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- Aug 12, 2015
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It has been a very long time since I last came by here and for a while I thought this place had been nuked cuz I couldn't find it. I hope I'm putting this in the right place, but if not please move it or do whatever you need to do with it.
Anyway, hello! Pokemon Nurse has been shelved for the time being, but recently I've gotten a new game idea that's more suitable for a commercial-scope game. The goal I'm hoping to achieve with this topic is: communicate the idea, layout the basic gameplay that I have figured out, get feedback on things like "Does this game sound like something you would play? Is there potential?", and also gain feedback/get help figuring out things like hiring people to help with the project, pay, and all that stuff. Since, like I said, this is intended for a commercial release.
--The Idea--
I believe in karma, so I've always thought it'd be really neat to make a game centered around the concept of karma. But for a long while I didn't know how to do this or what that would look like, until recently.
A game about karma is, fundamentally, all about choice and the benefits or consequences of those choices. So for this game, the player would get to choose basics like gender and race (and name) before the game starts and then be launched into a life that fits those choices. The game then follows the player through various stages of their life, all the way from birth until their death. The tutorial starts you at when you're a baby and is the only time the game's hidden karma meter wouldn't be affected by whatever you do. Because you'd be a baby so the universe can't really hold you accountable for **** you do as a baby. But after the baby stage comes being 5 years old, when karma will start to accumulate based on things you do. Then 10, then 16, then 21, then 30, so on and so forth until you're on your deathbed, or until you make a choice that ends up with you dying prematurely. Within each period of life there will be a large number of tasks/quests you can do ranging from simple to complex. However, to make the choice system have more impact, it'll be kind of like Persona 4 where you have a limited amount of in-game time to do things and the number of things TO do outweighs the time you have to do them, thereby making it impossible for a player to do all possible quests in a single period of life. It also adds to replayability.
The karma meter is hidden because much like in real life there's no cheat sheet to know how something will affect your karmic standing. The idea is to encourage players to make decisions based on their own values or desires, not on what will increase a number on a screen to be where they want it to be. At the end of the player's in-game life, their life will be summarized (possibly with replays but I'm still thinking about it) with all the good and bad decisions they made in life and the outcomes of those decisions. At the end of the summary is when their karma is finally tallied up. Right now, there's no punishment or anything for having a negative karma count, but the karma accumulated would be considered the player's high score. They'd also be directed back to the Title Screen where they can start the game over again (their previous life's karmic ranking would be displayed on the Title Screen for their reference) and choose either the same thing they did before or choose a different life altogether. On 2nd and up playthroughs they'd be greeted on the life select screen in a different manner. I.E. on the first playthrough when you first open a new game you'll be greeted with something like "Welcome. This is your first time here." vs successive playthroughs which will have them be greeted with "Welcome back. You're interested in learning more/trying life out again, huh?"
Basically, the way to think about the choice system here is it's a lot like Dragon Age's, but with time-sensitive quests or events ala Persona 4 where you only had a set amount of days to do something so you had to budget your time wisely.
--Gameplay Basics--
Like mentioned previously, the concept of karma is the central theme that drives the game. Within each period of life that the game focuses on (which will probably only be a few choice ages) there are quests and events that'll only happen or can be completed within that time period. Quests can be found literally anywhere. They can be on objects, they can be given to you by NPCs, they can be self-gained (as in, the PC will occasionally have a random thought to do something, but it's up to the player whether or not they do it), they can be anywhere pretty much. Quests will each have an impact on your karma. Doing good things will net you good karma. Bad decisions will take away from it. Most quests will only make you gain or lose karma by 1 point, but certain decisions in some quests that lead to consequences like, say, killing a person? Karma would go down at least 5 points. Doing heroic acts may net you +5 karma. But since the karma meter is hidden, the player has to discover what actions lead to what outcomes and see where their decisions will lead them. BUT, the game would drag on forever if you were able to do everything in a single period of life. Which is why each period (except the baby/tutorial period) lasts for only a certain number of days. I'm not sure yet quite how many days, that's actually something I'd like feedback/ideas/opinions on, but ideally each in-game day would be about 10 minutes irl. About what Stardew Valley is, I think.
Intertwined with the karma system is the choice system that makes things impact your karma. Choices are presented throughout various times, either as part of events, doing quests, or when spontaneity hits the PC. NOT doing quests is also a valid choice, but some quests will come back in later points of their life to haunt them as a result of not being done. Like how in Fable 2 if you didn't do a specific quest in Oakvale at the time it was doable, coming back later in the story resulted in the town being pretty much in shambles. All because you didn't want to take 5 minutes to do a dumb quest. Likewise, some quests completed at earlier parts of one's life will pop up again later on as a different quest, but it will be benefited by the player's earlier actions. Examples of choice questions a player might get are like, "Will you accept the stranger's drink?" which would possibly show up in the 16 yo period if the PC decides to go to a party being held by a classmate where alcohol is being served with no chaperones.
And of course, there's a concept of lives. There's technically only one life, because, well, if the player makes a decision that leads to them dying before they reach the end then there's no undo on death. No retries. If they die at age 10 they get taken back to the Title Screen and they can start life over with a clean slate. Again, the goal is reinforcing the impact of choices. BUT, not all lives are identical, of course. Each life is already pretty customizable considering the quests, but the truth is that people born with certain bodies have MUCH different lives from each other, as do people of different races. For that reason, things like life circumstances and unique events and locations are only able to be found in the lives of specific races and gender combos. The life of a black girl, for example, is much different than the life led by a white boy, or any other race. Those differences, ideally, will be reflected in this game if space provides.
--Help and Feedback--
And now comes the fun part. I'm a white female-bodied person. As such, I feel like I can only reasonably write a story in this format that would hold meaning to other white female-bodied people. I COULD write all the other story branches for other races, but I fear not doing those stories justice. That's why I'd hope to build a team with multiple different writers to contribute story branches with their own twists and turns. I want there to be social justice stories, LGBT stories, disabled stories, etc etc. This kind of game format allows for ALL of those possibilities and that's WAY too much for one college student to do on her own. I have no idea how many writers I'd need though, I'd need at least enough people to write all the main branches that are separated by race and sex, but a few people to work with all writers on quests both in general and to tie in with the various lives.
I know I'll need at least 2, maybe 3 programmers.
I don't even know how many artists. Probably at least 2 or 3 as well.
And of course, I want to make sure everyone gets paid for any work contributed. The goal of this game would be for commercial release, so I need to be able to actually legally use any created assets. Sadly, I don't know what constitutes a fair rate for any of those positions or how to go about pulling this together.
If anyone here is able to offer feedback, advice, suggestions, referrals, anything at all that would be most appreciated!
Also for engine, I'd actually like to hear opinions on that too. RN all I have is VX Ace, but I've been watching MV waiting for its price to drop below 50% in a sale. Considering the scope of the project, would you experienced designers say VXA or MV might work better? I'd like to hear programmer's opinions too, since I know the two engines use vastly different scripting languages.
Anyway, hello! Pokemon Nurse has been shelved for the time being, but recently I've gotten a new game idea that's more suitable for a commercial-scope game. The goal I'm hoping to achieve with this topic is: communicate the idea, layout the basic gameplay that I have figured out, get feedback on things like "Does this game sound like something you would play? Is there potential?", and also gain feedback/get help figuring out things like hiring people to help with the project, pay, and all that stuff. Since, like I said, this is intended for a commercial release.
--The Idea--
I believe in karma, so I've always thought it'd be really neat to make a game centered around the concept of karma. But for a long while I didn't know how to do this or what that would look like, until recently.
A game about karma is, fundamentally, all about choice and the benefits or consequences of those choices. So for this game, the player would get to choose basics like gender and race (and name) before the game starts and then be launched into a life that fits those choices. The game then follows the player through various stages of their life, all the way from birth until their death. The tutorial starts you at when you're a baby and is the only time the game's hidden karma meter wouldn't be affected by whatever you do. Because you'd be a baby so the universe can't really hold you accountable for **** you do as a baby. But after the baby stage comes being 5 years old, when karma will start to accumulate based on things you do. Then 10, then 16, then 21, then 30, so on and so forth until you're on your deathbed, or until you make a choice that ends up with you dying prematurely. Within each period of life there will be a large number of tasks/quests you can do ranging from simple to complex. However, to make the choice system have more impact, it'll be kind of like Persona 4 where you have a limited amount of in-game time to do things and the number of things TO do outweighs the time you have to do them, thereby making it impossible for a player to do all possible quests in a single period of life. It also adds to replayability.
The karma meter is hidden because much like in real life there's no cheat sheet to know how something will affect your karmic standing. The idea is to encourage players to make decisions based on their own values or desires, not on what will increase a number on a screen to be where they want it to be. At the end of the player's in-game life, their life will be summarized (possibly with replays but I'm still thinking about it) with all the good and bad decisions they made in life and the outcomes of those decisions. At the end of the summary is when their karma is finally tallied up. Right now, there's no punishment or anything for having a negative karma count, but the karma accumulated would be considered the player's high score. They'd also be directed back to the Title Screen where they can start the game over again (their previous life's karmic ranking would be displayed on the Title Screen for their reference) and choose either the same thing they did before or choose a different life altogether. On 2nd and up playthroughs they'd be greeted on the life select screen in a different manner. I.E. on the first playthrough when you first open a new game you'll be greeted with something like "Welcome. This is your first time here." vs successive playthroughs which will have them be greeted with "Welcome back. You're interested in learning more/trying life out again, huh?"
Basically, the way to think about the choice system here is it's a lot like Dragon Age's, but with time-sensitive quests or events ala Persona 4 where you only had a set amount of days to do something so you had to budget your time wisely.
--Gameplay Basics--
Like mentioned previously, the concept of karma is the central theme that drives the game. Within each period of life that the game focuses on (which will probably only be a few choice ages) there are quests and events that'll only happen or can be completed within that time period. Quests can be found literally anywhere. They can be on objects, they can be given to you by NPCs, they can be self-gained (as in, the PC will occasionally have a random thought to do something, but it's up to the player whether or not they do it), they can be anywhere pretty much. Quests will each have an impact on your karma. Doing good things will net you good karma. Bad decisions will take away from it. Most quests will only make you gain or lose karma by 1 point, but certain decisions in some quests that lead to consequences like, say, killing a person? Karma would go down at least 5 points. Doing heroic acts may net you +5 karma. But since the karma meter is hidden, the player has to discover what actions lead to what outcomes and see where their decisions will lead them. BUT, the game would drag on forever if you were able to do everything in a single period of life. Which is why each period (except the baby/tutorial period) lasts for only a certain number of days. I'm not sure yet quite how many days, that's actually something I'd like feedback/ideas/opinions on, but ideally each in-game day would be about 10 minutes irl. About what Stardew Valley is, I think.
Intertwined with the karma system is the choice system that makes things impact your karma. Choices are presented throughout various times, either as part of events, doing quests, or when spontaneity hits the PC. NOT doing quests is also a valid choice, but some quests will come back in later points of their life to haunt them as a result of not being done. Like how in Fable 2 if you didn't do a specific quest in Oakvale at the time it was doable, coming back later in the story resulted in the town being pretty much in shambles. All because you didn't want to take 5 minutes to do a dumb quest. Likewise, some quests completed at earlier parts of one's life will pop up again later on as a different quest, but it will be benefited by the player's earlier actions. Examples of choice questions a player might get are like, "Will you accept the stranger's drink?" which would possibly show up in the 16 yo period if the PC decides to go to a party being held by a classmate where alcohol is being served with no chaperones.
And of course, there's a concept of lives. There's technically only one life, because, well, if the player makes a decision that leads to them dying before they reach the end then there's no undo on death. No retries. If they die at age 10 they get taken back to the Title Screen and they can start life over with a clean slate. Again, the goal is reinforcing the impact of choices. BUT, not all lives are identical, of course. Each life is already pretty customizable considering the quests, but the truth is that people born with certain bodies have MUCH different lives from each other, as do people of different races. For that reason, things like life circumstances and unique events and locations are only able to be found in the lives of specific races and gender combos. The life of a black girl, for example, is much different than the life led by a white boy, or any other race. Those differences, ideally, will be reflected in this game if space provides.
--Help and Feedback--
And now comes the fun part. I'm a white female-bodied person. As such, I feel like I can only reasonably write a story in this format that would hold meaning to other white female-bodied people. I COULD write all the other story branches for other races, but I fear not doing those stories justice. That's why I'd hope to build a team with multiple different writers to contribute story branches with their own twists and turns. I want there to be social justice stories, LGBT stories, disabled stories, etc etc. This kind of game format allows for ALL of those possibilities and that's WAY too much for one college student to do on her own. I have no idea how many writers I'd need though, I'd need at least enough people to write all the main branches that are separated by race and sex, but a few people to work with all writers on quests both in general and to tie in with the various lives.
I know I'll need at least 2, maybe 3 programmers.
I don't even know how many artists. Probably at least 2 or 3 as well.
And of course, I want to make sure everyone gets paid for any work contributed. The goal of this game would be for commercial release, so I need to be able to actually legally use any created assets. Sadly, I don't know what constitutes a fair rate for any of those positions or how to go about pulling this together.
If anyone here is able to offer feedback, advice, suggestions, referrals, anything at all that would be most appreciated!
Also for engine, I'd actually like to hear opinions on that too. RN all I have is VX Ace, but I've been watching MV waiting for its price to drop below 50% in a sale. Considering the scope of the project, would you experienced designers say VXA or MV might work better? I'd like to hear programmer's opinions too, since I know the two engines use vastly different scripting languages.
