About two weeks
ago, I briefly mentioned that I'm using Obsidian
as a world-building tool for a new game I'm working
on called lost contact. I chose Obsidian
for this task, as I've heard that people use it for
TTRPG campaigns. And World Anvil, though powerful,
seems too heavy relative to it's benefit in my
opinion.
We use it as you might expect for a typical wiki,
with the prominent addition of the canvas feature.
We've used it to create a timeline of events:
An overview of the
timeline for the game in an Obsidian canvas, which
is zoomed out far enough that no text is visible and
just the nodes and their connections can be
seen.
To create a mood board for the game:
A loose collection of
pictures in an Obsidian canvas. In order: Drawings
of an anime girl in a spaceship from Novelance's
Aeronautic Log, promotional images from Solid Gray,
pictures of the Cupola from NASA and an art
installation of it at the Canadian Aviation and
Space Museum, pictures of the Huvudspelare, Eilif,
Tommaryd, and Idasen furniture pieces from IKEA, and
concept art and pictures of the Halley VI research
station.
A collection of nodes
in an Obsidian canvas. All of the nodes have three
lines in the center representing the fact that they
are cards instead of notes. Three at the top are
uncolored, and the rest of the nodes are either red
or green. The red or green cards are connected to
each other; the top row is connected from left to
right, the columns below each card is connected from
top to bottom, and of those cards are connected to
additional cards to their right.
It's been pretty nice to use it, as it allows us
to arrange notes in 2D space but still get the power
that Obsidian normally offers, with being able to
link out to markdown files. For example, here's one
of the nodes in the timeline:
A note titled "GHOST
VI Adrift", which reads: "During the GHOST VI
mission, due to the prior destabilization of its
orbit, Dutchman station deorbits and enters an
interplanetary trajectory, leaving the immediate
vicinity of CGC 76." The words GHOST VI,
destabilization, Dutchman, and CGC 76 are links and
the bottom of the note includes a link to a
Wikipedia article called "Rogue planet"
This node in the canvas is actually a whole
markdown note, with its own links to other markdown
notes. Adding it to the canvas allows us to order it
in chronological order with other events, group them
in interesting ways, and see how it relates to other
notes that don't represent chronological events.
It's like having a conspiracy-laden wall of notes
and connections, it's great.