My Ideal version of this project

[Gruia]

Hello

I’ve already posted in RPG watch and in a comment earlier, but I want to have it here as well

So your starting points for this are winners in my book. Replayability, Turnbased and the graphics are neat ! sooo neat !

From what I’ve seen the combat will be satisfiable, but I’m never one to prioritize it.

So the remaining problems for a great project would be Immersion

Replayability can help or break it.. so I’d be careful

My eternal example for good immersion and replayability is Diablo : It had a vague story, memorable characters with great dialogs, bits of the story randomly placed in multiple playthroughs, great pacing, great music.

Dark Souls has alot in common with it.

So I’d say having vague, cryptic story is the easiest way to do it.. Or you do a matrxi of choice and consequences that creates a unique meaningful experience every time (something Banner Saga failed to achieve)

So bottom line, what I really want is to see if you guys share my vision. Having a shared vision and not achieving it is better than having a different vision but somehow achieving it.

Man, Wall of text here. So problems I’d address is the setting (kinda hate the vampires monsters theme.. it depersonalizez those characters.. Probably you couldn’t give every Foe a story and purpose and emotion .. but this way you’ll probably won’t give it to 95%.

Dialogs / cutscenes need to be written well.. and placed at turning points (as you implement choices and consequences)

And the overall plot will weave itself

About your characters, you’ll have to give distinct mature personalities, every one could serve as a rolemodel. Not sure if you guys know MBTI, but it would be great to have characters from different MBTI profiles )

I’ve said enough. Let us know if you guys need a second opinion with something..polls and such (although i see you interract well with communities)

PS: good choice with the Iron Man mode

Good luck and be insipred

[Rap]

Hello and welcome to our forums!

I think Diablo is a decent example for the route we’re going to take in many ways. The story was vague, as was the antagonist. Contrary to you, I also don’t remember it having any great dialogs. Certainly it didn’t have much in terms of character interaction. However, it did an awesome job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere by its presentation – the music, the visual style and the bits of story you did get came together very well. I always felt that my actions were embedded in a story context despite the game’s comparatively few efforts to establish one.

Replayability (and hence the procedural generation of much of the game) is a key concept in our game design – but something that doesn’t go well together with heavily scripted stories or game progression. For this reason (and our limited resources) we won’t have much in terms of direct character interaction, extensive dialogs or cleverly written moral dilemmas to navigate through. We definately want to have each encounter to have some context, to have more meaning than just “enemy = loot + xp”. That’s why we want to present each with a short story and illustration, e.g. we won’t just drop you in a fight with a necromancer because why not, but we have the townspeople approach you telling of their cattle perishing, the graves being empty and such.

What we’ll have in terms of choice & consequences will be emergent from gameplay and not be pre-determined by us to occur at some set point in the story. For example, not helping a town under siege could mean it being razed and no longer available in the game world as a place of commerce and safety in the region. It’s an actual consequence of a strategic decision for how you, as the player, will continue to play the gamer afterwards in a dynamic world. Not a fake consequence that we tell you a story about. Nevertheless, we want to present a major event like this with a (minimalistic) cutscene to the player to convey the gravity of it.

Just as with the combat we’ll iterate on story, immersion and choice & consequences until it feels right. I look forward to your feedback once we have something more to show regarding these!

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[Gotanmarf]

Gruia wrote:

…
Dialogs / cutscenes need to be written well.. and placed at turning points (as you implement choices and consequences)

And the overall plot will weave itself

In my opinion, if someone likes dialogs, plots, sweet animations, then he/she should read book (or watch film) rather than play computer games.

[Rap]

I enjoy games with well done stories and dialogs. There aren’t exactly many of those. I enjoyed The Walking Dead from Telltale because even though it was rather weak in the gameplay department, it was many times more gripping to be part of a well-told interactive story than just watching other people argue over mundane stuff in the TV series.

That said, different games are build around different strenghts. We aren’t ignorant to immersion through a good narrative, but I think it’s safe to say that this game will be defined by different strengths.

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[Gruia]

Thats fair and well, but at least don’t make a mockery of the dialogs and plot.

As I was giving Diablo and Dark souls example.. make it vague . Vampires and ghouls doesn’t sound vague to me.. but Any setting can be put in a good place.

I am a fan of Allan Moore, make every setting human. You can do it here.. give humanity to all monsters. Give the user the chance to befriend them

You were talking about Walking dead, that is a good example.

But both WD(dialogs with ok plot) and Banner Saga(dialogs with broken plot) are good at different things, and both fail at Choice and consequences. Pretty linear if u ask me.

So all I am asking is for this project, even if the resources are put in combat and such.. don’t ruin the plot.

Thank you

[Author]

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