Not in Need of Rescue WIP - A Fairytale Adventure - NOW WITH PLAYTEST FOR PROLOGUE!

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Playtest - REVISED Prologue/Personality Test for Not in Need of Rescue

Next on the To-Do List: Write/code the “encounter” with the “helper” character; I’ll be looking for feedback on that once that portion is done.

Recently Completed Tasks:

  • Assigned each fairytale protagonist a “helper” (ie fairy godmother, etc) if they didn’t already canonically have one.
  • Refined prologue based on feedback (redid questions to make the test shorter and simpler, and to avoid copyright infringement; renamed the test and results to avoid copyright infringement)
  • Story premise; choose fairytales; assign MBTI to classic fairytale protagonists; prologue/personality test.

Later To-Do’s:

Update Log:

  • 7/6/2016: Finalized the statistics to be used and the list of fairy tales.
  • 6/18/16: Playtest for prologue/personality test released! :grin:
  • 6/16/16: Decided to utilize the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk Tales as a guide for choosing fairy tales. Removed some fairy tales from my working list which were, in fact, not actually fairy/folk tales. I am keeping stories which originated as ballads or oral tradition.
  • 6/13/16 Decided to use MBTI for character comparisons; weeded out a few of the fairy tales I’m using.
  • 6/11/16 Changed the fairy tales I’m pulling from; changed a bit of the premise of the playthrough.

Hey CoG Forum!

I’m a newb here and I have a ton of ideas, but the one I wanted to pitch to y’all is what I am calling “Not in Need of Rescue.” The idea came to me when I found an old t-shirt from my childhood which said “princess, not in need of rescue.” (I was a cool kid :sunglasses:)

So here’s the pitch:

What do you do when you find yourself no longer in your world, but instead in the world of a classic fairytale? Can you get back to the life you had before? Do you want to? Make your way from storybook to storybook as you find your way back home, making friends, enemies, and lovers along the way. Romance, magic, and intrigue abound in this unique “choose your own adventure” style book, where your choices affect the ending.

I’m now gonna go into more detail; skip to the end if you get bored easily~

I plan on having the book start out in modern day, and the choices made during the beginning will determine what prince/princess the player is most related to. I’m not sure yet what stats I will be using, and if they will be the split stats (where it’s two juxtaposed traits) or just singular stats. I am going to be using classic heroes from public domain fairytales and legends (not looking to get sued lol). While I am reading, I have been jotting down ideas for the stats and little blurbs describing the hero/heroine of the tale. So far I have read a couple of stories from The Arabian Nights and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

I plan on also reading the following:

  • Andrew Lang’s “colored” fairy books
  • Bulfinch’s Mythology
  • The Crock of Gold (Irish folklore)
  • Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson
  • Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen
  • The Golden Ass
  • The Happy Prince and Other Tales
  • Helen of Troy
  • Irish Fairy Tales (collected by James Stephens)
  • Japanese Fairy Tales (collected by Yei Ozaki)

I will pick what I think are the most interesting, the most humorous, and the most recognizable to use in my story. I also want to represent different cultures to keep it interesting; I have a feeling that if I only used stuff from the Grimm brothers that it would get rather boring and repetitive :worried:

EDIT: I think I might focus on using the most popular/recognizable fairy tales, even though they are (mostly) from Europe, making the story origins… less than diverse. (Update 6/16/16: I also decided to pick additional fairy tales based on their complexity, uniqueness, and personality of the hero/heroine.) Maybe I will divide this into multiple books, based on the origins of the stories, so it is like the player travels around the world.

I have found a good list after a quick Google search, but I may need to widdle it down. Also, I want to focus on fairy tales with human/humanoid protagonists, as well as human/humanoid potential love interests. Here’s a list I have so far which fits the bill:

  • Cinderella
  • Sleeping Beauty
  • Robin Hood
  • Snow White
  • The Little Mermaid (plus Thumbelina parts; Hans Christian Andersen)
  • Rapunzel
  • Beauty and the Beast
  • Aladdin
  • Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
  • The Swan Princess
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Rumpelstiltskin (using The Three Spinners instead)
  • The Frog Prince
  • The Snow Queen
  • Hua Mulan
  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
  • Tarzan
  • Journey to the West
  • Peter Pan
  • Hansel and Gretel
  • Iron John
  • A Thousand and One Arabian Nights (frame story)

Nixed the following fables:

  • The Swan Princess - the movie version is copyrighted; swan lake as the ballet is extremely lengthy; and Odette is uninteresting as a heroine/similar to other “princesses” I already have in these fairytales.
  • Rumplestilskin - based on the Grimm version, the heroine is unnamed and there really isn’t much to go on by way of character development, and the story alone is overly simple… there are lots of interesting interpretations, but I don’t want to pull ideas from them for fear of copyright infringement. The Three Spinners is a better alternative: it has similar plot elements; was told (in various variations) in many cultures, giving me lots to pull from; and is a more interesting story overall.
  • The Frog Prince - really this is just a story that says “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” and doesn’t have anything interesting beyond that. Again, lots of interesting interpretations which are unfortunately still under copyright.
  • Alice, Journey, Hunchback, and Pan: these are novels/literature, not fairy/folk tales. Perhaps I will create another game, with similar structure, in which the MC plays through various classic literature. You may argue that Tarzan is also literature, but since it fits ATU 535, I am using it as a folk tale.

Once the “what character are you” quiz part of the story is done, I plan to have the character be going home when they bump into the “fairy god mother” (or similar helpful character) from their associated story. They will reveal what character the player is most like and give some ominous foreshadowing :wink:

Once the character is established, the player returns home, and something happens which causes them to be transported to a fairytale world. The first fairytale will be the one that the established character is from, and they have to solve the conflict in it.

Major change: I have decided, based on feedback and for simplicity’s sake, to just have a set order for the fairytales which will be played through.

  • There are multiple possibilities for romance, including the man/woman in distress; the villain; and possibly others.
  • The conflict may be resolved multiple ways, but playing to the strengths of the character is the only way to be successful. If the player is unsuccessful, the story will branch, giving another opportunity to prevail. After a few tries, however, it will be game over. I ditched the idea of forcing the player to play to the strengths of the matched character, giving them more freedom to resolve the conflicts in a way that suits them, and to open each fairytale to alternate endings. :blush:
  • Once the conflict is resolved, the fairy god mother tells the player that other kingdoms are in need of aid, and the player will have options to continue the story and save other realms; to stay in the fairytale they are in (ends the game); or to return home (ends the game). (scratch that - would be too short and unfulfilling)
  • Probably going to do multiple books - one for each fairytale

START READING HERE IF YOU SKIPPED THE LONG WINDED EXPLANATION

Anyway, I started this thread to get feedback on the idea :blush:

Also, I would love suggestions on which stories to use (if you have a favorite, let me know!), as well as any additional stats you think the character should have (apart from the MBTI). Stories & stats have been finalized. Progress, woohoo!

Thanks so much for reading and for any comments on my idea! :smile:

-Ariella

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Are you going to stick to the really dark original Grimm’s fairy tales or use their lighter counterparts?

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I think it’s a very unique and interesting idea! Also you may already be aware of this but a lot of the “common” fairytales (Cinderella, sleeping beauty, etc) aren’t actually created by Disney so if you stuck to the original versions of the story they should be okay to use as well if you wanted! And, on that note, I would say the original Alice in Wonderland could be something you might want to look into!

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Sort of - I want to stick to the original story line but not the original writing style.

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Great idea with Alice in Wonderland! I wonder who I could make a possible romance for her? The mad hatter? The queen of hearts? Oh there are so many possibilities! And yes, I haven’t yet read the Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty tales yet, but I am hoping to use them :blush:

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Cool, looking forward to the demo :smile:

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Thanks! But fair warning, it will probs take a while lol. Like the title of this thread says… this is very very early stages :stuck_out_tongue:

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I can assist you with the mythology if you like, just PM me :smile: also the Japanese stories/myths/legends :wink:

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If I’m remembering correctly there were a lot of characters in Alice in Wonderland that could be romance options, of course it all depends on who you’d like to write romance for after all! But I could definitely see the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts as romance options. If you’re looking for a list you could go off of for finding uncommon fairytales Wikipedia has one that includes which country the story originated from, the time period it came about, and it’s author!

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well if you do start something try to make a beta test of it so you can get an idea on where to take the story and characters. or just to find bugs of sorts

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Thanks! I’ll need to do more research for sure. The list I have is based off of what I can get for free lol. Part of the benefit of using the public domain is free ebooks! Of course I am sure that I can get my hands on some stuff from the library. Or even spark notes. After all I just need the jist of the stories, characters, etc.

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Even some of the Grimm tales were toned down a bit from their original folklore versions :grin:
It sounds like an interesting idea! What kind of tone are you planning to go with - more serious, or humourous, or depending on the individual fairytale?
Also, ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’ is a good one (Scandinavian but sharing elements with ‘Cupid and Psyche’ from Greek mythology)

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Haha well I always found it ironic that the authors were named Grimm and that the tales were, well, grim. :laughing:
I was planning to have the overall tone be more humorous, simply because I like to write in that style. :yum:

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Would this be a ‘Once Upon A Time’ deal? Or would it be something only similar, or even completely different? If they’re all standalone branches that you can choose then obviously it would be much easier and probably take up much less of your time, but if you decide to intertwine them for whatever reason then it will pretty much have to be complex and intricate to work and have a storyline befitting the tales. That might be your plan, I don’t know.

Even in the extremely early stages, this sounds like a tremendous undertaking if you want to give it the amount of detail that it sounds like it may need, and while I don’t have a problem with you changing the storylines of the tales, if you’re planning on having them choose their own RO’s (romance options), then the true love of the original story will be thrown way out of whack for some of them; the majority of these stories don’t even have anyone that could be possibly considered as legitimate RO’s other than the one in the story, meaning that you’ll have to create a plethora of new information and somehow find a way to make it all work. Take Cinderella for example; there’s literally nobody in the tale that could even be considered to be deserving of being the recipient of Cinderella’s love other than Prince Charming. So if Cinderella is going to genuinely fall in love with somebody else, than you’ll need to make it both believable and compelling. Especially with same-sex relationships; again I have no problem having lesbian or gay fairytale characters (being perfectly honest I prefer them to heterosexual relationships. Go figure), but then again the entire plot of Mulan is that she has to pretend that she’s a man to join the army because women aren’t allowed to join and are seen as inferior to men. If social attitudes are that bad simply due to the fact that she’s a woman then I dread to think how being gay would be seen; anyone who was would probably have to sneak around for the rest of their life unless they had a singularly understanding and compassionate significant other and/or family.

And for stats, I might post another response that’s a lot more detailed because I love analysing stuff, but one that instantly springs to mind is similar to innocence, but deals with how the character originally responded before you entered the equation. For example, act incredibly similar to Cinderella and this stat remains high, but be a cold, antisocial Cinderella and the stat starts to lower since that isn’t how she acted in the original. Obviously if you diverged from the traditional romance option this wouldn’t affect the stat; just in terms of personality and how much you want to ACTUALLY play as the princesses you grew up with, or take the chance you always wanted to make them act the way you always wanted to make them act (because apparently accepting an apple off of a total and complete stranger is commonplace in fairytale-land. Why the fuck else would you think nothing of taking it with a curtsey and bite into it and expect nothing adverse to happen? What kind of idiot would be suspicious about that?).

That went on longer than I expected, but hopefully some of this was useful to you. If this was done properly, it definitely sounds like something I would pay money to play over and over again; it certainly would have a lot of replay-factor.

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The original “Cinderella” wasn’t exactly the most believable and compelling love story. They meet and fall in “love” over, at most, a weeks worth of dances; he tracks her down using her shoe size; they are married without any further romantic development. This is why I prefer the “Into the Woods” version, which has the Prince get bored after a while and go off looking for a more “interesting” woman.

I think an interested MC could provide a far better husband (or wife/spouse) for Cinders, albeit without the money/power/sweet revenge against her stepmother. Which, to be honest, may have been half her motivation for hooking up with him in the first place.

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That’s kind of my point; Prince Charming is neither believable nor compelling as a love interest for Cinderella, but as I mentioned he’s literally the only person that can be considered as such, so people kind of have to take him at face value rather than thinking ‘is he actually right for this girl?’ Its strange how most people need a comparison between two love interests to actually start thinking about whether they’re suited for each other.

People have treated her like dirt her entire life and the one time somebody shows her any positive attention, it’s because he’s captivated almost if not entirely by her looks. You’re right, I think an MC who is genuinely interested in Cinderella would at first be disregarded as an RO by Cinderella due to the fact that she literally doesn’t know what somebody liking her for her would look like. The stark wake-up call for Cinderella that the MC would give her would probably make for a compelling storyline in itself.

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Thanks for the thoughtful response. I know this is a massive undertaking. It’s not going to be like Once in the fact that these universes exist separately, and only the player can travel between them. Also, the only fairytale counterpart in modern day is the player. (Again, trying to avoid copyright issues :wink:)

I actually started working on Cinderella first. I am taking elements from both the Perrault version (where the fairy godmother is a thing) and the Grimm version (where the prince is kind of a stalker). I am diverging from the original story line to create ROs and make it more interesting. Also, if the player is male, his name will be Cinderfella, and the family’s genders will be flipped as well (brothers instead of sisters, etc). If he likes women, then the LI’s (love interests) genders will be switched as well.

In this story, the conflict to be resolved is Cinderella’s relationship with her family. The traditional story is that Cinderella forgives her family and treats them kindly, sharing her new-found joy, wealth, and status with them. Originally I was thinking that if you decide to not take that route, than the game ends there, and the only way to proceed to another universe is if you resolve the conflict in a way that fits your character. I might change that though, your idea of playing the story the way you want is really nice. But then there’s no challenge Changed it, read original post for update :blush:

So far my ideas for ROs are: the prince/princess; the king/queen; the animal friend transformed into a footman; the fairy godmother/father

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Sorry, I’m a newb - what’s MC?

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Mc stands for main character

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Yeah really the only thing that Charming has going for him are looks, charm, and status. But then again, isn’t Cinderella just a pretty face with a kind disposition? lol

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