Hello there, im a new writer and have an idea for the COGs. i have been reading much of people’s games and found other idea fascinating, seeing what kind of world and characters the created. anyway heres my idea:
PRIMED (title up for debate) Backstory
The year was 200X, an hour of meteors struck the earth, destroying much of human works and killing a lot of people. Governments created aid programs to help and unite humanity to building what they lost. In humans dire time, a blessing (some say curse) occurred. The debris from space polluted the earths atmosphere with some sort of radiation, giving individuals powers; humans combining with and having complete control of a natural element (from the periodic table). Humanity was scared once again, fearing these PRIMERS. There were some who would use their power for good, aiding the public and advancing the rebuilding of civilization but some used their power against others. In 5 years humans got back were they were, in 3 years, humans advanced to new length thanks to PRIMERS.
STORY
It is the year 20XX, You are local nobody residing in the advance city of NEW HARAS (name up for debate), you are attending a local university, who suddenly get powers and must choose what to do with it. Join the heroes program and register as a hero or become villain to do whatever you want.
What I Planned to Do
have personality choices and responses: Good, Neutral, and Bad (which then determines personality) (also if decided to be hero, choices wont be locked so can pick the villain choice)
have ifs; if you have high Bad stats non choice conversations will be affected
have romance options, must ‘hang’ with person of interest and maxing out or reaching a certain point in bar stat for romance scene
Things I Have Thoughts On But Still Need to Think About
Main character is plain so no ‘physical’ customizing except gender (makes it easier to write) but can choose backstory and costume style
Have characters that are romancable be gender locked and have own sexual preferences (or just have main character romance anyone they like regardless of gender)
Power, I do not know what kind of power the main character should get but will be powerful in any case.
I already have everything on paper figuratively speaking and some of the intro written but I AM NOT A WRITER and this is my first real coding project. So this might take a long while but I just want it out there. In any case I am thinking of submitting this to the Choice of Games contest but I am not sure, have to see where this ends up to see.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, especially on the ‘thoughts that still need thinking’
Let’s say someone have the power to control hydrogen atom (which is terribly dangerous, considering how much energy a hydrogen fusion released), can that person control water? Since, you know, H2O and all.
Hey like the game concept but maybe don’t just go for the Good, Neutral and Bad personalities try something a bit more subtle like cynical, genuine, greedy etc.
I agree with @ProjectEkerTest33 here: Good/Neutral/Bad should be separate from personalities.
While I don’t mind hanging with characters in downtime, this could end up with romances not being involved with the main plot, which isn’t as compelling.
While I do always like to see characters with sexualities, it can be done badly, most often by imbalance (e.g. far more straight than gay options, having the gay options being “hidden” or otherwise unconnected with the plot, or having the gay options be far less appealing characters). So, if you’re planning on making all options as good as one another, I say go for it.
Well, I would suggest not letting the reader pick the main power. (Later choices of secondary powers or separate aspects of the main power can work, though.) This way, you can concentrate your writing on a single power, likely connected more solidly with the plot and the world, which will be far easier for you.
In the story, people who are primers will have complete control of the element they are given in its PUREST form so they cannot create other elements to make something else. But there are some limits, so like if a person can control oxygen, the oxygen he produces is the only thing the person can manipulate (cant control the oxygen already in the air for its not ‘pure’ oxygen).
Since every element is different, the powers will be too but groups are gonna be similar. Like if you control a metal element say copper, the abilities you can do wont be much different to a person who controls silver.
If you do want to add morality traits, we recommend using multiple virtues like “Honesty” and “Compassion” and not use an overall morality score like “Good” or “Evil”. We prefer moral dilemmas, where it’s hard to decide what’s right and wrong; when I’m literally choosing between two options, one obviously Good and one obviously Evil, I don’t think about the decision as much.
I have some characters already chalked up on the board and decided on the gender locking, but their sexual preference is still in question. Having the main character able to romance anyone of choice would make the coding and writing easier. But it I want the characters also to have their own choices, their own preference. Just not sure it would go well with readers if the hunky male cop can any be romance by a straight female main characters.
Choosing powers is not part of the plan, what to do with them is. Already have an element in mind but i am not a scientist so Im not a hundred percent sure on it. For the story the power you get has to be rare and powerful.
@FairyGodfeather
thank you for that, can certainly use it for the project.
But in any case what i plan to do is when a ‘serious’ choice occures, there would be 3 main choices to choose from. One that seems heroic, another that seems villainous, and the last a ‘neutral’ choice. (choices all gonna be the same if hero or villain just different scenario) Choosing one of these options the most determines your ‘personality’. Say you choose mostly heroic choices and responses, the character would then ‘respond and speak’ in a heroic manner (these are not choices like you answer with heroism)
Kinda like the personality system in dragon age 2, if you picked mostly sarcastic choices, hawke then becomes a sarcastic person, answering everything with jokes.
Well, it would depend. Is he basically the most important character (aside from the MC), while the exclusively gay RO is a very minor, easily missed character? Because then we may have problems. Likewise if there are far more straight characters than gay characters, or if the exclusively straight character is a much better character, while the exclusively gay character is a token cliche. If all of your ROs are interesting and similarly important to the plot, and the sexualities are balanced, then there shouldn’t be a problem.
Well, I am a scientist (although not a chemist), so I may be able to help. Rare and powerful suggests things like Uranium + Plutonium (radioactive), Fluorine (highly reactive), or even Francium (highly reactive, highly radioactive, ridiculously rare).
What i have planned is have Astatine the main character’s power. its super rare and not much is known about it so i probably can just write what it can do as i see fit (in its own merit of course).
Okay, about as rare and radioactive as Francium, then. I would guess it’s less reactive, as halogens decrease in power as the period increases (although that’s more than made up for by the radioactivity…).
This sounds like a great idea and I’m interested to see what powers you come up with, if you want a wide list then you could always go to this site, they have a wide expanse of powers to look at.
The only thing I’m scared about is the villain and hero part. Firstly, most of the stories always lean more towards the heroic side and if anything, you are simply just a rebellious hero or a hero who does whatever they want - which is definitely not villainous. How do you plan on doing that?
