Hey everyone, my name is Jessica Hiam, but you can call me Queen Chaos. @Zane_Hiam is my older brother, and the one who introduced me to CoG’s. I’m graduating from high school this year, and for my final project I wanted to do something involving involving writing, because I really love it. Zane recommended I do a CoG, and after playing through a few games I was sold! But enough about me, let’s talk about the game I have an idea for.
Basically, the idea Zane and I had was a game that took place from the perspective of a young noble man/woman /person, and you would have full control over their personality and appearance. The game takes place in a world of war and chaos, where wealth and societal advancement are decided by skill on the battlefield. But will you be a mighty warrior? A dashing ranger? A cunning rogue? A powerful wizard? And what is it you seek? Honor? Love? Wealth? Power? The choice is yours.
Anyway, I want this to be a community project, so we may need one or two more writers if anyone’s interested. And definitely a coder, since Zane and I are both clueless when it comes to choice script.
You can ask me for questions regarding story, lore, or characters, and Zane for game play. Zane has a full time job and I have to go to school, so we may not be able to answer questions immediately. Also, serious work won’t start until around Thanksgiving. Let’s just say I’ve been through somewhat of a traumatic experience and need a week or two to relax. Maybe I’ll explore the forum a bit more. It seems like a great place!
I personally don’t have much time to write and code another story but I’m more than happy to put forward some ideas.
Perhaps one should start ‘low’, since this is a survival of the fittest type world maybe hierarchy is set through tournaments and trials proving one’s place. Maybe our MC earns the right to ‘train’ under a legendary figure?
Or is ‘raised’ by said legend, lets call him ‘the Black Knight’ a master of war, magic, stealth, archery, an impossible legend. But maybe it turns out that the Black Knight is a ‘title’ rather than a person the greatest warrior of the age?
Probably the most important questions are, when is this due and how much free time do you have? Every major design decision you make should be made with that in mind.
In fact, you may be better off learning Choicescript and writing the whole thing yourself. Writing in Choicescript is easy. Coordinating two writers and a coder on a time table is hard. That kind of thing can be surprisingly time consuming.
If you do get other contributors, you will need to be very clear about who contributed what. I’d recommend putting credits on your first page, identifying your coder, and saying which parts of the story were written by which writers. Otherwise you’re plagiarizing. That would be bad.
Finally, you probably want this game to be short, sweet, and enjoyable for school employees who are over the age of 30. The end of the school year is a busy time. There is no way I would spend half an hour grading one student’s high school project, if I could help it. They probably won’t care that much about customizing their appearance or gender either.
Making choices that will affect the plot is what tends to impress adults who haven’t played choice games before. Focusing on that should get you the biggest payoff and the best grade, especially if you code it yourself.
The project is due in June, and it’s for my game design class. I asked my teacher about it and he said I could make a CoG. The problem is, it’s a group project, and since I’ve missed a lot of school lately he said I could do it with people from the forums. I plan to have the first three chapters finished by then, and maybe if everyone’s interested we could keep working.
