THEME.md
311 words
~1 min read
Updated 2026-07-03
CRADL — Theme guidance
- CRADL is a space themed game where the primary character in control is a "ship" (acts much like a character in OSRS, only one ship active at a time)
- The player controller represents an abstract "commander" issuing commands through the ship proxy
- The goal of the game is to build up a variety of skills to be able to undertake increasingly difficult challenges to gain rewards and access to more ships
- Game skills have interplay where outputs from one gathering skill are used by 1 or more crafting skills, i.e. mining->smithing->(1)crafting->(2)armor-making
Ship scale & setting
- The ship is large and crewed in scale, function, and style — think Star Citizen-class vessel, not a single-seat fighter. It still behaves as one "active character" at a time, the way an OSRS account controls one avatar.
- Play happens almost exclusively in-atmosphere on planet surfaces, not in open space. "Space" is the setting/flavor; treat playable zones as planetary biomes, not voids. Cosmic/exotic naming (nebula, void, singularity) is reserved for high-tier exotic materials, not the everyday environment.
Equipment labels (humanoid in code, ship-themed in content)
- Equipment is modules, plating, and weaponry for the ship — there is no worn humanoid armor.
- The equipment-slot machinery is OSRS-derived and theme-agnostic, so slots are internally named with generic humanoid labels:
Item.Slot.Head / Chest / Legs / Feet / Hands / Neck / Ring / MainHand / OffHand. These are abstract module mounts, not body parts. Per the non-negotiable theming rule, keep the slot tags generic and express the ship theme only in each item's DisplayName / Icon / Description.
- Themed reading of the mounts (authoring convention, not a code constraint): Head → cockpit / canopy plating, Chest → fuselage / hull, Legs → underside / chassis, Feet → landing gear, Hands → manipulators / turrets, Neck → module bay, MainHand/OffHand → weaponry. (e.g. the obsidian set's
obsidian_canopy / obsidian_hull / obsidian_chassis plating in DevelopmentScripts/TargetItems.csv.)