Twisted Scene (WIP), an 80s Liverpool Music Scene Story -- Chapter 4 Updated 06-15-23

Hi there, like many others, I’ve been lurking on the forum for awhile. And eversince I stumbled on the forum, I’ve always wanted to write a game of my own, so I present to you, Twisted Scene.

Summary: Set in the early 80s of Liverpool music scene, the death of punk a few years before paved way for three genres to take over the UK music scene; Post Punk, New Wave, and Indie Rock.

You’re a twenty year old working class Scouser, who happens to be a lead singer of a band formed under a not so great situation which led to an unwanted rivalry between your band and another band fronted by your former best friend.

Will you reach the stardom while maintaining your sanity, friendships, and possibly romances? Or will you wither under the pressure of delivering your breakthrough debut album?

Demo: https://dashingdon.com/go/13416

Features
  • Play as male or female.
  • Write songs based on the occurrences that takes place throughout the story.
  • Shape your personality which will influence how you create your masterpiece.
  • Find love or keep it friendly with your band’s lead guitarist, your former best friend, an old acquaintance of your late sister, and a music obsessed mixing engineer.
    *Will you steer your band to survive the cruel place that is music industry?
ROs

Anton “Gia” Giardini [M]
The lead guitarist of your band, he is of Italian descent through his father and lived there for some time during his childhood. Gia used to be in a band with your former best friend until an altercation led to Gia quitting the band and forming a new one with you. His calmness, friendly approach and sense of responsibility makes him a very believable figure to be the leader of your band. He can be romanced by a female MC.

Appearance :
6’1", with a lanky build and olive skin. His short wavy black hair is always kept short and neat. His warm brown eyes complement his understanding nature. He is often seen wearing one of the many collection of long sleeves shirts that he has.

Paul/Paula Browne [M/F]
Your former best friend, they are also the lead singer of your rival band The Scorching Suns. they are of Irish parents who moved to Manchester and later to Liverpool. They are quite a confusing character, their laziness at times are the polar opposite to their bold, proud and confrontational nature which often mistaken as arrogance. They can be romanced by both male and female MC.

Appearance:
5’10" (m) and 5’9"(f), they have average build, with fair and spotless skin. Their auburn hair is short and straight for Paul, and shoulder length for Paula, both styled with choppy fringes that hang just above their thick eyebrows. Their deep blue eyes are often look sleepy and lazy. They are often seen sporting their favourite black leather jacket and white v-neck t-shirt combination.

Catherine “Kitty” Roberts[F]
An american, she’s an old acquaintance of your sister before her passing. Her vagueness and often riddled words are complimented with her ever-present blank expression which will either weirded you out or make you intrigued with this complicated woman. She can be romanced by both male and female MC.

Appearance :
5’7", she has a slim build with pale skin. Her straight and messy blonde hair falls just below her shoulders. Her grey eyes love to look straight to the people she talks to. Her favourite style includes a pair of black leather boots, with matching above knees skirt and many variants of cropped t-shirt.

London Campbell[M/F]
A workaholic who happens to be a real music nerd is the best description for them. London is a mixing engineer who aspires to be a renowned producer one day. While they don’t seem to have any life outside of the great Carmine Studios, you’ll be surprised by just how much they’ve got to say with their stubborn when pushed, but laid back when given space personality. They can be romanced by both male and female MC.

Appearance :
Around 5’7" for male London and 5’4" for female London. Their dark copper thick curly hair is styled in permed bowl cut for male and in bob cut that reaches the base of her neck for female London. They’ve quite an athletic build and prefer to wear simple variants of t-shirt in their everyday life.

What I'm looking for

English isn’t my first languange, and therefore I’m sure there will be a few problems with grammars, odd words, and typos. Any help regarding this is truly appreciated.

Also, since the story takes place in the UK specifically Liverpool and later Manchester, and I am by no means a British, feel free to call me out if you find odd words or awkward dialogues that don’t reflect how actual scousers and mancunians talk. And if you’re familiar with both accents and cultures or even places, feel free to give me some advice on how I can improve the story.

Last but not least, I want to know what do you think about the stats system (especially regarding the songwriting process which you will experience later in chapter 2), the pacing of the story (which will includes many flashbacks) and how the characters develop (which probably won’t be until the later chapters). Any feedbacks regarding these matters will be absolutely appreciated.

My ambition with the project

I’m not a fast writer at all, but I’m taking this project very very seriously, I will definitely update one chapter in at least a month. And if I can push for more content in an even shorter amount of time, I will definitely go for it.

My target is to make this story at the very least 200k words long. And as soon as I reach that mark, everything beyond is a limitless possibilities

As of now the Prologue until Chapter 4 are done, and a total of around 140k-ish words of playable content.

356 Likes

Interesting so far and fun for me to see an I.F. set in my hometown. I’d have to read through again to take note of things that didn’t ring true but one thing I would say is that people here would say mum not mom. Definitely looking forward to more, it’s a great start!

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I can’t stress the speed of which I clicked this after seeing the title. Congrats on the demo! I’m guessing you’re an Oasis fan?
Anyway, I’ll share my thoughts as I write:

  • I like how you jump immediately into it! I was a bit confused on the second page when my character’s name was at the very top of the page, I think it would flow slightly better if you confirmed the name before continuing, or had it like “{Character Name}?”
  • I really love your writing style, it feels casual and natural, like I’m talking to someone. I think there’s a few points that need to be edited for grammar or for sense with the variables. Things like capitalization, certain variable spots, etc. If it’s alright, I will make a separate message and DM it to you directly.
  • I find the personality set-up to be really interesting! It really encourages replay and trying out new choices. Will we know as the game happens whether or not we’re on the right track re: making our debut album?
  • The characters are fun! I enjoy their dynamics and I look forward to interacting with them further.
  • I think the pacing is a bit rushed–it may flow better if you slow down a bit. Maybe more for us on-stage, or enjoying the end of our first concert, or more for us to get to know Paul in the flashback before he joins the Scorching Suns, for example.
  • Your English is very good, and I think it’s awesome to see how fantastic your writing style is considering that! I was surprised when I just looked over at your Requested Feedback page and saw that English wasn’t your first language. The mistakes you’ve made are very common for Native English speakers; and writing is something difficult to do in one’s first language, much less a foreign one.

All in all a super promising debut! I’m hecka excited to read more of it.

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Couple of things right off the bat. You need to watch your slang usage, “a’ight” and “true that” weren’t used in the eighties, they’re much more modern, likely post 2010, and American. Also, Irish people don’t use mum, they use mam or mammie. Those are the two most jarring examples standing out to me just now, and I wanted to let you know before you get farther along and it gets harder to correct the language.

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I suggest adding some examples of band names. For less creative people, like me :sweat_smile:

I really like the idea and the way you write. It’s quite refreshing after reading many IFs that are fantasy, full of magic, supernaturals, kindoms etc.

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Saves would be nice

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Nice start and a good subject I think. The how to play this game screen seemed out of place and disruptive. Probably be better at the start or reworked into a better flow.

Also

As much as I wish I could order a pint of whisky I think that might kill me :crazy_face:

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Lol! The things you miss when you order bottled juice!

ETA: I had a feeling drugs and booze were going to feature heavily in the stories of the bands. Glad I’d pre-decided to not indulge in my playthrough. Seeing Paula self destructing so early is going to be tough.

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Definitely a fresh air, different theme than other wip around and that’s why I like it so much. But as someone said save will be appreciate just because I’m too lazy to restart from the very beginning.

Good luck cause I absolutely wanting to see more of this.

About the creation of the music in chapter two and the next, I think it would be interesting to put a little description before deciding the rhythm(? I’m totally ignorant of music details so I don’t know what Major Riffs are), because I tried to research on Google and I couldn’t find anything that described for someone like me, so it might be a small detail to let people like me who don’t know about music a little happy. I would also like a guide on how to write the songs in the game, I like to see different answers in these tests, and if anyone else later has any questions it would be happy to see something to help them. I too recomend a cration of Tumblr or Discord, make a more solid community and some see these type of games on Tumblr, but this is up to you. Apart from all that I loved the game and I will definitely follow.

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The format of using the choices and stats to determine song quality sounds awesome.

Also, as a musician whose been on and off looking for a drummer for the past 3 years this line hit hard :joy:

“I’ve asked around, but many of them were either joining another band already, or have given up on their music career.”

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Hey, this is new and interesting. I will say, some of the grammar needs to be tweaked, especially in chapter 2. There are lots of little misspellings and mixing of plurals and singulars. Nothing too difficult to fix. I’m interested to see where you take this.

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I really like the story, I love it when characters have some sort of past together, it makes them more interesting and alive. Can’t wait to read more.

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Just wanna give a quick bit of feedback. While I’m not the right person to say anything with my vampiric complexion, I know it’s very frowned upon to describe skin tones as foods (specifically describing dark skin as chocolate), so that should probably be changed/reworded.

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good, it’s just that chapter 2 has the same text error repeated, please fix it and, please add a save to make it easier so we don’t make any more choices a

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Such a good idea ! English is not my first language either but everything seems mostly fine. Perhaps more explanation about the music vocabulary?

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Thank you for all the responses!

@Bella_Morte A Liverpudlian? Nice one! If there’s anything interesting about Liverpool that I can include let me know, also thank you for checking the demo!

@RedRoses Thank you so much! And yes I’m indeed a mad fer it, I guess the way Paul/Paula acts really gives off the Liam Gallagher vibe, yeah?

Somehow I didn’t see that before posting, will definitely fix that.

Definitely! I will love any help to make the story greater and better.

Of course! The main focus of the story will always be the album, and the quality of it along with the romances (should you want it) will determine the ending, it will become more apparent as the game progresses.

Nice to see you enjoy the characters, I really want to make a story where even the side characters will have a lot of interaction and involvement with the MC, hopefully I can do that.

Yeah, I was contemplating about how the MC, Gia, and Tom should probably take some rest first in the bandroom and have some more interaction after the first gig and probably more scene with Lori. I think I will try and implement them, as for the flashbacks, they will be all over the chapters as the story progresses and definitely will cover the grounds with the life of Paul/Paula, Anton, MC’s sister, the other two upcoming ROs, and the other characters.

Thank you so much! I was really wondering whether my english was good enough to make an entire story, glad to know that I’m doing a decent job at it. :grinning:

Thank you for pointing these points out! I will definitely fix it. If there’s any other that you think needs fixing, let me know.

I was wondering whether it was the right placement or not, well now I know the answer.

Somehow I forgot to implement those, . will see to it.

I was wondering about this too, I will see what I can do.

I’m planning to make one as soon as possible, maybe after the chapter 3 is done.

Haha, me too! I’ve been searching for one for God knows how long, still can’t find any.

Thanks! I will try and fix this.

Could you point out where the error is?

I’m planning to make some sort of glossary on the stats screen, hopefully on the next update.

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I remeber playing this a long time ago so i am glad its returned and is a thread now and we get to see more than before. :smiley:

Looking forward to seeing more and what comes next.

This wip forced me to do music research because I never listened to Post Punk, New Wave & Indie Rock and knew nothing about these genres :sweat_smile:

Honestly, I still don’t quite see the difference between these three

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I highly recommend the recent wave of Russian post punk. This channel has done a fantastic job of compiling a bunch of great artists. The first volume is my favorite but the video got taken down so they turned it into a playlist.

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