Creating a demo for branching narrative rpg in a world inspired by H. R. Giger and fungae.

I aim to learn creating worlds where you can feel the weight of the environment and the lives of the people in it. Games where choices matter and every fight, puzzle, and quest exists to serve the story, not interrupt it or be repetitive.

Think the best AO3 has to offer. Emotionally driven, character-first, unapologetically genre. Chick lit with a sword and consequences. A fantasy. A story. Escapism. Safety.

My early concept art of game world in Photoshop, WIP 3D and made in in Blender with Blenderkit materials.

Choices in Mycelion affect four relationship stats per NPC. Stats are trust, respect, amusement, and power. These are tracked independently, because emotional closeness and structural leverage are not the same thing. 

An NPC can trust you and still have leverage over you. You can earn respect from someone who finds you irritating.

The stats update in real time and are visible to the player. There are no take-backs, every choice lands and stays.

Why? I feel the usual likes-dislikes scale doesn't represent human interaction well enough for the games I want to make. Human interactions are much more difficult than just making decisions someone would either approve or not. 

You might get romantically envolved with someone who finds you amusing, but may not trust you with their secrets or respect you in a way someone else might. 

Conditional branching: The "Find me later" ending only appears if trust >= 2, earned through earlier choices, not a single decision.

Building a narrative system that holds up consistently through an entire game is a real challenge. A four-axis relationship model means exponentially more possible dialogue routes than a single approval meter, but it also means choices that actually matter.

Low trust and respect might cause a companion to hang back in a fight rather than cover you. Leverage you hold over someone can be used to call in favours or unlock options that wouldn't otherwise exist. And if someone has leverage over you, certain dialogue paths close off entirely.

This is my first solo game dev project. I aim to create demo in Godot game engine from concepts to game art, from system design to level design and from story to immersive gameworld.

The dialogue system is built from scratch in JSON and GDScript. Every conversation, choice and consequence is stored in structured files rather than hardcoded, making the narrative editable and expandable without touching the engine.

Each node can carry conditions and effects. Choices only appear if earned, through relationship stats, inventory, or location, action or story flags.