Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

[mdawgig]

Reizu Itto Ue - Romaji "Raise It Up"

A war that crossed not only the boundaries of kingdoms, but also the boundaries of hearts and minds. An interconnecting story that is told from four points of view over the period of a 20-year war, each person representing a different human quality.

Hope – What keeps us going is the feeling that a brighter future is on the way.
Love – We live for others in the hope that they live for us.
Grief – What if we lose all we had hoped for and loved?
Fear – Why does the world close in around us?

The characters grow up, finding the world a much different place than it was before. Can this be changed? Why do we continue on when we know there is no way?

Tagline – “The only way to truly see a person’s heart is to see the person around it.”

It would be a game that doesn't really focus on the combat aspects, but more on character driven story and an intraspective on humans and why we do what we do.

[Perversion]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

If you are confident enough in your writing abilities, I say, by all means, make this game. If you can pull it off, I'd definitely play it.

[mdawgig]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

As story telling would be important, does it matter to you the timeline? For example, should it be purely chronological or should I make it non-chronological?

[Stormy]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

I don't think it will matter. If you can do it in a non-chronological way that slowly reveals details only when we need them, then you could string the player along (in a good way) and make them want to play to find out more.

Just don't do that thing where there is a scene that is exciting or dramatic and then it says "X days earlier." I hate that.

[mdawgig]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

So either go forward w/ time only or present fragmented pieces of a story and leave it up to the player to figure out?

[Stormy]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Not what I meant. How do I explain... Assume the player is a part of the world of the game (to an extent) and let them figure some of it out themselves. Don't leave them in the dark, but don't spoon feed them either. Like Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C.

nm, do whatever.

[mdawgig]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

I get it now! That's a great idea.

EDIT!:

Here's a rough draft of the prologue (serving as exposition and linking of the scenarios) and the exposition of Chapter 1-1, along with the characters. Note that in order to fully enjoy the story, you need to surrender yourself to it. Don't be nit-picky or skeptical please.

Characters:

Elizabeth Phari – Smart, scholarly type. Looking for the truth behind the War that ravaged the world 50 years ago.
Daniel Swift – Abusive alcoholic. Searching for the reason behind life’s many downfalls. (Grief)
Ramona Swift – Wife.
Hannah Nere – Married. Cannot afford food. Trying to make what’s around the next corner better than the turn before. (Hope)
Phillip Demoss – Codependent. Needs to be in a relationship to feel complete. (Fear)
Sariella Desmund – Compassionate, to the point of being “spineless”. Trying to find the other piece to her puzzle. (Love)

Prologue

When we ascend to the Kingdom of Haeven, two things are for certain: We will cherish our time there and we will find the road that that took us there the golden path that it truly is.

- Unknown

Receptionist – “Miss Pheri, we have some new books in if you would like to take a look.”
Elizabeth Phari – “May I question as to their contents?”
Receptionist – “I think you already know that answer.”

Elizabeth Phari – (“I’ve dedicated my life to finding out what really happened in that War. No one quite knows for sure, between the grand exaggerations and conflicting accounts.”)
Elizabeth Phari – (“But I do know one thing for sure; down a mountain of lies there is a single truth that everyone deserves to know.”)

Elizabeth Phari – “Let’s see, they’re probably over in the history section, to the far right of the library.” *Player goes and locates the book*

Elizabeth Phari – “What’s this…? It doesn’t have a title… Neither do the others around it. I wonder…”

End Prologue


Chapter 1-1 - Daniel Swift

Ramona Swift – “Home late again I see… Where the hell were you?”
Daniel Swift – “The shift warden let us off late.”
Ramona Swift – “I no more believe you were in the mines than I believed you the last four times. I can smell the liquor on your breath and clothes. The kids are already out of the house. I have my things packed, where I’m heading is no more of interest to you than where you were was to me.”
Daniel Swift – “You can’t do this to me! My the man’s divine right of marriage I own you!”
Ramona Swift – “You may claim ownership of me, but that makes it no more true than your ownership of the children. I have suffered one too many scars and one too man bruises to let you continue. When you deny you yourself the foul demon that you crave, we can talk on level grounds.”

[Stormy]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Oooo, thats good stuff. The dialogue is very good, I look forward to hearing more.

[Perversion]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Hmmm....it seems you might need to include a decent amount of internal dialogue with what you are planning to do, and a lot of conversations between characters to advance the major "concepts" of your story/game. Which is fine, and is as it should be. However, I said in my above post that if you have the writing chops to pull it off, to go for it. After seeing a short sample of your writing, I feel the need to modify that a bit.

Your writing is not bad at all. In fact, it's quite good, in terms of sentence structure and how you convey the information. The only problem as I see it (and granted, this is only based on the short sample of writing that you provided) is that the dialogue seems a bit stiff, stilted, scripted, and a tad pretentious.


I've found that for me, dialogue is the hardest part of writing to convey naturally, without it sounding forced. I excel at exposition and description, but fall a bit short when it comes to dialogue. So don't take it as I'm an expert at it or something myself when I critique your writing. I've just found that, due to its nature, RPGs are almost 100% about dialogue and character interaction (story-wise, anyway). Which I guess is the reason when I make games, I focus on the technical stuff and programming first, before the story, due to having a stronger proficiency in manipulating the code and whatnot.

After working on a few games, I got tired of making games that focused almost exclusively on the technical stuff, with the story almost as an afterthought. So I came up with this idea, which became an incredibly massive undertaking by the time I had all the details pretty well ironed out. The major idea was to focus on a game (or, it turned out by the end, four games) that focused for a major part on story, with the technical flourishes thrown in for flavor, and not being the main focus. I linked this for mdawgig specifically, because the idea I mention (it might be on the second or third page) is similar to what mdawgig is trying to do in a sense. I've got the idea for two episodes, each being separate games, that run chronologically simultaneously, with events from each not only being referenced in the other game, but cause and effect relationships existing between things that happen in one game, and things that occur in the other game. I've released a "teaser" for the first episode, and it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, I began to realize after I started working on Episode 1 that I was having a LOT of trouble writing believable, semi-realistic dialogue for the main character, considering that a lot of it was basically internal struggles verbalized out loud (a little redundant, I know) to NPCs, and it all read a bit forced. Plus, I was unsure how to make the dialogue fresh and new, without repeating the same basic struggle with different words over and over again, because at that point, I EASILY could see people playing, and saying to themselves, "Okay, we get the point already. He's conflicted. Now tell me something I don't know." Problem was, the majority of the actual storyline revolved around his inner conflict, as there was not really an antagonist in the story, nor any massive quest to undertake to temporarily offer respite from the story. So I decided that (once again), I got writer's block, put the game down, and have not worked on it since.


So basically, I'm trying to tell you that I do not envy you in the slightest bit in attempting to pull off something like this. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did. I STILL want to go back to that idea and work on it at some point, but right now is not the time for me. So if you can do a little work with the flow of the dialogue, and define the characters and offer new conflicts (either internal or external), and resolve them in a satisfactory manner, you'll have a really special game on your hands.


EDIT: Please do not take my constructive criticism as a negative thing. When I take the time to type all of this in someone's game idea thread, it generally means that I think the idea has a lot of potential, and could end up being something really awesome. If I'm kinda "meh" about someone's idea, I'll post a few cursory comments, but do not feel the need to take a lot of time typing about a game that I probably will not end up playing anyway. Conversely, if the idea is horrible, and rife with spelling errors, grammatical errors, etc, I'll also take the time to critique it, only because it's actually fun to rip it to shreds.

[mdawgig]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

The only reason I had her do internal dialogue is because I needed some way for the player to realize that THIS is the reason she is so interested in all of this.

Also, about the grammar, There are a few points where I did that for different reasons.

Elizabeth Phari is obviously very educated.
Ramona Swift had probably thought how that conversation would go while waiting for him to come home, so I figured she would use a higher vocabulary level to finalize their annulment/separation.

I never figured to have all of the game's dialogue like that.

Also, I WISH YOU COULD GIVE THEM VOICE ACTING! The expressions that I want and the inflections in their voices are some of the main reasons they do talk like that. If you say that stuff right, it actually sounds quite mundane.

If you still feel like these explanations/excuses aren't enough, PLEASE TELL ME!

[162]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Oooooo! Sounds like a video game version of a novel! I seems to have a Orson Wells tone (or maybe that's just me.)

[Perversion]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

If you still feel like these explanations/excuses aren't enough, PLEASE TELL ME!

Well, it IS your game, and my post was not meant to have you justify what you had written or make "excuses." I merely wanted to give you some feedback.

[mdawgig]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Oooooo! Sounds like a video game version of a novel! I seems to have a Orson Wells tone (or maybe that's just me.)

In terms of writing style, yes, I look up to Mr. Wells. In terms of contents, I don't think you'll see any futuristic-dystopian vibes here.

[Dusk Raven]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

Dialog is... interesting. Not stupid, but a lot like one of Shakespeare's plays. To too much of an extent. It'd make a great speech. which like you said is probably the case. I think he'd be a bit too drunk to appreciate it... not that he needs to.

My the man’s divine right of marriage I own you!

What year is this in? I don't think that's a part of marriage anymore... not in America, anyway. Here you can't "own" your wife. Or maybe I'm just being idealistic.

I just assumed this was in the present.

[162]

Re: Reizu Itto Ue (Game Idea)

In terms of writing style, yes, I look up to Mr. Wells. In terms of contents, I don't think you'll see any futuristic-dystopian vibes here.

Ah, right, 1984. Had to read that in English class. It was...interesting, but I prefur Animal Farm.