Formulating a Fantasy World

The Beauty of Imagination

The one thing we never lose, even when we grow up to be big, responsible adults (yeah right), is our imagination. You could be a forty-year old businessman, sitting at your desk pretending to look up the financial projections of a company and still doze off thinking of what life would be like if dogs could talk, you were able to fly, could read peoples’ minds, could time travel, etc…there is something so awesome about being able to dream of things that are entirely fictional.

Imagination allows us to transport ourselves out of our normal lives and experience extraordinary things. That’s why people love fantasy in books, movies, and video games.

The Concept

Arti Loftus, one of our top users, is both a talented artist and techie, who started a project that capitalizes on imagination. Her dream is to create not just a story, but an entire fantasy world — hence the name Fantasy World Build — that can one day be used as the basis for a video game.

Now you may be thinking, what about Game of Thrones or Dungeon & Dragons or Lord of the Rings? Well I say, what about them?!?! These games all stem from similar fantasy worlds where men ride horses and wear armor and women only contribute to the world through childbirth or romance. Arti wants to create a fantasy world totally unlike the ones listed above, and it’s up to the Collaborizm community to create it.

Ideas for the Fantasy World

Arti so kindly provided a guide to help build the fantasy world. It has an extensive list of questions to help guide us through the creation process. Here’s an example of a few of the questions you’d have to answer to create a successful fantasy world…and these are just the BASIC questions — imagine the more complex ones!

Are the laws of nature and physics actually different in this world, or are they the same as in real life? How does magic fit in? How do magical beasts fit in?

Is this generally an earth-like world? Is it an “alternate Earth”?

Are there different human races, whether or not there are non-humans like elves or dwarves? How does the cultural and ethnic diversity of this world compare to the real world?

To Conclude

Don’t be overwhelmed — all of these questions don’t need to be answered in one sitting, but they’re very important to think about. I really love this project because it honors and respects the work of truly creative minds, like writers and storytellers. While Collaborizm does have mostly tech-heavy projects that involve drones or robots (and those are great), I think it is very important to highlight projects like these that need just one thing — your mind…