Concept Check - Game Idea, would you like it?

[Yui]

So basically I just got an idea for a game but I'm not sure if its worth the time it would take to invest. SO anyway this is my concept as of now...

Original Concept

Spoiler

Story (sorta?) -
the game will be about Chunnibyou (delusional teenagers) Basically the game will be set in a real world small town (it'd actually help if you watched the anime "She may suffer from teenage delusions but I love her anyway" in romaji its Chuunibyou demo Koi ga ****ai!) So anyway the story will be about the player character trying to survive highschool while being a Chunni, and occasionally the world will transform, math tests will become an quest to save a dying alien world. History will become a time traveling adventure. And meeting others like the player character will lead to epic battles between the two, which in reality they just look like dorks screaming out anime-esque attack names and fake fighting.

System Ideas/Game Design

gameplay gameplay gameplay, So time management.

You have to attend school, and while at school you're trying to get good grades. but after school you're free to do what you want, and you can join or start a club ---> basically like any other game that does this

The game will last for 3 in game years, if you don't complete the game before then you get the bad ending. Each day in the game will last 4 real world hours (this can be changed once dev starts, I'm just speculating right now)

Time will progress if you sleep or not, but ofc if you don't sleep for 3 days you will die, same for eating, so its best not to stay away from home for too long, or staying up all night playing games or on the internet.

Internet - the internet will be a minigame, you can visit youtube (will give a fake name to it tho and to all of these) an anime forums, watch anime, play your favorite mmo, play your steam games, or stop by rpgmakerweb.com each will be a different minigame which will be deteremined later. You can spend as much time as you'd like on these sites, but time will still tick away.

Investigation - While you yourself are an anime fan, and a severe chunni, you try to hide it, as do some others (though there are some who don't) when you investigate people you'll find out more about them, and if you find a fellow chunni, you can attempt to deepen your relationship (this will add them to your possible party members as long as they're free when you call them)

Relationships - the closer you get to someone the more they're willing to do for you, so to have someone constantly in your party you need to have a strong relationship with them. You can also date characters after a certain point, and to get a character's ending you will need to max their relationship value.

Chunni Meter - if you spend too much time with anime and video games, and not enough on important things like homework, or human interaction, your chunnibyou gage will start to fill, the more it fills the more outlandish your char will become until it reaches max, this is when the character will do stuff like wear eye patches, dress in a steam punk raincoat (or other nerdy wear) and will begin talking like a complete nerd. This state will cause you to lose all your popularity

Popularity - this is built from doing good in school, and having strong relationship values all around. Joining a sport or cultural club also increases this stat.

Final Word

I think I would really enjoy making a game like this, despite all the systems and things, I think it'd be a pretty laid back story with a lot of humor. Its totally something I would play if someone else made it. So what about the rest of you, would you wanna play this or possibly be part of creating it?

Concept Ver 2

Story (sorta?) -

the game will be about Chunnibyou (delusional teenagers) Basically the game will be set in a real world small town (it'd actually help if you watched the anime "She may suffer from teenage delusions but I love her anyway" in romaji its Chuunibyou demo Koi ga ****ai!) So anyway the story will be about the player character trying to survive highschool while being a Chunni, and occasionally the world will transform, math tests will become an quest to save a dying alien world. History will become a time traveling adventure. And meeting others like the player character will lead to epic battles between the two, which in reality they just look like dorks screaming out anime-esque attack names and fake fighting.

Systems -

Chunni Meter - if you spend too much time with anime and video games, and not enough on important things like homework, or human interaction, your chunnibyou gage will start to fill, the more it fills the more outlandish your char will become until it reaches max, this is when the character will do stuff like wear eye patches, dress in a steam punk raincoat (or other nerdy wear) and will begin talking like a complete nerd.

Investigation - While you yourself are an anime fan, and a severe chunni, you try to hide it, as do some others (though there are some who don't) when you investigate people you'll find out more about them, and if you find a fellow chunni, you can attempt to deepen your relationship (this will add them to your possible party members as long as they're free when you call them)

Party System - Other Chunni can join you in your delusions as long as they're not busy when you have them.

A unnamed system for allowing the player to customize the nerdiness of the player character, I don't have any ideas yet on what this will be like.

-Possible Systems-

Multiple endings and story paths based on which characters you interact with most, much like "routes" in a visual novel. Also some events in the delusions will affect the outcome as well.

Final Word

I think I would really enjoy making a game like this, despite all the systems and things, I think it'd be a pretty laid back story with a lot of humor. Its totally something I would play if someone else made it. So what about the rest of you, would you wanna play this or possibly be part of creating it?

 

[Iavra]

Heh, funny enough i had a similar story idea just a few days ago ^^ Though, i actually got inspired by Unraveled (the game) and Sucker Punch (the movie). I didn't figure out anything gameplay-related to far, but a game like this would probably be mainly story-driven, with more or less set paths, each level having a different setting and being a small game on its own. Since it all plays in your imagination, there is a lot of freedom for the game creator.

But since i'm bad a world building and basically anything that requires creativity, it stopped there ^^

 

[Yui]

you could always try to get someone to help you! I mean I could give you tons of ideas if you wanted, not saying that I'd sign on full time, well not unless I got REALLY intrigued, but I seriously  can throw ideas at you all day. Tis my talent creating many useless characters and stories that have nothing to do with anything I care about at the time!!!

 

[StrangePenguin]

One word for this: wow.

I don't watch anime all that much but I've heard of that show before. I can't imagine how long this would take. This is going to be awesome. You have my support!

One more thing, how about you create a bit of a story going on at home too? The main character might picture his/her parents as reptilian beasts who would do anything to stop him/her from doing anything remotely fun? It might later turn out to be an epic boss battle or even crazier, the parents become delusional as well! Just a suggestion  .

 

[Yui]

haha thats a good idea, in the Chunni anime Rikka the lead character often times fought her older sister in a delusional way, Soup Ladle vs Umbrella... I like that suggestion tbh. I'll do my best to not let it be too similar to chu-2 byo.

 

[Kes]

The game will last for 3 in game years, if you don't complete the game before then you get the bad ending. Each day in the game will last 4 real world hours

 3 years = 1,095 days.

One day = 4 real world hours

Total game length = 4,380 hours

Few RM games go over 25 hours of game play.  To aim to have over four thousand seems a tad unrealistic.

 

[Yui]

 3 years = 1,095 days.

One day = 4 real world hours

Total game length = 4,380 hours

Few RM games go over 25 hours of game play.  To aim to have over four thousand seems a tad unrealistic.

well that timing was just a place holder, also its not like your character would be active all that time. You'd need to sleep, and also most classes at school would just skip ahead unless something interesting happened/you had a maxed chunni gage.

The time would be continuous and unrelated to the story or otherwise, basically it'd be you have THAT long to finish the game, or you lose. But if you complete it I'll probably pull a persona and just fast foward the game, or end it there.. but all of this is a first draft so to speak I'll need to change alot to it. But I'd like to make a game with enough minigames and activities that you could just waste your time doing nothing at all. Sorta like rune factory, or persona 4 even.

 

[Petite Elite]

Personally, I think if you cut all ties to Japanese culture, this could be amazing. I'm guessing that's what inspired the idea, but, as someone who doesn't watch a lot of anime or know much about east Asia, I would feel a little intimidated, or possibly even put off by seeing random Japanese words and references scattered throughout the game.

Of course, this is only my opinion and I might be in the minority here but I think if you came up with some original names for things (like for the people who suffer these delusions) and came up with a fictional town in a non-specific country, then I believe it could add a lot more charm and memorability to the game as well; adding to the fantastical feel of imagining new worlds, etc. 

Completely disregard this if that's not the direction you want to head; I just really like the idea but think you could be limiting yourself here, or maybe even missing an opportunity to develop something amazing that is entirely yours.

 

[Yui]

well I'm just concepting right now, so I haven't got a stable setting/whatever yet, Also if I did add japanese references, it'll be through an weeaboo character since I think that would be funny. I don't really know what you would call "middle schooler syndrome" in english, hmm but its not like the word itself is really all that important

edit: but then again, niche games are niche

edit 2: what type of setting do you see this taking place in?

 

[Andar]

well that timing was just a place holder, also its not like your character would be active all that time. You'd need to sleep, and also most classes at school would just skip ahead unless something interesting happened

The problem is not how much time passes, but how much content you have for that time.


As a general guideline, you'll have five to ten minutes to "hook" a player to the game, and you need to get the basic game mechanisms included in that time (for several reasons that I don't have time to explain).


And then you'll have to continue providing similiar content levels to keep the player in the game.


The fact that most RM games stay below 25 hours of gaming is not due to any timeline decision like the one you did - it's because the developers have problems getting content done for that time.


Creating one hour of game content easily takes 20 to 60 hours of the developer working. That is the basic of how you should calculate.


In what time do you want to finish the game project?


Let's assume you want to finish it within one year, and you can put about twenty hours of work per week into it - that is a high number for anything but a professional game developer, because you also need to work for your own money, sleep and so on.


That means you have 52*20 hours development time, with an average of 40 hours needed per hour of gaming content.


Which means that you'll get around the 25 hours of gaming time content in that year.


Do the same math for yourself, and if this is your first big project then calculate rather 60 hours development per hour of content.

 

[Yui]

hmm would it be feasible though (not the thousands of hours of content... but rather the systems and basic structure) to complete in 2 years, if I hire a team?

Hypothetically speaking, lets say that I have 2k usd, and willing to spend on this project to get things started, would things become feasible in this situation? I'm actually very unfamiliar with the prices for things here, but I won't ask specifics in this thread, if I choose to go this path I'll just put out a hiring thread, and see what the prices are. I know with unity a good programer will cost you 40usd/hour or 500 per small project.

 

[Wavelength]

((Note: This post is based on the "Original Concept".))

Here are my honest thoughts, since you asked for them.

I've never heard of the chunni concept before, but it sounds like it could be a very interesting character/point-of-view hook, and if done well, could make for a popular game.  I really like the kind of imaginative scenarios you're talking about in the "Story" section, assuming that it's done from an earnest perspective (framed the way the character sees it, or similar), and not making the character out to be a joke by constantly showing how out-of-touch the character looks from the outside.

Having said that, I think several of your gameplay ideas are awful.  I know that sounds really mean of me and I'm sorry for that, but I feel it needs to be said.  Good alternate-life games (like Harvest Moon, Persona, or even Surviving High School) tend to provide enjoyment through abstraction, freedom, expression, exploration, setting, depth, and meaningful choices, and you've suggested at least one idea that will sabotage every single one of these (except setting).

Expression is probably the single biggest draw of alternate-life games, but with such a strongly-defined oddball protagonist, you are sort of working against yourself here.  How are you going to fully establish the character's chunni identity and mindset in a way that also lets the player express themself (not the character, but themself) through what they say and do in a given situation?  That's an almost impossible task because doing one almost always directly takes away from the other.

I'll describe in more detail why I think each mechanic/system is an okay or bad idea, but in general, I think you really need to consider the game experience that the player will have, or you're going to end up spending a ton of time and effort on something that will be hard to like.

gameplay gameplay gameplay, So time management.
You have to attend school, and while at school you're trying to get good grades. but after school you're free to do what you want, and you can join or start a club ---> basically like any other game that does this

Just a quick note - consider abandoning the alternate-life genre altogether for a game like this.  When you have such creative and outlandish concepts to show the player (like a math test turning into a quest to save an alien world), I think you're going to provide the biggest impact by creating a very directed experience, where you (as the game designer) will know where each character stands in relationship with the protagonist at any given point and you can chain different vignettes together in a relatively fixed order that makes sense to the player as a narrative.

The game will last for 3 in game years, if you don't complete the game before then you get the bad ending. Each day in the game will last 4 real world hours (this can be changed once dev starts, I'm just speculating right now)

I was shocked that you didn't respond "omg I'm so silly, I meant four minutes" when ksjp pointed out that your "placeholder" day length would mean a game where the main game lasts over four thousand hours.  Even if you cut it down by a factor of ten you're still talking over 400 hours to "complete" the main quest/narrative, which is more than a vast majority of players are willing to invest in a game.  This is why most alternate-life games make their in-game days anywhere from three minutes (Persona) to thirty minutes (Rune Factory), unless you're spending a lot of time on some other non-life activity (like a dungeon).

Even if a player is somehow willing to spend 1,000+ hours with your game, how do you plan to spread out the content enough that the player will still be seeing new and interesting things during hour 800, while making it rich and detailed enough that the player who can only invest 50 hours into your game (which is, absurdly, less than two in-game weeks) doesn't get massively bored?

You say that "time will skip ahead at certain points like when you're in class" but then... does that mean that the in-game day lasts 4 real-life hours, or not?  You seem very unsure about how to actually implement passing-time into your game and my advice to people who aren't very confident about doing this is, "Don't."

Time will progress if you sleep or not, but ofc if you don't sleep for 3 days you will die, same for eating, so its best not to stay away from home for too long, or staying up all night playing games or on the internet.

Ever notice how good alternate-life games abstract out the bare basics like eating, managing sleep, or going to the bathroom?  It's because these aren't fun or interesting activities, and they take the player's time and attention away from things that are interesting.  Do the same.  There's no point in hanging a game over above the player's head for forgetting to manage tiny life details in this kind of game.

Internet - the internet will be a minigame, you can visit youtube (will give a fake name to it tho and to all of these) an anime forums, watch anime, play your favorite mmo, play your steam games, or stop by rpgmakerweb.com each will be a different minigame which will be deteremined later. You can spend as much time as you'd like on these sites, but time will still tick away.

What will these do, in a gameplay sense?  Not only do they take the player's time (which might be okay if they're fun), but you've described elsewhere how these side activities will deprive the player of sleep, make them more delusional and less popular, and generally screw up their life.  What benefit does it provide?  Why will the player want to do these things that you, as the game designer, spend tens of thousands of hours of your real life creating?  (Because if you want to create 4,000 days' worth of interesting forum content, anime-watching, etc., it will take you tens of thousands of hours to create!)

Investigation - While you yourself are an anime fan, and a severe chunni, you try to hide it, as do some others (though there are some who don't) when you investigate people you'll find out more about them, and if you find a fellow chunni, you can attempt to deepen your relationship (this will add them to your possible party members as long as they're free when you call them)

I think this actually sounds very good and could be a nice core element in any chunni game, whether or not it's alternate-life.

Relationships - the closer you get to someone the more they're willing to do for you, so to have someone constantly in your party you need to have a strong relationship with them. You can also date characters after a certain point, and to get a character's ending you will need to max their relationship value.

Characters will join your party?  Does that mean there's combat?  If so, why is there combat?

And while relationship-building (and the benefits that come with it) can be very interesting and rewarding in video games, you're already stretching yourself way too thin with all of the other game elements.  I know this is a game about being unrealistic, but (unless this topic is meant to be a pure hypothetical about a game you will never make but just wanted to discuss) you as the game designer need to be realistic about what you're trying to accomplish!

Chunni Meter - if you spend too much time with anime and video games, and not enough on important things like homework, or human interaction, your chunnibyou gage will start to fill, the more it fills the more outlandish your char will become until it reaches max, this is when the character will do stuff like wear eye patches, dress in a steam punk raincoat (or other nerdy wear) and will begin talking like a complete nerd. This state will cause you to lose all your popularity

Popularity - this is built from doing good in school, and having strong relationship values all around. Joining a sport or cultural club also increases this stat.

At first I was liking the concept of the Chunni meter.  "Okay, that's cute", I thought.  "You're giving your player the ability to express themself through their actions, and if they want to release a bit of their inner crazy, they can see the results in little touches such as dress-like-a-pirate, and it won't necessarily help or hurt, it'll just be a fun way to reflect what the player has been spending their time doing."  Then you ruined it by mentioning that doing so will cause the player to lose all popularity (a severe gameplay drawback).  Why stop the player from being who they want to be?  For a game like this to work, you need a razor-sharp vision about how you're going to make each choice feel meaningful and rewarding, and in most of your systems I'm seeing the exact opposite.

===

Once again, I apologize if this came off as caustic.  I spent over an hour writing up my thoughts because I do really like the story idea a lot, and I've enjoyed many of your other posts from around the forum.  So I hope you can understand that the bluntness above is coming from a place of concern for the wrong direction that you'll be digging in if you try to create your game anything like the way you've described it here.

Consider whether you really want to make an alternate-life game, and if so, consider whether this is really the best story/protagonist to tie it to (I've got a lot of story hooks in my own head but I've had to put some of the better ones on the shelf for later because they wouldn't be appropriate to the type of game I'm good at making).  Consider which systems will be counterproductive or unnecessary in the context of the ultimate goals (giving your player interesting content at a fast pace, and presenting meaningful choices that feel rewarding).  And remember that real life will stop you from being able to invest more than (at an absolute maximum) several thousand hours into making your dream game - consider how you want to spend those hours, because you can't do everything.

I really hope this helps, and look forward to information about your game in development, whatever you choose to do.

 

[Yui]

Here are my honest thoughts, since you asked for them.

I've never heard of the chunni concept before, but it sounds like it could be a very interesting character/point-of-view hook, and if done well, could make for a popular game.  I really like the kind of imaginative scenarios you're talking about in the "Story" section, assuming that it's done from an earnest perspective (framed the way the character sees it, or similar), and not making the character out to be a joke by constantly showing how out-of-touch the character looks from the outside.

Having said that, I think several of your gameplay ideas are awful.  I know that sounds really mean of me and I'm sorry for that, but I feel it needs to be said.  Good alternate-life games (like Harvest Moon, Persona, or even Surviving High School) tend to provide enjoyment through abstraction, freedom, expression, exploration, setting, depth, and meaningful choices, and you've suggested at least one idea that will sabotage every single one of these (except setting).

Expression is probably the single biggest draw of alternate-life games, but with such a strongly-defined oddball protagonist, you are sort of working against yourself here.  How are you going to fully establish the character's chunni identity and mindset in a way that also lets the player express themself (not the character, but themself) through what they say and do in a given situation?  That's an almost impossible task because doing one almost always directly takes away from the other.

I'll describe in more detail why I think each mechanic/system is an okay or bad idea, but in general, I think you really need to consider the game experience that the player will have, or you're going to end up spending a ton of time and effort on something that will be hard to like.

Just a quick note - consider abandoning the alternate-life genre altogether for a game like this.  When you have such creative and outlandish concepts to show the player (like a math test turning into a quest to save an alien world), I think you're going to provide the biggest impact by creating a very directed experience, where you (as the game designer) will know where each character stands in relationship with the protagonist at any given point and you can chain different vignettes together in a relatively fixed order that makes sense to the player as a narrative.

I was shocked that you didn't respond "omg I'm so silly, I meant four minutes" when ksjp pointed out that your "placeholder" day length would mean a game where the main game lasts over four thousand hours.  Even if you cut it down by a factor of ten you're still talking over 400 hours to "complete" the main quest/narrative, which is more than a vast majority of players are willing to invest in a game.  This is why most alternate-life games make their in-game days anywhere from three minutes (Persona) to thirty minutes (Rune Factory), unless you're spending a lot of time on some other non-life activity (like a dungeon).

Even if a player is somehow willing to spend 1,000+ hours with your game, how do you plan to spread out the content enough that the player will still be seeing new and interesting things during hour 800, while making it rich and detailed enough that the player who can only invest 50 hours into your game (which is, absurdly, less than two in-game weeks) doesn't get massively bored?

You say that "time will skip ahead at certain points like when you're in class" but then... does that mean that the in-game day lasts 4 real-life hours, or not?  You seem very unsure about how to actually implement passing-time into your game and my advice to people who aren't very confident about doing this is, "Don't."

Ever notice how good alternate-life games abstract out the bare basics like eating, managing sleep, or going to the bathroom?  It's because these aren't fun or interesting activities, and they take the player's time and attention away from things that are interesting.  Do the same.  There's no point in hanging a game over above the player's head for forgetting to manage tiny life details in this kind of game.

What will these do, in a gameplay sense?  Not only do they take the player's time (which might be okay if they're fun), but you've described elsewhere how these side activities will deprive the player of sleep, make them more delusional and less popular, and generally screw up their life.  What benefit does it provide?  Why will the player want to do these things that you, as the game designer, spend tens of thousands of hours of your real life creating?  (Because if you want to create 4,000 days' worth of interesting forum content, anime-watching, etc., it will take you tens of thousands of hours to create!)

I think this actually sounds very good and could be a nice core element in any chunni game, whether or not it's alternate-life.

Characters will join your party?  Does that mean there's combat?  If so, why is there combat?

And while relationship-building (and the benefits that come with it) can be very interesting and rewarding in video games, you're already stretching yourself way too thin with all of the other game elements.  I know this is a game about being unrealistic, but (unless this topic is meant to be a pure hypothetical about a game you will never make but just wanted to discuss) you as the game designer need to be realistic about what you're trying to accomplish!

At first I was liking the concept of the Chunni meter.  "Okay, that's cute", I thought.  "You're giving your player the ability to express themself through their actions, and if they want to release a bit of their inner crazy, they can see the results in little touches such as dress-like-a-pirate, and it won't necessarily help or hurt, it'll just be a fun way to reflect what the player has been spending their time doing."  Then you ruined it by mentioning that doing so will cause the player to lose all popularity (a severe gameplay drawback).  Why stop the player from being who they want to be?  For a game like this to work, you need a razor-sharp vision about how you're going to make each choice feel meaningful and rewarding, and in most of your systems I'm seeing the exact opposite.

===

Once again, I apologize if this came off as caustic.  I spent over an hour writing up my thoughts because I do really like the story idea a lot, and I've enjoyed many of your other posts from around the forum.  So I hope you can understand that the bluntness above is coming from a place of concern for the wrong direction that you'll be digging in if you try to create your game anything like the way you've described it here.

Consider whether you really want to make an alternate-life game, and if so, consider whether this is really the best story/protagonist to tie it to (I've got a lot of story hooks in my own head but I've had to put some of the better ones on the shelf for later because they wouldn't be appropriate to the type of game I'm good at making).  Consider which systems will be counterproductive or unnecessary in the context of the ultimate goals (giving your player interesting content at a fast pace, and presenting meaningful choices that feel rewarding).  And remember that real life will stop you from being able to invest more than (at an absolute maximum) several thousand hours into making your dream game - consider how you want to spend those hours, because you can't do everything.

I really hope this helps, and look forward to information about your game in development, whatever you choose to do.

First of all I wanna say that I am happy that you provided me with constructive criticism. After reading through your post, I find myself agreeing with alot of if not all of what you said, Hmm I think it would be better to have a more stable plot/story for this, and not do the detrimental second life things!

Okay so with this reworking, I'm keeping the investigation, as even if I did it the other way, imo this would be one of the core elements of the game and would provide a lot of fun, ofc I'm looking at this from the view of games I personally enjoy (ace attorney, fate/extra, Assassin Games (forum games)) and I think it could help expand and drive the plot  at certain points. Maybe the character has an arch-nemesis from online, and finds out they attend their school, so they investigate to find out who this person is that drives them up a wall.

Chunni-Gage I want to keep but remove the popularity bit (the negative thing) because it won't really fit into the game as much anymore if I remove the second-life portions (which I feel will make the game more playable and enjoyable) But I would like to add to the chunni-gage, instead of always having the same look, the character's crazyness could be chosen by the player, I'm not sure how yet? Maybe unlockables in each of the various "delusions" or maybe, it could be based on how the player plays the game. Like the side quests they do, or the minigames they play most? I'm not sure I'll have to think of something for this, do you have any ideas?

hmm I'm thinking that maybe there should be a thing that the player has to do on occasion (idk what this thing will be) but it will refill their chunni gage, which in this rendition of the game, will means the character won't be as creative. Which will essentially weaken the character when they for example meet another chunni, or it could cause issues while in the delusions, I'm not sure tho this sounds intriguing but irritating for the player at the same time.

How does it feel with these changes, Same story concept and setting but with these 2 systems featured, and the plot be handled by me.

also I'd like if somehow I could allow the player to express their own nerdiness when playing, any ideas for that as well?

 

[Iavra]

Maybe the character has an arch-nemesis from online, and finds out they attend their school, so they investigate to find out who this person is that drives them up a wall.

This kinda reminds me of Accel World ^^

 

[Yui]

I actually never watched Accel World, but I hope thats a good thing!

 

[Wavelength]

First of all I wanna say that I am happy that you provided me with constructive criticism. After reading through your post, I find myself agreeing with alot of if not all of what you said, Hmm I think it would be better to have a more stable plot/story for this, and not do the detrimental second life things!

Okay so with this reworking, I'm keeping the investigation, as even if I did it the other way, imo this would be one of the core elements of the game and would provide a lot of fun, ofc I'm looking at this from the view of games I personally enjoy (ace attorney, fate/extra, Assassin Games (forum games)) and I think it could help expand and drive the plot  at certain points. Maybe the character has an arch-nemesis from online, and finds out they attend their school, so they investigate to find out who this person is that drives them up a wall.

Chunni-Gage I want to keep but remove the popularity bit (the negative thing) because it won't really fit into the game as much anymore if I remove the second-life portions (which I feel will make the game more playable and enjoyable) But I would like to add to the chunni-gage, instead of always having the same look, the character's crazyness could be chosen by the player, I'm not sure how yet? Maybe unlockables in each of the various "delusions" or maybe, it could be based on how the player plays the game. Like the side quests they do, or the minigames they play most? I'm not sure I'll have to think of something for this, do you have any ideas?

hmm I'm thinking that maybe there should be a thing that the player has to do on occasion (idk what this thing will be) but it will refill their chunni gage, which in this rendition of the game, will means the character won't be as creative. Which will essentially weaken the character when they for example meet another chunni, or it could cause issues while in the delusions, I'm not sure tho this sounds intriguing but irritating for the player at the same time.

How does it feel with these changes, Same story concept and setting but with these 2 systems featured, and the plot be handled by me.

also I'd like if somehow I could allow the player to express their own nerdiness when playing, any ideas for that as well?

Yeah, I think it does sound way better with those changes, assuming you're getting rid of the real-time correlation and some of the open-ended elements.  You can certainly leave a few open-ended elements in there, to let the player explore a bit, but you need to strongly guide the main plot to make this work - Persona 4 is a really good example for inspiration here, but since you're giving the main character a lot of personality, you need to guide the experience even more than P4 does.

Alternatively, if you got rid of (nearly) all of the open-ended and time elements, and heavily directed the narrative, then you'd probably re-open the possibility of relationship-building with different characters, since it would be the only major variable in terms of where a character would be and what they would be doing at a given time.  The idea of them transforming into different things in your delusions, based on your relationship with them, could be interesting.

I really like the idea of the chunni style changing based on things like the sidequests you do or the minigames you play.  As one other idea, you could kind of subtly present "personality test" types of scenarios to the player; for example, maybe in one of their delusions there are four different monsters attacking (a deranged werewolf, a steam tank, a dragon with glasses, and an anthropomophic piano) and the character has a ray gun with only one charge to disintegrate an enemy with.  The action will play out once the player shoots one of the monsters (maybe they'll have to run away, or fight the rest), but the important thing is that the player revealed something about their mindset by choosing which one they didn't want to deal with, and that could affect their chunni aesthetics or even (with a lot of work) their future delusions.

I'm glad you found my feedback helpful!

 

[Yui]

Yeah, I think it does sound way better with those changes, assuming you're getting rid of the real-time correlation and some of the open-ended elements.  You can certainly leave a few open-ended elements in there, to let the player explore a bit, but you need to strongly guide the main plot to make this work - Persona 4 is a really good example for inspiration here, but since you're giving the main character a lot of personality, you need to guide the experience even more than P4 does.

Alternatively, if you got rid of (nearly) all of the open-ended and time elements, and heavily directed the narrative, then you'd probably re-open the possibility of relationship-building with different characters, since it would be the only major variable in terms of where a character would be and what they would be doing at a given time.  The idea of them transforming into different things in your delusions, based on your relationship with them, could be interesting.

I really like the idea of the chunni style changing based on things like the sidequests you do or the minigames you play.  As one other idea, you could kind of subtly present "personality test" types of scenarios to the player; for example, maybe in one of their delusions there are four different monsters attacking (a deranged werewolf, a steam tank, a dragon with glasses, and an anthropomophic piano) and the character has a ray gun with only one charge to disintegrate an enemy with.  The action will play out once the player shoots one of the monsters (maybe they'll have to run away, or fight the rest), but the important thing is that the player revealed something about their mindset by choosing which one they didn't want to deal with, and that could affect their chunni aesthetics or even (with a lot of work) their future delusions.

I'm glad you found my feedback helpful!

Maybe the "open-ended" things I have could relate directly to character relationships, this way the player would determine which character would appear more often in their delusions, I could possibly also (and this is still a bit ambitious) but, have multiple endings, with them being determined by which characters the player had the best relationship with!

I really like the idea of the subtle personality tests too, and could even lead to different endings as well, as well as you suggested different delusions (well at least ascetically) but this combined with the relation-shipping, I could allow the player to basically pick their own path, yet have a well scripted and driven narrative! It would also add replay value as the player may get curious about what the game would end up as if they had made a different choice, or became besties with a different character.

 

[Bribolox]

Ever notice how good alternate-life games abstract out the bare basics like eating, managing sleep, or going to the bathroom?  It's because these aren't fun or interesting activities, and they take the player's time and attention away from things that are interesting.  Do the same.  There's no point in hanging a game over above the player's head for forgetting to manage tiny life details in this kind of game.

Have you heard of a little game call "The Sims"? 

Anyway, the concept obviously needs work, but I would play it!

 

[Wavelength]

Maybe the "open-ended" things I have could relate directly to character relationships, this way the player would determine which character would appear more often in their delusions, I could possibly also (and this is still a bit ambitious) but, have multiple endings, with them being determined by which characters the player had the best relationship with!

I really like the idea of the subtle personality tests too, and could even lead to different endings as well, as well as you suggested different delusions (well at least ascetically) but this combined with the relation-shipping, I could allow the player to basically pick their own path, yet have a well scripted and driven narrative! It would also add replay value as the player may get curious about what the game would end up as if they had made a different choice, or became besties with a different character.

Yep, I think all of this will work well in a gameplay sense, and will allow you to keep the "overall" (main) narrative similar enough between different paths to be coherent while offering different experiences along the way, if you want to.  The only drawback is that it's a lot of work (though still a lot less than the amount of work that would be required by your original ideas ).

Have you heard of a little game call "The Sims"? 

Anyway, the concept obviously needs work, but I would play it!

One of my most-played series of all-time, for sure!  But The Sims is not an alternate-life game, it's a simulation game focused on its mechanics, with no pre-defined narrative to tell and (at least in the earlier games) few bigger goals than meeting your characters' immediate needs.  And even then, only one failure state (hunger) resulted in death and if a Sim died of starvation it was probably something the player did intentionally.

 

[Prizmik]

You have been getting a lot of good feed back so far from people who know much more about these kind of games than I do. However no one seems to have brought up something that has been bothering me since I read your original post.


As creators, we make our creations not randomly, but according to a meaningful vision of the final object we have in mind.


So when I read about a game that flatly concerns itself wholly with- self important solipsistic teens, I cant help but ask: what of it? What aim is this expedient to? What is it trying to convey to me?


Since it is a game you are making consciously, you must know, what good and true, concrete thing you are trying to convey with the entirety of your work. If you do not know this from the outset you are in big trouble, because you are bound to create a directionless mess (in any meaningful sense), and any worth it might have will be merely accidental.


Were you to know what the thesis behind your game is, everything can be designed to fit and convey it. It is as an axis that all things are arranged about, so lets say a silly mini game is made in a way to reinforce the main idea and in turn the mini game is given meaning by participating in said central idea.


Now it should not be said that a game with teenagers in it can not be a good game. But teen-life can not be an end in it self, because most people are teenagers at some point, you don't need to replicate that, unless you have some truth to reveal by using it.