all right, what is this?
This is a development forum for a new game project that I'm hoping to make.

what kind of game?
Well, this is what I've got decided so far:

• takes place entirely on the surface of a table, with objects lying/standing on the surface, and the camera pointed straight down from above
• the table's surface is much bigger than you can see in one go (maybe stretching outwards forever, an endless plane...) but you do not have free camera movement - the camera only pans over to another part of the table-surface as part of a scripted event
• game is controlled mostly with the mouse. which is used to manipulate the table objects in various ways (the actions that you can do may be context-dependent)
• the objects you deal with are all pretty realistic... as in, no truly magical/sci-fi elements (teleporters etc.) or big cameos from other fictional universes... but can still be unusual/unlikely things
• ultimately, the game has some kind of story or point to it all. but this may not become apparent until near the end... so the actual gameplay may involve a lot of arbitrary puzzles/tasks a lot of the time

hmm, that's not much...
I have a bunch of further ideas about style and content -- please take a look at other threads here -- that list is just the big, important things, the things that seem least likely to get reconsidered later. (But who knows...)

what's this game going to be called? "That Salty Air"?
No, that's just a codename for this subforum. The title is undecided at the moment.

why does this need its own subforum, and why is it private? isn't Salt World already small/obscure enough for you?
Honestly, it's mainly just that it feels right to me... I prefer to have something that feels "enclosed", can't show up on Google searches etc., but I still really like the message-board format, I prefer it as the "home" of something like this rather than a Skype group/IRC channel, or a big Google doc.

Also I would guess that some people would prefer not see anything about a project that they're not heavily involved in themselves until it's done, so I'd prefer to not give them the option to accidentally spoil themselves...

okay. so what do you want from me?
First I want to make clear that you don't have to be an active contributor to be welcome here! It's still genuinely helpful to know you may drop in occasionally, read a few new posts, think about it but realise you don't have anything you want to say, and leave again.

But of course, I'm hoping that you WILL have something to say. It doesn't need to be highly detailed, specific suggestions (though those would be great) but just honest reaction, talk about things that you are reminded of, be as tangential/rambling/freely-associating as you like.