Version 0.5 Dev Preview #4: Sapients & Voyager's Niche


Today's stream, I sketch out a planned Sapient page, showcasing all the playable Sapients in one big group picture at the start of the Chapter! I also talked about the different cultural influences the Sapients take from, and possible future Sapients: the oft-demanded robot Sapient, and a possible slime Sapient modeled after the theme of water elementals!

I also talked about Voyager in comparison to similar RPGs like BREAK!! and Cloudbreaker Alliance, which also are TRPGs with an anime aesthetic and focus on visual presentation, and how I think a lot of interest in Voyager stems from how it fills a niche of "sci-fi + fantasy with anime aesthetic" that I still don't quite see in other major RPG releases, including the two mentioned, which lean more instead towards a Final Fantasy aesthetic whose sci-fi elements feel more steampunk or magitek, compared to the more clearly modern elements Voyager's setting has like jetpacks and tactical gear. 

This likely owes to the fact that BREAK!! and Cloudbreaker's developers are tabletop veterans with years in the hobby and who are inspired by media from that era, whereas I designed Voyager: Tactics largely from the mindset of a relative newcomer, only recently entering the hobby a few years ago, and instead designed my system and setting based on more recent video games and media like Destiny, RWBY, Persona and Arknights.

In that sense, the TRPGs I mentioned appear to cater more towards evoking that sense of familiar nostalgia to those who grew up on classic D&D and media like Legend of Zelda and the Ghibli films, while Voyager is designed from the ground up to more clearly cater to players new to tabletop games but are familiar with modern anime and gaming, and doesn't shy away from using these mechanics and tropes within a tabletop context. 

Neither are better of course, but the existence and subsequent success of these two titles makes me even more confident that Voyager will be able to carve its own niche and playerbase into the anime-influenced tabletop space - without stepping on the toes of much larger games whose production would blow mine out of the water, lol.


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