Which cover concept are YOU voting for? *On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume II* at last! *CORRECTION* I mention there's no drainage in the City of Tears. There's the Royal Waterways, sorry! I just think it's beautiful how Hollow Knight uses the unknown and unexplained in creating its world. ~ Tim

"What do Lovecraft, Hollow Knight, Nier Automata and Dark Souls have in common?" Answer: Existential dread and stress.

Lovecraft: "It was indescribable!" Also Lovecraft: *spends 2 pages describing it.*

I believe yoko taro has said he doesn’t care about plot or cohesiveness when he writes a story. He gets an idea for an emotional beat and he builds everything around how to get to it.

I can legit talk about the world of Dark Souls for hours, it's than incredible. Haven't confirmed, but apparently the director stated his reason for not being specific was that he grew up reading english novels he mostly understood, and had to fill in some details with his mind, which was a great experience he wanted to give to others

"If you're immersed in a world, chances are someone else will be as well." Now there's some encouragement for any budding fantasy authors if ever I've heard it. Comment for the algorithm!!

Actually an interesting tidbit is that NieR: Automata's worldbuilding is soft, but a lot of the things that don't make sense are explained in side content. For example, the human structures that shouldn't exist or whose consistency doesn't make sense (i.e. the Medieval ruins or the city of apartment complexes) were built by androids after the events of NieR: Replicant. After realizing that humanity's extinction was now inevitable, the remaining androids (like Devola and Popola) looked for meaning elsewhere. One of those was to start a "restoration" service of sorts where they built human architecture (from history) to the best of their ability.

"[The City of Tears] has no clear drainage system." The Royal Waterways, which are shown to drain at least partly into the Fungal Wastes: "You wound me, sir." In seriousness, Hollow Knight's worldbuilding is definitely overall soft, but I think it's _harder_ than many soft systems, which is likely what draws me to it as a hard worldbuilder.

"What do Lovecraft, Hollow Knight, NieR:Automota and Dark Souls all have in common?" Depressing as shit, bro. Next question.

Big shout-out to Hollow Knight. Such an amazing game from story, music and gameplay perspectives! It just does everything correctly.

Rain World has to be one of the best examples of soft worldbuilding. Everything is designed to make you feel small, to make you feel just as helpless to the whims of nature as Lovecraft. Your only goal is to survive. And then as the game goes on and you explored the teeming, overgrown ruins of machines and subsystems the game shifts from a feeling of pure survival to a religious experience, grappling with themes of rebirth, of neverending cycles, of an unwanted eternity. It's such a good game, I wish it saw more screen time than it has.

I just wanted to say, as a Fantasy Author, that I am blown away by how motivating this video was. I'm constantly hit with roadblock in my writing, that being if something even makes sense to be in the world/story despite how interesting I find it, a constant cycle of adding and cutting from my work. Now I feel oddly influenced to just say "fuck it" for some of my world's elements, whether they make any real sense or have a justification for their existence doesn't always matter, as long as my world building can maintain a consistent story, I've succeeded.

"Uncanny Valley" [shows pic of Mark Zuckerberg] We see what you did there.

Giving soft worldbuilding the representation and respect it deserves? Master has given us Bread

You mention, in the bit about At the Mountains of Madness, how Lovecraft does get into ascribing concrete social aspects about the old ones, and I always read that as a 'bait and switch' technique. He sets up the old ones as inscrutable, alien things, but as the narrator progresses he comes to learn these specific bits of familiar information. That there was a social order, that there was a civilization as he would understand a civilization to be. The narrator and the audience can empathize, to an extent, with the thing that was once utterly alien. That makes the end, when an even more malignant and unknowable force is revealed, all the more impactful because it rejects the carefully cultivated safety the narrator has been clinging to throughout the story. The old one might be frightening, but at least it could be understood as a person; the real cosmic threat can not.

Hollow Knight's theme makes me feel so nostalgic, I wish I could forget the game and experience it for the first time again

Sky: Children of the Light is a game that (imo) nails experiential consistency. From what I remember, theres almost no text in the game for a defined “story,” but the unique atmosphere of each region in the game all comes together to let the players form a nebulous idea of what happened to the setting and the characters. Totally recommend it!

I did not need to be reminded how amazing Hollow Knight, now I can't stop thinking about the fact that Silksong isn't here yet

Dark souls is such a well thought out game. Even the mechanical details of how it draws distant objects is designed to feed the soft world building. The great distances and size are embellished by the way they designed the maps and draw distance tricks.

When i hear soft world building, I immediately think of the game Journey. Same can go for Abzu. In journey, not a single word is spoken, you can interpret ruins and paintings as you wish and ultimately, it makes you feel so many things while also (in my case) reflect on themes I never thought of before. Thank for your hardwork! I’ld go for option 1 for the cover 😌

Describes hard worldbuilding, uses scenes from LOTR and says "The most famous example you're probably familiar with is Game of Thrones." Why must you hurt me, in this way?

"I don't care how it works, I want the aesthetic. "

Seeing you talk about Hollow Knight makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside

While people criticise stories in DOOM, I personally love what DOOM Eternal did with it's worldbuilding. It's made to be very religion-like, to make us feel like the Doom Slayer is a god

Toy story's living Toys, sharing their lives, experiences, feelings, problems and life purpose with us is one of the best examples of very soft worldbuilding, it's way too unbelievable even for kids, yet we do not give a shhh, we just love the movies

I think the real answer to the opening question is that they're all soul crushingly depressing

shadow of the colossus is a personal favorite soft world building.

I felt a twang of pain at the beginning after the question "were they all made by great people". This is by no means a disrespect, since Lovecraft was by no means someone to look up to for most of his life; however, he lived a short life full of darkness and despite that he reconciled his past evils. If you read his letters (of which there are literally thousands), you learn that towards the end of his life he had reinvestigated his prejudices and realised that he was wrong. If only he had lived longer, he perhaps would be remembered more fondly.

I just bought volume 1 for my wife who recently started a creative writing degree!

That thumbnail ist just... **chef's kiss**

I think the best part of nier automata is how independent it is from replicant/gestalt. Sure it has references and characters, and it would probably be best if you played gestalt/replicant first, but it isn't required

A lot of Lovecraft's imagery, at least of Cthulhu and the like, are based in his fear/hatred of sea food.

Ladyknightthebrave has this saying that goes something like "Don't worry about it; it's Tuesday." I feel like that might be how I see soft world building. Does it need to be perfect? Nah, it's Tuesday, it's fine. Let's just move on.

What made me fall in love with Dark Souls was the unknown. To understand the lore you need to piece it yourself, discover theorise and guess. I did all that I studied the games I watched countless lore videos and created my own ideas. Its like I wasn't just learning the lore. I was discovering and creating it myself. The beauty of soft worldbuilding is that the reader/player is an active participant in creating the lore. It feels way more grandiouse then a world that is described perfectly like GOT. No matter how much you know you always feel the sense of wonder and unknown. Even after years of playing and discovering the lore of dark souls I still discover new things after so much time. If everything was explained the sense of wonder would be lost. The beauty is in the unknown. And Dark Souls is in my opinion the best example of soft worldbuilding ever. Even things like time are not linear and explained. Time is convoluted and there are intentional inconsistencies and repetetive motives. Dark Souls is a masterpiece

"It is a monument to our waste." I got chills

I was just world building, and Tim just casually drops a world building vid, I told myself: Master has something to teach us, and I was right, thanks Tim, for being an amazing teacher!

Dark Souls has such a special place in my heart. I cant really say why but i have never been as immersed in any other game, book or movie as i was in dark souls.

Thank you for including a scene from Nausicaa to represent Hayao Miyazaki, that movie never gets enough love. What you said about not having to explain or justify everything in storytelling is part of what works in some fanfiction - you don’t have to justify everything just tell the story you want.

"If you're immersed in a story, chances are someone else will be as well." That's beautiful

Once you play through dark souls and experience the interconnectivity of it, you feel that it play into the narrative of the story. That everything is connected, and everything lead right back to the beginning. That is until you decide to break the cycle.

Your kitty looks so happy and content it makes me smile!

Hollow Knight's art, effects, and music theme aids it's Softworld building tremendously. I don't think this generation of gaming quite appreciates how much those matter in immersing the player audience into the story and game.

With the Hollow Knight and Nier: Automata segments, I'm even more excited for Elden Ring. Because it's From Software translating George R.R. Martin, which in turn makes me think of his gardener versus architect philosophy. Great video!

Hey Tim, could you make a video or maybe a video series on Character Archetypes? Like the Hero, the Magician, the King and the Lover. But how they have come to change over the years. Like how now we have the Reluctant Hero, the Magician how is so focused on balance or the broken Lover who no longer the strength to start over. And so on. This maybe a lot of work and it's a big ask but it would fit multiple mediums of storytelling. But in the end any video you make is interesting so thank you for those.

Soft worldbuilding has always been my favorite compared to Hard worldbuilding because the amount of dedication people will put out just to connect the dots is astounding I want more of that to be seen

I really appreciate the mention of NieR:Automata, as it is my favorite game of all time and there's only a handful of videos talking about it

This is definitely a video I needed. I have wanted to figure out how to build my world around wonder and this helped me discern there's a balance to having hard, explicit, detail, and purely emotional design. Your videos are absolutely some of my favorites

On your last bit about metrics of success: I don't think I would have written at all, or at least the same level of quality, in the past year if it wasn't for your videos. If you want a metric, think of the over 115,000 words that are now in the world because your videos have helped me so much.

aaaaa tim im adding another comment just to say that you're just always consistently improving in terms of how concise you are, how incisive and insightful; which isn't to say that you weren't before, but just that basically every new video surpasses my expectations. you always find something to say that hasn't been said, or a way to say it that hasnt been done.

This is my first video of yours that I just came across today and I'm subscribed now! This one video will already help my worldbuilding and I'm excited to see what else your channel has to offer! Well done and thank you!

I’m glad to have a term for this now. Several times my wife has watched me play Hollow Knight or Dark Souls and asked “what’s the game story?” I have no idea but it sure is emotive! I’ve never really thought of Lovecraft in the same way though. Admittedly I’ve not read the original books but most Cthulhu stuff I come across tends to set out a much more coherent story than HK or DS even if the monsters etc are not fully described

You're an inspiration, man. Video on its own is brilliant, great takes and helpful to provide a perspective on some of it from the sidelines instead of diving too deeply into it (I guess that's mostly the point of soft worldbuilding!) but giving us a way to see the worlds without the textures and contexts within. Excellent. And what's more, proud and humbled at the way you are continuing to provide new videos while still writing and submitting to more outlets. I wish you nothing but the best, man.

Thanks Tim! I always aspired to be a writer, but the older I got the more confined it felt, so many rules and tropes, it lost the same wonder it had for me as a child. But your videos, especially on soft magic and now world building, have reinvigorated my love of writing.

A video with all of my favorite things smashed into one? This has been the best analysis video of soft world building I have seen a long time. Expertly spoken, wonderfully conveyed feelings and emotions that these world give without saying little to few words. Amazing!

I've been slowly making my way through all your videos and they're all great so please keep making them! I wanted to comment on this one specifically because your use of the Hollow Knight theme at the end and re-revealing the title over the last chord of the song was just *chefs kiss*

Man, I' ve been trying to apply this submerssive technique into my art, trying to build my own world into every paint I made. Your video is pure gold to me, thanks!! 😆

Honestly, this feels like a good idea on how to build a Dnd setting - it doesn't always need to work perfectly in the back end, but as long as the world has a consistent Feel and Vibe, then it'll work

THANK YOU! Love your videos on world building and writing. Will be sure to grab your books.

I just binge watched a couple of you videos in a row, and i was expecting to look up and realize it is 1 am and I should probably go to bed, but instead, it has been only 1 hour. Every word song and clip, immersed me so deep into this experience. Every video felt like a 2 hour video essay. Absolutely amazing work and channel.

I will watch it soon I promise, just commenting for the algorithmic overlords. Also someone suggested in the poll to have one on the front cover and another on the back, I think that would really work. Stay nerdy Tim :)

Regular politicians: "VOTE!" Me: "..." HelloFutureMe: "VOTE!" Me: "That's all you had to say!"

I think this is one of my favorite video of yours; I have a watched it three times. There is just something spectacular about an author letting the world so completely fit the story. It is so beautiful for a story to just so perfectly explore an experiences or an emotional. I love the work by Studio Ghibli and it is just so full of this sort of world-building.

It's both amazing and horrific how nearly each video you put out there makes me reconsider entire chapters of the book I've been trying to finish over the past year... Thanks for this, please keep on going, your work here is a gem. All hail Momo!

NieR: Automata is an absolute masterpiece

This was so encouraging. I'm currently writing a gritty, syfy webcomic. I haven't written or drawn up a project this big yet, and I've been stuck on the world building. It takes place in a world that so far, only exists in my mind, and conveying that onto paper has been difficult. Anyway, I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much and just write what I like. 😊 I'm looking forward to buying your book!

Loved this video! Loved the return to you personally narrating too.

This may be your best video yet, funny, good production, thought provoking, had it all

I've only recently gotten into Lovecraft, I love his world building of creating a sense of unwelcoming horror. The sense that we humans are like ants that think ourselves giants. The Racism is a little distracting but I think it's important to read them as they were written. It doesn't matter that he was racist and elitist, the question is are you now?

Allow me to introduce, Outer Wilds. Best soft worldbuilding in a game I've ever played.

Oh, man, you really transferred that experiential feeling into this video. I'm getting goosebumps!!! Love it!

i love hearing you talk about practically anything! please continue to do so for as long as you feel you have something to say!

I've started doing more with experiencial consistency in my world building for a few months now. I really like fitting in these things slowly, piece by piece into otherwise really grounded worlds. It has really reignited my fanaticism with world building, and I love it.

It is impossible to choose between those two cover arts, they're both too beautiful. The one on the right more immediately caught my eye, but the one on the left better captured my imagination.

Hey! Your videos always inspire me. Thanks for being real and for great content!

One of my favorite videos of yours. Thank you so much!

been a while since I enjoyed a video of yours this much. glad to be a patreon HOLY SMOKES THERE'S GONNA BE TWO BOOKS FOR ME TO BUY?! *drool*

This was a fascinating video. World building is often one of those things I just question why people don't go further with and you really captured how often times of the most important elements of a world is the vibe. I know "vibe" is the result of so many other things but it can just help when writing or creating a world to start out, not with exploring realistic consequences, but the feeling you want the world to inspire and build out from there

you say thank you at the end and i feel a freaking tear start forming in my eye because i am so damn happy for you and your success. thank YOU!

So happy for you and I look forward to reading your work. I am glad for your videos and Vol I of your world building book. Can't wait for Vol II. And lastly, glad I found you in KZfaq.

This actually really helped me. I love writing about aliens that live in places that don't make sense, have cultural practices that only sometimes flow together concisely, and have anatomy that defies scientific logic. The other part of that is my love for all those things making sense somehow. So not thinking about what does or doesn't make sense and focusing on what I feel when I write them is a great and less stressful way to write a story. Also, ignoring the grammar checker from time to time. =)

Love the theme! These are my favourite games right there, such interesting worlds!

Another awesome video. Thanks for all the work you put into them, and congrats on your upcoming books!

I literally cried when Hollow Knight started playing, it's such a melancholy melody and on top of that is the story of the Hollow Knight itself...

I always thought that hard world building was the "right" way to tell a story by fully fleshing out the world a narrative takes place in but that's such a limited perspective of the possibilities a story can explore. Your older video on hard vs soft world building helped me understand the difference, but this video see the differences in a greater perspective. Both have their uses and can lead to excellent stories, but it seems to be another important factor to consider when writing. Also, I'm glad you point out that both can be used in the same work, that they aren't completely binary and can enrich a world separately, but in conjunction too. Great vid!

Volume 2 is coming? Yes.

those were some really nice words, info and care for worldbuilding, and i am so glad i clicked this video so thank you soo much!

the slow zoom in on long boarding mark zuckerburg followed by the word ghoul is fucking hysterical

Consider this: Religious mythology is primarily about the soft worldbuilding

I've never viewed The Lord of The Rings as Hard Worldbuilding. This is probably due to watching the movies before reading the books, the films feels to fantastical to be logically believable. I never felt that it needed it, though. It is strongest as a metaforical story, and the soft world view works for me. I don't need to understand the ecology of Middle Earth to understand the meaning and lessons of the story.

I'm always happy to receive future advice from you. Especially this video. I love the games you're talking about and I'm happy you are talking about it.

i have never seen one of your videos but this was literally a masterpiece, i love you and got your book yo, you rad

I love these soft world building videos! So many good stories don’t fill out a ton. I think of Sabriel by Garth Nix (one of my favorite books) that explains almost nothing about the world, letting you dwell in this sense of wonder and fear at the many things that are just barely out of view. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but absolutely delightful to me.

Yesterday, when I was lying in bed and couldn't sleep, I started to think up a kind of Lovecraftian horror story set on Venus (real Venus, not early 20th century Venus). And when I fell asleep, it turned into a normal sci-fi story, because the monster Aliens weren't that horrible, actually. I do not know whether it was a dream, a lucid dream or whether I was actually awake, but they started talking and told me they just wanted water. So I contacted Earth and asked whether we could slingshot a few carbonaceous chondrites into Venus' orbit to process them into water for the natives. Now I don't know whether I should keep that last part if I write the story down or not. I know it has not much to do with the topic of the video, but I just remembered it.

Haven't watched one of these in a while, missed these videos Lovely work, by the way!!!

This video is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. Thank you so much.

I’m to impatient and usually skip through dialogue and cutscenes, but with Nier I just loved the story and world so much. I still play the game today and try to do things differently to see what happens. Im glad that there’s multiple ending to Nier! A game has never made me cry so many times with the amount character development

I think one thing that should be considered: Lovecraft and Nier are written having in mind a more modern style of storytelling, while Hollow Knight and Dark Souls have a style that calls back to the old myths. You might think hard worldbuilding is more important in the first one, while soft is more important for the second one, but this shows both types of worldbuilding can be integrated. I feel the most important question when crafting is to see how it benefits the story you want to tell. I feel one example of bad integration between hard and soft worldbuilding is The Last Jedi. I could understand what Johnson wanted to do with the casino scene, to make a point on systemic corruption, followed by pretty visuals, but the fact it was so contrived and badly written (it makes the viewever question a lot of things, such as why they didn't evacuate the ship using that method) removes the power and the point of the scene. Still, TLJ had a pretty stunning aesthetic shot with the destruction of the First Order capital, but again, it costs the hard worldbuilding and makes it worse in the long run.

One of the things I love about The Elder Scrolls, as a lore nerd, and once one dives sufficiently deep into the lore... is the particular way it takes an inherently very soft worldbuilding conceit and then proceeds to make it hard. Reality, on its most fundamental level, is a dream, a PTSD flashback writ large, trauma ruminated over from every possible angle until an entire multiverse is imagined. Physics, while there are subatomic particles and quantum effects in play, do literally operate on dream logic to an extent. And this is a feature of reality that is exploited, sometimes intentionally, sometimes by accident, for example with the notion of Mantling, or assuming the identity of some narratively significant figure from the past and carrying on or recreating their story. The main quest of each game is a sort of reenactment of the Event that caused the Godhead's trauma, and it's only through exploiting the power of such a narrative structure that major shifts in the status quo can happen. The protagonist of most games is a Prisoner Hero, and the way they interact with the world, as a being of absurd power who determines events and destiny rather than being subject to them (as appropriate in a sandbox RPG), as an entity literally being imagined by an entity beyond the game's reality (the player), the nigh-sociopathic lack of deep connection to the world, even the save scumming, are all a consequence of the ritual significance of being imprisoned and the severing from one's past that that entails. The entire experiential conceit of the series is justified very carefully within the lore of the games. It's very hard worldbuilding, in its own way, so as to craft a very particular soft experience. Now, it's not just TES that does this. Homestuck took a remarkably similar metatextual stance on its worldbuilding, for example. And even the more Cosmic parts of DC, especially the bits written by Grant Morrison, play with very similar themes, though not with nearly so much depth nor consistency. But TES, to my knowledge, has been doing this kind of thing, with such deep integration, the longest.

Keep sharing what you care about with the world in whatever way feels right for you. You're inspirational to a lot of people. Thanks for the hard work Tim.

Hey Tim, could you do a video on depth in writing. I would love to see something that covers that area of writing.