Plot and Character Feedback

I've been working on this story for a long, long time.

It's an action-adventure crossover comedy that brings together several anime titles.
The basic idea itself was inspired from Kingdom Hearts but I have since drawn more influences like Guardians of the Galaxy, Red vs Blue and the Borderlands series for the story's tone and style.



As I said before, it's going to be an action-adventure comedy in which the humor is focused on parodying many of the anime it crosses over with, incorporating a blend of slapstick, dry and even black humor, but I'm also hoping to create a compelling and emotional narrative in which the characters grow and develop - both the original and crossover characters.

As a result of being part of a bigger story, many of the anime I'll adapt as part of it would have to be trimmed down and modified while also, hopefully, bringing a fresh take on them for both comedy and drama.

My game is called "Worlds Collide". Basically, the general idea is that our world used to have elves and magic, but an eldritch abomination started wrecking the universe, so the powers that be split the universe in two and sealed the thing in between a la that old JLA/Avengers comic.
Unfortunately, due to , a five-year-old child (male or female, depending on the player's choice) from our world--born to wealthy but loving parents--falls into a portal that suddenly appears and is taken in by the elven King Arven and Queen Kara of Remia, one of six nations in the other world. They try to get him home, but the various portals opening and closing are too hard to predict to use to send him home, and one day they suddenly stop . The result: the King and Queen adopt the child, and for nine years everything's peachy. Then the bad guy shows up, and he's obviously interested in the macguffins--keystones, mysterious artifacts passed down through royal families. Our heroes suspect he's up to no good, King Arven decides to snoop around for more info about the stones by talking to the other rulers who have them under the pretense of a diplomatic embassy tour introducing the main character as his heir.
This starts the semi-cliche fetch quest, which ends with . At the end of the fetch quest, the spoiler happens, and the PC and his friends find themselves in our world... where the PC's parents are not only still alive, nine years later they never gave up looking for him and used the considerable wealth and influence they had in a desperate attempt to figure out what happened to him, resulting in an emotional reunion.
This begins an arc where the heroes have to shift constantly between our world and the fantasy world to fix things before the bad guy can do anything worse. Unfortunately, at the end of this second act, . After that is the big climax with the worlds merging in destructive ways, the eldritch abomination getting loose (of course) and our heroes killing it somehow (also, of course), resulting in the two worlds either becoming one or remaining separate (I haven't decided on that yet).

Basically, the running themes I'm going for are the "fantasy worlds are cool and all, but we often forget just how insanely advanced we are in the real world compared to what you'd find there" thing with the primary theme being the old "family you're born to vs family that is found" concept, but with the rare twist that both families are equally loving, supportive, and capable. While one family is royalty, the other are more or less the private citizen equivalent. One lives in a fantasy world that, while possessing immense natural beauty, magic for everyone, and relative peace, is stuck in medieval stasis and suffers from monsters and things attacking people on the roads, while the other lives in a cold, tangled urban society that is nonetheless light-years ahead of the other world in terms of travel, technology, public security, etc. I was inspired by a picture of a kid at a soccer game with both his step-parents AND his biological parents right next to him, and wondered how rough it would be on a kid to have to choose between two families that clearly love their child.

I've got the general idea down along with all the major plot twists, but I need help figuring out the details--right now I'm trying to figure out the "world tour" arc, and how to progress with that. I know in general what kinds of places there are to go to, and the order in which I intend to introduce them in, but suggestions on what specifically happens in each area in turn would be helpful. They are, in order:

1.) Rolan, a mountain-themed kingdom ruled by a Wizard-king, who runs a prestigious magic academy out of his mountain palace (you meet and recruit your party's black mage/white mage pair there),

2.) Valta, a massive superpower-style nation (imperial, but not the evil kind, just the kind with lots and lots of people and lots of money and armies),

3.) Selva, a kingdom situated in a deep forest,

4.) Divitia, a Flanders/Venetian style coastal trading state run by merchant princes who alternate being king from time to time,

5.) Iden, a desert nation, and finally

6.) Hima, a country in the frozen north that's so suspicious of outsiders they've blocked the whole part of the continent they're on off with a great wall and only occasionally invite people in.

The second act will, of course, revisit several of these locations as part of the "switching back and forth between the worlds" business.

Hey everyone. Just read the blog’s posts about world building by starting from a seed idea, but I'm getting a little stuck. Thought I'd bounce some things off you guys and see what you think - very open-ended question on a very early concept.

My idea is based on myself. I tend to suddenly discover a new hobby and then throw myself fully into it for quite a while, using up all my free time and sometimes neglecting other aspects of life. What if this character was like that and his newest obsession was fighting monsters?

Unfortunately my brain jumps to mechanics when I think of that, realizing that class changing is an obvious focus. Since this personality type alienates others, I also figured that he would be best as a lone hero.

But what about the original question - world building? What kind of world causes such a person to exist (besides our own, clearly)? I am not planning to make a big project out of this, but I do want it to be kind of focused, and I can't seem to think of anything for that aspect. So if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

I'd say it's probably a world where there is relative peace and abundance to the extent where such a profession is not strictly necessary, but the monsters are common enough to the point where sport hunting is common.

BTW, just for extra reference for my plot idea, the primary companions are Faran (the thief archetype), technically the PC's servant, but more like his best friend and who serves as the snarky type lampshading everything, and Lira, a knight-in-training and the tank of the group. You encounter the white mage/black mage archetypes in Rolan, and the major supporting character that travels with them but isn't a party member is a knight called Sir Tyrion who is basically the PC's royal bodyguard and is obsessed with his protection, if that helps with plot suggestions.

Sounds fun, you can go in many directions with a basic concept like this one. For one, the idea immediately reminded me of 'One Punch Man' - a series about a guy who becomes a hero for fun, after being unemployed and having no hobbies. It's a somewhat confusing action comedy, where the main character does exactly that, focuses entirely and only on beating monsters... eventually becoming so strong that it becomes boring.
Otherwise, you can go in many directions with it, so it really depends on the theme you're interested in - you can even make a horror game based around that concept, where's the character is full of hope just to realize that fighting actual monstrosities is not fun... when it's a bit too late.

@CoGDork sounds like a classic RPG setup and there's nothing really wrong with that. That said, I feel like giving the player more agency would be nice - you say that, ''our heroes killing it somehow (also, of course)'' - how about making it crazy powerful? As in, learn its weak spots throughout the campaign, then try and overcome it with all that knowledge. If you fail, then, well, you failed. You get a different ending. You're welcome to try again by reloading the save... or replay then thing and find more clues. Also, ''resulting in the two worlds either becoming one or remaining separate (I haven't decided on that yet)'' - why not let the player decide? Once again, a chance for another ending, giving you 3 in total. Then you can show the good and bad sides of both world, which leads to fun world building. Maybe the fantasy world is all nice with healing magic and everything, but in many ways it's also terrifying with necromancers and slavers.

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Now, I've been struggling a bit with an original game concept, so here's one that I feel is quite unique - here's hoping it sounds fun.

You wake up on a strange facility orbiting a wasteland. From your window you can see nothing but the Tomb World down below and the stars all around you. Your uniform has a bare bones name tag - 'Human'. That's who you are. After answering a robot psychologist's series of questions (where you get to determine your character - from ''Which gender are you. We have 7 boxes. If your species reproduces asexually feel free to instead go to question 11b.'' to ''Are you innocent?''.) You are put in chemical treatment for a year, informed that you'll be woken up and asked these questions again once you wake up.

Eventually the machine runs out of battery. Nobody shows up. Only an Email on your laptop stirs you awake. It contains nothing but a series of numbers to open you cell. No guards in sight and you're not sure how long you've been out. Attacked by a carnivorous inmate, you have no choice but to defend yourself.

You're all alone. Survive, dominate, escape.

The game'll be based around your usual survival mechanics, except that instead of fighting off hordes of the ever so popular zombies you must defend yourself from all kinds of alien lifeforms that are locked up on this interstellar prison with you. Some have formed nations, tribes, federations. Some are raiding the corridors, killing all edible lifeforms in sight. And some are just looking for a friend - are you one of them? The Habitat is a massive, almost nation-sized platform suspended in the middle of nowhere. It has gardens, fields and forests... as well as strange rooms filled with confusing machinery and malfunctioning robots. Collect resources, then create items from scratch or try and find the items your technologically superior captors used. Filled with odd machinery, strange supernatural powers and all kinds of hostile lifeforms, the Habitat won't go easy on you.

Thoughts?

Hello guys! I don't know if this is even the right thread, but I'll give it a try. If it's the wrong place, please direct me to the correct one!

So, to sum it up, I'm epically stuck with my project and need advice. I downloaded Galv's message plugin yesterday and excitedly added it to my project... No hear me out, this is not a plugin help post. The plugin works perfectly fine. What this plugin does is, it enables you to put little speech bubbles above the speaking followers/events instead of showing the standard message box. I love it, it looks adorable and makes it easier to follow the conversations, in my opinion.

Now comes the problem. At the beginning of the game and for a while after that, my protagonists look exactly the same. Which made the conversations so hard to follow in the first place, because only the name box changed when someone else spoke.

I am absolutely clueless how to make it clear who is who when the characters are standing in a group or running around as followers and talking. I thought about giving them a different sprite appearance, but it would make no sense in context of the plot, and later in the game, two of them look the same again for a while.

I can't add name boxes to the speech bubbles btw... I tried but it looks very awkward.

Any ideas how to fix this would be much appreciated. :kaoswt:

@autophagy Maybe you could change the color of the text for each character?

@JGreene Oh, that's a pretty good idea! I wonder if it would be difficult for players to remember the colours, though. It would also be tough for colorblind or partially colorblind players...

Yeah that's about the only way I can think of, unless Galv adds name boxes as part of the message plugin.

@autophagy 'Plot and Character Feedback' is for when you have ideas about your story line and the characters within them. If you have a quick skim back through some posts here you will see what I mean.

This is a "How do I...?" question, so belongs in the Support forum for the engine you are using. As you are not having any trouble with Galv's plugin, I think it should go straight to MV Support. However, I can't pull a couple of posts out of here and shunt them over there. You will have to make a new thread.

@Kes Alrighty, I'll do that. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Hi! I'd like some feedback on my storyline. I have an idea of how the game will start but I'm wondering if my storyline ends satisfyingly.

Genre: RPG

World: The world consists of the normal world and pocket dimensions called "Sanctuaries". The Sanctuaries are places where a magical community can live without being hunted by humans. All the Sanctuaries in a certain area are managed by a Master, and a Master can manage a hundred such Sanctuaries. At Alto's school, these Sanctuaries are falling apart and tears are connecting the Sanctuaries to the school. The Master is gone. A girl named Fenice is looking into it.

Plot: Strange incidents are happening at school. Portals to other worlds are opening on random. A boy chances upon a red door, and gets caught up in the efforts of a girl who is trying to figure out what's causing it. Volunteering to help, he travels through the worlds trying to solve the problems one at a time.

Characters:
Alto

Main character. A little rash.

Wynne

Human girl who is the victim of the first incident. Very stubborn

Fenice
Images to come!
Owner of the red door and facilitates the dimensional travelling Alto has to do. Is trying to figure out what happened.

image credits goes to apus-pallidus.deviantart.com for making a faceset for me :)


My problem is I'm not sure it ends satisfyingly. The missing Master is abandoning their(haven't decided on a gender) role to experience human life, and enjoyed it so much they ditched the Sanctuaries. The game would involve finding the Master and convincing them and the final boss fight will be against the Master but I don't really like the idea of beating them and forcing them back to a job they disliked in the first place. Any suggestions?

@illyana Your game sounds like it would be interesting. Are the sanctuaries meant to be like parallel universes? I'm curious to see how you'll handle this in regards to traveling between them and the real world. I like the idea anyway, especially because my game involves different worlds.

Nice artwork, too, by the way! What kind of battle system are you using, or have you decided on?

On a side note:
This sounds like what happens every Monday morning... :stickytongue:

Thinking about remaking my first practice project into something sensible, just to see what I've learned since then. That means refining the plot, too, so here's where it is now:

A man from our world stumbles on the power of creation. Naturally, he begins spending all his time in the world he made. His wife isn't happy about that, so he invites her to come along and begins shaping it the way he thinks she would like it. She's impressed, but she doesn't enjoy it as much as he expected. (Totally not a metaphor for making games. Nope, not at all.)

Believing he can make it even better for her, he starts working tirelessly. Eventually, he gets so caught up in his work that he just doesn't come back. The wife obviously is going through a whole range of emotions, but when the game actually starts, she has resolved to enter the world after him.

The game itself is about her journey in the created world, joining forces with the residents to find her husband, and I'll probably deliver the above info in small fragments along the way. In the end, she discovers that her husband has internalized his frustration and perfectionism, and believes that she doesn't really love him. As a result, he has used his power to become a stronger, dark being. She defeats him and shows him that she went all this way just to find him - even if his obsession has turned him into a monster. He returns to himself, and the two go home together.

Thinking of getting back to RPM and making a horror game. I have some basic ideas, but not sure what to do yet. Part of it is because I such at writing plots. XD And there's the problem with making things at least sensible. :rolleyes:

Many RPG Maker horror games I have seen seem to disregard realistic mapping for the sake of gameplay. For example, a house will have really complex layout and huge space for the player to move around, in case there's a chase sequence. But depending on the setting, such complex layout might or might not make sense. I mean, who would built a house with a bunch of locked doors that require passwords or artifacts to open, and long hallways to connect parts of the house together? Not unless you are Spencer. :eek:

And I'm also not sure how to convey the story effectively. I could leave memos all over the house, which the players can pick up, read, and understand what's going on. Sort of like Resident Evil 4 or 5. But then again, who the heck leaves random memos around like that? :confused:

Sure, I could cram everything into a single diary, then have the player discover it. But that would be an overload of info at once. What'd you guys do if you were making a horror game? :stickytongue:

So I have a plot for my game basically planned out... But it turns out I only have seven 5-15 minute long areas and two towns. I can add something else that happens to bump it up to ten, but I still feel that it's not enough. So how should I make my game longer without just adding filler plot or filler areas in between plot points?

EDIT: I forgot to mention my hatred of "collect the MacGuffins" plot types. I hate "collect the MacGuffins" plot types. I'm not saying that they ruin games or really even stories for that matter, but I die a little inside whenever I see one.

Secret places, side quests, obstacles and opposition (assuming your players are working toward a goal), mini games, flashback cut scenes for character backstories. These are just a few things that come to mind right away.

In my opinion, filler can be good, it breaks the monotony and keeps things fresh as long as it's fun and rewarding.

I agree with just1witness, filler can be good.

Side quests that aren't essential to the plot (ones that don't need to be completed to finish the game) can be quite fun. Combine that with rewards like items (ones to make the game slightly easier for example) or back story (on characters or the world) and it becomes less filler and more an added bonus for the player.

Well, here's the thing. I plan to have sidequests (probably). But those are optional, and usually out-of-the-way. What I'm basically asking for is main storyline. Or do you think that sidequests are the right way to go so that if people just want to beat the game, they can do it faster?
Hmm... I'm usually against long or semi-long cutscenes...

Mainly what I'm asking is how can I add more plot so that there's more gameplay time?

I'm of the opinion to have both. A decent length game and side quests when you can manage them. Depending on what your game is about, you might already have just the right length for the core game play.

Expanding your plot would really depend on what the story is about. I don't know what your plot is (or even the genre) so it's hard to really say what to add to help lengthen it. If this was a story, I'd say use more back story or perhaps even start the story earlier in the Main Character's life.

You could do playable flashbacks (instead of cut scenes, have the player take on the role of whomever the flash back is about).