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[Qqwy]

Hello there, everybody.

I'm a Dutch gamer/game designer of almost seventeen years now. I can program in Java (altough I make very sloppy code) and also I've had some experience with creating Websites in HTML/CSS/JS/PHP.(But that's another story )

I've been thinking a while about this idea. It is in no means far-developed, and nothing really is '100% solid' yet. However, I think this idea is quite interesting, and I would really like to hear your opinion about this.




So, what does the basic idea looks like?


Well, to say it in two sentences: This game is a kind of Visual Novel, however, with one mayor twist; One of the two main characters is blind, and when you are playing his point of vieuw, the game works more like a Radio Play.

Let me explain.


But first, the story.

(very) Raw concept of the Story

The story of this game is about two very different people.

Person one was a criminal and an 'I-only-care-for-myself' for quite a few years. However, one crime goes wrong, and he ends up in jail. And even worse, he gets framed for the murder of his brother.(Who was quite a nice person, and never wanted to have to do anything with crime.) While in jail, he realizes that he nobody actually likes him; there is nobody who sends him a card or wants to talk with him. Nobody who cares about him.

So, when he gets out of jail(beginning of the actual story, the part before this is 'backstory'), he has two things he wants to accomplish:
1. Get revenge on the people who killed his brother and framed him for it.
2. Try to be a nicer person towards everybody.


Person two is a bit jonger than the (ex)criminal. Person Two's family got killed in a Car Accident(wich actually isn't an accident, but Person Two is the only person who knows this.) and he himself got hit on his head, got hermorrage in his head, and therefore his visual center in his brain was shut down. In other words: He cannot see anymore.
His point of vieuw on the world is a quite depressing one. He feels bad for himself because he(and his family) had never done anything wrong, but now he is stuck in this not-live and not-dead. He often thinks he should be dead just like the rest of his family.


So... As soon as person one gets out of jail, the stories start. Person One and Two find each other in some strange way, while they are both hunted by the same 'bad organisation'(who both killed the father of Person Two and framed the murder of Person One, because one was finding out too much about their secret operation and the other tried to betray them. The organisation hasto do something with a special drug or similar wich can be used as a Truth Serum) and they have to solve the misteries of their past together. Of course, because the difference between the two persons, I hope this will lead to interesting conflicts 

So, back to the gameplay...
So. Person One can see. While he is playing, the game is mainly focused on the 'visual' aspect: There are nice backgrounds, nice drawn characters of some kind, and all text appears written on-screen. There are not much sound-effects/music involved.

When the game however switches to Person Two (switching will be done on some kind of chapter-base. Not an alternate timeline, but not every two seconds either), the game will be played as some kind of Radio Play:
The screen will be black, everything that gets spoken/tought is actually HEARD by the player trough headphones or speakers,
There is background music, and all sounds of what is going on around the player are played as well.


At some points, the player has to make a choice. The choices are shown on the screen, and the player has to chose one, based on the information he got before.
Choices affect the way the story moves on. Some wrong choices can get you killed. You need to pay attention just like a 'Sherlock Holmes' type to try to understand all clues you've got. Of course this gets gradually harder while the game continues.

There is more than one 'good' end. What exactly happens depends on what you choose.(for instance, choose in multiple places for revenge-like options when asked, or for be-a-better-person like options, when choosing things about Person One) There might be a super-happy-ending you can only get after you've played trough the other endings, but I'm still thinking about that.

_____________________



So... long heap of tekst. I hope somebody has taken the time to read trough all this, and has a opinion/some interesting ideas about/for it. And feel free to ask questions, of course!





oh, I really would like not for anybody to shamelessly copy this idea.




Have a nice day,

~Qqwy

[Noyb]

Go for it!  :handthumbsupR:

[FK in the Coffee]

Do it!  I'd love to see an interesting non-Japanese visual novel every now and again.  Two things I'd recommend you do:
a) Don't use a premade visual novel software to create it.  Creating a GN engine from the ground up has some massive benefits.
b) Write everything up in Dutch, and get a quality translator to make sure everything you wrote retains its original meaning if you decide to release it to an American/UK audience too.  Even if you feel fairly confident with your English, it's great to have an expert on board.

[PleasingFungus]

a) Don't use a premade visual novel software to create it.  Creating a GN engine from the ground up has some massive benefits.

Can you expand on this? Something like RenPy seems really nice.

[FK in the Coffee]

a) Don't use a premade visual novel software to create it.  Creating a GN engine from the ground up has some massive benefits.

Can you expand on this? Something like RenPy seems really nice.

You know, I'd seen this, but I'd always thought it worked in a sort of dumbed-down manner like RPG Maker.  Looking into though, it does seem to offer quite a bit of versatility.  I guess I've just always had a sort of "do it yourself" mentality.

[Noyb]

Yeah, Ren'Py lets you run arbitrary Python/PyGame code. Christine Love made a whole faux-Amiga OS interface in Digital: A Love Story using Ren'Py. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong or bad with using the default UI presets, so long as it fits your game's needs!

[Qqwy]

Do it!  I'd love to see an interesting non-Japanese visual novel every now and again.  Two things I'd recommend you do:
a) Don't use a premade visual novel software to create it.  Creating a GN engine from the ground up has some massive benefits.
b) Write everything up in Dutch, and get a quality translator to make sure everything you wrote retains its original meaning if you decide to release it to an American/UK audience too.  Even if you feel fairly confident with your English, it's great to have an expert on board.

I think you are right. I was planning on making my own engine. However, this Ren'Py looks interesting, and I will do some research to find out if it is suitable for what I need. I was thinking about developing in Java, but I'm still open for anything, so lets see.


b) is very true. While I can express myself very well in English, I fail at the level of 'poetic writing' that is needed for making a real nice english story. Storywriting itself isn't my best point either. Thinking out a story is, however.

I think I will need quite a few more people to help me develop this game. Maybe I'll start some kind of small community around this, where everybody can contribute if they want to(by creating art, background music, ideas). This of course has a mayor problem, and that is that it can easily look like 'random stuff tossed together', so I'll need a few people who will be the main contributors(one person who finally draws the sprites for the different characters so the drawing-style is the same, one person who has the final hand about how the story will be so the way of story-telling is the same, etc)

But that's not my first concern  .


I'm wondering what you guys think about the story. Is this raw idea good? Is it solid? Or does it have some kind of contradiction? Any more ideas? Any questions?

[agersant]

At some points, the player has to make a choice. The choices are shown on the screen

At first glance I did read " The choices are not shown on the screen" and had a good laugh.

Likes : I think you had a very great idea about the blind playing.
Dislikes : The story doesn't feel very compelling to me, plus I would not want to player person A's story when I could be playing person B's which has the cool blind-gameplay concept on its side instead.
If that was just me I'd ditch person A's arc and lengthen person B's (or downscale the game). Also you could fire your artist if you did that :D

[Qqwy]

At some points, the player has to make a choice. The choices are shown on the screen

At first glance I did read " The choices are not shown on the screen" and had a good laugh.

Likes : I think you had a very great idea about the blind playing.
Dislikes : The story doesn't feel very compelling to me, plus I would not want to player person A's story when I could be playing person B's which has the cool blind-gameplay concept on its side instead.
If that was just me I'd ditch person A's arc and lengthen person B's (or downscale the game). Also you could fire your artist if you did that :D

And I had a good laugh about that last sentence

I myself think that the combination of the two makes the big part about the game. To have ónly the blind side could become boring at some point. By using them intertwined, it becomes interesting: People you've only seen before you can now hear, or you have people of who you know the voice but not the faces. This could allow quite interesting situations with relevations.

I don't want to have two separate story-arcs for the characters, but you play them in the same arc, intertwined. One scene you can see and walk around, and then when the next part comes, you play as the blind person. Both sides should not be too long and become boring before you play as the other person again.

Im however very interested about what part of the story you don't like. This is very important to me since this game is all about the story of course. Do you mean you don't like Person One(and his side of the story) so much, because then you don't play blind, or something else?

[agersant]

I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to story writing so don't rely on me too much.

I got your point about intertwining the stories and it's true you can get something good out of it so no worries.

What I dislike about person A's story is that his drive seems a bit dull.
I think "Get revenge on the people who killed his brother and framed him for it" is to thriller what "kill the dragon, save the princess" is to roleplaying games. It's not something I would feel very interested in as a player, kinda like the old Max Payne game.
Since your story includes a dark hidden organisation, I think you could get a fresher start by putting pressure on character A. He could be compromised unknowingly by something the organisation manage to set him up to do, or he could be chased by them not knowing why. I think you need to start your story with some kind of kick.

This could lead to meeting person B at a later moment which could be the first turn of your freshly started story. This way you could rejuvenate your pace by introducing his gameplay at his point.

To sum it up :
- Get a kick to start the story (maybe not as strong as the ones I suggested though, just a kick)
- Save the meeting between A and B for an interesting scene rather than an opening

[Qqwy]

I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to story writing so don't rely on me too much.

I got your point about intertwining the stories and it's true you can get something good out of it so no worries.

What I dislike about person A's story is that his drive seems a bit dull.
I think "Get revenge on the people who killed his brother and framed him for it" is to thriller what "kill the dragon, save the princess" is to roleplaying games. It's not something I would feel very interested in as a player, kinda like the old Max Payne game.
Since your story includes a dark hidden organisation, I think you could get a fresher start by putting pressure on character A. He could be compromised unknowingly by something the organisation manage to set him up to do, or he could be chased by them not knowing why. I think you need to start your story with some kind of kick.

This could lead to meeting person B at a later moment which could be the first turn of your freshly started story. This way you could rejuvenate your pace by introducing his gameplay at his point.

To sum it up :
- Get a kick to start the story (maybe not as strong as the ones I suggested though, just a kick)
- Save the meeting between A and B for an interesting scene rather than an opening

In fact, my idea was to start the game those (five?) years ago, where Person A gets tricked into 'helping' the organisation and where his brother gets killed. This part has a 'kick', it should be tense. And then, the player skips to after those years, when Person A gets out of jail.


But what you are saying is right. I don't know if what I have outlined above is similar, altough with the jail concept. I would like to use jail in there, because I want to make one of the mayor themes of the game: 'when are you a nice person, when are you good for the world/is it more important to be good to yourself/etc'.

Another idea would be to have him getting tricked by the organisation after he got out of jail. He WILL get followed by the organisation just as he gets out.



hmm... And now I suddently get another idea ! What if the organisation sets up a prison-break operation for him, just to kill him afterwards? That could be interesting, thrilling, and would give him a reason to start hunting the organisation/being hunted by the organisation/finding Person B.


What do you think?


About the Cliché part of 'get revenge for his brother': You could indeed see it as an overused formula, but it is the way many humans would act in such a situation.

I would see it more as: Find out who really killed his brother, and kill him. The first part of that is important as well.



Anyhow, thanks for pointing this out .


And now I'm interested what you guys think about the three above scenarios    ...