Spirit Tea Dev Log #6

It's been a while since I've done an update because I've been so wrapped up in finshing of For Small Creatures Such As We - 2 tonnes of which is due to arrive at my house in the next 2 days. Absolutely terrifying.

But I have been plugging away at Spirit Tea in the meantime. Since my last update I've gotten nearly all of the benevolent Spirits in and have finished up the events for all of the Locales that I'd initially included... but I made some changes.

The Land of Roots is from a Japanese legend and the Diyu just felt too boring and torturey for a game about making tea so I decided to drop the underworld and instead add in a few other normal-ish Locales.

Due to their importance to Chinese mythology, I went back and added in a river Locale with its own dragon, sailors, cormorant fishers, and more. I've also included a new City locale as I figured it would be good to get out and socialise/ argue with your rivals from the big city about how best to make tea. And I've added The Flaming Desert which is inspired by Journey To The West. In that story, the Monkey King knocks over a god's furnace/stove which falls to earth causing a great fire in the mountains. Another god puts it out with her magical fan but only waves it once which causes the fire to come back every year. The Flaming Desert expands on this idea to create a land that is as dangerous as it is beautiful. Hidden shrines, terracotta warriors, fiery spirits, brave merchants, and of course, fire falling from the heavens.

That brings us to a total of 12 Locales!

The next step is to write out the list of malevolant spirits that are attracted when you mess up a Brew. These spirits might still help at a cost to you or the customer. Or they may just cause some mischief that makes the situation worse. Each one will have its own agenda and its just luck which one gets attracted.

Perhaps a brave warrior comes to you asking for Immortality but you mess up the brew and attract a malevolent spirit that will help in an ironic way. A monkey paw type solution. Well the brave warrior will certainly live forever... as a magical sword. Or they'll live forever, but they don't heal from wounds. Or they'll live forever as long as they don't hurt any living thing.

This is often referred to as "Failing Forward" in game design and its something I really like in RPGs. Failing shouldn't bring the narrative to a screeching halt, it should keep things going in some interesting way. Like the Consequences in Apothecaria, failing in Spirit Tea should make for an interesting story. And let's be honest, failing can actually make for a more interesting story in some cases.

After all the spirits are in, it's time to finally nail down the specifics of the Brewing mechanics. Thankfully, my kung fu sifu has been studying tea for twenty years and has been gracious enough to answer all of my questions and has agreed to double check all of the mandarin in the book!

The Reveal

Those of you who have been following since my first announcement will maybe vaguely remember me saying that "I had a good excuse for doing this side project" and it's finally time I revealed that!

As I mentioned above, I've been studying kung fu. I've actually been studying it since June 2024 and I feel very fortunate that I've found such a great teacher. Unfortunately, running any sort of class or community takes money and it seems to get more and more expensive every year.

Back in September, we had a class outside in the last of the summer heat. The hall we had been using had locked us out by accident so we did our class in a nearby astroturf football pitch in a kid's playpark. No-one else was there so don't worry, we didn't chase off some kids with our kung fu XD

After the class, we sat around and had tea as we do most sunday classes and our sifu shared some of his hopes and dreams about the class. And dear reader, I recognised the tone in his voice. It's the "wouldn't that be cool if it weren't for CAPITALISM" tone that comes through when any of us talk about the things we want to do. Well I decided I wanted to do something. Mostly out of a desire to help him and to help our school grow but also out of a slight selfishness because I want more classes.

My plan, which I finally revealed to him last week, is to give the school all the profits from digital sales of Spirit Tea to help buy equipment, rent halls, help put on extra classes, and whatever else we can use it for. Who knows, maybe Spirit Tea could become the next Mork Borg and we can open an actual school for all sorts of kung fu traditions?! That would be epic.

If you're near Glasgow and want to check it out, you can find all the details of the school here: https://www.wandering-warrior.co.uk/

Northern Shaolin involves erratic, aggressive footwork to out-manoeuvre and unbalance the opponent, while low stances offer a stronger base for wrestling and throws and provide power and position for striking. The system is often recognised as the basis for the choreography of the firebending style from the 2005 animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Northern Shaolin is believed to have originated in the region of the Shaolin temple in Henan, China as a system developed by monks and military staying at the temple. It spread from the temple and then became famous when taught in its current form by Gù Rŭzhāng, famous for his iron palm techniques, who was invited to teach in Southern China after doing well in competition in the North. His students and disciples then spread around the world.">

"The system is often recognised as the basis for the choreography of the firebending style for Avatar: The Last Airbender"

That's right, we're learning fire bending 😎