Alternately, you can let it construct one for you, including mountains and pubs.
Menyr is a toolkit that allows users to design an entire digital environment for their role-playing games, from landscapes to settlements, then play through them. It bills itself as a “story-telling engine.” It was launched on Kickstarter earlier this month and has already raised far more money than anticipated.
It was created by NOG, a small gaming studio with experience working with corporations like EA and Ubisoft and a focus on real-time graphics and the Unreal Engine. However, in this case, everything was their concept and creation, and NOG promised that Menyr would allow users to create vast 60 square mile worlds. Here is the teaser:
According to NOG, Menyr functions as follows: initially, you create the game world using procedural generation, manual brush tools, or a combination of both. Then you repeat the process for towns, castles, and dungeons. For your characters and other items, you can then import 3D models and “2D assets” (or utilise pre-existing templates), assemble everything, enter or download some rules, and start playing, either online or locally.
Making everything digital obviously eliminates the physical enjoyment of tabletop gaming, but the company is also hoping that the level of customization and opportunities it provides will more than make up for that.
Menyr is advertised by NOG as being free to download and use, which is interesting because it’s hoped that the associated marketplace, where players may sell everything from custom rules to character models (and from which NOG will take a share), will bring in enough money to keep the lights on.
As a result, the Kickstarter—which requested AUD$67,000 and is currently at AUD$272,000 at the time of posting—isn’t giving you Menyr, but rather an increasing number of special edition products like fancy character models and D20s. Visit the Kickstarter page for more information, which also includes details on things like a closed beta and some of the more intricate technical aspects of how it all functions.
