Core Worldview¶

The world is material, but not simple.

Everything in the game should be readable as systems interacting with other systems: bodies, weather, animals, plants, terrain, memory, hunger, trade, shelter, kinship, habit, and attention. A person is not outside this mesh. They are one clump of complexity moving inside larger clumps of complexity.

There is no clean boundary where the self ends and the world begins. The player breathes weather, spends stored food, reads animal movement, follows water, leaves tracks, changes local pressure, and remembers only what they have tested.

Consciousness should be treated as a matter of degree, shape, and relation, not as a single switch. Animals are not tools with decorative behavior. They are centers of experience with their own fear, hunger, movement, and attention.

The game does not need to prove a metaphysical thesis. It should make the player act inside this worldview.

Design Implications¶

• Prefer interdependence over isolated mechanics.
• Let knowledge come from contact, movement, failure, and memory.
• Treat animals and terrain as active participants, not passive scenery.
• Avoid chosen-one framing, destiny framing, and heroic exception.
• Keep mystery compatible with material explanations.