I am continuing my work on the project. For now first chapter is done.
In it, you play a man from a small clan who will to another culture as envoy. This other culture will have different views about religion, bloodlines and position of women in society. For example in clans ones honour is the most important thing, then comes everything else. Their women are expected to care for the home and the children and their view of sexuality is quite puritan. On the other hand, the culture in which the MC will be forced into has rather hedonistic views of sexuality. In addition to that women there have more freedom, they base value of others by their ability to generate wealth rather than honour.
If romance will be featured in this game, do you plan on including homosexual options? (If your game will have no romance focus, that’s absolutely fine. I’m just asking out of curiosity.)
Since the MC was brought up in a clan with puritanical views on sexuality, the new clan could present quite a culture clash and also the beginning of a new life for a queer MC. Potentially forcing him to reevaluate his opinions and potential perspectives for the future when marriage/children don’t have to be his #1 priority anymore.
Writing: I get the sense that in some moments you tell us more than you show.
Example: Some of those bolded lines could have been expressed via dialogue to make the scene more dynamic.
You thank her and go inside. Before eating you make an offering to the ancestors by burning some resin and asking for their blessing of your line. […] As you eat your lunch in silence someone calls your name from outside the cottage. You curse his name and ancestors in your mind and tell your sister to show whoever it is inside. After a moment of hushed conversation you can see Vit entering your cottage. You offer him a seat and a plate at your table as rules of hospitality dictate. He accepts and in certain tone asks the ancestors for the blessing of the host.
If slavery is supposed to play a bigger role in this story (and, for example, slave characters are directly shown to be abused), I would consider warning for that at the start of the game.
Are you planning on adding more stats? I like the bit about the language we’re speaking and hope it will make a difference once we are introduced to the new clan.
If you want suggestions for the name i think you should add a little bit of information of the story like what will the mc do or what culture it is etc
I’d like to see how the MC will react to the other culture. Will the sister also move with us, or is she staying with the man she’s marrying? I think it will be interesting to explore the possible contrast between her reaction and that of the MC.
This is from the adult readers group, describing what the forum considers to be adult content. If your game will include said content you should probably make the adult reader version of this thread.
About adult content
First, to be clear, we consider any explicit sex, rape, incest, sexual violence, violence against children or disabled people, torture, or sadistic violence to be mature content. Games which contain these or similar topics should only be posted in the Adult Content categories.
Second, if a game contains implicit sex (and is clearly marked), or contains a clear option to disable any explicit sex in game (and is clearly marked as such), and contains no other Adult Content, or a game is otherwise likely to generate discussion that belongs in the Adult Content category even if it itself does not otherwise belong in the Adult Content category, it is appropriate to make two threads for your game, one that is in the Adult Content category for explicit discussions, and one that is in the normal Work in Progress Category, making certain to link the two of them. (Note that all published games use this rule. If you wish to discuss explicit content in a published game but cannot find a thread about it already, feel free to make one yourself.)
Suggestions for edits:
“Master, wake up!” a slave repeats several times until you open your tired eyes. You see her black hair tied in a fashion slaves are obligated to wear. Her eyes are rather small when compared to her meaty cheeks. It’s clear she was taken as slave from western nomads. “What is so important?” you ask. “This slave apologises for waking you, but you are asked for by the clan elders, master.” slave says in almost practiced manner. Most slaves are owned by the clan and not an individual as having slaves is quite expensive and for most unnecesery.
Should be unnecessary. Also when writing dialogue, I would suggest starting a new line for each new speaker to make it easier to read, so it will look like this:
“Master, wake up!” a slave repeats several times until you open your tired eyes. You see her black hair tied in a fashion slaves are obligated to wear. Her eyes are rather small when compared to her meaty cheeks. It’s clear she was taken as slave from western nomads.
“What is so important?” you ask.
“This slave apologises for waking you, but you are asked for by the clan elders, master.”
I think you should have some more paragraph breaks. Having one long block of text makes reading a bit difficult. And by a puritan view of sex, do you mean sex is viewed as sinful and only for children? Or is it more like, no sex before marriage?
So you think I should write the actual dialog instead of just writing what was said. Noted!
I am not yet clear on the romance and if it will feature in the game. As I said I’m not much of a writer and I wouldn’t like to make promises which I can’t keep.
There is no such thing as sin in the mind of Redulian as they have no gods, they only honour their ancestors.
Having sex without being married is seen as dishonourable act. If one would take part in it one would be forced to leave the clan.
You don’t have to commit to anything with regard to your game. I was mainly asking out of curiosity.
Not in all the cases. Sometimes, it is a better choice just to express what the characters are talking about. For example: Character A gives Character B flowers. If the gesture doesn’t mean anything or isn’t particularly important to the story, it doesn’t hurt to write “They accepted Character A’s flowers with gratitude / with a smile / you-have-it.”
Me going on about this flower interaction.
However, if the interaction tells us something about the characters or the world they live in, you should definitely go into more detail. If, for example, Character A is courting Character B, it would matter how and with what words Character A gave them the flowers and how / with what words Character B receives them. This way, we as readers would glean an insight into their relationship, their motivations, and maybe even their personalities. It can tell us a lot if a suitor is choosing to give daisies over red roses. If they are giving them with a pun, a shy smile, or while quoting a poem.
To go with the quote I used above, these would be the sections I’d like you to elaborate on:
asking for their blessing of your line: Could tell us something about the MC’s culture and his belief system, maybe even about his heritage.
You curse his name and ancestors in your mind: Same as above.
of hushed conversation: Not technically necessary but could tell us more about the relationship between the two or hint at their secret. Not to mention: If Vit’s actions toward the MC’s sister are considered scandalous, why would the MC not be suspicious here? What does Vit have to talk about with the MC’s unmarried sister?
in certain tone asks the ancestors for the blessing of the host: Describe the tone and how the MC interprets it. You could also explain what it means to ask for “the blessing of the host”. Does any of this tell us something about how Vit sees the MC or wants to be seen by him? Does Vit want to make a particular impression?
It has potential. It looks like a paragraph right now a bit of editing should do the trick. Since there was a option of choosing between being a fighter or a hunter it’d be cool if there were different weapons in these roles. Like a hunter being good with using bow,daggers etc and a fighter in hand to hand,sword,spear etc.
It sounds interesting so far. I really like the idea of the character going into a very different culture. I wish it wasn’t gender locked, though. I have a hard time playing these games as someone very different to me. Unless there’s a narrative reason for it being locked, I’d strongly recommend allowing the player to be a woman. I’m not the only one who struggles with this
I like the idea. One of my degrees is in Cultural Anthropology so this is a very interesting premise to me. I do have a few suggestions:
Check your paragraph structures. It is very train-of-thought.
Reduce needless exposition. Show don’t tell. You give a lot of info up front that we can discover later. Slim it down. For example we don’t need to know who lives with the MC yet. Show later by having them interact with the MC and explain them. It is too much info too quickly.
Maintain the cultural divide. Don’t force the MC into embracing the “modern” culture and show its very distinct drawbacks. Hedonism is a problem in the world today. Show how it strains social bonds and reduces familial influence.
Highlight the good and bad for both systems and allow the MC to utilize ideas from both to affect the other.
I have no problem with slavery. It had a place in human society for thousands of years for a reason. Very likely we as a species would not have advanced without it. And I say this as someone whose ancestors faced slavery by countless invasions and suffered well into the same period as African slavery. But be sure to properly frame the issue. Slaves that are treated poorly aren’t given free reign in a society. So there would need to be strong laws regarding them and their treatment. Similar to what we would’ve seen among the Native and Central Americans, Celts, and some other groups. The Romans and British had a lot of rebellions and slave revolts because of their treatment of slaves. The Celts didn’t have permanent slavery and slaves had an opportunity to marry and move into society. Their children also were born free. The Native Americans had a similar system. Explore it fully so that it isn’t a gimmick or it’ll just annoy the social-justice warriors out there and they’ll review bomb you.
Another particularity would be to show the advances of both cultures in various aspects of these societies since there is no fixed consensus to designate one culture more advanced than another, for example, indigenous America was more advanced in agriculture than Europe or Spain allowed black slaves to buy his freedom since he divided it there was of clans and socioeconomic status as well as religious and never racial since there was a consensus in the Spanish empire that every man had a soul (native Americans and slaves who had laws that regulated the treatment of their owners reported by Humboldt in his chronicles)
Another particularity would be to show the advances of both cultures in various aspects of these societies since there is no fixed consensus to designate one culture more advanced than another, for example, indigenous America was more advanced in agriculture than Europe or Spain allowed black slaves to buy his freedom since he divided it there was of clans and socioeconomic status as well as religious and never racial since there was a consensus in the Spanish empire that every man had a soul (native Americans and slaves who had laws that regulated the treatment of their owners reported by Humboldt in his chronicles where a woman who mistreated her slaves to the point of injuring them are taken from her by the State as well as granted her freedom) A more paternalistic but never supremacist vision.
I agree. We know the Celts for example were dabbling in advanced surgical techniques, chemistry, and understood a lot about the basic ideas behind infection. They, like the Mayans, could predict celestial phenomenon and solar movement far better than peoples hundreds of years later could with telescopes. Advancement is in many ways subjective.
On the discussion of slavery though it is particular interesting. It would be more so if the author added robots or androids to the futuristic society to serve them. It’d make for a fun internal debate between the two cultures.
found a error in you game when it gives you options of getting angry, attack him or i forgot what the other one is but when you press get angry at him it pops up saying 1 line 149: bad label wrathfulresponse
