My name is Seobryn, this is probably the first or second time I’ve posted on here. Just wanted to let everyone here know that this is a concept of a story that’s been stirring up in my head for the past few weeks.
Just let me know if this is viable in any way or if this is somewhat copying any existing works that are out there! Also your opinion is appreciated and valued!
Concept:
You play as a member of a band of Mercenaries based in a Low-Fantasy version of the Renaissance. It is up to you to survive alongside your brothers and sisters-in-arms fighting against the supernatural and whoever just happens to be on the opposite side of your bag of florins.
“With blood, shot, and steel shall we slay any that stand in the way of our wage!”
Ideas:
Start off as a low-ranking member of the Mercenary band and rise up as a prominent addition to the Band!
Leave the your original band to start your own! (Maybe in a sequel or a spin-off)
Romance or Manipulate your fellow brothers or sisters-in-arms in order to survive just a little longer!
Fight against the supernatural if they stand in your way!
Every purchase and choice can make the difference between life or death!
Fighting scenes loosely based around historical European martial arts of the time.
I think this would be a wonderful work. As to it being “too close” to others - on the surface maybe something somewhere is but honestly, speaking from experience, if you stay true to your vision and write your own story and code your own game then your work will be uniquely yours.
Just a couple of thoughts to share:
1 - your project looks to be very complex statwise - that is o.k. but for a first project complicated stat schemes is sometimes hard to pull off.
2 - lots of branching is an excellent idea on paper - we all love choices but be sure to keep your main story branch solid and keep everything flowing into it. Lots of projects get sidetracked by never-ending branches. An example - 5,000 to 30,000 words is not unheard of if you get get caught up in an exciting branch…
3 - don’t worry about uneven content, write your story naturally. This may not make sense now but as you work on your story, it becomes important to keep in mind.
I hope you turn out a wonderful demo soon because i love the story idea and I want to play it already
Thanks Eiwynn! Your words mean a lot to me! Actually this will be my first time attempting something like this. Any help or advice would be well-received!
Just a couple of questions if you don’t mind answering them.
1- How many stats would you recommend? I’m sticking with the four basics (STR, INT, CHR, Leadership) for this project.
2- How many branches/endings would you recommend someone like me to try out? I don’t want to lessen the experience of the reader/player by forcing them onto too many routes or making them play through too little.
3 - How would I be able to post the play-test for everyone on the forums? I’ve seen people link the demo while others posting a drop-box link as well.
1 - This depends on what you want to do… those stats look great but are you going to need hidden stats like mercenary band size, or number of swords or mules? There is a project by @Havenstone called “Choice of Rebels” and the author has done a very good job with both individual stats and stats for the “rebellion”
The best thing is to look at different published works and see how the published works you like did it… look at Sabres of Infinity or look at @Lucid 's Heir series…
2 - That is up to you and your story. My story has two main “trunks” where you can be a barbarian prince/princess or you can be an Imperial prince/princess of the Byzantium empire… and each of those main trunks have scenes with choices in them… usually try to limit the choices to three but sometimes it gets complicated … as you can see the more choice you give the more complicated it can get.
My main advise here is write your story true to your vision and the branches and choices should suggest themselves.
3 - There are several threads on posting your demo on Dropbox … let me see if I can search a couple.
Edit 1: Link to updating a dropbox link for your demo here (thanks to @Fiogan for pointing me to this.
Edit 2: Link on getting started with dropbox and steps towards getting published here (thanks to @Arcania the Grand Brownie for pointing this out)
Wow, again thanks for such a quick reply. I loved @Cataphrak’s Infinity series and am looking forward to the next one! I also enjoyed @Lucid’s Heir series as well. I’ll try to see how they do it and try to emulate their methods in my own creative way!
Well as far as I can tell you, yes and no. There are times where stances would be helpful, such as situations where you are fighting an opponent that also uses a weapon, but there are times where just bashing something over the head is also a very good idea.
However, I may or may not implement a choice of stances based around my somewhat limited but slowly expanding knowledge of techniques.
The clubs that are near me hold their sessions at somewhat late times which would compromise my schedule, however I am doing self-study using translated training manuals. The one I am currently reading is “The Art of the Two-Handed Sword” by Mondschein as well as learned basic techniques in Saber of both British and Polish with a couple years study into french fencing.
Yep! However I must stress that I stated that combat would be “loosely”
based on HEMA techniques, a reason for this is that having to write all
the possible stances, blows, and counter blows with correct terminology
alongside keeping the story understandable and immersive for the reader
would be quite difficult, for me as this is my first attempt.
[MUFFLED CHANTING IN THE DISTANCE]
t̵͓͍̰͖ͩͥe̲̲͋̔́l̤̟͖̱͉l̻̯͍̣ͭ͞i̱̫͉̜̠̒̓͝u͙̱̤̝͇͌̅̊̋̉̌͜s̜͎͕̱͛̾̑̉̋͂͠,̱̱̹̪̓ͯ́̍͜ ͍̈́̆̇t̀̅̃̍́ͬe̲̝̫̍͝l̥̭̓̕ͅl̠̎͆̆̔́̍́i̞̩͓̬̝̘͙͑̓͊̔͋u̠̚͘s̷͉̱ͩ̎ͯͮ͋,̯̰͈̼̠͐̉ ̂̓ͮ͐̉ͦ͛҉̯͕̹̮t̞̝̳͐ͦ̈ͥ́ͪ́é̸̤͔̤̮ͣ͂̎̏ͬ̄ͅl̰̗̬͕̘̩̗̽̎̇̑̄̓͢l̘͎̱̅i͑̎̓ͫu͇͍̲̜̙̣͌̎̅ͯ̂͐͗ͅs̴͈̖̑̔̆ͅ!̫
