Hey everybody,
Before I jump into what I have of my story I'll start with a little preface. This is the story for my first full, "real" game and I'm having a bit of trouble fleshing out the full storyline. I've got some basics for the story planned out and I was hoping to get some advice and suggestions to help me out. I'll try to leave as much of the gameplay and design out of this post as I can to focus on the story. So lets get to it.
Here's a brief description of what I'm planning in terms of the game just to give you an idea. This should be the only gameplay-related part of this post. I'm making a 2D platformer similar in style to Super Mario or the original Duke Nukem in terms of how the game is played - the player can roam around the map freely with 4-way scrolling. I've got the basic gameplay programming done so now I just need to focus on a story and on content creation.
With that out of the way, here's what I have of the story.
Intro
You, the player, are a scientist and are accidentally irradiated in an experiment. This experiment gives you some supernatural powers like super strength and super speed (think the accident of the Hulk). Over a short period of time you learn to harness these powers but you are unable to use them for extended periods of time. You can use super strength, for example, for a short time but then will need time to recover before you can use it again.
Your Plight
You are a (generally) peaceful scientist and do not want to give the military any more destructive weapons. You remember what the military did after the discovery of atomic power and don't want the same thing to happen with your powers. You don't want the military to be able to use you to create super soldiers. You plan on not using your powers and keeping them secret. However, a colleague of yours discovers your powers (somehow - I'm not sure how yet. Maybe you use them when you think nobody is looking. Suggestions?) and does not have the same intentions. He thinks you should research what happened to you in order to harness this for the government. He alerts the military so they can study you and now you are on the run - using your powers to survive and evade the military.
I haven't gotten to an end of the story really or much past what I have here. Thoughts on what I have so far?
I was thinking it might be cool to have multiple endings. I was thinking 3 possible endings. In one, you tried not to kill anybody (maybe you killed a few people) or be corrupted by your new-found powers. You successfully escape and develop a cure for yourself, ridding yourself of your powers. After this, you destroy all your research into what happened to you to prevent mankind from harnessing this power for evil. In another ending, if you went around and just killed everyone (or a lot of people) you are corrupted by your powers and use them for personal gain. You end up in control of the (country/continent/world/something) after creating a super-army of your own. In the third ending, a neutral ending where you killed some people (somewhere between the good and bad endings, say, half the people) you realize that the powers you possess should not be given to the military but perhaps they were given to you for a reason. You then use your powers to help people.
So that's about all I've got at the moment. I look forward to your suggestions and thoughts on my story and my endings. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.