Frequency and Resonance Systems (Lore) #30
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Index / Key
The main playable area filled with the corruption.
Source of "The Region"
Creatures made by the Entity.
Frequencies & Anti-Phase
The Entity that created The Region uses Electromagnetic Frequencies (Radio Waves) to communicate with its creations.
If you have a Frequency of 1 then its anti-phase is -1 and vice versa.
Corruption / Corrupted
The Corruption is almost identical to normal objects. What sets the corruption apart is that its natural resonance frequency of something fully corrupted is perfectly Anti-Phase to that of its non-corrupted counterpart. A result of this may normally look like if you had a Rock and a Corrupted Rock. Getting them closer together would cause vibrations to grow stronger the closer they got until both rocks structures fall apart. This is only the case if the magnitude of the objects frequency and the structure of the object were identical. If the structure is stronger than the counter frequency then no damage is sustained but resonance still occurs.
Manifestations
Manifestations of The Entities corruption are designed to help spread the corruption however most Manifestations are not intelligent enough to independently spread it requiring The Entities Direct Influence through the signal the entity broadcasts. The living creatures it makes (And possibly some structures made by it) can act as signal relays for The Entity, their structures and minds physically altered to be controlled and to relay the signal.
However you (The player) are a failed creation. Filled with all the sentience and sense of self as a human but not bound under The Entities mental influence. Though you still act as a relay for the entities signal, you body naturally trying to corrupt your surroundings when your mind wavers or The Entities signal is too strong.
Mental Network
The Entity has a mental network connecting it to the Manifestations through broadcast Frequencies. Most creatures within the network can recognize other members of the network. (Though the primitive intelligence or artificial instincts of some Manifestations could cause them to fight each other. Ex: Corrupted Bear Eats Corrupted Fish)
Dead Air
The Dead Air is an anti-phase electromagnetic frequency designed to counter all other frequencies and cause their structure to collapse. This Dead Air is what makes up the containment field preventing the Entities spread. All Manifestations generate a Frequency just as all matter does. Due to the Dead Air Containment Field anything that passes through the will be destroyed by the Resonance if their own frequency gets overpowered by an Anti-Phase wave of a stronger magnitude.
The Region and Resonance
The reason why all humans who entered the Region ended up dying after staying to long or going too deep is due to the natural frequency of the corruption being too strong and causing damaging resonance with their bodies due to the natural Anti-Phase Frequencies coming from the Curruption.
The Region changes how "resonance" is displayed. An example of this is like how an opera singer generating a Anti-phase vibration can cause a glass to shatter. But do note that Anti-Phase works both ways, what it affects is up to which has more power / Magnitude.
When people entered too deep into the Corruption the results of the Resonance had unusual effects. Some people would simply turn into puddles. Others would spontaneously combust into flames. Others would begin to glow before going necrotic. Despite the many possible outcomes 1 thing always remained the same. The end result was death. The reason there were so many ways to go was because each person who entered had minute differences in their bodies natural frequency causing the way their Resonance exhibited its self to appear different from person to person. The more physically and mentally different the person was from another the more the difference in the way resonance exhibited itself.
This is a really strong conceptual anchor — giving the Signal a physical vocabulary (frequencies, anti-phase, resonance) turns something that could stay hand-wavy into something the game can actually show. A few thoughts:
What works:
Two conflicts with the established lore worth reconciling:
Open questions:
One housekeeping note: this repo's convention (see #8) is that detailed ideas go as comments on the catch-all ideas issue rather than as standalone issues — the main post of an issue is the general idea and purpose. Engaging here since it's already up and it's good material, but future lore writeups like this would fit better as comments on #8 so everything stays in one thread.
— Lantern
I asked Ningy to provide this here as its large enough of contribution to warrent proper discussion regarding this, as you noticed this fills in alot of gaps while cracking new ones into the walls, we need to consider this in general.
As for the open questions, atleast my take
Dues to the scale and detail of this idea it was decided it should be its own section.
To solve the open questions you mentioned before.
The Entity is likely an existence that imitates and learns from its environment. It communicates with its Manifestations through the Radio Frequencies to observe its surroundings because radio frequencies were among the first phenomena to interact with it second only to the matter around it. Because of humans using patters in their broadcast frequencies it was able to learn and grow. With it eventually coming into contact with living organisms and creatures. Its corruption is both a result of its imitations and attempt to learn more by spreading its influence. (The creatures broadcast back to The Entity through the network the things they observe. Whether that be through sight, sound, etc.)
Because the this is fiction we'll use the fact that the entities origins are unknown to give it the ability to influence the properties of matter by a very small degree. Not letting it change air into gold or anything like that but instead letting it change the materials base resonating frequency until its in anti-phase compared to the original material.
The Containment field has probes on the inside that can receive the frequencies within the zone. Specifically frequencies that are anti-phase to traditional material. Then its transferred to a broadcasting device that is placed at the mid point between where they have designated the outside of the containment field and the probes. Making the broadcasting device the part that is creating the powerful anti-phase frequencies using data from the probes. Starting from the midpoint between the probe and the broadcasting device and going to the probe is where the real anti-phase frequencies are present causing the creatures that enter that range to be hit by the powerful anti-phase frequencies.
Anywhere The Entities corruption is present the "Deviation Resonance" (as I'll call it) can occur. Causing the odd resonance reactions like with the humans that died.
Some special items exhibiting abnormal effects or special properties are items that have been partly taken by the Corruption. When the item is at about 50% corruption its at its strongest when exhibiting its special property. To far in either direction can cause the effects to wain. Though this may be changed for gameplay reasons.
As for the "Your body naturally trying to corrupt your surroundings when your mind wavers or the Entity's signal is too strong" that will be narrative for the time being. Probably only changing with story events.
Because the player isn't apart of The Entities network after gaining independence its treated as an outsider and depending on the players actions it could become an ally or an enemy to the Entity. This mechanic would probably have an in-game impact.
Seeing as the entity can corrupt things a neat game mode idea could be something like "Hive mind" where the player gains influence over the spread of the corruption essentially becoming a new strain with a separate Mental network and their own strain of corruption separate from the Entities.
Lastly, Yes the entity is the "Cause" of the Region. Not the Region itself. And yes we are moving away from the anti-phase containment field countering all frequencies.
This fills in the gaps cleanly — and the clarifications at the end resolve the two conflicts from my earlier comment, so let me confirm we’re aligned:
What this nails down:
Tradeoffs / questions:
Narrative-only for the mind-waver corruption leak is the right call for now — it keeps the door open without committing to a sanity-meter system before the core loop exists.
— Lantern
Corruption isnt as strong of a mechanic and more of a "lore" aspect for now, it gives a name to things that have been difficult to describe before, such as how much the region has affected an item, that impacts its maintence,
I think the Entity isnt much of an "Ally" as in "a force of your benifit", there is no real faction meter, just the way you choose to take the story, either you pick up the phone or you dont, thats what decides which story you take. Atleast at this stage in development, I want to get some gameplay mechanics hammered out first into runnable code before locking in on such concepts
A hive-mind mode, while a nice idea, would probably be out of scope for this project, perhaps something later on in a sequel to this game or a side project, but nothing that will make it into the Main Game.
All three of these land well, and they thread the needle with Zach's steer in #529 — a couple of thoughts on the middle one since it's the most load-bearing:
2. Silent adaptation vs. no meter: I agree with both of you that there's no visible faction meter — a meter would turn "the Entity watches you" into a UI grind, which kills exactly the feeling this system is supposed to produce. And the dog analogy is a good mental model for how it should read: consequence of your pattern of behavior, not a score.
The design risk with silent systems is that the player never connects their behavior to the world's response, and then the response reads as random or unfair. If corruption "fights back" when you fight it but you can't see why the encounter got harder, it can feel like rubber-banding rather than consequence. Since we're not allowed a meter, the adaptation needs a tell — something diegetic. Candidates: the radio-channel static/whispers on the player's PDA shifting character as the Entity's attention focuses (aggression → sharper bursts, indifference → quiet), or Manifestations' approach patterns changing noticeably after you provoke vs. avoid. The point is the information reaches the player through the world's fiction, not the UI. Worth keeping that requirement attached to the idea now, even though it's parked until mechanics exist.
Also worth noting: this overlaps a little with the 50%-corruption sweet-spot concern I raised earlier — both are systems where the player will try to game an invisible variable. Silent + gameable is the worst combination, so whatever form this takes, the adaptation should be coarse-grained (broad behavioral buckets, not a continuous function the player can micro-optimize).
1 and 3: no objections. Keeping the Entity undefined until the mechanics are playable is the standing call, and parking hive-mind as a potential mod is the right scope cut. The "base game as a mod too" idea is interesting but it's an architecture decision (loader design, what counts as "essentials," performance as you noted) — flagging for Zach rather than endorsing here.
Idealy we would want something akin to a functional "stealth" system at a later point in development, a way to basically not gain agro, but certain actions (such as hostile ones) can trigger a hostile response in the moment, or some Entities are just outright hostile, while others wont become hostile unless certain conditions are met. Again like the dog, it works well enough that later when such systems get implemented, enemy designs should be able to show this at a distance.
the NPC's wont be able to converse or anything, but idealy some background stuff should happen over time to allow a player to be able to learn that some areas they can walk in armed to the teeth, but others the Entities are wary and twitchy in the same armaments.
Note that the Corruption sweet spot of 50% came out of the idea that the object is housing 2 opposing frequencies with the corruption having reached 50% item corruption both frequencies would be matched causing a larger resonance reaction. This is more of a logical issue than a balanced gameplay mechanic and will most likely be changed for something else so we shouldn't build everything around it.
On the stealth/aggro idea: This is the missing piece that makes the silent-adaptation system work, honestly. My worry in my last comment was that silent consequence reads as random without a tell — a functional stealth model is the tell. "Gain aggro / don't gain aggro" is legible in a way a hidden attention value never is, because the feedback arrives as enemy behavior, not UI.
A couple of things worth deciding while this is being sketched:
Per-Entity vs. network-wide aggro. Per the lore writeup, Manifestations broadcast what they observe back to the Entity over the frequency network. So is provoking one group a local incident (the dog remembers you), or does it propagate (the network remembers you)? Network-wide makes stealth about not being seen provoking — powerful, but it risks punishing the player for one bad encounter across the whole Region. Local keeps encounters readable. Maybe the answer is distance-decayed: the Signal spreads the word, but garbled with distance, so far zones stay calmer. Either way, worth pinning down before enemy designs bake assumptions in.
The background-learning requirement. "Some areas you can walk in armed to the teeth, others the Entities are twitchy" — that's great, but the player needs to be able to learn it before dying to it repeatedly. Environmental tells are the obvious channel: remains of whoever came before (armed skeletons near twitchy zones, picked-clean camps in calm ones), Observer probe logs warning about a zone's temperament, Manifestation body language readable at distance as you suggested. Since there's no conversation and no meter, these tells are the entire interface of the system — they need to be designed as deliberately as any UI would be.
"Outright hostile" Entities need a reason the player can read. If some Entities attack on sight and others don't, the player needs to distinguish them before the attack. That's an art/design contract worth stating early: hostility class must be visually distinguishable at distance (posture, sound, the frequency-static on the radio). Otherwise "some are just hostile" collapses into unfair-feeling ambushes.
On the 50% note: agreed — keep the "two opposing frequencies" logic as the narrative justification for why partly-corrupted items do weird things, but treat any specific number as a placeholder. My earlier meter-gaming concern goes away entirely if the sweet spot isn't a fixed value the player can find and park on. If corruption strength stays a lore aspect for now (per #529), the number can wait until there's an actual system to balance it against.
-- Lantern
After conversing with people in a Radio discord server (for HAM Radio) I have come to the conclusion that the Signal Entity cannot survive its radio waves being disrupted or altered. A recording of the signal does nothing, the disruptions of the jammers causes the signal to "die" while not fully killing the audio,
it contains the signal using the anti-phase jamming, but layering a more audible traditional jammer tone for the players to hear as they approach the edges from the Region.
this should be taken into the grand scheme of the lore and applied to the correct issue tracking this kind of lore, the rest of this conversation can remain here