Community Choice Script Game?

Game Development
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@andymwhy Good to be back. I’m trying get back on with my own works, but I’m willing to lend a hand.

The sound of the game is a lot more focused in scope than what we first tried. I think it might be doable. Also, the baseline story made me think a lot of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centari. Setting it a century or so in the future would allow for some less tension charged ideas in the first section. That brings up two major points: Tone and stance.

Tone is something we all know and argue about: Serious vs Lighthearted. Obviously we’d be talking about some very serious issues, with political divides, potential terrorism and so on, but that’s not to say they can’t be handled in lighter manners, such as with clear cut bad guys and good guys. That said, I think such a thing would lend itself better to a more realistic approach, the idea that every system has its faults that we have to account for.

As for stance, I think that the first section would lay a lot of the groundwork for that. Do you believe/do this, or that. All sorts of problems could crop up in a such a closed system. What is it, 1000 people to maintain genetic diversity without worry of a single microbe devastating the population, right? So, assuming some people have to stay awake at the very least (a fair assertion I think, if just for mechanics reasoning), that’s a lot of things that can go wrong.

One thing you mentioned made me think. Neighbors. Let’s talk about neighbors in the same sense that we have neighbors now. (I think we can all come to about the same thoughts on space neighbors). Now, where does the PC come from? Is this a world wide project, or are multiple nations saying “We’re gonna build our own rocket”? If the later, we’re talking about an easier more linear path, but if the later, we’ve got a question. Is the PC’s location preset (and if so, where are they from), or can they choose what nation/region to be from? If there are multiple ships being launched, wouldn’t it be a fair assertion to think that multiple ships would land?

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I’m glad people like the idea, but it can only really take off (no pun intended) if we find the people willing to put in the time and effort to make it. If you are interested, this would be a good place to post.

@Reaperoa, I wrote the blurb for this a while back (just never published it) and left the neighbours line in there as a teaser. My idea was that the world banded together to create a single ship (group of ships?). Then, depending on your actions in phase 1, it is possible that other ‘rogue’ projects could also have been launched from Earth at the same time. Depending on your choice of HOW to get to the planet, if you chose cryogenics, the relationship between you and the rogue people would remain as you had left it. However, if your people have been isolated from the other group for 1000 years… How will your people have changed? How will the other group have changed? What will reactions be like when you finally meet again? There’s a lot of room for creative license here, despite the seriousness of the game.

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@andymwhy
Yeah,I can see that kind of story being quite good for a community game.There are 3 dedicated acts,lots of possibility and choices,etc.

But I would like to say that I have another idea for a community game.
I see this idea is more for lots of writers working on the project and making little (little is acceptable, but really it can be a lot)progress on the story, each writer having controll of a portion of the story,than a few combined really close writers working on the project making each great progress on the story.

This picture illustrates how a way the game could be done:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9ByUz4SQDtpWnZUNFd0RHVFbmM/edit?usp=sharing

I thought about it for a while, and I decided that the idea must be flexible. Flexible enough that any writer could commit to the game and carve out a story, setting, e.t.c. while still also staying true to the main plot of the game.

There’s 2 main ideas here people:

First off, is the idea that you are an iSAD (inter-dimensional Secret Activities Division) agent ,who goes into other dimensional/goes back/forward in time to achieve a goal, whether that be assassination, escort, etc.

Second off, is that your either a high school or college student(or an adult working a job ),and at the end of every day, you would dream. Dream a lot of crazy things. Ranging from just borderline crazy to more realistic things, those are your dreams. And they feel so real, that you need to go to the psychiatrist to see just why these things are happening to you,and why they are so real,like……you’re Actually travelling dimensions!(like having a leg scar that wasn’t there the other day)

Because of the dimension/dream theme, like I stated in the beginning, lots of writer’s have the capability to write what they want to.
This picture also illustrates that. The rectangle is the game,and teh otehr shapes are all other writer’s ideas,co-existing within the game.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9ByUz4SQDtpWHZnRWhRSW8zOGs/edit?usp=drive_web

Like for instance me: I feel that I can write the best when it comes to science fiction future stuff, current military fiction, or just plain medieval-like fantasy. Say If I’m on the project, I write one day where the main character has a dream in the specified fields. Another writer might can only write horror things, so they’ll write a horror story.

Something to provide a bit of cohesion through all these things would be where the student ‘s dreams ends and they face real life, or the iSAD agent returns to his home dimension. We could have said writer work on that within their own allotted piece of the story, or we could just have 1 person write always that.

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Before this thread goes awry, I’d like to say that Colonising Kepler 62e is a game that I WILL make with the right support. Whether that is now or in the future.

Phase one will be discussed in detail with all writers as the decisions here will drastically affect the later phases. The type of ship created will affect phase two and the decisions to encourage/ discourage, to sabotage or assist other projects will influence how your ‘neighbours’ will react to you in phase three.

Phase two would be the most open for writers to be creative. Each generation of people would have different obstacles to overcome. Perhaps a vignette per generation with references to past vignettes in later generations.

Phase three isn’t clear in my mind yet… I guess the details there are the most open to discussion.

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I was actually thinking something along the lines of @Kloud’s modular method for a community game. It allows for anyone to really jump in with their own small section and contribute. As long as there’s some overall goal that must be adhered to, each dimension could have just about anything in it and it’s own goals to get that piece of the puzzle for the bigger picture.

I think @andymwhy’s idea would work better as a cohesive piece, although it’d be harder to organize and involve more of an exclusive group than just the “general community”. I do like that everyone involved would have their own assigned tasks however, and if the writers are on the same track it would be an efficient way to get a big game like that done.

Both ways sound like they’d be fun.

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I dont think its going to work :l

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@P0RT3R Keep criticism constructive please.

As good as @andymwhy 's idea is (I really like it) I feel like it’d be a bit epic for a first attempt at a largely collaborative game. My suggestion would be to tackle something simpler to begin with, something that can be done in a matter of months, just a short piece. If that works, then by all means take on something more comprehensive - but don’t try and run a marathon with a team you’ve not even trained with.

One concept of production that could work is the Visual Novel approach. So rather than a constantly changing game you’d have a game that branched (depending on choices) into several after a certain shared prolouge/first few chapters ‘routes’. It’s typical of a dating sim, but it could work with any sort of plot - the idea being that each author writes their own “route”.

Each route might have one or two sub-branches (good endings/bad endings/neutral ending).

Also a while back we discussed the possibility of a multiplayer game written in CS, nothing hacked, just something that you can ‘Pass and Play’ - That’s something that I still think could work really well, and its development would benefit from multiple collaborators.

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Oops

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I want to take part in it! Count on me to make this game.

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For any multi-writer project, CJW is right. Practise first. So what about a simple mystery game? You are a detective trying to solve a murder. You know it is one of X people and you must interview them all. Each writer would take on the persona of one of the suspects. We’d need a setting, the murderer (randomly chosen amongst the writers) and a victim. Each writer would be given a specific piece of evidence to include in their dialogue, otherwise there would be free license to write whatever backstory they wanted!

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I would love help but my writing skills in english arent good enough and i have none artistic skills :(( . Maybe i could help code or another anoying task.

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I think that CJW is right- and I really like andymwhy’s idea is amazing, but our first group projects should be figuring out how we could work efficiently as a team. That being said, we could do a significantly smaller project at first, but sort of as a prequel to Kepler.

You could be the president of a nation on earth dealing with issues such as rights (of the people of your country), diplomacy (w/ other countries), politics (w/in your country), and any other events we wanted.

Each event that happens will be a scene, and your choice on this event will impact the future of your country. Depending on the choices you made, your country will either be powerful or weak in the endgame. The game ends with the discovery of Kepler 62e. (If possible, we could even translate your country’s power into Kepler, giving you better/worse equipment depending)

… or something like that. A prequel to Kepler would be fairly quick, and because characters are constantly changing and circumstances are different for each event, the change in voice won’t be an issue. Anyone could write one small event with one small impact.

Kloud’s idea is also very appealing, as anyone could jump in and write about a different dimensional dream.

The story needs to allow a change in voice to make sense in order for this to work.

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@incrediblejonas I agree with you about the precuel ruling a nation could be a great idea

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This is a good idea. Let the player name their nation, and create their main opposing nations.
Let them go through scenarios as they lead their country. The better their handling of each scenario, the better their leadership qualities are for Kepler.

Each writer could create one scenario for the player to go through. It would be kind of like a glorified character creation process that would be a mini game in it’s own right.