Looking for advice on the beginning of my game

[GoodSelf]

 So I have the story set up for my game, but I'm running into a roadblock:  how does my character get trapped in the temple? 


 Does he hear a voice calling from the temple,  walks in, and the door closes behind him? Or does he fall through the floor into a chamber below because you know it's old.


 Does he get spun around behind a wall like in Scooby Doo, or does he sleepwalking the middle of the night to the temple?


yes I know that the characters personality will Reflect the choice  he makes, but I'm mainly looking for a  possible reason why this guy would get stuck in the temple, and his friends wouldn't be able to help them right away. 


any thoughts would be great! If you need more info, just let me know!

 

[EdgeMaverick]

Indiana Jones Style, He runs from a oncoming boulder and get trapped in the temple with no way to go back.

 

[GoodSelf]

 This actually might work. 


 The game gets pretty serious towards the end, so I wanted to have some light humor spread throughout. Having the character say:


"This must be what Harrison Ford felt like." I think would be pretty funny after escaping a Boulder ?


Thanks for your suggestion @EdgeMaverick,  So far it seems like the most viable option! 

 

[Andar]

we can't really give you a suggestion without knowing more about the game - the intro needs set the tone for the entire game,


Think about it: a lot of people will start playing, and it will be the first minute that determines if they like the game and want to continue or not. Changing the tone heavily after the intro will only result in irritated players.

 

[GoodSelf]

@Andar  yeah that makes perfect sense. The opening of my game I feel like will draw the player beyond that first minute, and I explain a lot about the temple and the characters  without having too much of a lore dump. 


 The main character getting trapped in the temple I would say is the second event that defines the tone of the game, the first being the discovery of a skeleton. 


 I understand if this is hard  for some people to come up with suggestions for, but it is very loose right now and I don't want to put too much restrictions on ideas because I'm still open to a lot of things. 


thanks for your thoughts, I'll keep them in mind moving forward.

 

[LxCharon]

I personally like (as you mentioned) the old scooby-doo trope of getting caught behind a spinning wall. That way also his friends may not even realize he's missing for a while because he was behind them or something and no one saw the spinning wall. But also is there a reason for him to get trapped? Like is there a main villain who may want to trap him? Or is it just a comedy of errors?

 

[bgillisp]

There are two Ideas I have for how to handle this:


1: Just start the game after he is trapped in the temple. It could always be the unsolved mystery of the game. After all, not every game explains everything (I've played many games where there are little things you never know the answer to.)


2: Or....make the game from the temple forward for now, and as you develop the dialogue for the other situations it might come to you. That's how I did my intro, for about 3 months I had no intro, you just started the game after a short scene, but after making a couple Chapters of my game, I managed to figure out how to do my intro and make it fit what had happened so far, so I went back and added it.


Or course, idea 2 has some disadvantages, and that is you may have to redo some dialogue to make things fit.

 

[LxCharon]

If you do like @bgillisp says you can just do In Media Res, which is the style of storytelling where you just start in the middle of the action and then tell the beginning through flashbacks. You could start in the first puzzle and then between puzzle rooms have flashbacks that show what happened before.

 

[Andar]

@GoodSelf You don't need to explain everything in the intro. The intro should contain what the game is about, not a complete history of the world.


Just look at how the already mentioned "Raiders of the lost ark" did it - it began with an action sequence in the temple. We never learned the name of that adventurer until later, and it was also later that we learned Indana Jones was a history professor teaching at an university, not a treasure hunting mercenary.

 

[Anthony Xue]

@GoodSelf You don't need to explain everything in the intro. The intro should contain what the game is about, not a complete history of the world.

I'd go even further than that, depending on the scope of the game. It usually suffices if the player has a sense of what the game is about, but what's more important is that he wants to go on with the game. One of the best ways to do this is to make him curious. Note that these questions all have subtle differences and not all need to apply:


- What happens next?


- How will this end?


- What is going on?


- What is the explanation for all of this? (Note that it's easy to make a story weird enough to raise this question, but difficult to give a satisfying conclusion *cough* Lost *cough*)


Based on this and the only facts you give us (1: discovery of skeleton; 2: character ends up in temple), my suggestions would be:


- A ghostly shape appears not far from the skeleton and lures the character into the temple. Maybe the character's friends (if present) can't see the shape; maybe they're held back by other ghostly shapes which the character doesn't even notice (!). The shape could continue to appear throughout the exploration of the temple, luring the character to a secret for hopefully a good reason. As @LxCharon suggested, you might also start the game right in the temple, the shape floating somewhere in front of the character, and explain later.


- There's an item on the skeleton that, once touched, teleports the character into a burial chamber deep within the temple. It can do so only once, after that its energy is drained. The sudden teleport may have caused confusion so, again, we can start with the character right within the temple and only slowly recollecting what has actually happened.


- Really evil: Encountering the skeleton has somehow cursed the character. It takes a while, but after some time the character experiences pain unless he moves toward the temple. Maybe the character feels that pain at night and starts moving towards the temple while his friends are all asleep.


Bottom line: Someone/-thing wants (the character / any living being / the one who first touches the skeleton) in the temple. Explanation: up to you, depending on your story.


Hope this helps. 

 

[Larry Jones]

Him and his friends are exploring adventurers. He goes ahead (either with them, or goes off on his own) and the door closes behind him after he enters.


KISS! ("Keep it simple, stupid". I'm not calling you stupid, btw. )

 

[BrandedTales]

I second the notion of skipping the intro for now for several reasons:


1) It's not urgent, so waiting until something clicks will probably yield a more positive result than tacking in something random.


2) You may need that intro for something later... Ala foreshadowing.  By leaving it blank now you can craft it to give critical clues the player won't notice until it all comes to fruition 


3) You may not use it at all.  Maybe it makes more sense to start in the temple (main character just the kind of person to end up in those situations?). Maybe the getting in portion just adds minutes of gameplay or cut scene, but no extra fun.  If it's not helpful to the story you are trying to tell, cut it.

 

[GoodSelf]

@BrandedTales  thank you for your advice. I've actually already implemented a lot of what you said, such as foreshadowing, and details about certain things in the temple that you encounter later on. 


 Overall the whole intro is only about 10 minutes before you actually get into the temple and is there just to set up some groundwork  for the story. 


  Most of what I needed advice on are  minor details, not major story points. Thanks for your input, I'll definitely keep it in mind moving forward ! ?

 

[Myst88]

How about the character wakes up in the temple with no idea how he got there? Or slightly different. He starts exploring, all seems fairly normal. Then he blacks out and is a completely different part of the temple, with no clear exit.

How he woke up in a random part of the temple could either be due to a magic trap that teleports him but only works one way (or gets broken).
Or he activates a sleeping gas trap and (if you have one) the villain moves him.