RMMV Was this written to be compelling?

[Vandriette]

So sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forums, but anyways.

For the long time I've been a developer, game maker, writer, I've had quite a hard time with summaries, and while I've improved in every category in the past 8 years or so, I still suck at making summaries for my project. Here I've written a summary (unfinished still kinda) that'll be shown down below. I'm not looking for grammatical errors to be corrected, I need to know if this is a compelling summary or not.

For Rosary Of The Reaper:

"
Logline:
Naive schoolgirl Kanna Izaki finds herself trapped in the Candleverse, a dark and mysterious dimension isolated from the space-time continuum. She finds herself needing to cooperate with an
enigmatic super genius known as "The Professor" in order to solve the mysteries of this strange new world. But with a terrifying and unknown cosmic force looming over all of reality, the outlook is nothing short of dire.

All was peaceful in the world. Everyone lived their lives. Children played, people made love, made war. Everything was as it should be, all until evening struck. At that singular moment, in that very instant,
there were people nor worlds, no more. All had ceased to exist, nulled beyond the realm of reality and imagination. All was the same across the endless variations of so-called existence. Time itself had simply ceased to be. Then,
the quiet dominated. In that very same, timeless instant, beyond the spacetime boundaries, deep into the void left remaining, a blank canvas where any number of spacetime constructs may exist, a spark came to be. A small,
infinitesimal spark had lit, and in that small, neglectable space, was humanity's last hope for survival."

EDIT: Isn't actually a summary.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

I've moved this thread to Game Ideas & Prototypes. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

 

[Vandriette]

[MOVE]Game Ideas & Prototypes[/MOVE]

Thats a bit confusing. I read up on game ideas and prototypes, and this is definitely not a prototype, nor am I looking to get feedback on my plot. This is more so a writer's question as to whether my summary is well written or not.

 

[Faherya]

It is difficult to evaluate without knowing exactly what your game proposal is and how this summary will be presented. Even more because English is not my native language, but come on. Synopses are not a place for you to fill with mystery, they are presentations of a product. You need to say what you are selling/distributing and convince people why they should listen to you. This synopsis is very good, but you can still cut out information that is not absolutely necessary:

Spoiler: Synopsis

Kanna Izaki finds herself trapped in the Candleverse, a dark and mysterious dimension isolated from the space-time continuum, needing to cooperate with an enigmatic super genius known as "The Professor" in order to solve the mysteries of this strange world.

Remember that a cut word is a second gain in the attention of the reader/listener/viewer. Now, about the "Summary". Well, there are many redundant phrases. Even if you cut them, the text is still meaningless - when presented neat. It is already known that the plot is the second most important part of a story. The first is the narrative, the way you tell. If I were to evaluate it as plain text, a short story perhaps, I would say that this part may be being used in the wrong place. Now, as a game script it is impossible to evaluate without seeing the scene.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Thats a bit confusing. I read up on game ideas and prototypes, and this is definitely not a prototype, nor am I looking to get feedback on my plot. This is more so a writer's question as to whether my summary is well written or not.

You're asking for feedback on your summary. General Discussion where you initially posted this is not for project-specific feedback.
If you wanted a more global discussion on how to write summaries or what's attractive etc. General Discussion would have been fine, but since your first post focuses on yours, this subforum is better suited.

 

[Soryuju]

This seems like a good start, though I do think there’s room for improvement. As far as summaries go, I think the main problem here is that you take a little too much time getting to the main point. When it comes to writing in general, less is often more (see: minimalism), so let’s take a look at how you could trim down your lines without losing essential meaning. I’ll go line-by-line for the first part:

Logline:
Naive schoolgirl Kanna Izaki finds herself trapped in the Candleverse, a dark and mysterious dimension isolated from the space-time continuum.

Three points here:

1) Generally when picking adjectives/adverbs, it’s good practice to not use more than one for each noun/verb. So instead of saying “dark and mysterious,” you should pick either “dark” or “mysterious,” or alternatively, try to find a stronger word that conveys both feelings. For example, here you could maybe use a word like “shadowy” to convey a sense of the menacing unknown.

2) The phrase “isolated from the space-time continuum” is essentially jargon to uninformed readers. We might infer from this phrase that our hero can’t leave, but you’ve already mentioned that she’s “trapped,” so we don’t actually get any new information from bringing up the space-time continuum. Cutting it will let the reader focus on the relevant info and give your summary more punch.

3) Since “the Candleverse” is the most important idea you’re introducing in this line, let’s move it to the end of the sentence to maximize its impact. This will also repair the break in sentence flow we’ve created by cutting out the space-time continuum bit. The restructured line might look like this: “...a shadowy dimension known as the Candleverse.”

She finds herself needing to cooperate with an
enigmatic super genius known as "The Professor" in order to solve the mysteries of this strange new world.

Just a few things here as well:

1) The phrase “...finds herself needing...” is a slower, somewhat clunkier way of saying “must.”

2) Trim “enigmatic super genius” to “enigmatic genius” to keep with the single-adjective principle I mentioned above. Dropping “super” won’t change how anyone understands the line.

3) “...in order to...” -> “to”

But with a terrifying and unknown cosmic force looming over all of reality, the outlook is nothing short of dire.

This bit is a little more problematic. The description is too vague - I can’t get any idea about what kind of entity our hero is facing, what sort of threat it represents, or what exactly is at stake. As such, it’s difficult for me to get invested in this game’s conflict. I suggest rewriting this line from scratch, with your goal being to create a clear picture for readers about who your antagonist is, what they’re trying to achieve, and why players should care.

Specific tweaks in this line:

1) Pick one of “terrifying” or “unknown,” or find a better word. For example: Foreboding, Menacing, Ominous, etc.

2) “Nothing short of dire” -> “dire”


Here’s what you’d get if you make my suggested changes (besides giving more detail about the antagonist):

Naive schoolgirl Kanna Izaki finds herself trapped in a shadowy dimension known as the Candleverse. She must cooperate with an enigmatic genius known as "The Professor" to solve the mysteries of this strange new world. But with a menacing cosmic force looming over all of reality, the outlook is dire.

There are still some further improvements you could make in this sample (e.g. smoothing out the transition between the first and second lines), but I think this version gets to the important info more quickly than the original and will hold readers’ interest more easily.

As for the second passage, the basic problem hasn’t changed: it takes too long to get to the point. We’re going to take this one in bigger chunks:

Summary:
All was peaceful in the world. Everyone lived their lives. Children played, people made love, made war. Everything was as it should be, all until evening struck. At that singular moment, in that very instant,
there were people nor worlds, no more. All had ceased to exist, nulled beyond the realm of reality and imagination. All was the same across the endless variations of so-called existence. Time itself had simply ceased to be. Then,
the quiet dominated.

This passage uses a tremendous amount of words to convey a very simple idea: “All was peaceful. Then [bad thing] happened and everything disappeared.”

Apologies if this sounds harsh, but you could cut out 80% of this passage and your writing would be better off for it. The problem isn’t specifically the amount of words, but rather, the way each line is just reiterating what you’ve already told the reader.

When the passage tells me that “All was peaceful in the world,” as a reader, that’s perfectly sufficient information about the peace. But when the passage goes on to say “Everyone lived their lives. Children played, people made love, made war. Everything was as it should be...” it’s just belaboring the previous point without telling me anything new. If there were major events which led to the state of peace, you could tell me about those. But don’t just describe peace, because it’s not adding anything of value to the passage, and it’s likely to bore your readers.

The same goes for all the lines in this passage which relate to existence ceasing. Pick one, preferably one of the simpler ones (“Time itself had ceased to be” is probably fine), and cut out the rest. Consider that every word you add to a description competes for the reader’s attention, which dilutes the impact of all the other words you’ve chosen. Be ruthless with the cuts you make. Kill your darlings, as they say.

In that very same, timeless instant, beyond the spacetime boundaries, deep into the void left remaining, a blank canvas where any number of spacetime constructs may exist, a spark came to be. A small,
infinitesimal spark had lit, and in that small, neglectable space, was humanity's last hope for survival."

You know the drill by now, right?

Each line between “instant” and “a spark” drew my focus away from the main point, but I didn’t actually learn anything new. You’re better off without them.

As before, I’d suggest consolidating lines which are just echoes of previous lines. For example, “a spark came to be” vs. “a spark had lit.”

And finally, keep trimming redundant phrases like “very same,” “small, infinitesimal,” “small, neglectable,” etc. One descriptor per object.

So to wrap this all up, you’ve got some good material here, and you mostly just need to work on trimming the fat around it. Prioritize your lines which provide the most concrete images and most relevant information for readers, and get rid of everything else. Again, be ruthless. Your writing will be better for every hard decision you make.

Hope this helps!

 

[Vandriette]

It is difficult to evaluate without knowing exactly what your game proposal is and how this summary will be presented. Even more because English is not my native language, but come on. Synopses are not a place for you to fill with mystery, they are presentations of a product. You need to say what you are selling/distributing and convince people why they should listen to you. This synopsis is very good, but you can still cut out information that is not absolutely necessary:

Spoiler: Synopsis

Kanna Izaki finds herself trapped in the Candleverse, a dark and mysterious dimension isolated from the space-time continuum, needing to cooperate with an enigmatic super genius known as "The Professor" in order to solve the mysteries of this strange world.

Remember that a cut word is a second gain in the attention of the reader/listener/viewer. Now, about the "Summary". Well, there are many redundant phrases. Even if you cut them, the text is still meaningless - when presented neat. It is already known that the plot is the second most important part of a story. The first is the narrative, the way you tell. If I were to evaluate it as plain text, a short story perhaps, I would say that this part may be being used in the wrong place. Now, as a game script it is impossible to evaluate without seeing the scene.

I've changed up the wording because I used the word "summary" by accident.

Everything I've written in the first post basically preceedes the summary, whenever I write that.
What I've written right now is supposed to compel the player to be interested in the game. I wouldnt call it a summary per se, but the summary itself would come right after.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I think what you wrote is compelling. Based on reading just that, I would be willing to play the demo. That being said, I agree somewhat with what other people have posted: it could be cleaned up a bit and polished.