That idea remind that I’d kill for a Lucius-like CoG game. Not enough games where you’re part of an antichrists battle royal.
Sounds like the most interesting option to me.
I am planning to develop the Shen (God) background further, I am hoping to release the WIP so far with the prologue and chapter 1 within the next two weeks! (It is currently sitting at about 27k words and counting 
). I’d love to see what someone who actually plays the background thinks, most of the people I allowed to test a private version seem to prefer the human turned mortal angle.
I think though that the discovery of identity and focus on the question of immortality, whether you want it or not, might end up taking the background until the more immediate issue is addressed. I won’t say what, but you’ll know when the demo launches 
I will say this, it is definitely not slice of life anymore. I can’t help myself, writing light and fluffy is against my nature, it seems.
@Dragomer Can I DM you? I’m always open for discussing with new people.
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I can understand why, after all a human isn’t supposed to be immortal and thus would feel the weight of age a lot more, alongside losing other humans who couldn’t escape, than something like a deity who’s immortality is just part of their nature. That’s sure to be what most people gravitate toward by default when they start a ‘Immortal adopt a mortal’ story.
But I personally just see so much potential for the deity, just the question of what it mean to be a deity, of what you even are now that you’re forgotten and how to connect with a human as a parent and child instead of deity and believer. It’s just mind-blowing the amount of themes you could explore with that background.
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I say go for it, make a demo and the community will guide you on how to fine-tune the story.
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Taking in what others have said, I can get it, but my reaction was totally different. I think adding the apocalypse/horror genre adds a twist to the iconic “obsessed detective” vibe, and that’s both unique and hella interesting. Ill be waiting for that demo tho 
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I have to agree, being some weirdo who focus on Crime Solving in an apocalypse where it’s the last of everyone’s worry sound great. Sound like a Fallout quest.
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I’m quite new here and to this whole cog games thing, but i really wanted to try it out.
So here’s a few ideas that i can think of;
1- Yoysafril roots: MC gets back to their childhood city and it will be kinda a horror/suspense, the plot here is… well, you’ll need to play it first, right? Don’t think it will be a romance thing since i want to focus on the horror thing, but i guess i can come up with a RO or two.
2- Untitled: You’re an eldritch horror from a magical age or way before that, a bringer of death, a monster who only purpouse is to bring chaos and destruiction, well, that’s what you once were, now you’re fully lost in a modern world… How did you even get there? 
3- Untitled: Kinda similar to the first one, but it’s not horror/suspense, it’s more of an adventure thing, this one is guaranteed to have RO’s. Some crazy thing happens and you’ll be fixing the past, LITERALLY.
That’s it guys, which did you like?
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Out of the three of them I like the second idea the best .
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I really like the 2nd idea!
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Hello! Happy new year! I’ve been a CoG player for quite some time, although I will admit the first year of my obsession was spent playing Alter Ego on a rather obsessive loop! I have played around with the idea of having a go at making one of these games for a little while but since October I’ve been having a go at actually making those ideas something solid and playable.
However I know I will not be able to make more than one game at once and so I am here to humbly ask which, if any, of these ideas people would be interested in! It’s very much something I’m intending to do for fun rather than anything else but I’d still rather cater to what people are more interested in for my first foray into this! There’s a few things I’ve been working on but this is the most fleshed out despite the variations in plan. Also the fact there are multiple variations ideas in no way means I have not worked on a demo for them, merely I found myself working on one idea whenever I was stuck with another.
Name may change but this is the current title.
Except One
Have you ever stopped to wonder what life would have been if you’d never had to grow up? If you’d managed to stay a child forever?
What would you be doing at this very moment should you have never been tied down? If only you had avoided the trials and tribulations of everyday life, you’d be free - would you not?
Not a care in the world, not a worry in your mind or a weight to weigh you down.
You’d be as light as a feather. You’d have room for hope and excitement and adventure and endless motes of possibility laying out in front of you. There would be adventure around the corner, some foe to vanquish or come climb to conquer.
It is normal to wonder, a normal thing to stare up at the sky but whilst we all may wish to remain children forever we know that cannot be. The world turns, the leaves fall from trees and regrow as blossoms in the spring, the ground freezes and thaws and people age. The sun goes up, the sun goes down and one day we will be up amongst the stars from which we come.
There are responsibilities, jobs and taxes and marriage and eventually your own children. There is order and etiquette and thoughts of mischief are tossed away in favour of propriety and all the many things young children grow up despising.
It is a certain and altogether bleak fact that every child grows up however much they may rally against it.
Every child that is, except one.
Have you ever stopped to wonder what life would have been if you’d never had to grow up? If you’d managed to stay a child forever?
What would you be doing at this very moment should you have never been tied down? If only you had avoided the trials and tribulations of everyday life, you’d be free - would you not?
Not a care in the world, not a worry in your mind or a weight to weigh you down.
You’d be as light as a feather. You’d have room for hope and excitement and adventure and endless motes of possibility laying out in front of you. There would be adventure around the corner, some foe to vanquish or come climb to conquer.
It is normal to wonder, a normal thing to stare up at the sky but whilst we all may wish to remain children forever we know that cannot be. The world turns, the leaves fall from trees and regrow as blossoms in the spring, the ground freezes and thaws and people age. The sun goes up, the sun goes down and one day we will be up amongst the stars from which we come.
There are responsibilities, jobs and taxes and marriage and eventually your own children. There is order and etiquette and thoughts of mischief are tossed away in favour of propriety and all the many things young children grow up despising.
It is a certain and altogether bleak fact that every child grows up however much they may rally against it.
Every child that is, except one.
Variation One
The Darling family was a perfectly lovely family on a perfectly ordinary street in London and so when two of those so very lovely children disappeared impossibly on one ordinary night it took London by storm.
It was spoken of in the backs of pubs, in conference rooms, in sewing circles and in schoolyards. It was unheard of for two proper boys, educated and from such a loving family, to run away. Their nursery was far too high for a kidnapper to reach, the door was locked and the police would swear there were no signs of tampering and their nursemaid and her trusty companion would swear no child left the nursery that night.
There was no one to witness the events of that night.
No child who slept inside of that nursery was there to greet their parents come morning.
No child, except one.
Your name is Wendy Darling and here are some of the things you know; the language of the stars, what lies at the end of a rainbow, the leaders of the mermaids and the sirens, what it feels to fly and how impossibly cruel children can be.
Here are the things you do not; why you were banished from Neverland by the shadow, why Peter hasn’t come for you, how to look your parents in the eye again and how to explain what happened to John and Michael.
What you know for certain is that you’re going to get back there and nothing is going to stop you.
Variation Two
It is a cruel thing to know magic and have it taken away. It is an even crueller thing to be thrust from a land of make believe and fairy dust and thrown into a country on the brink of War. They are calling it the Great War, claiming it is the war to end them all, and everyone must do their part. John and Michael find themselves facing the prospect of a War against something far more nefarious than pirates and Wendy finds herself confined by the expectations society places on her as her parents attempt to find a gilded cage for her to be placed within.
To grow up would not be an awfully big adventure and dying seems even less likely to be one.
Sometimes you find yourself reaching for a sword that is no longer there, singing up to the stars and find them only able to shine back and sometimes you reach out to the trees and something inside you withers when they are silent and unflinching in their replies.
But Neverland is still out there somewhere and you are not yet ready to grow up.
Variation Three
But the world is not the only thing to change, Neverland itself has begun to fracture and change as the dreams of the children of the world turn to war rather than magic. The Shadow and The Boy find themselves at odds and Neverland tears itself apart.
Everyone must grow up one day and Neverland is no exception.
But they have taken John/Wendy’s daughter/son and you must navigate this new foreign land with your siblings to bring them home.
All of these options will give you the chance to;
- Try to return to Neverland because you miss magic.
- Try to return to Neverland for revenge.
- Side with the Pirates or Peter Pan and the Lost Boys or find yourself amidst the sirens and mermaid clans and the more magical folk of the island.
- Unite Neverland or leave it to tear itself apart.
- Romance a pirate, a street urchin with a strange belief in magic, a childhood friend from boarding school, a siren or an escaped lost boy!
And more! Not entirely sure which options to highlight in the IC and which to not.
Essentially you can be a little traitor if you wish or do something different.
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Ok, so I am making a boxing centered game. After looking for one and seeing many people start and dropped them before finishing them I decided I will do it. I already have a good idea of what to do for it and a decent story for the main plot, the boxing champions. I want to ask other people who may be interested about what they would they would like to see and any tips they could give me. regarding the story, it starts with a person who you get to define as well as a backstory in which we get to see what personality you have and what kind of reputation you have, as well as where do you train, what style you use, and are you professionally taught or self taught. The main story is that you want to become the greatest undisputed champion (in this world there is 5 weight classes and to become an undisputed champion you need to be a champion in two different weight classes). Each class will have a boss who will be the main focus of the story for that arc. I am thinking of making a 5 day week in which you choose what to do for that week, whether that is training (improving a specific move), resting (healing), partying (a way to bring up morale), or working (making money for things you can purchase in the game). and there will be encounter for most of those situations, possibly even meeting with some champions or just other minor level fighters and it possibly can make you stronger. There will be a stat system that I will try to balance to be genuine to real life, in the simplest way possible, strength is damage, strength encounters, and since more power also makes you slightly faster, a small buff to speed, speed is reaction time, precision, footwork, speed situations, and likewise, a minor strength buff, intelligence will allow you to improve techniques faster (jab, straight, hook, uppercut, counter, and some other secret punches that you will learn through exploring), acquire xp (the thing used to to level up and improve stats), use of fainting and countering, in other words, less intellenge more direct approach while more intelligence more calculated options available, durability, how much an opponent’s punch hurts you, health, and injury protection, endurance is for stamina (starts with 100, each move waste a different amount of stamina, some stamina replenishes each round, 4-10 rounds), health, and if you can push through an injury during a match, and finally willpower, how much your morale deplenishes and rises after a defeat and victory respectively. After that you have conditioning, which is from 0%-100%, so you can train and it will go up, or you can rest and it will go down, you need to train at least 2 times in a week to maintain it and 3 to bring it up, depending on your gift (some bonuses you can get in the beginning) it can be higher or lower at the start, but I think and average would be 50% for most player at the start. For the matches I am thinking of of making them have 30 punches per round, the player and the fighter will take turns, where they can both attack, exchange punches, or one can block/dodge/move/counter, or talk to the fighter to rile up. the way I am going to do health is that it is going to be 50 for the body, 30 for the head, 40 for the arms, if you get them to 0 on the body or head it is an automatic TKO, a knock out happen if they slip up on their move and the other fighter attacked at that moment (3 for a TKO), if it happens to the arms then they can’t use that arm to attack. So what do you guys think? It is going to be difficult but I want it to be fun, there will be a romance option as well if you want to pursuit, and there will be male and female fighters.
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This really seems like a great premise. Sports games always pique my interest and with all of these weight classes and different stats, I see a lot of potential for replayability working with different builds. I would suggest maybe adding a story mode or easy difficulty in case the game proves to be too complex to handle at some points but I really like the idea of a boxing-centered game.
Hello and a very Happy New Year to everyone!
This is an interest check for an idea I’ve been toying with for some time. It’s intended to be fall somewhere between a thriller and a grim slice of life. I’ve been a longtime lurker on the forum and I’m not sure how interested people are in the genres as they’d appear here. There’d likely be a lot of character focus, with a deep focus on relationships (platonic or romantic) and content would probably lean strongly into the mature category. Possibly some community management elements, as well. I don’t want to take anything smaller than a 3 chapter demo to its own honest-to-god WIP thread, so here I am before I get myself too invested in the rest of the story. It would be a single book. No intentions to stretch it out.
Find it here, on Dashingdon (roughly 41k words):
The Deep Parish
(If playable interests checks aren’t allowed in this thread, please let me know and I’ll remove the link)
Summary: Welcome to Deep Parish, a remote community that now finds itself on the verge of collapse. For sixty years, the Parishioners have haunted the swamps in self-imposed exile from a world that wronged them. But now, there’s blood in the dark waters of the bayou as bodies begin appearing. Is it revenge? A killer amongst friends? Or has a monster from the old stories of the deep swamp returned? As one of the few figures standing between the community and the outside world, it’s up to you to save them, or sink into your own troubles and abandon them in favor of yourself. Are you a prisoner without chains, longing for your own escape? An outlaw among outlaws? Or grim-faced and duty-bound?
Choose from 3 backgrounds: the longtime resident 
, the murderer 
, or the widow/er 
. Each background will provide it’s own benefits and drawbacks. For instance, the murderer may have more difficulty interacting with authorities, while the longtime resident may have an easier time garnering trust in the Parish, but may face difficulties in the outside world.
Inspirations include ‘true’ stories like the Beast of Gevaudan, along with a personal soft spot for moody crime thrillers and Southern Gothics. There’d be a large focus on the MC’s past, allowing for a relatively well-adjusted character or a deeply troubled one. People who choose to play as a ray of sunshine would have a much different experience to those who wanted that sweet, sweet trauma. Of the three selectable past histories, vices and phobias would come into play as well, and could even be acquired along the way. The story takes place in the 1980s, because A) I like the vibe and B) modern forensic techniques really cramp my style.
Also, there’s a dog 
She’s a good girl.
ROs: Right now, there are three planned ROs (okay, maybe four): the Bartender, the Witness, and the Detective. There’s another character you meet in the sample demo who I might include. I’m hesitant, because the other three are gender selectable and he’s, well, not. It doesn’t seem entirely fair. I’m toying with the idea (before I get too deep into things) of giving them all set genders, in which case, I would go with the 4 ROs, with 2 men/2 women.
So, if you’ve got the time, this ‘demo of a demo’ should be more or less fully functional. It includes a prologue and Chapter One. As I said, this really is just an interest check.
Or, if you don’t have time to read, how is everyone feeling about realistic/gritty games?
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It sounds super cool! Before I read it, I thought I’d comment on something:
I don’t think people would be upset if one of the characters isn’t gender-selectable, especially if there’s a reason for it. So don’t gender-lock anyone just because of that. And if there isn’t a particular reason for him being a man, it may be better (though maybe not easier) to make him gender-selectable
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Sounds really interesting. The customisation, the mc, the plot, the characters, the dog. Please, this is amazing. Haven’t read it all, but damn, you can write.
I’m feeling very very good about games like that.
Regarding ROs and your concerns with amount of characters and their gender: don’t make a character just to make a character! I made a thread about this earlier today, because I was worried about my own ROs. But really, you can wait and feel them out before finalising anything :))
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Does the dog survive though… cause if not then its literally unplayable /s
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The initial images take a very long time to load… far more than most images. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of their formatting or something, but… considering they’re just text anyway, the long load time definitely detracts from the experience. Should probably find a way to either reformat them to make them smaller or use actual text rather than images.
EDIT: Now that I’ve played a while… I’m getting the impression that everyone in Deep Parish is a criminal of some sort or another, including the MC?
Also a bug report; trying to choose your own name gives an error.
It’s not stuck, it just takes a long time to load the images.
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