Could the character be Asian? Like the Central Asian Koreans during the Soviet era?
I think it would be nice to have a selection of what heritage the MC is, like in CoV. The Soviet Union wasn’t just ethnic Russian after all. There were many minorities with large populations (i.e. Ukrainians, Kazakhs)
Sorry just a random thought lol…
COMMUNISM!!!
I’d like to rip the Berlin Wall If I can. xP
@Talon5505 I won’t be playing this either. Not if I have to play as a girl.
@Martin_Brody Then what is the point of even posting about it? I’m sorry, but I just find this whole argument that keeps popping up on this website completely ludicrous. If you feel the necessity to completely ignore a game based on the sole fact you don’t feel like playing as the opposite gender…that makes no sense to me at all.
I don’t even get why we’re having such a large discussion on this. I like what @Drazen and @wolfwriter20 said, and I completely agree. Now, can we please get back to discussing the actual game?
Don’t take it personally but as a woman, I will be playing your game.
How long will this game take place? Weeks, months, or years?
Well, it’s fine if people don’t want to play it. Different cups of tea and all that. I’m just going to write what I think is best, and if people happen to like it then that’s cool.
Last thing I’ll say on the matter: the male option is not necessarily thrown out the window. I’m still considering, although I’m leaning towards female only. Okay. That is the last I will say on that.
The scope I have in mind is large. The point of the game is to put the MC in a position where she can literally bring a nation to its knees from her subtle manipulations. I suppose it takes place over years. It’s a alternate take on history, too, so if the MC screws up she could spark a war or a nuclear attack.
You’re right. The Soviet bloc was much larger than just Russia. I like your suggestion.
So, anyway, I’m going to have to do a lot of research for this game, but I’m totally up for it. I love this era of history.
I like the idea @Farside, i could be a real fanatical who wants the 3 ww,that asegures urss total domination?
Can’t wait for the demo 
Are you always this bloodthirsty Mara?
Anyway regardless of whether or not I’ll eventually play the finished product I will continue to watch its development with great interest.
@Wolfwriter we all have our likes and dislikes, I for one, as a general rule, tend to stay well away from any sports themed games. While I personally have a strong preference for male characters (and same-sex romance) I’m not ruling this one out just yet
@Musiclover, keep in mind that the very broad generalizations that Drazen prefers to make are of limited usefulness in a game where the protagonist is an exceptional individual, since even when keeping the general direction of evolution in mind all it really does is potentially create some situations where being a single young caucasian male may not actually turn out to be the lowest difficulty setting there is in this game of life.
@idonotlikeusernames Oh do let it drop.
@Drazen, but do I so like a chance at a decent argument, however since the esteemed authoress seems to have made up her mind, I do suppose there’s nothing left to gain and I have already said all I really meant to anyway.
Sorry guys, but include me out. I wish you the best of luck, but this just…is a bit too much for me. I just *DO NOT* like the idea of being limited to batting for the Evil Empire (no scare or snark quotes) and this hits a bit close to home for me.
Nothing against all of you, particularly you Farside. I’ve had the greatest of respect for your work like Poppies and your other plans. It’s just that to me, this pushes the limits of good taste too far. The idea of a spy game in the McCarthy period is fascinating, particularly since that entire period’s one of my great fascinations, so it’s not because of the concept at all, though I do have my considerable misgivings about how things will be portrayed (no, I’m not going to defend McCarthy or HUAC, just to say that the level of horror between the two sides of the Cold War wasn’t remotely equal, and that on the grand scale of things a Soviet spy from the “Union” itself would probably have whiplash over how *lenient* things were in comparison, particularly given the witness testimony of a few turncoats and defectors.).
But the eponymous “Nazi-spy-as-Protagonist” comparison is probably the very best one I can make, and as someone whose family has personally suffered from the effects of spying (not Soviet, but Fascist Italian), just being expected to come to bat without for the Soviets no matter what- where the only definition of “winning” translates to something like the Cambridge Spy Ring and its’ ghasty record-is not something I’m prepared to stomach as a matter of principals. It just is not something I can see myself enjoying at all.
Again, I have only the highest respect for all of the people involved, I wish everyone the best of luck, and I’d be willing to act as a researcher and adviser for the project. It’s just that as the concept stands, this is too morally odious for me contemplate playing and enjoying.
I agree that the Soviets were brutal and forced nations into their network, and, yes, the sides weren’t necessarily equal. It’s also very recent history, which is why I’m not jumping head-first into the project. I’m glad you’ve expressed your misgivings, because it gives me things to consider. I’m very sorry your family has had to deal with what they did.
Just curious, but given the same concept how would you handle the story so that it’s workable? Is it workable?
I’m still trying to come to an angle that’ll work with this project. That’s part of the reason I’m staying away from actual historical figures.
I am walking a thin line, and I was aware of that when I pitched the idea. The angle I was going to take is the MC operates within the environment she is cast into through circumstance. She believes what she believes because of the situation she’s in. The environment she is in is brutal and difficult. I wasn’t going to portray the Soviets as heroes, but there are still individuals caught up in the the Soviet system, and I think of the stories of these few individuals would be interesting to portray. I was going to take a literary approach and simply examine the situation of the protagonist. I think there’s a story there. I wasn’t going to gloss over the way USSR treated satellite nations, their people and culture. It actually figures into the MC’s backstory if you choose certain backgrounds. At best, this story is morally ambiguous, and, yes, that is troubling, especially when the protagonist is morally ambiguous at best also.
The mob did horrible, awful things as well, and yet mob games are well-received. Although, not as many people were personally affected by the mob, and neither did they affect history as much, so this is a moot point. Either way, I’m glad you said what you have said.
If I don’t find a respectable or decent way to approach this, I’ll probably drop the project. I haven’t written a word on it, anyway. The Cold War interests me, but perhaps I should choose a different protagonist and focus. I’ll consider this.
@Farside Thanks for the prompt reply, but I might be phasing in and out a bit due to homework (ironically including an overdue essay about McCarthyism and one of Shrecker’s books…auuuughhhh…), but I’ll do my best to contribute. I just want to say I can sympathize with the confusion fully, and I never thought anyone involved here was something of a romanticist for the Soviet Union or affiliated ideological jetcan. Just that it’s something that is going to be very, very hard to handle sensitively.
It’s something that rubbed me wrong when I’ve been born long afterwards, *and* my family was never really hurt or wounded dealing with the protagonists of the game. I can only imagine that some others might be more sensitive.
First bit of advice, though: you’re not off to the best start when you compare the Soviet Union to the Italian Mob, or adding in the qualification about the two sides being “not necessarily equal.” It’s nitpicks and pedantic so please excuse me, but ehre’s why.
For the former:Those aren’t just two entirely different monsters altogether, it’s two entirely different *scales* of monsters and the Italian mob would be justified in feeling offended by the comparison. I say this as someone who resolutely despises organized crime and can also give a few odd anecdotes about La Costa Nostra and its’ kin.
It’s just that no matter how anyone puts it-outside of paramilitary armies like FARC, the LTTE, and the like- organized crime isn’t in the business of killing people on that scale, and particularly not mass murder.
A more accurate comparison would be between the Soviet Union and everybody’s favorite Butt-Boys the *Nazis*, for very good reason.* And not just from a moral, political, or humanitarian POV either. Governments- Democratic and Totalitarians- have entirely different MOs from NGOs and especially organized criminal ones. The internal wiring of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union wasn’t extremely similar, but it’s roughly comparable in a whole lotta ways. Including how they were organized, what they were trying to do, and the sort of rhetoric and tactics they used. That’s the sort of magnitude we’d be looking at.
That’s why if you’re going to do this, I’d suggest you go back through your post and mentally replace the adjective of “Soviet” or the like with “Nazi” or the equivalent ie “Not going to portray the Nazis as Heroes, but there are are still individuals caught up in the Nazi/NSDAP/Hiterlite system…” and *then* see how it reads, That should give you an idea of what you’re getting yourself into, and what you’ll have to do.
Note: please don’t take this as an effort to get you to stop the project or quit at all. That is not my intention in the least, and I am fully confident that good, tasteful works can be made about someone in the Service of the USSR or the Reich or countless other “lovely” systems, particularly by you. It’s just that comparing making them to making a game about the Mafia or other organized crime doesn’t get you in the right mindset for it, because by definition these things were far worse than some hoodlums in Little Italy/Japan/What Have You killing each other. I can give more info if need be, but I feel I’m becoming a bit redundant right now…
As for the second, it’s morally ambiguous, yes, but there’s differing shades of moral ambiguity, and the Cold War as a whole was Black and Gray Morality as a whole, and no the two sides were not equal, not even close to “not necessarily equal”, even though there were a lot of reasons why it might seem that way. It’s bone-rattling to try and quantify, particularly since I’m not exactly a wide eyed idealist that thinks the West was all fluffy angels or the like, and particularly from a local POV there’s many, many valid reasons why people would have issues with the US and the rest of the West, and would think the Soviets were a good idea. It’s just that in the grand scheme of things, the numbers tell a more lopsided story.
Right then, now that that’s out of the way, in terms of crafting your character I’d have to say the very first thing that came to mind was Age. This would be absolutely massive. Since your character’s presumably of age around the time of the 1950’s (in order to avoid Lolicon squich), that means that we’d be looking at someone that’s lived through the 1940’s and at least part of the 30’s. Depending on where she(/he?) was, this fact would be absolutely massive, since we’d be looking at massive evolution, turmoil, and change pretty much wherever you looked, and that would have effects on the MC.
What exactly those effects would be are the venue of something else, though, and that’s where I’d see the other two crucial areas: Nationality and (Social-Politic-Cconomic) backgrounds. Was the MC from the heartland of the Soviet Empire itself? If so, Russia? Ukraine? Mongolia?
One of the border territories annexed to the USSR (like Eastern Poland or the Baltics)? One of the Axis or Axis-occupied nations that the Soviets “influenced”, like Hungary? Romania? Poland? Northern Korea? even Spain? Is it even a sympathetic non-satellite like from Yugoslavia, the ethnic minorities of Northern Persia (that the Soviets spent the war years trying to inspire to revolt)? Or is S/he a pure, White Bread Westerner (Canadian, American, French, British, other?)? I could go on, but each of those had their different slants.
And finally, how long has s/he been in the Soviet police apparatus, and how did she get there? Did s/he have to live through any of the numerous purges that Stalin and his predecessors initiated including in the intel services? How did she grow up before? Why exactly is she in “Moscow Centre”? Ideology? Opportunism? To survive? Other?
Basically, if you are intend to limit things to just a Russian Woman, that tells me a fair bit and we can go from there, but there’d still be more clarification needed to put a what’s-what on things. Say, if she’s survived a purge or two, perhaps her ability to manipulate trials and inquisitions is improved, because once you’ve gone through the NKVD HUAC looks like a friendly kitten? But at the expense of perhaps misunderstanding the consequences of things, like assuming that just because you accuse someone of being a Communist they’ll be automatically assumed to be so, or that if they’re found guilty they’ll automatically be killed/executed like they probably would be in the old country? (Which instead backfires by giving you a hardened, angry wo/man on your trail *dedicated* to clearing their name and finding out who smeared them?).
Things like that. There’s a lot more to go over, and I’m probably being Captain Obvious for a lot of this given the fact that you could whip my rear in writing CoGs, but it’s just what comes to mind for setting up and framing the story like you said.
However, above all else I’d recommend you keep this in mind: the organizations the MC would be serving is one of the most singularly repulsive and destructive in *any* CoG yet printed. Comparing them to the Italian Mob is an insult to the murdering, bomb-throwing, greedy Camorra, and it’s most likely that the MC’s already suffered because of the regime in some way, and if not certainly will. Again, mentally keep the Nazi = Soviet comparison in your head, because that might help keep the perspective in place.
Beyond that, I’d also have to keep in mind that individual parts can naturally be better than the whole, and just because they serve some truly terrifying forces doesn’t mean they are as irredeemable as those forces or the higher ups in charge are. Though I’d guess you already knew this.
And finally, keep in mind the culture shock and dissonance. If the PC really is a Russian, and one that grew up or at least lived a good chunk of her life under Stalin, there are a LOT of things in the US that would surprise her. And because life under the jackboot is basically akin to being Conditioned to accept horror, a lot of that would be because even the US under the McCarthyist high tide would be remarkably *permissive*, and the differences in how the societies act and roll can factor in a lot, for both good and bad.
Beyond that, as a curiosity, have you figured out any other characters? Any romance choices or the like? I figure that’ll help you get started. And again, I’ll help however I can.
Dang, that took longer than I thought it would…sorry for the cutup. And thank you for the sensitivity, particularly with my family. I really do appreciate it.
* = We’ve been going back and forth over which one of them (between Stalin, Hitler, and Mao) gets the titles of First, Second, and Third most murderous leader in the history of the world, and to the best of my knowledge we haven’t come any closer to definitively giving the goal posts. That should tell you something about the systems in question…
When I said the sides weren’t necessarily equal I was echoing a point you made on the atrocities of McCarthyism not being equal to the atrocities of the Soviet Union. I should have been clearer.
I noted that the Italian mob example was probably a moot point. I think I was trying to say that people seem to be comfortable with the portrayal of brutal systems (and the Italian mob is a small-scale one, to be sure) so long as they operate within certain contexts. However, I’ll admit it was an insensitive comparison when one compares the scales of the two. Also, the argument doesn’t take into consideration that modern-day organized crime (drug lords, etc.) would be just as sensitive a subject as the Soviet Union.
I’m glad you spoke up and shared your concerns. This project may be biting off more than I can chew. I’ll have to think it over. I was aware that it was probably a sensitive subject, but I didn’t consider deeply enough how sensitive it actually is. I would rather not do the project than to create something that’s hurtful, because that’s not the intent of what I create at all. I had another idea for my next project, anyway, that is much less questionable.
@Turtler, I’m not dropping the project necessarily because of you. 
I’m doing it because I quite honestly don’t have the skills or even knowledge necessary to pull off what I want to pull off. It would take a grand master, lol. I already had vague misgivings about the concept, but I put it out there anyway to see the response.
I may come back to this one again, but for now it’s on the back burner until it receives some revision. I find espionage fascinating, but perhaps I should explore it in a different context.
Ya, my apologies about that. I’m just a bit overly specific. I appreciate the attention you’ve given this. However, I feel like my misgivings at this point aren’t being all that helpful or constructive, so I figure: shall we move on? No matter what I do or don’t do, I’d hate to have such a good idea die on my accord, and what’s done is done.
Anyway, one question: have you decided on a year or years for the game to take place in? That would help a fair bit, and it would go *miles* to helping hammer the situation out.
One particular faction you might want to know of-as a potential “unsympathetic acceptable target starter villain”- would be the Nationalist Chinese. I doubt you could have them be too large of a role, but they were fairly active in PR campaigns and US politics in order to drum up support for Chiang, and they had a few other intelligence services just as ruthless as the Soviets ever had, but considerably less competent. From a story/framing perspective, they’d help represent an all-too-clear sign of the corruption that existed West of the Iron Curtain and the ails of capitalism (corruption, influence pandering, etc) that even a wavering MC could oppose, while at the same time they aren’t as dangerous or skilled as-say- Hoover’s FBI would be. I’m not sure how you’d want to work that in or if you would, but I figure that might help flesh out the story and the world the chars live in.
Edit: well, that came out of nowhere… anyway, it’s fine, and it’s your choice. You’re a far better CoG writer than I could be, and you have plenty of other projects I’d be looking forward to. It’s perfectly fine if you want to drop the project. Just don’t do it because it seems a bit intimidating or out of your league. Maybe it is right now, but I for one would be entirely willing to help supply you with the details (since I’m something of a history/military otaku), and I know plenty of others would as well.