Weather Factory, developers of Cultist Simulator and The Book of Hours, have announced Travelling at Night, which is expected to release within the next two to four years. This is a dialogue-driven choices-matter combat-free CRPG in the tradition of isometric roleplaying games like Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, and the first two installments of Fallout. Weather Factory is a two-person design studio comprising Alexis Kennedy and Lottie Bevan.

Set in 1948, someone traveling under the name of Spencer Hobson guides an occult carnival on a pilgrimage to locate a buried power that could alter the balance of the Cold War. The player can assign that power as they see fit. In the tradition of its inspirations, Travelling at Night offers multiple endings based on player choice. Each playthrough is expected to run about 40 hours, and it is designed to be highly replayable. While danger and death are on the table, the game will not have combat.

Europe, 1948: myth-scarred ruins, night-sky abysses. Chitinous cities embrace the Change, or struggle against plagues of leaf and amber. The golden Incorporates of the US wage a cold war against the star-touched Ministries of the USSR. And there you are, guiding a carnival of wry, bold, complex characters through seaside sanitarium, Alpine castle, grave, hive, lignified cityscape.

Twelve years ago in the deep Cracow winter,  you were hollowed out by the Worms from under the world. So you had to go away for a while. You’re back, and you’ve brought something with you – something curled inside you – something that will open the way where others can’t go.

Your past is long, and it’s not done with you yet. Your heart tells you one thing, and the night another. Are you driven by remorse? Compassion? Ambition? The decision is yours.

At the current stage of development, players may choose between four Careers, sixteen Skills, and nine Passions to guide roleplaying and choose agendas. Plus Experiences, Memories and Signs. “Are you an exorcist driven by Sorrow, a stage magician seeking to feed your Appetite, or a physician who can’t resist Curiosity?”

Character builds hinge on skills. Dignity is essential for physicians who need to be taken seriously. Spivvery is the only way to ensure a hot meal in a cold world. “Any writer will tell you that Sophistication is useful, somehow. And everyone knows Skolekosophy is the study of things that shouldn’t be studied.”

Alongside the announcement, Kennedy discussed CRPGs and the goals for Travelling at Night.

“Well, I’ve been making narrative games for fifteen years but I’ve never made a traditional isometric CRPG,” said Kennedy. “It’s a grand and grandly developed form, like opera. If you’re a composer – even if you’re Philip Glass and you’re trying to reinvent music – after fifteen years, you often eventually end up wanting to have a go at an opera.

“But Lottie and I like CRPGs. Torment exploded my view of what could be possible in narrative games, like a tiny anarchist in an architectural model….We like CRPGs, but we also like cost control. That’s one reason we stayed with the cards and slots. Making games on a strict budget means you don’t need a giant success to keep eating, and CRPGs are, as I said at the top, opera. Every game I’ve ever made has been an RPG of some kind, but ‘CRPG’ means a really specific set of expectations that tend to go together….

“To tie this up: there’s a kind of discipline I learnt from doing constrained resource-based game narrative that has already proven really useful on the CRPG work I’ve done. But this is still new territory. We’re going into it with enthusiasm and humility, and we’re taking our time.”

Kennedy also discussed expectations, and what makes a micro-indie game made without investors unique.

“As with our other projects, we’re happy to start talking about Travelling at Night early,” said Kennedy. “It’s one of the micro-indie’s few advantages, that we can practice open development because we don’t need to worry about stealth mode or share prices. So watch this space for updates. But please always, always bear in mind that this is open development, not an investor prospectus. As an indie, when you talk about something you’re working on, and it doesn’t get into the final game (because you changed your mind; because it didn’t work; because you didn’t have budget) then there’s sometimes some grumpiness from players who get overexcited about ‘broken promises’. Honestly our community is more chill and more mature than many, and we rarely get any of this stuff, but it does still make us a little nervous when we reveal what we’re working on.

“So if you see anyone getting worked up because we decided not to include the ‘lignified city’ on the Steam page, or reworked the Passions system, or cut the medicine mechanics, remind ’em that nothing we say before launch is a promise. We’re not crowdfunding. What you’re getting here is the equivalent of us talking enthusiastically in a coffee shop about our work that day. And the other side of that is that we’re always curious about what people think – what’s exciting them, what’s not working for them. Absolutely please do drop us an email or leave a comment if you have thoughts. This is half the reason we put this stuff out there. It might not change at all. But it might.”

You can find Travelling at Night on Steam. Kennedy’s discussion of CRPGs and Travelling at Night can be found on Weather Factory’s website.

Weather Factory’s games have been repeatedly highlighted at Boss Rush. The Book of Hours was named Sam Readers’ 2023 Game of the Year, and mentioned by James Bojaciuk as one of the best indie 2023 indie games which should have received mass acclaim. The tabletop RPG The Secret Histories, and its mystery The Lady Afterward, have been described as “the tightest and best I’ve read for a tabletop game.”

Source: Weather Factory

Featured Image: Weather Factory

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