS say "past" when we mean to say "present", and the other way around... Talk about confusing! :D

Another Early Sketch

Anyway, for this temple, we really want the player to think a bit more. This place is more about exploration and figuring out how to solve the quests than going from point a to point b and doing something mechanically. Instead, the entire map becomes your puzzle, where you have to change certain things in the past to unlock a way forward in the present.

Sketch showing a very early iteration of one of the puzzles

Of course, when in the present we've thrown in a bunch of encounters and places where you'll have regular battles as well. After all, this is still supposed to be somewhat temple-y, and the enemies do drop cards..!

In the end, this is what our little layout ended up like! Below is the Past version, where everyone's still in town, living their everyday life:

And here's the present version, where things are in ruin, overgrown and forgotten:

Of course, this is just an early sketch so things may still change (such as distances, house sizes etc). And obviously the houses and stuff won't look like they do here, I just used whatever graphics I could get my hands on to get the average sizes right until I can make the actual art for 'em! :)