[WIP?] Dust: A Fallout-esque Choice Game

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I’ve always been fascinated by the post apocalyptic scenario and I recently got a nostalgia boner from seeing an old Fallout 3 video. There have been a lot of ideas floating around my head for a Choice Game but this one has stuck out the most. This game will probably draw heavily from Fallout lore and because of that, I have a few concerns:

  1. Is it legal?
  2. Who would be interested?

I accept all types of criticism, good or bad, constructive or destructive, because in the end I have the final say so get off my d. Loljk

I have an intro (subject to change) already as you being part of a small 3 man Brahmin caravan:

With every step sharp pain shoots up your leg. This pain has been ceasless for the past half hour, and the sun amongst the cloudless sky beating down on your back doesn’t help. You pause for a moment and with your left hand you take off your cowboy hat and wipe the sweat accumulating on your temple with your forearm.

The same images have plagued you since this morning. Vultures dance above in an infinite ellipses. Ants in the distance turn into boulders and cacti the size of 3 men every five minutes in an endless cycle. Shara’s scarlet hair bobs in a pony tail in front of you, and occasionally you catch a glimpse of the brahmin’s tail sweep in an arc to catch unwary flies appear from her sides, only to disappear moments later as the fly massacre has been completed. You swear the image of the white “7” in a sea of faded blue from Scarlet’s back will never escape the clutches of your memory. Sometimes you just stare at her ass, but whenever you start to enjoy it, she seems to catch on and turns her head to check up on you, so you repeat the same maneuver and act like nothing happened. She may have winked at you that time.

You feel something moist in your shoes and request the caravan to halt for a few moments. You decide that you cant deal with the pain any longer so you slowly take off your shoddy hiking boots retrieved from your father before he was brutally murdered by super mutants long ago.

‘Rusty’, clad in farmer’s overalls bulging with a spare tire, lets out an exasperated groan as he stops the Brahmin.

“What now?” He said with an obvious annoyed tone to his voice as he propped his Chinese assault rifle on his right shoulder.

“I think my feet are bleeding,” You reply with a forceful tone.

“Quit being an ass and let him rest for a bit Rusty,” Shara announced. You were surprised at her sudden exclamation as she hasn’t said a word since she volunteered for this trip back at the bar.

Rusty curses under his breath. He seems to be afraid of Shara.

“Do you have any water left in your canteen?” Shara states with a neutral tone.

You shake your head.

Rusty lets out another groan.

“I knew it was a bad idea to bring this kid along, he can’t even conserve water.”

“You can have some of mine,” Shara says, ignoring rusty, as she tosses you her canteen.

It arcs through the air and it catches you off guard, luckily you were able to catch it below your waist. You were too busy picturing Rusty faling into a radioactive pit of waste.

The water tastes dirty but your parched throat feels rejuvenated as the liquid slid down. You made sure only to take a small sip because her canteen is only a quarter full.

You screwed the cap back on and quietly thank Shara for her gesture as you passed the canteen back, not nearly as perfect as her toss.

You return your attention to your aching feet. You undo the double knot while the wind howls in your ear. You feel as though your feet were covered in pissed off bees as you slowly take your shoes off. Your suspicions were confirmed by the sight that soon followed. Fresh blisters pepper your feet, a majority of them bleeding.

“Boo hoo,” Rusty said with a childish tone, staring at your feet, “is little ol’ caravan guard going to-”

Rusty’s sentence is cut short by the sound of a .38 hunting rifle off in the distance. The bullet strikes Rusty in the neck, and in an instant Shara calls out to me to get down. You don’t even have enough time to get your shoes on as you dive for the nearest rock that can provide cover. The pain in your feet is unbearable as sand fills the open wounds.

You peek over the rock and see a raider with a hockey mask scanning in your direction. As he gaze sweeps in your direction, he takes a shot and the bullet chips at the rock. You feel grains pellet your skin.

Behind you hear a whisper, coming from Shara. It’s almost impossible to hear over the instant gurgling coming from Rusty’s body. She seems to be motioning for you to get up.

Could she mean for you to distract the raider? The idea sounds absurd but it can’t seem to get any worse than this situation. You mouthed a ‘are you crazy?’ In response.

‘Just do it,’ You see her lips form.

With YOLO in mind, you jump out from behind the rock as you dash for some more cover. out of the corner of your eye you see the raider swing his gun in your direction.

“STRIP THE FLESH! SALT THE WOUND!” The raider screams with a crazed passion.

He fires two bullets at you, both missing, and before he can unleash a third, a gunshot rings out from behind you.

And that’s what I have so far. So whaddya guys think? I’m obviously going to add some decisions there like actually shooting at the raider yourself.

I plan on using the stat system from Fallout New Vegas along with a similar method for initial stats, you guys know, the psychologist test thingy in the beginning?

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I haven’t played fallout and know little about it so I can’t tell if you have used anything from the game in your intro. Concerning legality I would have to say no it’s probably not legal considering the company that made it owns all the rights to the game and (I assume) it’s lore as it is it’s intellectual property. That is not to say you can’t make a similar world, however, try to keep it original as possible. Someone brought this up in an earlier topic (last year I think) about making a hunger games CoG which faced the same legal issues.

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@WolfieGrey That YOLO part was meant to be a joke and the two parts that reference Fallout and could be part of an intellectual right would be the Brahmin and the Vault 7 shirt.

EDIT: I plan on all the characters to be original but there may be terms such as “brahmin” being used. I really like the whole Vault idea but if that’s a copyright issue then I need a captivating alternative. Any ideas?

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Fallout 3 - nostalgia???

I’m getting old… feels like yesterday when I played Fallout 1.

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Instead of having people living in Vaults under the ground, you could make it so that the people created vault-like cities in the sky. Everything else with the whole “leaving because of radiation” could be the same, they’ll just be in the air instead of under the ground. And about a top secret (a.k.a., “nonexistent”) way to leave could still be the same, too, @Incompatibility

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@LOR I really like that idea but that kinda conflicts with Bioshock Infinite, lol.

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vaults are a logical way of surviving a nuclear war.
I see more problems with the “postapocalyptic 1950s”. That is VERY special in the Fallout series.

…post-apocalyptic deserts with vaults, gangs and mutants - there’s more with that than Fallout.

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What about cave systems? There are some pretty extensive ones all over the world, and I suppose you could handwave a way for a group of refugees or survivalists to create a livable ecosystem.

Alternatively: My city (Vancouver) has an elevated railway system. The stations aren’t big enough for more than a few dozen people to live in comfortably, but most are pretty sturdy and some *might* survive a near miss (a couple of km away) from a kilotonne range (if we’re going by fallout, anyhow. a modern 1 mt nuke wouldn’t leave much standing, period) nuclear device. They’re all connected by concrete elevated tracks, which might prove useful for mutant-free travel.

Also: if you’re going to reference something, do it through allusion. Don’t call them Brahmin, have some guy mention offhand that before the war, cows only had one head.

Your writing’s pretty good, but trust me, in two or three years, nobody is going to remember what “YOLO” means. I’d leave it out.

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Pretty sure a nuke strike would also destroy any sky cities hovering over target land areas that got hit. If the US (or China, Russia, etc) got hit then any sky cities in the area would be falling out of the air if not outright destroyed,

That’s not even counting the fact that sky cities would be big targets in a nuclear exchange. Top secret vaults are easy to hide, top secret sky cities, not so much and they’d certainly be targeted by enemy countries. Unless someone built some in the middle of the pacific ocean or Antarctica. Even then, it’s pretty risky.

A post apocalyptic scenario is perfectly viable with sky cities though. I can see them working if it’s more of a biological or chemical disaster that ruined the earth’s surface rather than nukes destroying everything. Severe pollution and melted ice caps work as well.

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Space-based kinetic weapons maybe? There’s no radiation, not much in the way of airburst, and if powerful enough, they might make the ground too seismically unstable to live on?

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@loelet I don’t plan on it being 1950’s style. I plan on it being modern, or completely futuristic, unlike fallout which mixes old timey feel with new tech.

@Cataphrak That cave system idea is one that I like as well. I just had an idea since you mentioned railways to use the subway system, Metro 2033 seems to cover that base as well. :-S

I’ll also be sure to make that allusion now ;p

I can already see it now

You’re crouched behind the skeleton of a rusty minivan, as you spot gray matter scatter in all directions from whatever is left of the traveler’s cranium. A maniacal grin soon follows his kill. He yells “BOOM! Headshot!” Satisfied with the situation, he climbs the ladder down from his rotting and decrepit wooden tower to open the gate to their sheet metal “fortress” to loot the corpse.

You must find another way around, unless you want to take the railway station by force, but the raiders have high ground.

@EndMaster You bring up a valid point, so I don’t think I’ll go with the sky city idea, unless I go with what you said with the ground being uninhabitable, but instead of the game feeling too much like fallout, it’ll feel too much like Bioshock Infinite lol.

I was thinking about outside being a death sentence during day since the nukes burned off the ozone layer, spraying harmful radioactive gamma rays all over the surface, forcing resource scavenging being done at night.

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I also just caught that Borderlands reference.

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@Cataphrak yea I don’t plan there to be blatant allusions like that, this was meant to be more a test run and idea pool.

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Well instead of sky cities ala Bioshock infinite how about space stations with sky elevators connecting them to the ground?

Or cities built underneath the water?

For that matter, you don’t have to use just one idea. Different countries could have had different priorities, or different enclaves of all different types might have been lucky enough to survive: underground, underwater, and in orbit.

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Cities in the sky make no sense at all to me. How do they get up there? Isn’t there a problem getting energy and water to them? It seems such advanced, futuristic technology.

I would have called them bunkers, nuclear shelters. or underground cities. They all already exist in the real world. They’re also a common staple of post-apocalyptic fiction so no reason you can’t use them.

Cracked recently did a fascinating article about ancient buildings and an entire underground city. http://www.cracked.com/article_20206_5-shockingly-advanced-ancient-buildings-that-shouldnt-exist.html

I’ve never played Fallout so I wouldn’t be interested in a Fallout based Choice game.

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Yes, all the ideas used in Fallout (and everything else) have been used before, and most of them are based in real life (fallout shelters, two-headed calves, Hindu Brahmin, etc.). Be sure to call them something different (e.g. Arks instead of Vaults), and go crazy.

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@HoraceTorys Ill go with your idea of calling them Arks, but I think I will leave the whole purpose of these Arks as some being shoddily made so the inhabitants died, while others were designed to withstand the test of time. Arks for the poor ended up being pointless while arks for the rich actually saved people. I don’t want to take the idea of the purpose being scientific experimentation from fallout, which I think is unique considering the vault formula.

I’m thinking of calling the arks by Greek letters.

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the idea you have is good as you writing I’m a fallout fan but I feel yours is really character closed gender looked and it doesn’t feel a character credible for me roleplaying perspective fallout is all about freedom of choices and wandering for the universe

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@MaraJade I plan on it being for both genders, but for this little sample I decided to write with the protagonist being male because I myself am male.

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yes I understand but feels not a character. brand new to configure like fallout my character never being in a caravan except to kill all and robbed them free to alignment is was I love from fallout add bad characters posibility and background perks is what make great fallout