Mortal Odyssey (WIP)

Man, oh man.

This is my first post in anything on here. I’ve been on this site for a while now (no idea when I first found it) and I’ve only created a forum account recently. After playing “x” amount of various titles both in the “Our Games” and “Hosted Games” tabs, I’ve decided the time is right to throw my own hat into the ring.

As the subject line suggests, the working title is Mortal Odyssey. In all honesty, I found it from http://fantasynamegenerators.com/ under the “Other Names” section. Feel free to bookmark that link, there’s a lot of different generators on that site for all sorts of situations. So, anyway, working title = I might change it later if something else strikes my fancy. For the moment it at least suits a purpose in having something to put in the subject line as opposed to just “My First Game (WIP)”.

Mainly this post is just to send my message in a bottle, into a sea of other bottles, that I’ve been foolin’ around with the ChoiceScript code and stuff. Thanks to patience, determination, other synonyms, and the handy dandy wikia on the subject matter, I feel like I have a general grasp on it. Not like an iron grip, more like if you’re wearing three pairs of gloves and trying to hold onto something. You’re pretty sure you’ve got it, but you’re just waiting for it to fall out, and then you’re just like, “Well, dang.”

Right, the game. Should get to that soon. This is also a little sample of my writing style and just breaking that glass ceiling of posting anything here at all. So, a while back I had the wild, crazy, and totally original idea to write a story about people getting stuck in a video game. Then all sorts of stuff started coming out with exactly that same premise. After debating with myself if I have the power to subconsciously read minds/send my own out into the aether, I’ve decided to actually try and get this idea going.

So the game will start with the player first showing up at a game company making the very game they’ll soon become very intimate with. Game game game. You get to meet the other characters you’ll get to interact with most often, all nine of them. And after a while, the plot progresses and the ten of you are in the game. By the way, it’s a medieval fantasy type of game. Once again, I am but a human font of originality. Besides that and a few ideas for separate plot points and the general flow of plot of finding if there even is a way out and whether the cast wants to leave, I don’t have a whole lot planned out. Which might be for the best. I like to think my best ideas come up in the moment.

TL:DR
This is my first post despite various lurks. I’ve started my own interactive fiction. It’s about getting stuck in a video game with some other people.

Different stuff that I have planned that doesn’t exactly pertain to the plot include:
-Choosing whether you’ll be a warrior, rogue, or mage.
-Various skills such as: Melee, Unarmed, Survival, Riding, Arcane, Smithing, Sneaking, and more.
-Romance…to my best ability. I’ve never been in the Scouts, but I’m trying to send as much honor through this screen as I can that I’ll do my best. (Full disclosure, not all the characters will be bisexual/able to be either male, female, etc. I feel it takes a little out of the realism, myself. But there’s the nine plus various characters that could pop up once in the thick of it all.)
-Likely a change in title.
-Actually some fighting with aforementioned skills. Or maybe just going a different route with another skill without having to result to fighting.
-More buzz words

Being an interactive fiction, I hope to focus mostly on the narrative and to just tell a type of story the audience wishes to hear. That doesn’t mean that you can expect to just keep pressing ‘Next’ at the bottom of the screen for minutes on end, at least that’s not my intent. What I’m basically trying to say is that I’m going to be going about this as less of a stab at something like Doom, and more holding hands with the stuff that Telltale put out. Who knows, maybe later down the line I’ll be looking at this post and shaking my head at what a fool I am.

So now this post is long, really too long, but whatever. That’s what I’m planning and I hope to update this post as I work more and more on this.

October 3, 2016 Update: I’ve removed what was the stat for ‘Cooking’ and replaced it with ‘Sneaking.’ I just couldn’t feasibly have it work in the story such that it’s actually a stat that someone would want to invest in.

April 27, 2017 Update: Boy it’s been a while since I’ve updated this. School and work will do that, I suppose. Anyway, I’ve gotten the next scene up now. It’s basically an exposition dump with a lot of dialogue. The main problem I’ve run into so far is that with nine other main characters, the beginning has been tougher to write. But as is seen, I have a plan for that.

Here’s the link for what I have so far: https://dashingdon.com/play/mfloyd/mortal-odyssey/mygame/

I hope to have more up soon, with scenes such as: actually setting up a home, learning more about this world and what happened, and maybe a quick adventure or two.

Any and all reports and suggestions are welcome.

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@Mfloyd - welcome to our little corner of the internet. I know you are a long-time lurker; coming out of the shadows is hard to do, so bravo.

You started a very ambitious project - good for you but never forget the central importance of your story. Write a decent story and the rest of the project will fall into place.

@Cecilia_Rosewood or another will be by and link all the important resources soon but also don’t hesitate to open conversations about topics dealing with writing; we all get better by sharing.

We, as a community will look forward to see your WiP evolve.

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Thanks, I appreciate the support. And I intend to take your advice to heart.

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Welcome I would start with these three links

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7840892/CJW/choicescript/tools/IDE/main.html

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Hello @Mfloyd, I am a fellow lurker as well. I have played most games on here, and just decided to finally create a profile as I, too, have put copious amounts of thought into creating my own piece of work. I am a dreamer though, and find I jump in way too quickly and my projects are nearly over before they begin.

I like the general summary you have provided. I am interested to see whether you follow the a humorous route (as I envision being sucked into my favorite video game and figuring out how to BE the character quite humorous) or something more serious by having your characters focus on finding a way out.

I have been a wordsmith most of my life, so any advice I can give, I would be happy to help and perhaps establish a friendly face in this CoG community.

Good luck!

Thank you, I would welcome any and all advice. For the most part I want to make something that’s humorous. As I’m typing this, I envision it resting around 90% humor and 10% serious.

I’m glad! You mentioned romance… Will you be able to romance the actual characters of the video game or simply the people who are stuck in the game with you? I mean, if you’re real and you’re in a game, then that technically means the actual characters are real too…right?

You have so many options and so many questions to answer. It’s both exciting and terrifying!

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Welcome to the forums, from a fellow new poster I suppose. Your ambitious plans inspire me, not to mention interest me in how it will turn out. It’ll be interesting to see you develop through this story and, hopefully many more to come!

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How that a question I want to know now :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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I guess this isn’t really a spoiler, but yeah. It is definitely in my plans that you could romance what once were the NPCs of the video game. I mean, you still won’t play as those characters, but they’ll be taking on a new life of their own. Really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

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Hello from one lurker to another(this is literally like my third post). I honestly love these kind of stories be they in the form of game, movie, tv show, manga,anime…I could go on but the point is, I am looking forward to seeing what your game is like. Best of luck! :smiley:

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Looking forward to the demo. It definitely sounds worth playing. Good luck :smile:

Yeah, me too
(20 chars)

Thanks, I hope to have an early demo ready within at least the next couple of days. I’d hoped to get it done sooner, but then I bought Overwatch. Man is that game fun.

But yeah, should be ready for a sample of what’s in store soon.

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Ok, that took longer than expected. But I know have a dropbox and it’s all set up with a very early demo of the sort of thing to expect so far.

For those feeling it might be a bit over the top near the end, it’s supposed to be. I haven’t written past it because it’s really early in the morning and I’m tired.

Enough excuses, here you go: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/569305983/Mortal%20Odyssey/Mortal.htm

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Played the game, like what I've seen so far.

While getting stuck in a game has certainly been done, I think being one of the people making the video game is an interesting touch.

Will which department we work in factor in the game in the game? I’m just picturing a coder MC mentioning “Oh, didn’t I mention I know the cheat codes?”

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Thanks! I worked pretty hard on this to try and make everything work. Really, I’m just waiting for someone to say how line ‘x’ created a game breaking error. If that doesn’t happen then I’ll pretty much be like this: :open_mouth:

In all honestly, the department selection is mostly flavor text for how the person goes through their story as well as how you’re introduced to the different characters. However, I do have some department specific ideas to work in for either comedy and/or drama later on. And not just for what the MC was in. Everyone’s going to have their own baggage going in.

This was pretty great, love the concept. Can’t wait for more

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I’m very very interested, and can’t wait for the next update.

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@Mfloyd

So I went a playthrough choosing the “Abomination” appearance, just for the Hell of it, and was wondering if appearances are going to make any difference in the plot or detail of the game. There have been a few spots where it really could have added to the immersivness (because screw English! I can make my own words!). An example would be


You are busy staring at the chicken, pinching yourself, and trying to puzzle out what happened when you notice stares directed at you. When you meet their gaze, they look away after a few seconds, some giving nods and smiles. Apparently they're okay with what they saw. You guess it's better than the alternative.


You walk over to the bucket, eyes mostly closed. Then you peer into the water.

Staring back at you is you. The you that you've known your whole life. Though with having been able to move around a bit, you seem a touch more...athletic? Robust? Powerful? Whatever the description, you feel different for sure. Like sometihng extra is there, though you're not sure what that is. All this considered, how are you holding up?


(In the second of which, I really expected something crazy awful to be staring back)

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