Design Review Poll for Castle Design and Miriam's Room

THEATER PEOPLE, VOTE THEATER. THEATER 2016!

I'm going to have to give this some thought. I don't think all the options work super well together, some are somewhat redundant (like the castle wouldn't need a Zoo AND and Exotic Pet Room; Sacred & Unholy & Summoning Grounds are all pretty close to each other) and I feel some are pretty obvious in terms of what they mean and some are more vague. I think I'll vote for the stuff I know I want to see and seems somewhat unique and avoid stuff that may overlap.

Just a QQ but "interaction with background" means what exactly? (That's one of the options that seems pretty vague)

Of course I had to vote for the giant Alura Une =P So many great choices on there. Really like the ideas behind the Miriam's Chambers, too.

• Demon enemies that can be turned to take care of rooms or different fimiliars

I like this idea, the possibility of Demon enemy types becoming allies willing to work with Miriam. I've always been fond of the idea of demons being capable of being good, just as any other being capable of being good and bad.

Made my votes.

I'd really like to see a 'Waterfall Area', or just about any area with an emphasis on flowing and rushing water. I love good water graphics in games, and I'd hope that they make some good and fine looking water in Bloodstained.

All these "Miriam's room" options got me thinking.
We'll have three separate campaigns. Three protagonists. Three separate story arcs.
While I understand that the Miriam is the most "important" one of the three, I'm worried that all focus will go to her, and two other story arcs will end up feeling as an afterthought.
We'll have three different people exploring the castle. Maybe even at the same time! How will its design reflect that?
-woah, major C64\LoD vibes here-
Maybe it's more logical to give each one of them their own safe place to stay in? They will most likely have separate playstyles and abilities, so maybe some of them can access secret areas others cannot, or be forced to search for alternate paths.
And yeah. The current poll is overwhelming and needs more work badly. All Grounds options feel the same to me, for example. We know full well that Bloodstained is going to be a huge game with tons of content (that will most likely get delayed as a result, but that's fine), so some topics, like design, will need splitting for sure.
Miriam's room already warrants its own topic. And it's just one room. One room in the castle that's going to be the biggest Iga has ever done.

I'm up for suggestions, but I need an example. Like a re-write of what you would have rather seen.

With translation in mind it's difficult to boil a suggestion down to a sentence or two. Then you have to put vote numbers behind each one so everyone gets a fair shot. Then we have restrictions on how long a vote option can be (around tweet size) and we are limited to 50 items at a time. I've looked at some external survey sites, but there is nothing better than the real time stuff tied to registered members like we have here. The discussions are also important. If you want to make a mock up re-do of this so we can plan better for future polls that would be cool. Heck, if it works better for this active poll I'd probably try and use it instead. This forum is what it's members make of it, and if we can all come up with a better way lets do it! Start at the source with the submitted threads and lets brain storm how these things could best be communicated. Mana can't read every single thread on these boards and relay them to IGA, but if we organize the important stuff to make that process easy we will have a better shot of influencing the game.

What about the Sacrificial Chamber? That could have potential for some nifty secrets, as well, such as a hidden enemy/boss/item/what have you, that can only be triggered by a sacrifice of some sort.

Hey XombieMike

If I were to reorganize this, I'd separate this into 3 polls (3 separate topics): Castle Locations; Miriam's Room - Design and Function; Castle Architecture and Miscellaneous

Castle Locations would deal with the overall sections that make up the castle - what sorts of sections would people here be interested in seeing? The castle of Dawn of Sorrow is split into the following sections:

The Abyss
Condemned Tower
Cursed Clock Tower
The Dark Chapel
Demon Guest House
Garden of Madness
The Lost Village
Mine of Judgment
The Pinnacle
Silenced Ruins
Subterranean Hell
Wizardry Lab

So the Castle Locations topic would be focused on voting on what types of sections we want to see from the sections we nominated. Of the options in the poll above, this would at first include

• Living Quarters
• Ballroom
• Forge
• Treasury
• Swamp
• Overgrown Tower
• Factory
• Sacred Grounds
• Unholy Grounds
• Summoning Grounds
• Submerged Grounds
  
• Watch Maker Factory
• Zoo
• Coliseum
• Garden
• Attic
• Bell Tower
  
• Morgue
• Gateway to Demon Realm
• Theater
• Test Subject Area
• Observatory

Factory and Watch Maker Factory is redundant (and the later is weirdly specific) so I'd get rid of the later and rename it Industrial Factory. Gateway to the Demon Realm I assume is in the vein  of The Abyss in Dawn of Sorrow? Citing that as an example might be useful for people to understand what you mean. Sacred Grounds, Unholy Grounds, Summoning Grounds and Submerged Grounds are both vague enough and similar enough that you may want to refer to past Casltevania to help define the suggestion (similar to the way I tied Gateway to the Demon Realm to The Abyss/Chaotic Realm). I'd also think that "Summoning Grounds" could/would be a subset of any of the other sets of grounds no? Maybe if someone looks through the original threads for where those specific suggestions came from can we have a better idea what type of environment those bullet points are aiming for. Test Subject Area is best turned into a Laboratory (maybe specifically a Biological Laboratory?) since I assume that's the intention. I took out the Giant Alara Une and Spider from their respective areas just because I don't think they have to be coupled together. Also simplified the Bell Tower suggestion since that was a very specific request and I'm not sure why Doing all this, I'd reorganize the Castle Locations poll list to be finalized as:

• Living Quarters
• Ballroom
• Forge
• Treasury
• Swamp
• Overgrown Tower
• Industrial Factory
• Sacred Grounds (ala ?)
  
• Unholy Grounds (ala ?)
  
• Summoning Grounds (incorporate into one of the other grounds?)
  
• Submerged Grounds (ala the Underground Reservoir from Aria of Sorrow?)
  
• Zoo
• Coliseum
• Garden
• Attic
• Morgue
• Gateway to Demon Realm (ala the Abyss/chaotic Realm from the Sorrow games)
  
• Theater
• Biological Laboratory
  
• Observatory

Now you may have noticed that I didn't include every item above that could be described as a generic location in the main poll. That is because I think there is a difference between a general section of the castle and a singular room within the castle. For example, you could have a Factory section with a Boiler Room in it but you wouldn't have a Boiler Room section of the castle. You might have a Waterfall in a set of Caverns but a Waterfall itself is only going to yield a room or two. A Kitchen or a Wine Cellar would be part of the Living Quarters, not their own sections themselves. Since you can't subsection polls as far as I can tell, I would include individual rooms as part of the Castle Architecture and Miscellaneous poll (the following is a first past, it will be added upon in a second):

• Torture Rooms
• Waterfall Area
• Wine Cellar
• Stable
• Trophy Room
• Rotating Room
• Boiler Room
• Sacrificial Chamber
• Exotic Pet Room
  

Moving onto Miriam's Room - Design and Function, the list I'd pull from the above poll would be:

• Miriam's room- Paintings/stained glass used as magical portals for travel to previous areas.
• Sleeping could affect day and night cycle.
• Ghostly piano for changing areas music or a sound test and soundtrack player.
• Demon enemies that can be turned to take care of rooms or different familiars
• Demon helpers- Familiar pen / stable, store, monster data & lore, maid or butler
• Miriam's room starts out simple and can be upgraded.
• Miriam room upgrade spots for furniture, art, shortcuts to areas, etc.
• Keys that unlock connected rooms to Miriam's room.
• Connected to Miriam's room- Armory to display trophies & weapons, Familiar pen, Kitchen, Tea room
• Version of Miriam's room that's grand to reflect Gebel's original intention. Opposite version.
• Miriam's room changes based on in game decisions and gives different treasures

So this list is overall less vague but there are still a few issues with the bullet points. One of them is the assumption of mechanics and plot points that haven't been confirmed. The other is that some of these points have been shortened from the larger list to the point where its no longer clear what is trying to be communicated. You also have a few examples of redundant suggestions. As an example, we don't know that there is a day/night cycle so its odd to suggest that sleeping in the room could be used to affect it and "Version of Miriam's room that's built to reflect Gebel's original intention. Opposite version." is worded as if there is some sort of ideal vision that Gebel already does have for a room of the sort. The suggestion is that people what a room with two different versions, one per Gebel's designs and another per Miriam's designs, but I'm not sure that is entirely clear here. If I were to reword some of these points for clarity, I'd do so like this:

• Paintings/stained glass that can be used as magical portals for travel to previous areas.
• If a day/night cycle exists within the game, the option to take a nap to change the cycle should be available
  
• Ghostly piano for changing areas music or a sound test and soundtrack player.
• Demon enemies (that can be turned) or different familiars can serve as caretakers of the room
  
• Demon helper functions: sell items in a store, provide monster data & lore, act as a maid or butler
• Miriam's room starts out simple and can be upgraded aesthetically (furniture, art, etc.)
  
• Miriam's room can be expanded in size and functionality via unlocks (using keys is an option)
  
• Possible expansions to Miriam's room: Armory to display trophies & weapons, Familiar Pen, Kitchen, Tea room, etc.
  
• Two versions of Miriam's room (with different aesthetics - pretty vs. run-down?) can exist in different sections of the caste with unique functions
  
• Aesthetics or function of Miriam's room can change based on in game narrative decisions and/or yield periodic treasures

I think editing the points in this way reduces overlap and makes it more clear what is trying to be communicated. Finally we would do the Castle Architecture and Miscellaneous where you'd discuss individual rooms instead of sections, and general castle features. The complete version of this list, which again would be its own topic, should look like this:

• Torture Rooms
• Waterfall Area
• Wine Cellar
• Stable
• Trophy Room
• Rotating Room
• Boiler Room
• Sacrificial Chamber
• Exotic Pet Room
• Architectural elements like ornamental balconies, parapets, bridges, terraces with balustrades
• Elements and secrets within the castle that could connect and interact with the castle exterior
• Interactive background elements
  

I cut out "Unique room shapes and design touches for a continuous engaging, "new" experience while exploring" because as with a previous discussion, this reads way too much like "make a good castle" which isn't helpful feedback. I left in Interactive background elements but to be fair this is still super vague and castledan's elaboration didn't really help. That might be fine though - maybe this is something left to the imagination of the designers.

TLDR: This topic should have been split into 3 topics with the following bullet point lists available to vote on:


Castle Locations (Topic 1)

• Living Quarters
• Ballroom
• Forge
• Treasury
• Swamp
• Overgrown Tower
• Industrial Factory
• Sacred Grounds (ala ?)
  
• Unholy Grounds (ala ?)
  
• Summoning Grounds (incorporate into one of the other grounds?)
  
• Submerged Grounds (ala the Underground Reservoir from Aria of Sorrow?)
  
• Zoo
• Coliseum
• Garden
• Attic
• Morgue
• Gateway to Demon Realm (ala the Abyss/chaotic Realm from the Sorrow games)
  
• Theater
• Biological Laboratory
  
• Observatory

Miriam's Room - Design and Function (Topic 2)

• Paintings/stained glass that can be used as magical portals for travel to previous areas.
• If a day/night cycle exists within the game, the option to take a nap to change the cycle should be available
  
• Ghostly piano for changing areas music or a sound test and soundtrack player.
• Demon enemies (that can be turned) or different familiars can serve as caretakers of the room
  
• Demon helper functions: sell items in a store, provide monster data & lore, act as a maid or butler
• Miriam's room starts out simple and can be upgraded aesthetically (furniture, art, etc.)
  
• Miriam's room can be expanded in size and functionality via unlocks (using keys is an option)
  
• Possible expansions to Miriam's room: Armory to display trophies & weapons, Familiar Pen, Kitchen, Tea room, etc.
  
• Two versions of Miriam's room (with different aesthetics - pretty vs. run-down?) can exist in different sections of the caste with unique functions
  
• Aesthetics or function of Miriam's room can change based on in game narrative decisions and/or yield periodic treasures

Castle Architecture and Miscellaneous (Topic 3)

• Torture Rooms
• Waterfall Area
• Wine Cellar
• Stable
• Trophy Room
• Rotating Room
• Boiler Room
• Sacrificial Chamber
• Exotic Pet Room
• Architectural elements like ornamental balconies, parapets, bridges, terraces with balustrades
• Elements and secrets within the castle that could connect and interact with the castle exterior
• Interactive background elements

I feel these new lists can make voting more clean and feedback easier to transmit as the intention of each point is more clear, there is less overlap, and there is less congestion. I guess it might be too late for this topic now (unless you can move vote totals from here to new topics) but I think the organization I listed out is much better. I can do the same for other topics (though some are intrinsically in better shape) but I won't do another one unless I know which major topic we are covering next. Hopefully this is helpful?