Context:
In the Machinist, you play as a young inventor that is just starting off in the world of inventing. You live in a “New” Earth, where after a series of huge earthquakes led to the emergence of Mythical creatures. These creatures are called Nightmares, and what makes the Nightmare special, is that they are not only one creature of Myth, they are actually every creature of every Myth, Folklore, Bedtime story, Creepy Pasta that’s ever existed in Human history. The Nightmare and Humans of Earth don’t really get along, since the Nightmares initial emergence frightened and killed numerous people.
Story:
Your goal in life is to invent, but the bigger question is how will your inventions shape the world around you.
There are two types of inventions you will make in your life. Type one is the commerce stuff, meant to be sold to the general populas, tech companies, maybe even the military. Type two is the special stuff that are going to be the secrets that you will take to your grave.
Will you create a pair of glasses that let you see stat gains like in video games, a digital cataloger meant to record and study Nightmares, a living self-aware robot, clothes with automatic self adjustment or an invention that traps the souls of your enemies?
Will you travel to Retro-sisco (formerly San Francisco) a melting pot of magic, technology, and the strained relationship between the Nightmare and Humans, all in one piece? Will you explore the massive Nightmare filled forests of Redwood City? Will you find the sceret head quarters of the Unison?
Join a faction with Nightmare-hating Technoids, the Isolationist NIghtmare Republic, or the Defiant Unison., or not and burn them all down.
What the finished product should look like:
- 6 Romances: 2 Heterosexual, 2 Bisexual, 2 Pansexual, (Can you find the Tsundere?)
- Exploration of a new changing Earth
- Ability to unite factions, join only one faction or destroy them all
- Loads of machines and gizmos
- Social impacts due to your inventions
- Gender and pronoun choice
- Multiple Events to build your workshop
- Some real questions you’ve got to ask yourself
- Dealing with teenage angst
- Figuring out what you should with your life
Your inventing stats:
- Combat (are you making battle drones, weapons?)
- Innovation (are your inventions truly one of a kind, and worth paying extra for?)
- Art (how appealing is your invention to the public? is there buy-in? how fast can you design your gadgets?)
- Adaptibility (are your inventions multi-use? can you merge multiple unknown techs and magic togerther?)
- Materials (can you build that invention with the supplies you have?)
- Tech (how skilled are you at using tech?)
- Magic (how skilled are you at using magic?)
- Inspiration and Research (do you have the inspiration and research to unlock new inventions?)
If there’s some sort of invention you think that could be fun to be in the game please reply to this post with your idea.
All feedback welcome and appreciated.
Hopefully I can get a good amount of this done during my summer break before Senior year of Highschool kicks in.
Currently it’s about (?%, ? Chapters, 16.8K Words) done, and I plan on updating every 2 weeks.
To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/micobolt/machinist-wip/mygame/
Author notes
For this hosted game, I wanted to follow along the lines of Life of a wizard, Life of a mobster, and Unnatural, where events would be thrown at you and you choose which events you want to do within the event set before a bigger plot point comes along.
I just started a couple of days ago, and I’ve planned a good chunk of this out already, but I still need help with the implementation of stats, and how much I’m going to do increases and the values for stat checks. Don’t be afraid of asking for things like my startup file, or outlines.
Some inventions can be built off the bat if the skills and materials are met.
Some inventions need to be researched first before being able to be built.
Gender is a stat that will only affect possible romances, pronouns when they get implemented, and just a few lines of dialogue.
Change log
7/5/18: added more character details during customization. Added a lot more dialogue with cecil during roadtrip and some nightmare research stuff. (16.8K word count w/code)
6/12/18: Overhaul for intro and exploration scenes. Text is more dispersed and less blocky. Hopefully it’ll be less overwhelming to reading. Made Exploration exposition more, obvious to the reader. (10k word count w/code)
6/10/18: Draft of roadtrip dialog implemented. Trigger happy to release content. Added option to try and complete all 3 personality quizzes. If you choose to sleep in, you will only be able to complete 2 quizzes. (10k word count w/code)
6/9/18: Fixed some grammar mistakes. Added 2 more options for town exploration and some additional exposition as you explore. (8k word count w/ code)
6/8/18: Broke up some huge text chunks. Then uploaded next scene. Word count including code is now 6k. Stats still not implemented. Please send help for stat implementation.
(6k word count w/ code)
