AQUAZINE 2020 | 29 Free weekly magazine by the Aquarion tribe. Zebasi flora and fauna art contest results Fan made tribes guide Steam Was Yădakk inspired by a fan made tribe? Edition Interview with Polluted Kickoo Release Date! art by P.Márk Contents Polytopia News 3 – Zebasi art contest results Great (bio)diversity 5 – Zebasi Dub! Zeboya tunes 8 – Rise of Moonrise The steam edition is finally here 10-15 – Moriton and Yădakk 10 – Moriton fan made tribe 12 – Interview with Polluted Kickoo 13 – Fan made tribe guide Fun pages 6 – Vexil Wonders Armenia 7 – Astrology What’s going to happen? 9 – Weekly fact file Sea pigs No Aquarion news this time :( Aquazine 2020 | 28 | Page 2 Tamarissz Art contest results The flora and fauna art contest has ended and community voting determined the 3 winners. There were 18 valid submissions, with 1 video, 2 texts and the rest pictures. Here are the 3 winners, on the other pages we talk about some more submissions that we find worthy. By P.Márk, 170+ votes (Kickoo) The 3D render depicts two Zebasi scientists documenting Elyrion’s sunburts lily for the Zuzanna Yaya. ← By Timi07, 120+ votes (Ai-mo) This handdrawn comic shows the story of a Zebasi warrior bringing home a piece of Lïpo-chilli to put it in the museum. → By Nar, 150+ votes (Oumaji) This digital image depicts an exhibit of a bonsai version of all tribes forest in a matching little pot. ← "Do you get the feeling that we're missing something?" Aquazine 2020 | 28 | Page 3 Baocacia trees Top 10: By OsvaldoSfascia, 100+ votes (Imperius) „finally, the collection of the Zebasi museum is complete. We have every fruit, every head, every bonsai of evrything living on the square.Now is time to reorder tho” (sic) ← By Mr. Gwobo, 60+ votes (Zebasi) „Yaddak Khamelk on the Khalee plains| 12x9 Acrylic on canvas” ↑ By Artemis, 70+ votes (Ai-mo) „8 bit geroffy” ← By zarc206, 60+ votes (Elyrion) „A geroffy mask, because the virus has spread to the square” → By Gandalf_Czarny, 60+ votes (Ai-mo) ↓ By michelle ✿, 50+ votes (Hoodrick) „a unicorn :D” → Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 4 By ThomeZ, 50+ votes (Imperius) → Honorable mention: By Casitano, 30+ votes (Quetzali) Made the whole actual Zuzanna Yaya, including every animal, plant and fungi from the Polytopia universe, even lesser known ones, such as the Koi-oi bird. It was submitted as a YouTube video explaining the creative process and details. the book is 50 pages long and the scan of every page can be accessed from the Drive folder link in the video’s description. (2 example pages) → Tamarissz Zebasi Dub The Zebasi theme was released as ringtone last week and now the full version anthem is out too, making Zebasi the 8th tribe to get a song. This one doesn’t have much lore, other than that it’s a chill tune to enjoy in the summer and was made by the ZuZa sound system. What that is, is up for questioning, probably another invention that polytopians ripped off from humans. The Zebasi dub is really cool music that I recommend listening to on any streaming service. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 5 Tamarissz Vexil Wonders Armenia The flag of Armenia is a horizontal tricolour of red, blue and orange. The meaning of the colours may vary, but is popularly considered, the red is for the blood of the 1.5 million Armenians killed in the Armenian genocide, blue for the sky and orange for the nation’s courage. However, the official meaning says otherwise: „The red emblematizes the Armenian Highland, the Armenian people’s continued struggle for survival, maintenance of the Christian faith, Armenia's independence and freedom. The blue emblematizes the will of the people of Armenia to live beneath peaceful skies. The orange emblematizes the creative talent and hard-working nature of the people of Armenia.” The design was adopted after Armenia became independent from the USSR in 1990. The law was passed on the 15th June, which is celebrated as national flag day ever since. The flag was also the source of inspiration for the Artsakh flag. Flag of the Artsakh Republic, an Flag of the Armenian soviet socialist armenian part of Azerbaijan. The republic, previous flag of Armenia, as white chevron symbloizes separation part of the USSR. from Armenia. Source: Wikipedia Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 6 TheLiveCamera & T Shadow Yădakk Astrology In the next journey, you will Zebasi find some roads rough. A giant will step on your farm. Ai-Mo Oumaji You will find the meaning of There is a ruin at the end of life. the desert, keep exploring. Imperius Hoodrick A herd of mados will run you You will have to hunt your own over. Hooxe in order to survive. Xin-Xi Quetzali You will realise that you are making your tea wrong. You’ll drop all qorn in mud. Luxidoor Vengir Beware of robbers looking to Your sword will get broken in 2 steal your riches soon! pieces. Use them as knives! Kickoo Bardur You will lose your next Sometimes a really big sling- Hak’ilani match. shot does what a catapult can. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 7 We take no responsibility if any of the predictions turn out to be untrue. This is for entertainment purposes only. Tamarissz Rise of Moonrise This is the announcement the community was waiting for since the desktop port release was announced years ago. By now, everyone, unless they live under a ruin, knows that the Steam edition release date is the 4th of August. Its brand new official name is „Moonrise”. Originally it was Sunrise, but Midjiwan decided that Moonrise sounds much cooler and is more in sync with the tribe moon system. The announcement began with a new video on the Midjiwan YouTube channel, starting with some 3D Polytopia landscape and animation, and in the end, revealing the exact date and showing a picture of how the moon in Polytopia looks like. Zoythrus also published a FAQ post on Steam detailing all new features and relations to the mobile version. No new features were revealed except the final price of the game. It’s going to cost 14.99 USD instead of 10 USD, the original price. Special tribes will be downloadable content for 2.99 USD each. There will be a 33% sale in the first 24 hours after release. The developer team can move on now to port the Unity engine to the mobile version and introduce many of the Moonrise features. And of course, make new tribes. According to Zoythrus, „it shouldn’t take too long”. What that means, no one knows. For now, let’s celebrate that they finally completed this. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 8 gamesRme123 Sea Pigs Sea pigs are a species of deep sea cucumber found from 4000 to 16000 feet below sea level. They move along the ocean floor using several pairs of elongated tube legs. Sea pigs eat decaying bodies that float to the floor. It is impossible to eat a sea pig as their skin Sea pigs also protect baby is laced with deadly king crabs from predators. poisons, rendering it very They clutch onto the pigs untasty. and are protected by its poisonous skin. This is not the only creature hitching a ride, though. Multiple parasites live inside the sea pig, slowly eating it inside out! Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 9 Tamarissz Moriton inspiration of Yădakk Description "Riding on the great grass ocean of the west, the Moriton's best friends are their horses and their grass. In a land void of trees and mountains skilled riders like the Moriton reign supreme, but without rich land, they depend on the other tribes they raid. Luckily for them, they have some of the best rangers in the square. Their horse raiders can shoot as far as the Hoodrick can, while also being on horseback." The Moriton start with riding, but unlike the Oumaji these riders are horse raiders that can shoot with the range of an archer and can retreat after attacking. Their Knights are the same but with boosted stats and the ability to attack again if they take out their opponent with their first shot. As you can see in the image to the right, the Moriton's lands are home to some small hills, a few small trees, and Durians, the king of fruits. Their color is jade, and their buildings look like square tents. The tents on the top have flat roofs with more elegant fabric Spawn Rates • Forests -- • Fruit + • Crop + • Mountains -- Monuments • Eye of god: Really tall deer-stone with smaller stones at bottom similair to Bardur. • Emperors Tomb: Statue of Genghis Khan. • Grand Bazaar: A group of deer-stones like stone henge. • Tower of wisdom: Wooden pole with horse statue on top. It is officially stated that the Yădakk tribe was inspired by the Moriton, a creation of Polluted Kickoo. Although only on the level that they are both „steppe roaming” tribes. They share little more similarities than that. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 10 Another part of the story is that there were other steppe themed fan tribes already, some even more similar to Yadakk. Probably the most similar is Alusia by Speedowagonu. Alusia starts with Roads, their colour is brown, have camels and little spotted orange fruits. The mountains resemble Yadakk mountains in an almost creepy level of similarity. However, the developers never saw the Alusia before they were asked about it. Yădakk profile Midjiwan was only looking for a theme, so that’s what Moriton gave to Yadakk, nothing else. And Yadakk lore is actually written by Zoythrus. So let’s see what they turned out to be like. Yadakk is a nomadic, sometimes semi-nomadic tribe that serves as the messenger of the square due to their road system that reaches to the far corners of the square. They have a merchant company so powerful that the CEO of the Horn Trading Company rules pretty much equal with the Yadakk monarch and it even has an own army. Although being nomadic and steppe inhabiting, they do spend a lot on education and arts so they aren’t that very simple polytopians. Interestingly, Luxidoor is on quite good terms with Yadakk, as in, they don’t consider Yadakk the lowest Tribe moon 2020 art rungs of society, unlike the other tribes usually. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 11 Tamarissz Polluted Kickoo interview Polluted Kickoo has made probably the biggest amount of fan made tribes out of everyone over the course of his active period. However, he vanished more than a year ago and no one has heard of him. Until recently, when he appeared just as suddenly as he had disappeared. I took the opportunity to ask him some questions. What is it like to have a canon tribe inspired after your work? PK: To be completely honest it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. The Moriton were already well known long before the Yadakk were introduced, and when the Yadakk finally came they instantly became a fan favorite because they have everything a casual player would want; great aesthetics, great music, and one of the most fun and unique play-styles out of all the normal tribes, but when it was confirmed that they were inspired by the Moriton it certainly brought more attention to the tribe but it didn’t change anything for me. I think the reason for that was my long period of inactivity (about 14 months I think?) which ended a few days ago. Up until my “death” things were heating up in the Polytopia community, I was a tribe leader on the official server and got to witness the massive growth it went through, I was on track to become a big name in the community. The moment I “died” I gave all that up, I never got bored of the game I simply got bored of the community, I lost the passion I had for creating tribes and lost my interest in assuming the role I was about to take on. I am happy to say that I have been recently reinvigorated as an artist and hope to once again be an influence on the future of this beautiful game. What are your thoughts about Moriton, are you satisfied with them? PK: At the time I definitely was, but looking back on it I think I could’ve done better. Most of my old tribes were not very well designed mechanically, a lot of their flavor came from the aesthetics, I was particularly good at designing terrain for the different tribes and taking inspiration from wild and exotic real world environments. The Moriton were definitely my most developed tribe at the time, and are still one of my most complete tribes to date, but they are far from being my best tribe. I can’t say this with complete certainty because I have no idea, but if I had to guess I’d say Midjiwan was torn between Turkics/Mongols, and some other real world culture, and after contemplating the colors and themes either culture could have he decided to create a tribe based on steppe cultures with the Moriton being an example product that swayed him. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 12 Tamarissz Fan Made Tribes There are hundreds of fan made tribes now, but why do people keep producing them, after Midjiwan said that „Making tribes is too much fun for us to let someone else do it instead of us. It’s more likely that we will take inspiration from a tribe and give you some credit.” The answer is simple: creative minds can’t be stopped. Step 0: Be familiar with the canon tribes. The common knowledge of tribe makers. Get to know all the tribes and mechanics that are already added in game. Especially the special tribes. if you can't or don't want to buy them, just read on the official Polytopia wikia. Step 1: Have an idea. Idea is the concept and theme of your tribe. Is my idea original? Whether having an original idea is important for you or not, you decide. Here are the most frequently suggested concepts and themes (in no particular order): Native american; fire, lava, volcano; australian; rainforest, tiny islands; taiga, cold desert, slavic; robot, futuristic, alien, cyberpunk; demons, undead, dark otherworldy; sky, clouds, flying; pirates, evil watery tribe; angelic, light, wizardic; swamp, ogre, troll; insects, bugs; mining, dwarves. It's also possible that your idea is a mechanism or graphical element, in which case it's more difficult to prove originality or to judge if it is balanced or not. Best is to ask an expert if you really want to make sure. Rules to follow if you want to have the chance of your tribe being added These are confirmed by Midjiwan, the developer, or Zoythrus, the community manager. • There won't be any more human tribes added, so only make special tribes. • The tribe has to not feature any questionable content, such as real world politics or religion, cannibalism, slavery, etc. And no NSFW content either of course. This is a family friendly game, keep that in mind. • This game is set in the era before guns, so no elements from more modern eras without good reason. Time travel is no good reason. • They can't have multiple starting techs, as well as no tech tree expansions, only tech modifications. • Make it as distinctive from other tribes as possible. • Special tribes are not only meant to change some things about a tribe, but entirely change the way you think about Polytopia and introduce a wildly different gameplay experience. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 13 Step 2: Graphic design You should still make a design and describe it even if you can't or don't want to actually draw it. Tribe colour and colour scheme One of the most defining factors of a tribe's appearance is their colours. For their main colour wich they use as body and border colour, choose one that is as different from other tribes as possible. If you are familiar with the RGB system, try to choose a colour that only uses FF, 80, (40,) 00 in its RGB code, since the canon tribes do that too. Never use more than one colour for the body. Things to draw If you want to draw every sprite for your tribe, here is your to do list: Headwear Terrain: field, fruit, forest, animal, mountain City: Capital castle + 5 city block elements Monuments: 7 wonders (Altar of Peace, Emperors Tomb, Eye of God, Gate of Power, Grand Bazaar, Park of Fortune, Tower of Wisdom) Special thingies for special tribes. What software should I use? That really doesn't matter, Photoshop, Paint.net, Procreate and Blender are popular, I use MS Paint, but hand drawing on paper is cool too! Well, not for copy pasting in the game but it's enough to display and show your vision of how it looks. Step 3: Mechanics For human tribes Every human tribe gets a starting advantage that is something that any other human tribe could get later in the game. This is a tech most of the time, but can be a higher capital or a more advanced starting unit or a bigger discovered area, etc. They can not have any disadvantages except from low resources. For special tribes Every special tribe must have a unique super unit. They can have as many modified techs, buildings, mechanics and even terrain as necessary. Still can't start with multiple techs and can't have expanded tech trees, only replacements. They are expected to change the fundamental way the game is played. Midjiwan says: • Dragon will forever be the only flying unit and only unit with splash attack. • No stealth units or anything that the enemy can't see even though the area is discovered. • No more human tribes. • A tribe should not exist on the only sake of countering another, all should be compatible and balanced with any other on it's own. • Polaris will be the only one with terrain modifying skills. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 14 Step 4: Text parts This contains the name, the city syllables and the description. Naming a tribe For good examples, look at the canon tribes of course. Quetzali is made from Quetzalcoatl, a mayan god, Zebasi is made from the word zebra, etc. Some don't seem to resemble anything, like Xin-xi for example. The most frequent name endings are i, r, s, o. City name syllables You will need 5-15 of them, best to try out many combinations. There can be non- letter characters like a hyphen or apostrophy, but only use one of these maximally. There mustn't be any inappropriate combinations. Description Can be from a short sentence to a half page long, but has to fit in window in the game. Should feature some general description to give an idea of what kind of tribe this is, the description is also the place to tell some lore. Step 5: Music theme A short loop of sound that suits the tribe's ambience and feel. Can be made with any software of your choice, or if you have microphone and editing software, just make it with real sounds. Ambient sounds also contribute to the tribes atmosphere so it's best to include them even if just as a short description. Step 6: Source code If you want to absolutely complete your tribe, so that Midjiwan only has to copy and paste it into the game, you can also write the programming of the special elements. Terrain resources One inner mechanical thing that we often add is the resource rates in the tribe terrain. For this, make a list of resources and grade if they have much less (--), less (-), more (+), much more (++) or unchanged amount of that resource. Everything unchanged is the Imperius terrain. Step 7: Finish Now you have a complete tribe. What to do now? You can make an article for it on the Polytopia fan made tribes rewritten wiki. You can also post on the r/Polytopia subreddit and on the official Polytopia discord server in the #suggestions or #fan- content channel, and if people really like it, it might get implemented in the game. After long testing of course. It is more likely that Midjiwan will base off a tribe from your idea and give you some credit. An example for this is the Yadakk tribe being inspired by the Moriton. Aquazine 2020 | 29 | Page 15 Credits Editor-in-chief: Tamarissz Content managers: T Shadow, gamesRme123 Lector: Sophiacastle Cover art by P.Márk Game sprites by Midjiwan, Midjitree and Midjify Moriton and Alusia art by Polluted Kickoo Next week on Aquazine! Aquarion Tribe Day! Aquarion Server: 2nd Underclass Representant Election Summer Skirmish results? Aquazine 2020 | 28 | Page 16
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