If the subjugation of androids is central to the plot, I think it would be more interesting to play as an android regardless of gender. It would make the conflict more personal for the MC. The group of friends could consist of 1 vanilla human, 1 cyborg, 1 slightly cybernetic person, and 1 sentient android, or something like that. Different degrees of what is traditionally seen as human.
(Another idea.) If you want to make a unique sci-fi dystopia, make the reason for the world turning horrible something else than mad science. Have a society where science is suppressed and people are forced to live in very primitive conditions (with the exception of the ruling class). The MC could be someone who smuggles modern machines, medicine, and other scientific inventions to his/her country. Or the MC could be someone who secretly needs a scientific invention, such as a cyborg prosthetic, in order to have a normal life. I think the âgenetics is eugenicsâ, âkiller robotâ, and many other scary sci-fi tropes are boring. Science isnât dangerous, power-hungry politicians are.
Try to on some common works of dystopias. Imagine how the society became the way it did, or how people live in it. What kind of mentality do you create when people are exposed to X for such a long time? Hpow does that affect art and architecture?
If you set it too much in the future, maybe you can even go in the way of cyberpunk.
I think what makes a dystopia âfunâ is imagining yourself heroically fighting against the evil society. We all want to feel like heroes, but weâre rarely willing to go out and really put our lives on the line because we often have a lot to lose - family, jobs, reputation, dignity, health and safety, etc. But a fictional dystopia lets us imagine ourselves as heroes in a safe environment.
(Any posts after #14 I will read later because I was typing this before I left for my studying binge and final exams afterwards. I just got home and finals were a killer. Please pray for my grades)
I first want to start off by saying that in NO WAY did I mean for the genderless option being a robot that has gained sentience to be derogatory. I meant that that is what the person starts off as and Iâm very sorry for not clarifying as I keep forgetting that gender and sex usually arenât interchangeable words and Iâm probably going to mess that up somewhere in here tbh.
They can say afterwards if they feel like a different gender despite the one that they were born/made into being. The android, for instance, would start off as a genderless being then the basic description of life as a machine is given. They afterwards can say âI want to be referred to as a female/male/Iâm okay with being non-binaryâ. Nearly the same situation happens if you choose for the MC to be born as a male/female human and to later on declare that they feel that they are something else inside. Biologically if you arenât born male/female then you are intersex which is more of a spectrum than a single sex and would be a bitch to code imo. The differences between starting off as a robot who has gained sentience and a male/female human, is the option to be born/created as the sex of your preferred gender to avoid the on coming controversy.
In this (currently unnamed) society. There are specific roles one must play partially based on what they are born into. There definitely is going to be some kind of resistance fighting back. Whether they are started by you or are already a thing idk, but Iâm thinking that they will be way more free form than the main society/government they are rebelling against since my partner in this stated that he wanted there to be a society focused on âefficiencyâ and for our protagonist want to break away from it.
Have you played the Bladerunner adventure game? While not a text adventure, it does have some significant choices in it, multiple endings, and a few randomised elements that can change each playthrough. It was one of my favourite games. (And the first thing I ever bought on Amazon.)
I think itâs fully possible to enjoy dystopian fiction. If anything it provides something of a relief from our own problems, since they often have heroes in them, that overturn the regime, and make the world a better place. I think itâs satisfying watching dystopias be smashed and overcome.
Even when they donât, even when they have stark, bleak endings, you can point at them and go âat least itâs not quite that bad yet.â
Admittedly, Iâm not at all fond of the dystopians with bad endings. They make me grumpy.
[quote=âIvoryOwl, post:20, topic:22434â]
Doh, I feel stupid now! Whatâs worse is that I may have mixed cyberpunk with dystopian⌠[/quote]
You shouldnât feel stupid. It can be both. In fact most cyberpunk has a dystopian setting. (Thatâs not to say that all dystopias are cyberpunk though.)
If you want some ideas of dystopias you could get some ideas of the game rage is a good game that shows a dystopia combined with a post apocalypse world
I always thought it would be interesting to have story about a world in the aftermath of a really destructive fight between two superhumans and how humanity lives with the damage for example cities built in giant craters that someone was punched into or floating cities made because the moon was destroyed and tidal waves were affected just think about all those movies/anime with over the top fight scenes and destruction and how humanity would react if it wasnât all magically fixed
This is important to understand. Since it is fiction we can often âenjoyâ a dystopian story just as we can âenjoyâ a horror story. It doesnât exclude being able to be enjoyed because it isnât âsupposed to be enjoyed.â
I enjoy learning and a dystopian tale can teach a lot. The dystopian story often challenges me to think, another thing I enjoy.
I dunno either @MizArtist33 - 1984 was one of those stories that made me think about things. I really enjoyed that.
Hey, i got this strange idea. How about instead of making a game about living in or fighting the dystopian gov., youâre the one running it and explore the moral hazard and illusion of choice within it? How is that sound?
Oh trust me, there is going to be some heavy and personal conflict either way. The whole android thing is to give the player another option in terms of background and to be âbornâ as a âsexâ (can it be called that since they are technically not only genderless, but also sexless in this case?) outside of a human constrained to gender roles and standards since itâs biologically impossible to be born w/out genitalia.
Lol the plan was never to have the world ruined by mad science, just a super efficient society to the point where it is oppressive of personal freedoms. However, you bringing up smuggling and such has brought something to my attention. My partner and I were recently talking about a/multiple rebel groups and you got me thinking that people donât really organize together as a unit like this unless they are trying to achieve a difficult goal. This train of thought led to:
If they are upset, why canât they just leave? Why is it so necessary that they risk their lives to fight back instead of just escaping? Does this society control the whole world to force everyone to operate at peak capacity? If so then where are these ârebelsâ living/managing to hide? Do they only control a large portion of land, but much more habitable than the âoutside worldâ?
Thank you @Lavender because I think you may have helped me answer a few of those questions. Now to run it by my partner~[quote=âMrsObedMarsh, post:24, topic:22434â]
We all want to feel like heroes, but weâre rarely willing to go out and really put our lives on the line because we often have a lot to lose - family, jobs, reputation, dignity, health and safety, etc.
[/quote]
I kinda want to steal this line from you and put it somewhere.
I actually have an idea about that for a later game but I want to get completely used to choicescript because that project will likely be my baby.
That does sound like a good idea⌠Iâll talk to my partner about working it in as a kind of âvillianâ or âchange the system from the insideâ option.
Now to ask you all for your help on top of asking for your help by copying and pasting my reclusive partnerâs words for you.
We have been teetering between these two ideas which would have implication for the overall meaning that could be taken from the story:
This society, based on efficiency, can have a nearly ant-like structure which features certain roles picked out for individuals with certain physical characteristics picked out from before birth (think genetic engineering to determine oneâs traits).
We would be taking up, like many other dystopian settings before, the commonly libertarian idea that people should be allowed to choose their own destiny and be given free will to do as they please which should not be limited by others. This idea, while alright in theory, leaves little room for the idea of a more constructive government that is ruled and funded in-part by The People.
The protagonist will seek to destroy or dismantle what allows them to control the populationâs genetic future, not to mention find that the struggle which divides them may also help them to discover that they are stronger for their differences and can stand in solidarity for them.
There may be a larger struggle in the works here that plays off of other issues such as xenophobia or tribalism in the the form of one genetically-specific-laborer harassing another GSL for having what might be considered a âlowerâ job.
(Kattz note: Iâm worried about this one despite suggesting it to him because it might seem too much like the Kryptonian thing in Man of Steel. Does this sound too Kryptonian-y to you?)
Otherwise, I imagine a less-used (unheard of, as far as Iâm aware) concept of taking standardized testing to extremes. Whereas in our current society, a test such as this one determines whether someone has learned the material and whether they pass on to the next grade level, this particular idea will find that a childâs whole future (job, income, benefits) will be determined via an aptitude test that they take at a certain age. Prior to taking the exam, their young minds are stuffed with information that they may never use again and skip out on learning knowledge for the sake of passion while stifling creativity.
The society therein will have more economic issues at play (educational disparity between neighborhoods of differing incomes, for example) and as such, have high rates of poverty that are commonly by previously well-respected members being put out onto the streets, such as some being âdisposed ofâ when they have outrun their âusefulness/efficiencyâ in a similar way to how some soldiers return from combat with little left.
The protagonist may very well be one of those previously higher-ups that is disposed of, if not someone overlooking the unfair attitudes that separate them, possibly by befriending one (which opens room for a strong supporting character).
Just FYI, the âyoung people are assigned jobs based on aptitude testsâ thing is fairly common in YA and middle-grade dystopia - notably in The Giver, Divergent, The City of Ember, Matched, and probably a bunch of other books too. (The earliest example of the trope I know of is Ayn Randâs Anthem, which was first published in 1938, but that book is aimed at adults.) The trope makes a lot of sense for teen and tween fiction - many kids spend a lot of time worrying about what their future job is going to be, so the idea that something so important might be completely outside of their control is a scary thought. (The societies that match people to jobs also tend to match spouse to spouse, because the question of what kind of person to marry - or even if marriage is something worth striving for - is another thing kids tend to worry about as they get closer to adulthood.) The age at which people get their job assignments depends on the age group the book is aimed at - kids will get sorted at 11 or 12 in a middle-grade book, or 16 or 17 in a book aimed at high schoolers.
I suggest you check out some of these books if youâre interested in using this trope. I highly recommend The Giver, a book thatâs frequently taught in middle school English with good reason. Itâs a quick read, but packs a wallop. Prepare to cry!
Or perhaps even a cynical protagonist, battered by the harsh winds of the world and life~
I mentioned that to him when he brought up the whole aptitude test process thing and what it would entail. The difference here would be that the people who score the highest in whatever area wouldnât be wasted in a completely different field that keeps them from doing their finest work since this society strives toward âefficiencyâ rather than the suppression of individuality. Also, I may not agree with Randâs philosophy, but I rather enjoy her work.
Read a Brave New World, think on it a bit, then make your own little spinoff of it. I think thatâd be really cool; Brave New World is hands down on my top 3 dystopian novels list, and there are a lot of great dystopian novels out there.
Iâm gonna break the mold in a small way and offer that maybe you donât need to reinvent the wheel of sci-fi dystopian fiction. If Ayn Rand or George Orwell or anyone played on the same tropes, so be it. This is a rather unique medium to be creating in, and I think people will enjoy it because of the interactivity and the unique flavoring and detailed world building you do. I think each of the ideas expressed has been worthwhile and able to be transformed into a complete Choice game.
I hear about that so much and I know of it, but I have actually never read Orwellâs 1984 now that I think of it. Iâll check it out. This definitely wonât end up like Animal Farm though, I want to give the characters a chance to fight.
I canât express how much I hated that book. I read it when I was 13 for a high school assignment and I was disgusted and scarred. I congratulate A. Huxley for probably getting his point across though so we might go with the type of government system that was used there or at least something like it, but most definitely not the moral (by our current standards) depravity. * shudders *
Perhaps. I definitely helps to have tropes to fall back on of course, but I worry about making anything âcookie cutterâ be it my art, writing, music or whatever else. Thank you for your input though.
