I planned on writing a detective story, then I thought how great a Choice Of Cthulhu game would be. So here I am. Due to the fact this is the old timey days, true to Lovecraft’s original works, choosing to be a woman or racial minority will put a different spin on events, rather than just leading to a pronoun swap between genders. Characters will have only three major skills, as I hate fiddling with a variety of useless stats. Prowess (strength), Guile (Stealth), and Wit (Intelligence). Your character’s charisma will be determined by how well YOU the player can read a character, and what they think of your previous actions. I’m thinking rather than a traditional health bar, your character could attain various wounds with different effects, some lethal, others blocking certain routes. The other major health trait will be sanity, low sanity could restrain dialog choices, and block off routes, eventually leading to suicide if it drops to zero. Also, sanity could effect how your character sees the environment, flavoring the scene setting descriptions, like Sabre of Infinity’s pessimism and optimism stats. Other characters will have preset sexualities, no gender flipping to make everyone a romance option, this creates replay value, and hopefully I can flesh them out, before your lover is torn apart by cosmic monstrosities. Also, you will have a companion, male or female throughout your journey. (But I can’t reveal much there for the plot’s sake). Anyways comment, critique, discuss.
In a 1920s New Orleans, can you uncover the secrets of The Elder Gods, or will your mind be plucked from sanity, and cast into the deep?
Great idea, except for the fact that you *might* run into copyright issues, see here:
“Chaosium, publishers of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, have a trademark on several Lovecraftian phrases and creations, including “The Call of Cthulhu”, for use in game products. Another RPG publisher, TSR, Inc., original publisher of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, included in one of that game’s earlier supplements, Deities & Demigods (originally published in 1980 and later renamed to “Legends & Lore”), a section on the Cthulhu Mythos; TSR, Inc. later agreed to remove this section from subsequent editions because of Chaosium’s intellectual property interests in the work.”
I love the concept, stats, and how your character and/or sanity will affect the world around you and how it’s described. As long as you stay within public domain and away from Chaosium’s trademarked phrases, you could definitely do something Lovecraftian. I would devour a game like that. Or get devoured by unspeakable horrors. Whichever.
Wow, thanks for all the positive response guys! I’ve been investigating, Chaosium has licensed the specific phrase Call of Cthulhu. Also, basing visual depictions of Cthulhu on Chaosium’s work is risky. However, I can’t draw so no problem there. Also authors like Stephen King may call you out on their contributions on the mythos. However I’m more going for original Lovecraft stuff. I doubt the copyright will be an issue. But thanks everyone for pointing it out!
Also I was thinking a strength based character’s forward approach might put them in more mind bending situations where sanity drops, but then they don’t need a high sanity as much as say, a diplomatic character. While a more stealth based or intelligent character could keep their sanity from harm, but rely on it more. Is that a good idea?
Finally, a bit on the structure. I was thinking of dividing the story into acts and scenes. Each scene would be a save point, and affect what happens in other scenes culminating in the act’s finale. In the act’s finale you would make a major choice, scene choices would not be important to the overall story, but an act’s finale choice will lead to a choice that affects the ending. Hopefully this allows branching paths, while still reigning in the plot to keep things manageable, then the ending will really branch it out. Anyway, I’m going to get some work squared away then I’ll fire up Notepad and get to work.
Yeah, the same happened when someone wanted to make a game based on Sherlock Holmes…
Writing while trying to avoid anything that could be copyrighted kills the fun.
I mainly got Choicescript set up today, and have written a few scenes briefly describing your character’s customizable background. I have a couple sheets of paper where I’m writing scenes/brainstorming when away from the computer. In advance, Wednesday and Thursday may not be productive days, but Friday and Saturday should be good compensation.
can’t wait to see what its like.
And just wondering if (armee de aine dieux) was supposed to mean army of the elder gods? in which case it should be armée des dieux ainés
Thanks, the translation was something I was definitely going to check out during beta testing, as I don’t speak French but wanted to give some of the French New Orleans influence.
Like I predicted, didn’t make much progress, except I got sudden inspiration for two potential endings! They weren’t anything I was expecting, but I guess that’s the creative process! Also, I got this nice compilation of Lovecraft’s best works, and I’m reading them to get some more inspiration. However, I’m not using it as a crutch, for example, don’t expect the same amount of ludicrous adjective spam he uses. I’m assuming some here are familiar with his original work, and you know what I’m talking about.
