How would you present your worldbuilding project?

[krongulus]

Hello! this is my first post to my forum.

Ive been working on a worldbuilding project for 3/4 years now. I'm getting to a point where i want to start sharing it (+ my art) online more.

My biggest hurdle, is figuring out how to present it to other people in a creative and fun way.

I was originally going to make something akin to a wiki where you can read separate pages- but i realized that it felt kind of boring, and i realized most people woudlnt want to read paragraphs on something theyre not familiar with (Not that i can blame them.)

That brings me to my current challenge. I want to present my project in a site format for other people to view...but also have it be engaging, fun and interesting to experience/view. Im pretty techy so i woudlnt mind coding something more complex to achieve this.

I really dont have many ideas, and its hard to find other people doing stuff like this online, so Ive resigned myself to asking here. Any sort of response is appreciated, Thank you.

[knifex]

Im personally a big fan of wikis- I've made many myself.

A fun way to approach it is to make it diegetic, i.e "in universe". Thats what I did for this project! (except landing page)

I also think having plenty of visuals helps- bricks of text are intimidating, but breaking it up with images and icons make it more approachable! Props can go crazy.

Telling a story is also a great way to get people involved. It doesn't matter to me personally, but it's the gateway to a lot of people. And it doesnt necessarily have to be a traditional story, it could be little hints left throughout the site that, when you piece together, reveal something beyond what meets the eye at first glance!

Another fun thing imo is interactivity, so like, maybe a quizz "which [lore element] are you" could be entertaining!

That's all I have for now, but feel free to check out my different worldbuilding+ projects here. Some have more sauce than others, but maybe it could inspire you a bit!

[Dynaknights]

I'm also a big fan of wikis!

My own site is a bland old unfinished kinda-sorta diegetic wiki but with editor's notes everywhere because I'm unoriginal. But I agree with @knifex's advice.
Like, literally, I don't think I have much to add...

But if other people are the main focus instead of just making notes for yourself, DON'T PUT EVERY SINGLE FACT ABOUT YOUR UNIVERSE KNOWN TO MAN ON YOUR SITE. I struggle with this myself because it's so tempting to put ten trillion little details about worldbuilding and day-to-day living, but it makes walls of text seem impossibly larger.

[krongulus]

Hello! Thank you two for responding, i had fun looking at both of your sites :)

While i am the type of person who does like reading wikis- I believe sadly most people arent- At the very least, my world has so much overwhelming info i feel like the wiki would either end up surface-level or so intimidating and deep it would scare people off.
 
And while I in general dont feel an overwhelming need to cater my work to others, Im currently looking for more artistic/creative solutions- Although i already have a wiki coded if i cant figure out anything. (Part of the issue in retrospect might just be me thinking 'wiki' and assume massive miraheze-style codex of information)

My setting is a sci fi setting. I had an idea at some point to create a fictional/in universe internet- sort of like hypnospace or welcome to the game- That allowed you to view a lot of the corporations/characters/etc through that lense.

I think its a fun idea, but honestly even with me knowing a bit of JS/11ty and tools that would make it easier, i feel like it would be an monumental task and would take time away from me actually working on my setting/world. Its an amazing idea in concept and ive even made mockups for it before- But im still pretty unsure about it.

Also- that idea makes it more difficult for me to share things my art, 3d modelling or character stuff, which is a big focus for me.

Thats mainly me rambling. This is an issue ive been thinking about for months and i cant seem to find an easy solution. Or maybe it is simple and im overthinking it.

[Final part- I wont go on too long but Re: Make a story- I do plan on making a game or something adjacent years into the future , but atm I dont have a lot of writing to share. That being said i might start, that sounds possibly fun]

[Dynaknights]

I love your fictional internet idea! :D

I've been working on making tiny in-universe blogs and social media profiles for my characters as a fun project (because my site lacks fun things beyond reading walls of text currently...) and I think your fictional internet plus a sci-fi setting would make a really cool website! I'd definitely check it out (regardless of what path you take)!

But yes... it'll be a pretty big undertaking, as with any and all webmastery that'll require significant amounts of your time and commitment.
Remember: you can work on your website at your own pace and there's no algorithm demanding you update it ten times a day to stay relevant. I usually squeeze in some coding after I'm done with work or classes for the day and then draw (if I'm feeling up to it) on my days off. Maybe it'll work for you, maybe it won't, but I think you'll find a comfortable balance once you dip your toes it all.

Also, you could maybe add a meta/gallery section to share your art? It might work better than including galleries on character profiles (which you might not even want to make due to the nature of your idea...), which is what I'm more used to.
Personally, I adore reading about the meta behind someone's work. The creative process, where some ideas originated, concept art, etc. Just something to consider.

[krongulus]

Thank you for the reply!   

I thought it over, and I decided im gonna go ahead with the fictional internet idea. Of course like you mentioned there will be some meta parts for a gallery and such, but I'm honestly pretty intimidated and excited. I already have a lot of half finished stuff from old projects i can bash together.

My current issue im having is designing the homepage. The internet doesnt really have a homepage, so ive been doodling up different ideas, nothings entirely clicked yet but im figuring out.

Heres some of my free ideas so far   
- A virtual desktop (realized this would be an entirely other thing/issue)
- A 2012 yahoo/style homepage
- just a 3 column layout
- Something actually similar to Melon's website (Melon mention ), a bit hard to explain what im imagining here but one of those sites where all the navigation is done with iframes/switching out the 'box' thing
- A top/down ascii city view people can navigate by scrolling in all directions (somehow the most ambitious one)

I'm sure ill figure it out- but the homepage is peoples first impression so i really wanna get it right

[mongju]

 
- A 2012 yahoo/style homepage

I think the Yahoo page style idea is the best one! Also I really like the fictional internet idea and I am very excited to see how it will look, though I would heavily recommend taking your time ^^

Also to answer your initial question of how I would like to present my own worldbuilding project, its a bit complicated because there are many worlds within my paracosm and I would like to present them in many different ways across different mediums. Some ideas I've had include

• Wiki, moreso as a directory that people can always refer to rather than the main way to present
• Short stories in a visual novel format
• Fictional website blog
• Fictional news website (would be a section on my website rather than its own website but you get the point)
• Webcomic
• Animated series, with each episode being fairly short

These are moreso ideas rather than things that I've actually made, though I am currently working on the fictional blog and the wiki