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Story concept. Thoughts?

Setting: Mix of Future and Fantasy (Similar to Tales of Symphonia)

A middle-aged man, approximately in his 20's, is seen walking through a town at night. He approaches a house, and walks in without knocking. He appears to be visiting an old friend. One he hasn't seen in years.

"Naidyn." He says.

Naidyn, also about the same age as the man, wakes up, and the two exchange some words. The man explains that he needs to tell Naidyn something big. Something he almost cannot comprehend. He begins to say it...

...But Naidyn blacks out, and the next day approaches. Not only that, but Naidyn doesn't even remember that night. He doesn't even remember the man visiting him. To him, it never happened, and he is still living his normal life.

That day, he does some stuff during his work as a Guardian.(Guardians are powerful-specially and privately trained assassins of the town. They are some of the strongest fighters/assassins in the world.) He stops some bandits, etc. Nothing too big. When he returns to work, however, he is confronted by four agents of the Yinaret Corporation. (They are basically the game's government/leaders/etc.) Two of them try to kill Naidyn, but two basic Yinaret agents aren't enough to stop a Guardian. Naidyn kills them, but the other two, who seem to be much more powerful, knock him out with ease.

Naidyn awakes in a jail in a place he doesn't know of. It appears to be one of the Yinaret Corporation buildings. But, why do they want him? What are they after? How will Naidyn escape? What is this important piece of information that Naidyn's old friend wanted him to know?


The game begins...
 
Why are towns training people to become some of the most powerful fighters and assassins of the world? Heck, how does towns even manage that? Also, if there are four guys, two which can take a guardian out and two which can not, why does the two which can not attack first?

Other than the seemingly unrealistic elements, it's hard to judge this story. Is Naidyn an interesting character or dullness itself? What you have written so far gives me no clue whatsoever.

But, why do they want him? What are they after? How will Naidyn escape? What is this important piece of information that Naidyn's old friend wanted him to know?
The questions you have here are neither inherently interesting or uninteresting. If they spark the interest of the player will depend a lot on the trust of the player. If what the player has seen so far seems interesting and well written, the player will assume those questions have interesting answers. If what you have shown so far is dull and poorly thought trough, there's no reason for the player to think the answer to those questions are going to be anything else.

I'm getting the feeling that you're relying on those questions to serve as a hook, but I don't think that will work. You need to put more thought into the events before Naidyn is knocked out. You did at some point have him do "nothing to big". It's OK if what Naidyn does isn't important in the grand scheme of things. However, it absolutely has to be something the player cares about. It may be unimportant for the town, but it's nevertheless going to serve an important role in your game, namely to grab the player.
 
Crystalgate":1ffe5d3z said:
Why are towns training people to become some of the most powerful fighters and assassins of the world? Heck, how does towns even manage that?
I'm not doing the "assassin" thing anymore, because they technically aren't assassins. They are still guardians, however. Think of it like this: In most RPGs, the towns have "guards" that take care of threats, right? Well, in this game, the equivelant of guards are "soldiers." The "guardians", like Naidyn, are basically an advanced soldier. They take of the hardest or most complex situations. Not in just situations that are too hard physically "Like a tough enemy" but in terms of intelligence, too. For example, there's a part near the beginning of the game where to simple, low-class bandits come to town and hold a girl hostage until the town pays them some money. Not much of a threat, right? The soldiers could easily kill them, but the problem is, if they take one more step closer, the bandits will kill the girl. This is where the guardians come in - to think of something to maybe distract them or catch them off guard.

Ok, they aren't the strongest in the "world", but they are very strong. Once they have mastered being a soldier, they are specially trained to handle any kind of situation. Then, they advance to guardian. So, while the soldier sits around town, keeping on eye on everything and making sure it's safe, the guardians have to walk around and carefully observe everything to look for any suspicious activity.

Also, if there are four guys, two which can take a guardian out and two which can not, why does the two which can not attack first?
I'm so glad you asked that! I actually have a reason for this. It doesn't make sense, does it? Two apparently weak agents, and two strong ones. The weak ones attack first, but get killed by Naidyn. Hmm... I'll tell you this: The two that died knew they were going to die. The two that didn't die also knew. All four agents knew that those two were going to die. Why would the two agents that died be OK with it, though? I have a good reason for this. :D

Is Naidyn an interesting character or dullness itself?
He kind of has a cocky and mean attitude. He is nice most of the time, but not overly nice. If someone says something to him or asks him something, his response sounds like he doesn't care, is too tired to answer, or just doesn't want to listen to what they have to say. However, at certain points, he is just plain mean. He acts like nothing is a big deal, too. At the bandit scene, he's sort of like "Let's get this over with..." and takes care of it with one of his partners - one of the few people he is actually nice too.

However, he usually is only like this to people he doesn't know too well. There's even a part where he meets a friend he hasn't seen in 10 years. He is even kind of mean to him...well...not really "mean" but not nice. You'll see - The only characters he knows personally or gets to know he is nice to.

Edit: Oh, and don't get this confused with the typical RPG "emo" attitude. Such as Riku from KH2, or just the typical RPG character that's like "Yeah...I'm cool" because Naidyn is different, but it's hard to describe. He is sincere about what he says and is very confident, but, I guess he isn't really a people person. He gets in a lot of fights with one of the party members. He basically just always thinks he is right. I really don't know how else to explain it. I guess you'll have to see if you decide to play the game.

I'm in class right now - I'll try to reply to the rest later.
 

Nolund

Sponsor

Ok, here's my 0.02 pesos.

From what I have read so far, you are mistaking this forum for game players, rather than game developers. In your story I see a bunch of "ZoMg plot twist!!one11eleven!" that really should be explained, at least partially. You brush things off with "there's a reason" or "I know why this happens", but WE do not, and therefore cannot help you with your game/story.

That doesn't mean that you have to give every little minor plot detail, but some key things (why is your main character in jail for example) should be explained, at least briefly. Those kinds of details are the difference from somebody reading this and being able to tell you your idea is cliched, or that you aren't cliche at all, and have a really good storyline people want to play.

Currently I don't think I would give this the light of day. That isn't meant to sound mean or discourage you in any way, but I haven't been given any information that I find either unique or captivating enough to say "I want to play this"
 
Nolund":oku7tft5 said:
Ok, here's my 0.02 pesos.

From what I have read so far, you are mistaking this forum for game players, rather than game developers. In your story I see a bunch of "ZoMg plot twist!!one11eleven!" that really should be explained, at least partially. You brush things off with "there's a reason" or "I know why this happens", but WE do not, and therefore cannot help you with your game/story.

That doesn't mean that you have to give every little minor plot detail, but some key things (why is your main character in jail for example) should be explained, at least briefly. Those kinds of details are the difference from somebody reading this and being able to tell you your idea is cliched, or that you aren't cliche at all, and have a really good storyline people want to play.

Currently I don't think I would give this the light of day. That isn't meant to sound mean or discourage you in any way, but I haven't been given any information that I find either unique or captivating enough to say "I want to play this"

True. This is more for game developers. But first off, I mean, I guess I can tell you some things, like why he is in jail for example... But the thing is, I've added so much backstory. There will be a lot of flashbacks, several different point of views, etc. So it's hard to explain everything.

You ask why he is in jail. He is in jail because the Yinaret agents found out he survived. Survived from what? About 10 years ago, Naidyn's town was completely wiped out by the Yinaret Corporation. Everyone was killed except for Naidyn and one other person. Why did they destroy the town? Etc. etc. If I told you why they destroyed the town, you'll ask why did that thing happen to the citizens that caused the agents to destroy it. Then you'll ask how the person made the citizens like that, and then you'll ask how the person came up with the idea. And how he was smart enough to find out that it could work, etc.

As for Naidyn killing two agents with ease and the other two were really strong and took him to jail... Well, the two agents that attacked him weren't even real humans. They were robots/cyborgs/whatever you want to call them. Very intelligent and realistic ones. So realistic that you couldn't tell a difference. If you ask how robots can be so real...This is a video game. In this game, that is fictional, the Yinaret Corporation, who is the technology branch of the government, can make some pretty amazing pieces of technology that people don't know about. I don't care if robots can't be that real in real life. This is a game and it doesn't have to be 100% realistic.

Anyway, before they took Naidyn to jail, the two "real" agents had the two robot/fake ones attack Naden. They started out difficult to bring Naidyn to his full potential and give it all he says, and then as Naidyn gave it all of his strength and energy, the robots collected data from his body, or his DNA, or whatever. The data is sent back to the Yinaret Corporation to do tests on. You'll see this scene. When Naden gets out of jail, there's a part where you see an agent on a computer, and he says to another agent "We've got Naidyn's data" or something like that. Later, you discover that the two agents you killed were fake and used to get data from you. Then, they would just let Naidyn kill them after the data was collected.

Any other questions?
 

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