Raiment Studios
A software development studio
We focuses on creativity and productivity software that's designed to be easy to use while also giving users full ownership and control of their data, especially in ways that encourage collaboration and contribution.
We currently are working on Guidebook, a minimal note-taking application and Snowfall, a voxel-based world simulation and adventure game.
Inspired by the simplicity and flexibility of tools like Workflowy and Dynalist, Guidebook is a note-taking outliner with just enough structure to also be used as a personal or small team project planning tool.
Guidebook emphasizes a lightweight feel with natural UX.
Open data format: Guidebook data is stored in a well-documented, simple format, making easy to write custom tools and/or use with other programs. A user's data should never feel "trapped" inside the application.
Simple revision history: automatic snapshotting and git-backed data store ensure it's easy to keep track of who changed what and when. By default, supports storing all data in a remote repo in GitHub or Gitlab.
Minimal structure: for planning, Guidebook encourages a light "just enough" structure so individuals feel aided by, not tied down, by task management. The simple interactions and transparent views make it easier for individuals to stay focused on the work itself, for team communication and collaboration to happen naturally, and for the big picture to be implicitly understood.
Run anywhere: mobile, web, desktop, online, offline - Guidebook is designed to run everywhere and keep your data in sync.
Snowfall is a single-player, adventure game set in the fictional universe of Galthea. The world is voxel-based, procedurally generated, and encourages exploration and story.
Snowfall is a causally-paced, voxel-based world simulation and adventure game set in the fictional universe of Galthea. It borrows from the legacy of Daggerfall' providing an enormous procedural world, the King's Quest series' whimsical adaptation of fairy tales and legends, and the open-ended creative possibilities of Minecraft.
The story
Set in a distant future on the world of Galthea, a strange cosmic force, the Maelstrom, is distorting and unraveling reality. The protagonist is a Kestrel: a rare android in a world of distrustful humans, who is seeking out her creator, the great artificial intelligence known as Tristan. Tristan, who disappeaed mysteriously, is being sought out by all of Galthea, for it was he who had been keeping the Maelstrom at bay...
The story follows Kestrel as she journeys far across Galthea searching for clues as to Tristan's fate before the Maelstrom brings about the end of reality...
The game
Snowfall takes place in a procedurally generated world where characters, locations, items, and the story itself vary on each play. Intended to be played iteratively, each playthrough influences the next as the actions and choice make by the play seed the evolution of future playthroughs.
The game borrows influences from classic adventure games like King's Quest, procedural role-playing games like Daggerfall, simulations like SimCity, and modern voxel-based games like Minetest Lay of the Land.
Play styles
Players are encouraged to adopt a play style that suits them, usually some combination of the following:
- Adventurer - follow the storyline and try to find Tristan before the Maelstrom destroys the world of Galthea
- Explorer - wander the world and discover intriguing things. Capture photos and discover lore...who cares that the world is ending?
- Builder - build a garden, a town, or other corner of the world. It may not stop the Maelstrom, but it will impact future incarnations of the world.
- Fighter - a more traditional XP & loot approach to playing the game. Not all the effects of the Maelstrom are friendly and there are often power and riches for those that are willing to face such danger...
The open universe of Galthea
Key to the game is the idea of ease-of-contribution. The game has in-game editors and exports so models, characters, items, and other parts of the world can be tailored and exported for use by others. In other words, if a player builds an stunning home in their game and wants to export it so it may appear in other's worlds, that is trivial to do! If the procedural generation creates an intriguing shopkeeper, that character can be saved as a template for use in the future.
The procedural generator uses the metaphor of deck building: regions, locations, characters, items, etc. all are "cards" that are put into a deck that the game engine pulls from as it generates the world procedurally. Thus a distribution is just a large collection of content cards and constrains.
These contributions are bundled into community-supported distributions of content known to work well together. Individuals can always create their own unique distributions or contribute to the sacred main distribution. The engine and content exist separately, borrowing some of the approach of the Minetest project.
🚧WE'RE AN EARLY WORK IN PROGRESS!🚧
We're currently a small team of two figuring out the details of our vision on a purely voluntarily basis. We currently are in the concept and planning stages for the company so only accept voluntary contributions as this time!
Our goal is to eventually develop a sustainable business plan which will allow us to financially compensate contributors and hire salaried team members -- but that's a ways down the road!