Ancient Temples (aka Breath of the Wild's Shrines)

 I mentioned this on Discord 2-3 days ago, but wanted to do more of an actual write-up on it so that people know that this feature exists and what to expect.

Approximately 7-8 hours into Penumbra Crystallis, the player acquires a ship known as the Pegasus. The Pegasus immediately allows the player to sail anywhere in the world they desire. This includes visiting some areas of the world map that the player has not yet visited - which is still well over 75% of the total map!

To make sailing around the world more interesting than just looking for docks to park your ship at, I've decided to add ancient temples to the world map that, at this point of the game, require the ship to reach. These ancient temples exist either on islands in the ocean or along parts of kingdom coastlines previously inaccessible to players due to mountains or rivers being in the way.

So, what are these so called ancient temples? I'll let this NPC explain them a bit before I continue.

If this sounds familiar, that's because it is! I was heavily inspired by Breath of the Wild, and the ancient temples are pretty much just the shrines in that game. I expect to have about 30 shrines scattered across the world map, and most of them should only take 3-4 minutes to complete. Some of them will just have players solving a simple puzzle of some sort while others will prevent the player will a challenge in the form of a battle. Temples with puzzles will also have battles, but usually only if the player messes the puzzle up or runs into some sort of moving obstacle that initiates scripted fights. There will be zero random encounters in all temples with the exception of probably one (where random battles will be the central theme).

Solving a puzzle or overcoming the final challenge in each temple rewards the player with a treasure chest often containing an item that is either one of a kind, or is very rare to find elsewhere in the game.

So, for when this game is finally finished and in the hands of you folks, expect to find of places to go and things to do when you acquire the Pegasus!