I have been working on a minecraft mod pack that has a mechanic where the player can fly between different worlds via the elytra. eg. the overworld -> moon -> mars etc. I have a few different directions I can take Mars’ design:
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Dead world with remnants of the extinct martian civilization. Environmental storytelling used to convey a mystery to be solved by the player
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HG Wells’ war of the worlds inspired with the martian statues referencing their 3 colored pupiled eyes on a villager model and red weed plants growing underground that infect plants like trees and spread on corrupted dirt (basically dirt that has had blood within 4 blocks of it) and eventually turns white and dies if its in one of the overworld dimensions
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harmless/benevelant living martians based on the barsoon series
Or some combination of those
Thoughts?
It could be cool to have the dead world with remnants of an ancient civilization and as they player explores more they come across a pocket of civilization that survived.
Honestly if I went that route id probably make the martians passive rather than like the HG Wells version. Or alternatively make it so the HG Wells version died out and the passive martians survived in small groups underground.