Dual protagonist sounds as an interesting idea, but what you have now feels very… general and sort of like a writing prompt. What sort of villain and hero are we playing as, where are they and how did they end up like this? Are they former friends torn between opposite sides, oppose each other ideologically, just plain despise each other? What sort of great vegetables will come crawling to each other’s doors?
I get that it feels like a shallow concept rn, and I do plan to try my most at making it a deep feeling and engaging story. But it would be a short story (50k words or so idk) as I want to evolve my writing before I start bigger projects. There would be mentions of a past between the characters, how they met and such, but the story would a ‘one shot’ thing with the events being sorely that moment of connection between two opposing characters
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I’d definitely be interested in something like this.
Sometimes I just get a craving for something I can play through on my lunchbreak, so if you can get that genuine emotional connection I’d be very interested in reading it 
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Yeah, but right now I don’t know anything about the characters save for their narrative roles. You have mentioned presets for the character - can you expand on that? I feel it’d help to ground the characters in your short story.
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Right, I want to muddle the characters’ differences as I feel a lot of superhero vs villain stories are very black and white. These characters are… not that different after all, living in a morally grey world where they’ve come to some sort of understanding. It’s why the hero doesn’t immediately turn in the villain when they show up, why the villain seeks out the hero for help…because the rest of the world only sees black and white and they see each other as just tired people.
I haven’t decided yet on appearances and physicalities like that.
Long answer sorry lol
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No, it helped a lot! I feel with this your idea gets more ground and personality, so I think it’d be for the best to add these details to the original check. I always find general prompts without any underlying narrative hard to attach to - it’s why I was never that good with writing prompts in general.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll do that rn ;))
I was just wondering
Would you be interested in a character locked CYOA book?
- Maybe, if story and characters are well written
- Maybe, if there are significant choices/branching
- Maybe, if there is still a bit of customization
- No. I’m not interested.
0 voters
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This make me think of the “choice your own adventrure” books i read as a child (“elige tu propia aventura” since i speak spanish) or the telltale games, where the character already exists and is defined but we choose what we do in the story
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Unless you are writing something like Guenevere or Oedipus Rex, I’d say at least make MC nameable and gender selectable.
does any of you here expecting micro-management in choice-based games?
something like harvest moon/stardew valley (gathering, crafting, trading, lots of NPC to maintain relations with, and lots of other activities)
or something like suikoden/FF (recruit lots of characters, manage their equipments, grind exp and level, upgrade your HQ, build your own dream team, participate in war and politics, and other activities)
or is it too confusing and hard to maintain on text-only games? I too, expecting, that those numbers could be too stressful to remember and manage as the game progress
but since no other games have such complexity, yet, I’m asking if micro-management is something people expect here, any feedbacks are appreciated, thank you
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Anyone from India ?
Provided you can access all of it in the stats screen, the problem I see with this (besides the huge coding work) would be a certain clunkiness regarding the interface - there’d be a lot of clicks involved in changing the gear of your team, for example.
You’ve used the word “expect”, but I think you meant “would like”: I don’t EXPECT a CoG game to give me lots of micromanaging, but if you can make one (again, beware of the huge coding work required to make this happen) I’d certainly try it - I like management games.
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Would I expect micro-management in text-based IF games? No.
Would I like micro-management in text-based IF games? Also no. This medium’s greatest strength and weakness is the fact it’s text-based, which means any sort of traditional menus or management screens would also be much more difficult to manage than those found in traditional video games. Also from a personal standpoint, I hate micro-management even in other games; if there’s a way to shortcut or avoid it, I’ll try and find it.
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What kind of sports COG stories would y’all like to see? Football (soccer) or volleyball? Boxing? Fencing?
I know there’s a lovely tennis WIP that’s already great.
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It is. There’s also a cheerleading one, and I THINK there’s also a basketball one? There’s a couple of wrestling ones, I think.
Fencing sounds neat.
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Hi everyone, I recently had an idea for a story: a re-telling of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by HP Lovecraft.
The original story follows the protagonist on a journey through the Dream Lands - a vast land with strange creatures and places that vary from beautiful to terrifying. It lacks some Lovecraftian tropes (no cultists & summoning rituals, more fantasy-leaning than pure horror).
I’m thinking, what if MC could go through that journey, but with multiple other branching possibilities. End up in other parts of Dream Lands, face other dangers, get other endings (some good, some horrible).
The big downside is that this story has no place for romance, at least that I’ve been able to figure out. Maybe a fellow dreamer or someone communicating from the waking world? But that takes away from the weird, lonely atmosphere that is in the original book.
What do you guys think? Would you read a story like this? Would an RO be important to include? Thanks!
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I’m not familiar with Lovecraft, but it seems like an interesting concept! While I do love romance, and if you figure out a romance I will be happy, not all stories need romance. If you don’t think romance will fit, don’t worry about it.
Also, this reminds me of a level of Dragon Age: Origin. The MC and companions get trapped in a dream world. You need to solve puzzles and fight demon things to get into different parts of the dream world, find all your companions, and escape. It would have been fun if it wasn’t impossible to play!
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Ugh, don’t remind me. I still remember when the game would sometimes bug out after killing all the demons, so I’d spam the interact button on an NPC that’s shouting, “HELP ME PLEASE!” until the game caught up.
Christ, that quest takes forever, even when you know what you’re doing.
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@AmawynOakleaf That sounds like it would be fun to read, especially if the parts of the Dream Lands are different. And doubly especially if you do add in the weird and terrifying creatures that HP Lovecraft came up with. I have the feeling a “horrible” ending would probably involve Nyarlathotep and insanity?
And not every story needs a romance. I mean, someone did successfully make a Cthulhu dating sim but don’t feel like you need to force a romance into your story.
The Fade questline! God, that was so terrible to play through. I was so glad there was a mod to skip that entire thing. It’s also a good example of a level/quest that was designed without thinking of the lore the game created.
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