General Idea Thread

[hitogoroshi]

This is where we can continue the discussion from the imangari thread.

[Xisthruos]

Ok, since we're continuing the conversation from the Imaginari...

Posted by Caciss:

I think if we could develop a battle system, where every battle is sort of a puzzle?

I think I might have an idea--maybe what you're looking for is a kind of RPG-ish battle system where the basic idea is that each encounter with an enemy is treated like a unique (or infrequent) event. For example: in real life, an encounter with a monster would always be frightening and life-threatening, and wouldn't happen every thirty seconds. The emphasis would be on what strategy to use to break free from the encounter. Perhaps not necessarily to kill the enemy.

This would make dungeons (or maps, or whatever you wanna call them) feel more like real environments and less like 'monster breeding grounds' where the sole purpose seems to be farming EXP.

And maybe since there's less focus on constantly fighting monsters, character progression (Leveling Up) could be toned down a little. Perhaps not done away with completely, but slowed down so that it's more nuanced and believable.

Does that sound right?


ALSO, I guess the exact setting is still somewhat up in the air, but I think it's agreed so far that it should be some time period before anyone we know was born. I might actually favor the 1920s setting, because you could still do some things with the Victorian setting with 'ghosts of the past' returning, or something like that, in case you wanted to have a complicated backstory.

[Jamos]

Personally, I've always been fond of games that have you take on enemies other than plain ol' brute force. For example, the bosses in Soul Reaver. You couldn't just attack them because all they will do is laugh at you. This meant you would have to use the elements to your advantage to take them down.

[Caciss]

I think each character should sort of have their own system. In regards to the 1920's, perhaps a Private Investigator character whose "battle system" revolves around examining things for evidence, and interrogating suspects. Maybe his reasons for being at the hotel is he's tracked a mobster in hiding, whose gameplay is more action centered, shooting people and bashing down doors.

Maybe the haunting isn't the immediate focus, maybe just little things like a vase shaking or a reflection in a mirror. I don't know if we want several monsters, or like one big badass poltergeist thing.

[Big Rick Cook]

Originally Posted by Caciss

I think each character should sort of have their own system. In regards to the 1920's, perhaps a Private Investigator character whose "battle system" revolves around examining things for evidence, and interrogating suspects. Maybe his reasons for being at the hotel is he's tracked a mobster in hiding, whose gameplay is more action centered, shooting people and bashing down doors.

Maybe the haunting isn't the immediate focus, maybe just little things like a vase shaking or a reflection in a mirror. I don't know if we want several monsters, or like one big badass poltergeist thing.

If I have anything to do with this project, which decision is up in the air, it won't have anything to do with this PI you guys keep bringing up, because I'll be tempted to simply name him Irish Daigle and steal the entire scenario.

[Tintenfisch]

If we're going for a more realistic thing. I think it's be cool if characters didn't level at all, but instead acquired skills, items and equipment upgrades. Because in real life no matter how many goats we punch, we will never be able to destroy a sky scraper.

If we do battle puzzles then we can implement a persona 3 style weakness system where only certain attacks hurt certain enemies, though it was really annoying. What we could do is make battle shorter and more difficult, so the characters and enemies have less health then most games and it comes down can you figure out how to beat the enemy in 3 turns or so.

If we do do that I can only see that working if people recover full health (Magic power?) at the end of each battle. Or implement a system where they walk and recover.

[Jamos]

Originally Posted by Caciss

I think each character should sort of have their own system. In regards to the 1920's, perhaps a Private Investigator character whose "battle system" revolves around examining things for evidence, and interrogating suspects. Maybe his reasons for being at the hotel is he's tracked a mobster in hiding, whose gameplay is more action centered, shooting people and bashing down doors.

Maybe the haunting isn't the immediate focus, maybe just little things like a vase shaking or a reflection in a mirror. I don't know if we want several monsters, or like one big badass poltergeist thing.

I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but I rather like that idea. Having a different system for each character. So that way before we can get tired of one we are introduced with another. Like once we are done with the investigator scenerio we go to one with a gutless thug which goes sneaking around, robbing people at gun point, and avoiding direct conflict. Then switch to a street fighter character that actually does fighting.

[Xisthruos]

I guess I might want to apologize in advance for the potential "information overload" in this post. I have a lot of ideas and wanted to bring up some topics I thought we should keep in mind. Please add your thoughts.


Ok, so it looks like what we've got so far is a game cut into chapters, and each chapter has its own specific lead character. Each of these characters would have a distinct appearance/personality, and the way the level unfolds is dictated somewhat by that character's playing style(just using that term since we don't seem to have a name for this so far.) The character's playing style might be determined by what their profession is, background, etc. It's basically the same thing you guys are talking about when you mention that a character is a PI, so he investigates and talks to people, or he's a criminal, so he robs people and avoids direct conflict.

I don't feel that we'd need to come up with a totally unique set of menus or gameplay elements for each character, so we should come up with one comprehensive system that would be able to cover the scope of each individual character's playing style.

On the story side of things, the characters all ought to be interconnected some way, even if they don't realize it or know each other. For example, the Private Investigator might be actively trying to apprehend the Criminal. The story could unfold in a fashion that, although they are adversaries, the game never really makes it clear who you (the player) ought to be rooting for. You'd control each character in seperate scenarios that intertwine at some point, where the Investigator is making the progress hard for the Criminal, and vice versa. But there's never any final confrontation between the two--the bigger conflict in the game might be against some otherworldly force.


Main Objective/Goal-

So far we only seem to have some vague idea of what the main objective in the game ought to be. I think it ought to be dependent on who you're playing as at the moment. In the case of the criminal, he'd be more interested in survival/avoiding jail. If there's a character like a medium, maybe that person's goal would be to get to the bottom of some kind of haunting.

After all the scenarios are complete, I feel like there should be some kind of finale that wraps everything up. The obvious choice might be to gather all the members together for a "final confrontation" type scenario, but maybe that's too obvious? Perhaps the most of the characters would never really meet, and their stories would remain more personal and the game wouldn't turn into a "save the world" type of story. I have no preference so far, so I want to hear what you guys think about what the underlying goal or theme of the game ought to be. The latter example would require more thought than the former.

Art style-

It seems pretty unanimous that the game should be in a 2D, sprite based top-down perspective, seen in old RPGs. In the old topic, it sounded like you guys were leaning more toward taller "Phantasy Star" porportioned characters as opposed to the squat chibis. Is all this correct? Is it too early to be asking about this?


Game length-

I gather this is intended to be short and to the point, and not some massive epic.

Getting more specific: my initial feel was that the game would need to be at least 4-5 hours in length since there's going to be a story with some amount of depth to it. However, it could be shorter. I imagine a single scenario would at last at least 20 minutes (no shorter than a TV show), so if we only have three characters, the whole game could be as short as an hour.

I'm aware it might seem like this is something that isn't important early on, but I think it goes a long way toward figuring out how we should pace the story if we determine how much time we have to set up a scene/tell a story. Here's how I see the balance: if the game is going to have a detailed battle/stat system, maybe it should be longer. If the game is going to do away with a complicated battle/stat system and focus more on story, (if it plays out like an interactive movie) it should be shorter.


Overworld or small environment-

This regards the game's overall setting, without really getting into the specifics of what era/theme it has. I guess what I mean is that this is how all the maps/dungeons would be organized. It would also lend a lot to the overall feel of the game.

There are two approaches I can think of:

(1)Overworld Map: the game takes place over an entire city. We wouldn't be making an ENTIRE city, though. The city would basically be an overworld map, and the player selects more detailed locations to go to from that screen. This is pretty much exactly like that "Demon of laPlace" game that was mentioned in the previous topic.

I've also seen it in the Shin Megami Tensei series. I like the idea of setting up the game this way, because it gives you the sense that you're actually traveling around a city. It could potentially be more difficult, as different locations would need to have different themes.

(2)One Central Location: the game takes place in one cental location, maybe entirely in a hotel, like you guys were mentioning earlier. This would lend itself well if the game is going to be smaller and more intimate in design, specifically like the early Resident Evil games, or early 'survival horror' games (albeit in this case, we'd be using 2D tilesets), where the character explores a large building, solves puzzles, and passes obstacles. "Hotel Dusk" might also be somewhat of an example of this. This type of design might work best if the game is more linear, but I suppose it doesn't require that the game be linear.


I might be able to get even more specific about what I'm interested in seeing, but I'm somewhat worried I might be moving too fast. I hope all this isn't too much to think about at once.