RMMV What is the weirdest topic you ever researched over the course of making a game?

[CrowStorm]

The forum forced me to pick a prefix for some reason, but it could be for any engine, I don't have much to add to the body text that's not in the topic question, and I have researched so much bizarre crap in the interest of writing, game dev, and morbidy curiosity that i think I've sort of broken my "zero point" for what "weird" even is, so I can't reliably answer my own question.

But what about you guys? {REPEATS TOPIC TITLE}

EDIT: Actually, there's this one occult text I keep coming back to research for different projects and have been doing so periodically since like 2005? It's about demons, definitely not the weirdest thing I've read about for research but all roads seem to work back to it. Even Dex, a project in my signature I took many months ago knowing virtually nothing about except that it was paying work, wound up eerily enough making reference to the Lesser Key.

 

[gstv87]

taxidermy.

I was making a crafting system, and one of the materials was animal hide.... and that's used to make leather, and that makes leather armor.
I have wolves, buffaloes, deer, rabbits, several animals that can yield leather or hide, and I needed a way to calculate the surface area to find the base unit, for which I needed to know how much to cut, and where.
so.... wolf = 6 rabbits = 1 leather sheet -> 6 leather = one hardened leather -> 2 hardened leather = one leather breastplate.

like that, with metallurgy, for the proportion of coal to ore; biology, for materials like silk or chitin from bugs; woodworking, for the sizes of polearms... etc.

it was fun making that system lol

 

[Hyouryuu-Na]

A bit about architechture (sort of) Like, how wide walls were in old times and if they can be hollow inside without making the whole building fall off... Didn't quite go as planned so I scrapped that idea. And ancient Japanese folklore monsters ^^

 

[CrowStorm]

taxidermy.

I was making a crafting system, and one of the materials was animal hide.... and that's used to make leather, and that makes leather armor.
I have wolves, buffaloes, deer, rabbits, several animals that can yield leather or hide, and I needed a way to calculate the surface area to find the base unit, for which I needed to know how much to cut, and where.
so.... wolf = 6 rabbits = 1 leather sheet -> 6 leather = one hardened leather -> 2 hardened leather = one leather breastplate.

like that, with metallurgy, for the proportion of coal to ore; biology, for materials like silk or chitin from bugs; woodworking, for the sizes of polearms... etc.

it was fun making that system lol

Wow, that sounds like a level of obsessive attention to detail worthy of Dwarf Fortress (I mean this in a good way).

Speaking of Japanese and architechture, I just want to throw this one trivia out there: ninja-proof flooring was a real thing in feudal Japanese homes and castles. It's exactly what it sounds like, flooring specially designed to make a mess of noise when someone tries to sneak across it.

 

[Chocopyro]

I actually study the occult and spirituality on my own free time, so I can't say any of those are for game design. Although I have to agree with Hyouriyuu on Yokai. It wasn't for RPGM, but for my Renpy VN a long time ago. I spent three weeks studying Japanese Omnipresent Bathroom Spirits. Getting deep into the etymology and anthropology. That was quite the rabbit hole. I can't remember many of the ones I researched for my VX Ace projects though. It was a long time ago. It was probably something between Fairies, and medieval healthcare.

 

[Zreine]

It was a long time ago on XP... a game I never finished. It was a post apocalyptic setting and one of the character could make explosive from scratch. So I had to research about out to make artisanal bombs and which product would be easier to find in such a setting. Let's just say that if someone would have looked at my browser history back then...they probably would have thought I was planning a terrorist attack or something, lol.

I also had to look at eye injuries for the same game...to use as reference for one of my characters...eye injuries can be quite disturbing, lol.

 

[bgillisp]

I had to research what goes into a cheese factory for my game, as one of the towns is known for its cheese. That was probably the strangest thing I had to research for my game, but when I was writing a math book I had to research effects of radiation and the half lifes of real radioactive materials so the problems on half-life were realistic.

 

[Chocopyro]

@Zreine: Yeah, that's one thing I'm kinda worried to look into right now. Just decided one of my characters was going to be the magically stunted twin brother to a witch that uses explosive magic. So he took up alchemy, and before long, folks around town started calling him the "Black powder bookworm." Their sibling rivalries tend to shake the entire town. Charmingly comical! Would lead to a lot of fun scenes! Then I found myself about to google how to make fireworks before I realized what that might entail.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

Architecture and lighting used in Blade Runner, side effects for hard drugs, obscure prototype weapons, and modern ballistic armor composition for my cyberpunk game project.

 

[CrowStorm]

So I had to research about out to make artisanal bombs and which product would be easier to find in such a setting.

WOW.

Artisanal bombs is the best way of describing IEDs I have ever heard. I think you really have something there with that phrase.

(...of course my favorite song right of the moment IS called Homemade Dynamite...)

Japanese Omnipresent Bathroom Spirits

what

esplain

I had to research what goes into a cheese factory for my game, as one of the towns is known for its cheese. That was probably the strangest thing I had to research for my game, but when I was writing a math book I had to research effects of radiation and the half lifes of real radioactive materials so the problems on half-life were realistic.

...WHEREAS I had to research radiation half-lives for a sci-fi game, but have needed to learn EVERYTHING about cheese for my career as a pro cheesemaker...

(only half of that is true and I think y'all know which half)

Actually for me, personally, "Cheese Factory" is leading the pack!But then again I need to know more about

JAPANESE
OMINIPRESENT
BATHROOM
SPIRITS

J-jobs? It spells out jobs?

side effects for hard drugs

I've "researched" this a lot too.
EDIT: I have also actually un-ironically researched this topic in the less cool way.

 

[Quotex]

While researching hobbies for the characters in my game, I learned about a hobby called "Gongoozling" and it reminded me of this thread.

The description reads as follows:
"A gongoozler is a person who enjoys watching activity on the canals of the United Kingdom. The term is also used more generally to describe those who harbour an interest in canals and canal life, but do not actively participate. "

So, It's like Trainspotting, but instead of Trains and Railways, it has more to do with Boats and Canals:
[Wikipedia Article]

The hobby itself isn't that strange, but the name for it is rather funny and not what I'd expect such an activity to be called (Then again, it's the UK, they have other gems such as knackered and collywobbles)

 

[CrowStorm]

Thank you so much for teaching me that word. It is AMAZINGLY silly, even by UK English standards.

Speaking of words that sound completely made up but totally aren't, the correct word for the number 10(10[SUP]100[/SUP]) is Googolplex.

 

[Chocopyro]

Well, to elaborate, Japanese omnipresent bathroom spirits are just something I call the myriad of urban legend yokai characters that seem to appear in every public japanese restroom in the third stall, you know how it goes. Like Hanako-chan, or Aka manto. There are a lot of them. I was curious about that phenomenon when writing a visual novel for renpy, since it dealt with a lot of yokai, and I had this one character who had her shadow removed, so her spirit and soul were no longer tethered to her body. She could possess her body an move it pretty easily, but the slightest shock to her system would send her into becoming an Ikiryo. So I had this gag where she had to leave her body in the restroom to go off and investigate something away from school, and when she returned, her body was going to be missing, because one of those said spirits thought it was an offering, so they quite literally took her body and ran off with it, ready to experience mortal life anew. I wanted to be careful about the portrayal of the entity, hence why I was researching them so thoroughly. But, you know. It's just kinda a weird subject when you stop to think about it.

 

[PixeLockeT]

Astral stuff............I'm an avid astral projector anyhow, so I frequently research the topic from both scientific and spiritual angles (like quantum physics for example), as I had some astral form of battling in one of my earlier games. A lot of my friends are also pretty steep into the occult, so I've researched a myriad of topics about that too since I base some of my game stuff in the reality of my friends groups.

I also, when making maps of my own, like to research how land masses are actually made up, so I can mix realism with my own twists. And, if I want to get fancy and make my own languages, I search up linguistics studies and try to make sense of it (I am terrible at that frankly). lol

 

[Chocopyro]

It's kinda like that, though in the lore of that setting, having your shadow taken kinda meant the boundary between the soul and the mind's consciousness became non-existent, where as with normal people, they just sort of overlapped. So she was more a ghost with a physical form, rather than a "psychic" who was sensitive and aware of the spiritual form enough to project outward. So when a normal psychic projects, their body still has some occupation, as their mind still interfaces with the spirit. When she astral projects, her body is completely comatose, and ready for a new host. She might as well have had a "Please possess this and take good care of it" sign on her back. Man, if only I had the money to finish that project. It was fun. XD

 

[marsatche]

Well at one point I had to look up on sonoluminescence, bioluminescence, oxidation, aaand bomb making. Cus one of our characters would be a pyro that uses his body to craft his weapons.

Then, hydroponics and hologram technology for a virtual farming system.

After that, I kept searching on how religious customs developed around South East Asia and how they heavily differ from their origins. Lots of offerings and ethnic decor. Possibly from animism that transitioned into something more modern as time progressed... yeaaaa. The weirdest part I had to deal with was how certain types of offering can contradict with another. Or the specific order of ingredients and placement that can alter the meaning within. I guess it's good for a puzzle material.