A few other people and I came up with this basic story for a game and I just want some people's opinions. Note that I really don't have names for anything yet, so if anyone has suggestions on how to come up with names that would be great too. Thanks. Setting Two separate planets, one is more of a utopia while the other is a dystopia. These two planets are in different dimensions and the planets are actually the same, but the dimensions are not parallel so that is why they are different. (Sorry if that sounded confusing) Introduction The main character lives on a peaceful planet, he is a normal citizen and has never been in war or a battle. Although he is in his nations army (I'm not sure if I'm going to go into the planets history, but since there is an army there must have been wars at some point), so he knows self defense and swordsmanship. This other planet is a cold and horrible place, but it was not always like that. At some point an evil power came to their planet and began to suck the happiness out of it and it's residents (That is how they gain power). The leader of this evil is actually, the main character's alternate self. Storyline The main character's alternate self wants to take over the main character's planet as well, so he transfers himself through the dimensions to that planet, which in turn causes the main character to be transported to the dystopian planet. The main characters alternate self needs time to set up a link between the two dimensions. During that time the main character will have to fight through the planet to where the dimension gate is (I'm not sure what will happen during that time, I don't just want to have menial tasks and useless bosses). During that time the main character will meet one person who has survived the transformation of that planet unharmed, and helps/trains the main character to develop into a hero type character (at first the main character will be scared since he has never been in combat before). When the main character finally gets to this gate, he realizes the link has already been made and evil minions have already traveled to his planet (He does not however know that the ruler of this evil is his alternate self). When he returns to his planet he sees that the takeover has already started, although there is a strong resistance to it. The main character then has to fight back the evil along with his fellow people. At the end he comes face to face with his alternate self and comes to the realization that it is him, but knows he must defeat him (I'm not sure yet if defeating himself should make them both die or not). Then after he defeats him, the energy that the evil has collected will be released back to all the planets the evil took it from, caused them to turn back into their original states. (Not sure what else should happen yet) The end. Also, I really am not a writer, so to me this seems like a good story, but of course I'm just a programmer. Comments or constructive criticism is welcome. [Edited by - Grant1219 on May 20, 2007 6:24:53 PM]

Lots of ideas that I like. Heres my thoughts:

IMHO the non - parralell alternate realities is too compliated. The general public understand parralell universes so I would use that instead. Also, planets suggest science fiction, whereas swordplay suggests fantasy, so perhaps you could settle for two "worlds".

Hes in the army but hes never seen a war or battle? This might take a bit of explaination, so how about hes a civilian who is an expert in swordsmanship? e.g. an armourers apprentice. The groundwork will then have been laid and so the training will be justifiably shortened. To have swords at all requires that the planet has a military presence somewhere. Perhaps in the palace guard? Or maybe the utopia was created by a federation of all the major nations on that planet.

What if he was kidknapped from his bed by the evil forces of the other dimension but escapes, and discovers their plot in the process?

The idea of a climactic battle with oneself is time honoured and a very nice twist. I would keep the identity of the villian a secret until shortly before this battle.

Killing the protagonist and/or the villian makes writing a sequal harder.

Quote: Original post by speciesUnknown
IMHO the non - parralell alternate realities is too compliated. The general public understand parralell universes so I would use that instead. Also, planets suggest science fiction, whereas swordplay suggests fantasy, so perhaps you could settle for two "worlds".

Yea I see what you mean here, I'll fix that.

Quote: Original post by speciesUnknown
Hes in the army but hes never seen a war or battle? This might take a bit of explanation.

Yea, I really didn't know a good way to explain it. I suppose unifying the world into a utopian state could have caused wars. Also, I don't think I want him to be an expert with fighting right away; that would take away from the character development.

Quote: Original post by speciesUnknown
What if he was kidknapped from his bed by the evil forces of the other dimension but escapes, and discovers their plot in the process?

What part are you referring to? His alternate self traps him in the other world, so he doesn't have contact with the enemy until he reaches the dystopian world. At least that's how it will work at the moment.

Also, how he learns of the enemies plan is from a person he meets in the dystopian world who somehow survived the transformation unaffected, possibly a wizard of some kind.

Quote: Original post by speciesUnknown
The idea of a climactic battle with oneself is time honoured and a very nice twist. I would keep the identity of the villian a secret until shortly before this battle.

Heh, thanks. I thought it was a nice twist as well, and yes that will be unknown until the main character meets himself.

Quote:
The idea of a climactic battle with oneself is time honoured and a very nice twist. I would keep the identity of the villian a secret until shortly before this battle.

Honestly, I think it would be much more interesting if the story involved mistaken identity.

If the alternate evil PC is the leader of the evil planet's army/whatever. It goes without saying that his evil minions in evil world could mistake the good PC for his alternate twin...

Further, when the player travels back to his home world...finding it conqured by the alternate evil PC army...Well it would be understandable if the people of the good world mistake him for his evil twin as well.

With that so much of the gameplay need not revolve around sowrdmanship...rather it could involve fooling some characters that the player IS the alternate evil twin, while convinceing those back on good world that the player ISN'T his conqureing alternate evil twin.

This is for an RPG right?

Quote: Honestly, I think it would be much more interesting if the story involved mistaken identity.

If the alternate evil PC is the leader of the evil planet's army/whatever. It goes without saying that his evil minions in evil world could mistake the good PC for his alternate twin...

Further, when the player travels back to his home world...finding it conqured by the alternate evil PC army...Well it would be understandable if the people of the good world mistake him for his evil twin as well.

With that so much of the gameplay need not revolve around sowrdmanship...rather it could involve fooling some characters that the player IS the alternate evil twin, while convinceing those back on good world that the player ISN'T his conqureing alternate evil twin.

This is a VERY good idea. It would also be really cool if you can work out that it starts of as a RPG, but transforms somewhat to an RTS in the later stages of the game. Example:

Blabla (main character) is teleported to the evil world. He wanders around a little, kills some evil beasts etc. and meets a wizard/seer who survived. the seer doesn't trust him, so he must kill a demon so he can prove he is the "good guy". the seer tells him where he is (only the necessary to know the storyline) and tells him where he must go. He goes ona quest and slays everything in its path. Then he comes at a gate/portal jumps and lands in his home world, which is laid in ruins. Here the RTS part comes into play. He can now "bribe" enemy units and let them join his forces the result will be a final battle, which he'll lose (scripted in, he'll lose no matter how hard you try). Main char is brought to his alter ego and his alter ego challenges him to a dual and they fight it out, but everytime one guy takes say 10 damage, the other will gain 10, representing the battle of good vs. evil in his shared soul.

BTW, a telepathy function would be VERY cool..

Just my 2 cents

Quote: Originally posted by MSW
rather it could involve fooling some characters that the player IS the alternate evil twin, while convinceing those back on good world that the player ISN'T his conqureing alternate evil twin.

Hmm, I definitely see your point, but I don't think that would work too well. I should have said what genre of game we are planning. We are planning on a side scrolling platformer/fighter (kind of like Ratchet and Clank, but with swords and possibly a little magic), so my question is where would the action be taking place if you were just fooling all your enemies?

EDIT:
There is going to be an RPG element in this game, with stats/weapon upgrades, so I guess it's a combination of a bunch of things.

Quote: Original post by AGameDesigner
Main char is brought to his alter ego and his alter ego challenges him to a dual and they fight it out, but everytime one guy takes say 10 damage, the other will gain 10, representing the battle of good vs. evil in his shared soul.

I really like this idea.

Quote: Original post by AGameDesigner
BTW, a telepathy function would be VERY cool..

What do you mean by that?

Quote: Original post by Grant1219

Quote: Original post by AGameDesigner
BTW, a telepathy function would be VERY cool..

What do you mean by that?

I think he means you can sometimes communicate with/hear the thoughts of your alternate twin guy.

I'm not sure what style of RPG you are planning (single or controlling multiple people), but something else that might be interesting would be being able to pull people from your universe to the alternate. This could have repercutions, seeing as you may be sending an enemy back to your world to get an ally in the current one. Or also tthe possbibility of trying to make nice with the evil versions of friends (and remember, at least one of them must have a gotee :) ala Spock).

Another would be finding people who may have already been swapped (initial infiltrators or people who were used to make sure the process worked before trying it on yourself).

Quote: Original post by glBender

Quote: Original post by Grant1219

Quote: Original post by AGameDesigner
BTW, a telepathy function would be VERY cool..

What do you mean by that?

I think he means you can sometimes communicate with/hear the thoughts of your alternate twin guy.

That would be the idea. This could come in the form of informative (and very cool) cutscenes, or "bullet-time" like function that allows you to see what is ahead of you, sort of like Deja-vu.