Unfamiliar Nostalgia

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:10 am

First off, sorry for bumping such and old post. I'm what's left of Narkotix Team, go figure.

Second, is anyone still interested in giving me some thoughts on this story? I've refined it, and typed most all of it out. Minus game play gaps, and horrible "conversations."

I would love to post it all up, and get ideas, if anybody is still interested.

the game halted production due to harsh conflicting schedules, and life in general. I am going to do my best to find a way to get this game out there, because I have a real passion for the story, and gameplay.

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 6:24 pm

Well I wasn't around when this thread was active, but I have to ask now, does the main character have any real internal struggle or is his motivation primarily external? If he doesn't experience some kind of harsh failure along the storyline, then it'll be harder to enjoy his character. My personal rule of thumb is if someone doesn't die or at least suffer permanent physical or psychological harm, it's not a good story. The story as I read it seemed to be superficial and predictable overall, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it should be supplemented with dialogue and character motivation that really makes the player care about what's happening, or at least who it's happening to.

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 6:26 pm

Oh, trust me. He has a pretty harsh life changing event.

while I certainly don't wanna give my story away, I can't help but feel I need other's advice on how to improve it.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:08 pm

kylekrack wrote:My personal rule of thumb is if someone doesn't die or at least suffer permanent physical or psychological harm, it's not a good story.

You're an idiot.

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:41 pm

Gizmog wrote:You're an idiot.

I'm glad someone pointed it out.

EDIT: Self-deprecation is the *most* respectable practice.

Gizmog · Post by **Gizmog** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 8:32 pm

I was a little mean and I'm sorry. I'll try to explain myself..

In all the excitement about the recent Pluto mission, I read this great article about gravitational assist. What he's describing isn't only scientific, but it's also the basis of any good story. We have a hero going somewhere(the blue dot in the animated gifs) and we have a situation (the black dot) looming in the distance. The hero approaches it a certain way until he gets gut-burningly close to it and then heads off in another direction, his initial course altered by the gravity of the situation. The encounter has altered his course and we all leave the theater wiser for it.

A story where a guy just goes in a straight line is boring. He's gotta get close to something and change directions, even just a little. Let's say you're tellin a story about how one time you went to the grocery to buy milk. If the whole of the story is "I needed milk... so's I went to the grocery... and bought some." then you've got a terrible story.

"I needed milk... so I went to the grocery.. and I ran over some old guy in the parking lot and he died and I suffered serious psychological harm" is a more interesting story, but it isn't the only good story that can come out of this.

Part of a good story is the things you encounter and how they change the journey. Maybe the store is closed so you gotta sneak off to the country and get it straight from a cow. Maybe the only cashier is your ex-wife and you can't stand to talk to her so you steal the milk and get caught.

The other part is the the heroes and their initial directions and the resulting outcomes. Why do you think Freddy Krueger has so many movies when he does the same thing everytime? It's fun to see different heroes slingshot around the same planet and where they go from it. The girl in the first one was way different from the one in The Dream Warriors.

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Sun Jul 26, 2015 9:10 pm

Gizmog wrote:I was a little mean and I'm sorry.

Don't worry about it. I was trying to make a point and a joke, but I ended up just making a huge blanket statement. No, not every story needs death or horrible things to be good, but every story needs conflict. And if that conflict is purely external, then you're limiting yourself. You've got an action movie where the main character's only motivation is to kill the bad guy. Plot aside, crafting a character is very important to a story, and making them relatable requires some flaws. Everybody has flaws, and in a story you have to let those shine somehow.

This may be simply my subjective feelings, but I find character development to be ultimately more important than plot (unless the plot serves to make some moral or philosophical or satirical statement). There is an anime called Ouran High School Host Club and it centers around a club of rich, attractive boys and the things they find important in life. It's a ridiculous show, sometimes disturbing, often pointless. Throughout the entire span of this show, the plot goes nearly nowhere. Nothing changes in the situation of the characters from the beginning until the end. However, the dynamic of each character had warped and revealed so much along the way, that the plot didn't need any big external conflict. The show is nearly entirely character driven, but is still engaging and effective and interesting.

That isn't to say character dev and plot are disconnected, but plot can sometimes exist only to serve the development of the characters. I think that's something to at least keep in mind. The difference between a video game and a movie is that the audience IS the character, or at least controls them. Anything that happens to the character is also happening to the player, and that can be taken advantage of. Although, many great games have succeeded without doing so. But just because I'm not good at getting my point across doesn't mean there isn't a point.

I'm just getting tired of happy endings. Life is too slimed up for everything to just work out in the end. Death is a permanent consequence that represents this perfectly. That's why I like it.

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Mon Jul 27, 2015 5:40 pm

Well then, back on topic. If anybody would like to read this thing, and tell me what they think about it, here is a link. I'm looking for any ideas about it, pointers, questions, plot holes, ect.

Expect a lot of typos, and bad dialogue, as they are there for rough ideas of what is going on.

The things to be reading are act #1-#4.txt

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7u15pyzftv7j ... ehTOa?dl=0

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 2:32 am

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:38 pm

Would it be possible to have a toggle switch to where I could switch my game between random battles and npc enemies, Like Dragon Quest 9?

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:31 pm

Alurith wrote:Would it be possible to have a toggle switch to where I could switch my game between random battles and npc enemies, Like Dragon Quest 9?

Can you explain in more detail? I have not played Dragon Quest 9.

Are you wanting an in-game menu where the layer can toggle between random battles and NPC enemies? Or are you just asking how to do NPC enemies?

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:36 pm

It's possible.
All things are possible through scripting.

Setting up npc enemies is pretty simple, but there's no super easy way to do it. You have to hand construct and place them all. Basically, you make 1 time use npcs that activate on touch or possibly step on that load up a textbox that runs a fight.

However, if you mean an in game toggle that lets players do this, that's another story. It wouldn't be TOO complex of a script. You'd just need to turn on some tags that would make the npcs appear or not appear and disable some random battle formations. Maybe like a 5-6 line script. Easy.

I hope this helps.

Alurith · Post by **Alurith** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:58 am

Spoonweaver wrote:It's possible.
All things are possible through scripting.

Setting up npc enemies is pretty simple, but there's no super easy way to do it. You have to hand construct and place them all. Basically, you make 1 time use npcs that activate on touch or possibly step on that load up a textbox that runs a fight.

However, if you mean an in game toggle that lets players do this, that's another story. It wouldn't be TOO complex of a script. You'd just need to turn on some tags that would make the npcs appear or not appear and disable some random battle formations. Maybe like a 5-6 line script. Easy.

I hope this helps.

An in game toggle option, for people who like random battles, or for people who like enemies that roam around.

That's exactly what I meant, I'll have to look into it more down the line. Thanks. Otherwise, I could just release 2 different editions of my game, but that would be painful to update.

sheamkennedy · Post by **sheamkennedy** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 4:35 am

Alurith wrote:An in game toggle option, for people who like random battles, or for people who like enemies that roam around.

That sounds easy to do. There are plenty of ways to do it. The first thing that comes to my mind is to use a variable "toggle."

In the map autorun script you could check if the "toggle" was set on or off by the player. If it's on then random battles occur like normal. If it's off then you tell the map autorun to spawn a bunch of enemy NPCs at whatever locations, which trigger battles if touched. You also must set the random battles off using "suspend random enemies" so those don't also occur.

Post by **TMC** » Fri Nov 13, 2015 11:19 am

You don't need a single line of scripting to achieve this, actually. Both NPCs and battle formation sets can be disabled based on tags, and tags can be toggled with menu options.

The main problem will be balancing so that either option results in a similar number of battles.

Slime Salad

Unfamiliar Nostalgia

well...