What is Terminal_Grid >_#

Terminal Grid Watchtower is a 2D ARPG (Action Role Playing Game) Top Down Indie Action-Adventure game.  The games story is based on the song All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan (also covered by Jimi Hendrix)

 

The Meaning of the name “Terminal Grid”

The name Terminal Grid comes from terminal server which is a network device that enables connections to multiple client systems to connect to a LAN network without using a modem or a network interface.  This is in a sense an early version of the internet. 

The Grid part of the name is inspired by a quote from Tron’s Kevin Flynn, “The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships, motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day I got in…”

I further developed this name visually with icons.  The icon for a Terminal is >_ and the # is basically a Grid.  These icons allowed me to develop the picture below to visually represent the game without words.  Theses design choices & Maps of Meaning are further elaborated here. 

 

The Watchtower portion of the name refers to the song All Along the Watchtower which inspired the game’s story.  The Watchtower’s design is inspired by Berlin’s TV tower also known as the Berliner Fernsehturm.

The story of Terminal Grid Watchtower

The game starts off with the player discovering a forgotten CERN httpd web server.  This is the world’s first web server and it contains a digital world called Terminal Grid.

In this world is a Master Alchemist Program who can create & transform objects.
But he couldn’t transform the network of Ignorant, Heartless, & Cowardly programs.

His journey begins with seeking out the Grand Wizard Program of the Watchtower.
The Grand Wizard is familiar with this divine power of transformation and how it can save this dying world.  The Alchemist Program relinquishes control of himself to the user so they can together navigate the Watchtower and find the Wizard.  The Alchemist first encounters two Sphinx who tell him that only a Hero can enter the Watchtower.  To become a Hero he will have to sacrifice his Alchemist programming and leave it at the altar.  He follows the instructions, becomes the Hero, and enters the labyrinth of rooms that is the Watchtower.

Gameplay Preview

 

 

This article documents the Changes & Challenges Terminal Grid Watchtower went through.