RPG Maker Forums

Hello, all!

I am in need of your help and advice. I have been working on an RPG for a few months now, but have a slight problem. Perhaps I am reading to much into this, however, I have noticed that my RPG is more or less becoming a Visual Novel. The beginning is almost 10-15 minutes long, mostly composed of dialogue and automated movement, and tells a non-interactive story for the most part. While this may be needed to convey the "slice of life" beginning I need, I'm concerned about my players' attention span. As the project is now, I have introduced all three main playable characters (or, protagonists), established mood and theme, and thrust the player into the main world at the 15 minute mark. All this is fundamental to telling a good story ... in a book or novel. Therefore, I have come up with two solutions. And please, if you have comments or advice, share them.

1) Go the Final Fantasy VII Route

One option is to place an action prologue before this first act, establishing secondary characters and the main world through gameplay and quick dialogue. Replaying the first Bombing Mission from FFVII gave me this idea: an interactive tutorial that is related but somewhat independent from the main prologue. The purpose of this is to give the player a taste of the main story, so they know the game is not completely made of cutscenes and dialogue.

2) Go the Kingdom Hearts Route

No, I don't mean Kingdom Hearts II. Somewhat related to the concept above is the "Dive Into The Heart" staple of the Kingdom Hearts series. This needn't occur at the beginning per say, but if it did, I can introduce my main character in a dreamlike setting, introducing necessary mechanics (combat, movement, etc.), while alluding to the main plot. While more subtle than the first option, this may loan itself better to the story I'm trying to write.

3) Go the Amnesia Route

My final idea is to chop this opening up, and tell it through various flashbacks. In this method, I'd throw the player into the main story from the get go, allowing them to find objects (i.e. key items) that trigger flashbacks to earlier events. This method would allow me to tell the main story and the opening almost simultaneously, something that would be hard to do well, but if I somehow pulled it off, it could make for an excellent beginning over the course of 25-30 minutes.

Bottom line, I know in my heart that 10-15 minutes of pure cutscene in the beginning is a great way to lose the player, but I also have a story I need to tell. So please, tell me how you wrote your story, and what techniques you've seen work wonders, and others fail miserably. Thank you all for your time.