Home / Atmosphere & Tone

Atmosphere & Tone

This document captures the emotional experience MOONSTALKERS: ONLINE aims to create. Every design decision should reinforce these core feelings.

Atmosphere and mood

Core Emotional Pillars

1. Desperate Isolation

The Moonstalker is fundamentally alone. Their vessel is the only true sanctuary, and it hangs in the void, separated from the hostile world below. On the surface, other Moonstalkers are temporary encounters — fleeting moments of connection in vast, empty ruins.

  • Environments should feel too large for humans
  • Sound design emphasizes emptiness — distant echoes, wind, dripping water
  • NPC presence is rare and meaningful
  • The vessel AI provides companionship but is damaged, glitchy — not fully reliable

2. Calculated Risk

Every action involves weighing potential gain against potential loss. The game should constantly ask: "Is it worth it?" This creates tension not through jump scares but through the weight of decisions.

  • Players should feel the value of what they're carrying
  • Time pressure from floods creates urgency without panic
  • Extraction should bring genuine relief
  • Death should sting — meaningful loss, not inconvenience

3. Corporate Dread

Selenite Corp is omnipresent but distant. Their infrastructure surrounds you, their fees extract from you, their contracts direct you — yet they remain faceless, impersonal. The horror is bureaucratic: being a disposable resource in a system that caused the catastrophe.

  • Corp facilities are too clean, too functional — unsettling in their perfection
  • Contract language is clinical, dehumanizing
  • Evidence of Corp wrongdoing is subtle, scattered, deniable
  • The teleportation network's fees feel exploitative, not fair

4. Environmental Hostility

Earth itself has become the enemy. The floods are relentless, predictable but inescapable. The surface is beautiful in its ruin but deadly. Nature hasn't forgiven humanity's hubris.

  • Weather and tides are the primary antagonists
  • Wildlife has adapted to the new world — players haven't
  • Ruins tell stories of the world that was
  • Beauty and danger coexist constantly

5. Fragile Hope

Despite everything, there are reasons to continue. The vessel can be improved. Independence from Selenite Corp is possible. The truth about the cataclysm can be uncovered. Other Moonstalkers prove humanity persists.

  • Progression should feel earned and meaningful
  • Cooperation moments should be memorable
  • Lore discoveries should reward curiosity
  • Alternative paths (Free Stalker) offer genuine alternatives

Emotional Rhythm

The Session Arc

A typical play session should follow this emotional trajectory:

  1. Safety & Planning (Vessel) — Calm, strategic, hopeful. Preparing for what's ahead.
  2. Commitment (Drop) — Excitement and anxiety. The point of no return.
  3. Tension Building (Surface Work) — Increasing stakes as inventory fills and time passes.
  4. Crisis Points (Floods/Decisions) — Peak stress. Stay or go? Risk or secure?
  5. Resolution (Extraction/Death) — Either relief and satisfaction, or loss and determination to try again.

What We Avoid

Tone Violations

  • Jump scares — Fear comes from anticipation, not surprise
  • Grimdark excess — Tragedy with no hope becomes meaningless
  • Power fantasy — Moonstalkers are survivors, not superheroes
  • Comic relief — Humor should be dark, situational, earned
  • Exposition dumps — Lore is discovered, not delivered
  • Moral simplicity — Selenite Corp is evil, but surviving is complicated

Thematic Motifs

Recurring Imagery

Water
Life-giver turned destroyer. The floods erase and reveal. Water is time's enforcer.
The Shattered Moon
Constant reminder in the sky. Beautiful debris field, source of catastrophe. Humanity's hubris made visible.
Light in Darkness
Vessel lights in orbit. Hatch emergency lighting. Telepad glow. Hope is small and fragile.
Decay and Reclamation
Nature consuming civilization. Rust, growth, erosion. The world moving on without us.
Clones and Identity
What makes you "you"? Memory gaps after death. Degradation over time. The body as replaceable vessel.

Sound & Music Direction

Audio Atmosphere

Vessel
Hum of life support. Distant creaks of the hull. Muffled silence of space. The AI's voice — warm but glitchy.
Surface (Calm)
Wind through ruins. Distant water. Bird-analog calls. Creaking structures. Vast silence punctuated by detail.
Surface (Danger)
Rising water sounds. Warning klaxons from old infrastructure. Heartbeat prominence. Wildlife alerts.
Hatches
Enclosed reverb. Mechanical breathing sounds. Other Moonstalkers moving, breathing. Tension of proximity.
Music
Ambient, electronic, sparse. Swells during key moments (drops, extractions, discoveries). Never intrusive. Enhances, doesn't dictate emotion.