Solitary life [working title]

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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@_jl - Can only speak for me, unless someone asks me to speak for them, so here goes my notion; avoid complete lack of hope, which be tempting with post-apocalyptic settings. Just because the old world and ways are gone does not mean life does not go on. Now, adversity and conflict of one nature or another is of course what drives any story forward, be it how to get the cookie from the jar or get into the bathroom, but there need to be at least a glimmer of hope, or there is indeed nothing left to strive for. Too much of that in real life, if you ask me, which you sort of did. :wink:

A chance as a “happy” ending, and no, that does not mean ponies and rainbows, just not all bitter. Like, say, the ending of Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was the end of that journey, of the fellowship, but it was not the end, if you follow. :smiley:

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@JLBH Thank you for the feedback and I am happy that you enjoy the sketch that I’ve written up here. As it is quite old, I may make some changes to this but I will see.

With regards to your questions (no need to apologise; more questions help me to flesh out the world in which our man/woman finds him/herself in :slight_smile: ):

So romance was not something I wanted to play upon too much but not ban outright. After all, people can fall in love, even if it’s the end of the world right?

If it is possible, and I haven’t played with CS for a while, I will be randomising the gender of the people you come across (aside from a few important characters) and I personally prefer this to asking sexuality outright from the beginning.

Your companion and who you choose to follow you, if anyone at all, will be based upon a number of variables including who you choose to seduce/romance, what city you visit, your disposition etc. This also would determine the gender of your companion, I think.

You will meet people, yes. The world is down but not out so some small settlements might be features in your journey. There won’t be glittering metropolises but people get by. There’s also going to be drifters and the like who you may or may not choose to encounter. You will have to face tough decisions, whoever you play as but not everyone will be out to get you. Who is who though, I leave to you the player.

Weapons are a commodity to some degree. At the end of the world, of course every guy and girl wanted to protect themselves and hey, a gun isn’t a bad way of doing that. Nowadays, guns are often make-shift from other parts but the real gold is the ammo. If you find a genuine bullet, you may want to hold on to it. Or at least pull it out of the body you shot into. Bludgeons and the like (or ‘primitive weapons’) I might see if we can do some sort of crafting but I’m not sure. Certainly though, you may at times want to defend yourself, if that’s your thing.

Hope that answers your questions but feel free to leave more if you like!

@JTAL I agree completely with this. Too much despair and, well, what’s the point in playing at all, right? I think what I’m going to try and do is show hope through other people’s lives. So, people trying to carve a life out of this place. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I think making it all doom and gloom though also makes it predictable. I want people to feel tense when they play this and that’s not going to happen when they know every single person they meet is going to kill them or be killed. Pointing that out though is important for me because it reminds of how I’m going to include that. :slight_smile:

Man, there’s a lot of J’s on this thread.

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@_jl - J rules. B-) Glad you agree about gloom vs. hope!

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Haha my actual name starts with J

And look all of us who has a j has a L aswell but thanks for answering questions hope you check out my game to see what you think to :wink: keep it up bud carnt wait and if you need my help pm

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@JTAL *hi5* :smiley: I’ll keep an eye out for it as I write.

@JLBH Haha that’s true, yes. I will certainly take a look at your game and offer the same help to you if you need it. I am little bit snowed under with other work for a week or so I think I’ll be starting on this and my other project in about that sort of time. In the meanwhile, I’m trying to gather as much feedback as I can for the idea from yourself and anybody else reading.

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Thanks good Luck

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@JLBH - So does my name. :wink:

@_jl - *hi5* :smiley:

And good luck to you both. :-bd

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Thanks. Bro.

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I guess that’d be sis, really, but you’re welcome. :)>-

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Thanks sis! :wink:

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I’ve finally got around to reading this, and I think it sounds amazing. The one thing I would change is that I think your friend should be able to survive depending on what choices you make.

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@Samuel_H_Young Well, glad you are fond of the premise! I agree, some things need to be changed here including the point you make. I think allowing someone so close to you to die with no say in the matter is a bit cruel of me but I may implement this feature for other characters I feel less sympathy for. *cackle* :slight_smile:

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@_jl
I can certainly understand that:P it does have its merits, though. Killing off an important character can make the reader more invested in the story, but I do feel that since it’s interactive, we should have at least a small chance to save him/her. For the sake of the plot, it is sometimes necessary to kill off characters.

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@Samuel_H_Young Agreed. There’s a lot of emotional investment that goes into the player character and those around them. Killing someone off without choice is quite a hard decision to make and you make the point well that because it is interactive, that’s not very fair. Then again, perhaps making the chance of salvation, as you say, so minuscule could be good for projecting doubt in the player character’s mind: “Could I have saved them?” “Was I being selfish?” “What more could I have done?”

So you’ve actually touched on a very important point I need to think long and hard on! As for the method as a whole, I will use it to kill off some other minor characters you may or may not develop an interest with. Yet as I said in an above post, I don’t want everything to be bleak as I’m sure you’ll agree. Sometimes people will live, sometimes they won’t.

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@_jl
I’m glad you’ve taken my feedback into account! I must say that I can’t wait for the demo.

In my Demons Among Men series, the MCs main companion has a high chance of dying in the fourth novel, and the only way to save him is if you made some very specific, not very easy to reach choices in the debut novel.

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@Samuel_H_Young No problem! I really enjoy listening to feedback and seeing how it affects the game experience. What you highlighted has really made me think about the whole companion mechanic, for example. The demo I’ll aim to do as quickly as possible (call it a rough sketch) but unfortunately I cannot begin for a week or so.

In the meantime, I’ll also be posting something similar to the OP for another project which takes place in an entirely different universe (quite literally; it’s set in space! :P) so hopefully that’ll be received well as an idea by yourself and others too and I can get to work on both. :slight_smile:

That’s great! I really enjoy this sort of decision making. It means the PC has no choice but to be as naturalistic as possible in their choices because their effects (I presume) have both an immediate and latent effect!

*MASS EFFECT POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT*

In Mass Effect, this sort of decision making played itself out from the 1st and 2nd games to the final one. I was heartbroken when certain events happened but I knew that I couldn’t stop them because my decision was in the past and at the time, they seemed like good ones. It was an incredible plot device and really made the world feel alive in my view.

*END SPOILER ALERT*

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@_jl
Yeah, I’ve found that feedback is invaluable.

Cool! I’m also writing a sci fi novel with Andy.

Yepp! I like it this way because I myself like to choose options as I myself would, as opposed to what’s “best”

I don’t play MA, but I can certainly agree with that dynamic.

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Mass effect 4 ever

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@Samuel_H_Young I look forward to reading it. I should be posting up my rough soon. :slight_smile: Like you, I feel making those choices without any real understanding of what will happen as a result is a better way of doing things.

@darkstar2101 Certainly looks that way with EA at the helm

OH NO HE DI’INT! OHHHHHHHHH

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@_jl
It’s not like the effects are non-logical, they’re just long lasting