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How does this work? Do they capture lonely men who travel the jungle (roughly 1-2 every 10 years), jump them, and afterwards kill them? How do they prevent the roughly 50% waste due to male offspring?born in a tribe of only women
2. "The Chosen One" is something the industry itself laughs at.
Sure about that? its the standard cookie cutter in all sort of games from TES Skyrim (you are the last Dragonborn) to Crysis ("YOU are the weapon!"). Kingdoms of Amalur comes to mind too (you're the only one that isn't bound by fate). And these are recent and very, very successful games.
I think you're misrepresenting that you laugh at it as something "the industry itself" laughs at, which it isn't the case.
As for your story Shane, imma going to say it, not my coup of tea precisely.
2. "The Chosen One" is something the industry itself laughs at.
Sure about that? its the standard cookie cutter in all sort of games from TES Skyrim (you are the last Dragonborn) to Crysis ("YOU are the weapon!"). Kingdoms of Amalur comes to mind too (you're the only one that isn't bound by fate). And these are recent and very, very successful games.
I think you're misrepresenting that you laugh at it as something "the industry itself" laughs at, which it isn't the case.
I was commenting on 2 aspects:
1) the exact phrasing (note the quotes) "The Chosen One" is something the industry itself laughs at
2) the theme of "being destined to do something" is overused
Your examples aren't vaguely relevant to what I was talking about. Was the character cited being "the chosen one" (exact phrasing) in each of the examples? No. If he was, was this still what made the game successful so you must copy the phrasing? No. All this proves is my point 2). This theme is overflowing in the fantasy world. Note that here we aren't even talking about the main protagonist being the "chosen one" contrary to every example that was given.
All these list composed of people who can name handful of titles are out of place because of course the protagonist can be or perhaps even needs to be special in some way for the story to make sense. He will do extraordinary things and that will need justification. But that does equal to repeating some most worn out phrase and that doesn't justify shrugging designing a character and character history off with placing the much-too cloned piece there. The exact phrasing "The Chosen One" has been overused so much it doesn't mean any specific thing anymore and including it on your character table doesn't add anything. So why would you use it? The player picking up an RPG will know he will be saving the world and fighting the gods themselves in the end without the game spamming this kinds of words around. I find it very hard to believe anyone who knows their fantasy from their scifi could take it seriously. But I can only speak for myself with these very lengthy explanations backing me up. You are free to disagree and not back that up with anything but I find such conversation of little value in human interaction.
Because of 1) and 2) what the author has in mind is, in my opinion, simply bad writing because they are ideas taken from some other environment as they were (aka the exact phrasing "The Chosen One") without trying to adapt them to your environment to be original even in that extent. Can you take something Square, Warner Brothers, etc. developed and polished with their army of writers and designers and improve it or try to remake it better on your own? Probably not, so better be original than set yourself up for direct comparison.
I find it amusing that 99% of what takes place in this thread is disagreeing with my points about how the story could be improved and 1% about actually commenting the story yourself. You prefer to take me out of this equation then what do you have?
The theme of "You are the chosen one" is fine. It's simple and it works. Most games boil down to that, and many RPG's use that exact terminology.
It's "over used" because it works and sells.
Also, why exactly is it bad to make a game based on sexual themes? Sex sells, even in pixelized forms. If you had the option of developing an indie game (From a business standpoint) that sells 50 copies, or one that sells 200 copies, would you really care about what the content is? What if you were going to be developing it for a few years, and those numbers were scaled up. Would you rather sell 500 copies, or 2000 copies?
Although I personally don't like the story, if Shane has something he thinks would work, there's nothing wrong with him trying it. Writing is pretty much completely subjective. I love the story to the Evolution series for dreamcast/gamecube, but I acknowledge that 80%+~ hate it.
The theme of "You are the chosen one" is fine.
Except you aren't, but some other character is.
It's simple and it works. Most games boil down to that, and many RPG's use that exact terminology.
I just posted multiple paragraphs on this. It is still bad writing.
Also, why exactly is it bad to make a game based on sexual themes? Sex sells, even in pixelized forms.
The moment you subject your art (your story, graphics, audio, etc) to cheap marketing tricks you are giving up the art in hopes of cash. "Why doesn't every writer just write porn? Don't they want money?" Selling by sex is bad. I really don't care to cover this matter more extensively.
Although I personally don't like the story, if Shane has something he thinks would work, there's nothing wrong with him trying it.
Shane is not sure. Shane is asking. We are answering. I'm the only one that gives him hints as to how he could improve his story so there would be someone that actually thought it was good.
If women do it to each other, it isn't sexist! Just kidding, of course: this virgin business remains quite inappropriate for a game that's presumably meant for a younger audience and likely too silly for a kinky "adult" game.1. A woman named Sheila is born in a tribe of only women and is to be eaten by a dragon because she is a virgin.
Traveling to put some distance between herself and the dragon and/or her tribe seems simpler and far less silly (not to mention more adventurous if someone is, or might be, following our heroine).She must travel to find someone to lose that quality to so she doesn't get eaten.
What chosen one? What does it take to kill a dragon? For example, Siegfried kills Fafnir because he is well equipped and, more importantly, he doesn't know fear; your dragon and your warrior need to be at least as meaningful as them.2. A warrior has the power to slay the dragon and is the Chosen One, but his fear of ghosts holds him back.
Not obviously important: how can the ghosts be a threat to the dragon?What he doesn't realize is the ghosts are on his side because they are all the souls of women eaten by the dragon.
Extremely bizarre, both for the jarring dissonance between a story of normal or slightly special folk and this cosmic mystical power and because it makes little sense. If the dragon is portrayed as evil, he should do something worse than "keeping the world beautiful"; if he is portrayed as good, people would be proud to be a human sacrifice and there would be no reason to fight.3. The dragon is eating women because their beauty he consumes gives him the energy to keep the world beautiful.
Then the dragon should be evil and/or dangerous. But apart from consuming sacrifices, what has it done? Also, what ties Sheila and the warrior together? Romance is implied, but how does the plot require them to join forces?The characters decide to kill the dragon anyway.
Horribly cheap, and implying that, all along, Sheila was a goddess or the like, the dragon's equal at the very least. Can I suggest gods turning either Sheila or the warrior into a new dragon instead?4. At the end of the game, Sheila decides to split her form in two, and morph one of the two forms into a dragon, and eat her other form, to restore beauty to the world.
I have some question/problems, assuming that all the storyline is in this post. (For exemple, the dragon is not a dragon of beauty)
I will start by saying that : If you want to make a simple game, with a simple story, it's cool. :)
But, if your ambition is to give a story a little more original and deep, you have to put more into it.
I guess this post is only a quick description and there is more that you didn't say here. But for the moment, it's kind of too shallow and overused, and boring. Once again, I know this is not the final scenario (I hope so), but with only this much information it's difficult to give good advices. What you wrote is really not sufficient for us (me at least) to help.
It's like there are some good guys who are good because they are the heroes, there is a bad guy because they are bad, there is a traitor because you need a twist, there are characters who are joining because you need more character. Etc... You have to give you character reasons, motivation for doing what they are doing. The other thing I want to note, is there are no links between the action of the character. Why are they goinf to Trenton? And not Fleury-bigoudi?
It can be from the simplest (Lucas join Sheila, because she is so beautiful, and he is so a knight, and duty and derp derp) to more complex (an oracle told him to go find his sister in this village, but by the time he arrives in this village she is dead (illness), but he happen to meet Sheila who looks like her sister, but Lucas was also an agent from a demon who sent him to bring back a random beautiful girl. If he does so, then the demon will grant him power. And he think that the oracle didn't want to show her his sister, but Sheila.)
But not just, he join her because he is part of the hero team.
So now I will start some questions :
Why is Sheila selected? It's random? She is the most beautiful of the clan?
Why Sheila would help a perfect stranger? We need to know more about her personality. Why is she necessary to drive of the ghost? As she predisposition to exorcism, which could explain why she is selected. Because the wise-women of her clan knew that, and she didn't want Sheila to take her place. Or, she love Sheila and knew that with her gift she could defeat the dragon. But as she can't go aganst their clan tradition, she was forced to emprison her, but she indirectly help Sheila to escape.
luck
It's only my personal opinion, but the characters are an important part of the story. You have to tell us more about them! Even if it's just few lines, we have to know about their motivation.
Why Lucas will join her, ok, she helped him, but is this sufficient?
Why Gradly will join them? Imagine the dialog :
Sheila : "Hey, random old guy with an axe, join us in a quest to save my ass by risking yours! There is no reward except for my eternal gratitude!"
Who told them that the dragon can be slain if you break its four heart? It's a well known tradition? Written in book? One of the main character knows it? If the solution is known, why nobody didn't do anything? However, if the dragon is only attacking one remote village and kill one girl each month. Well, it's not so bad.
It could be more interesting if the player fight the dragon a first time, realize it can't be killed the normal way, try to run away. But by doing so Sheila fall into a ruin, and discover a pictures/book/text which tell the story of this dragon, and how to kill it. You could meet Misty who is there because he is in reality a Dragon Guardian whose mission is to protect the dragon. First he want to kill Sheila because she know how to kill the dragon and the location of the 4 hearths . But, as she is the only one to read the text/book or the text/book was destroyed just after Sheila read it. Misty want to know where are the other hearths so he decide to accompany her.
There, Misty could be an interesting character, so let me tell you more about his background. First, you have to know that the dragon, in order to be immortal gave his heart to 4 peopel/monster. And by doing so he gave them a part of his power. Long time ago, as Misty was a young adventurers, he stumble on one of these guardian, and manage to kill him. But he also chose to take the place of the fallen Guardian in order to gain more power. His ultimate goal is to reunite the 4 hearths to have the power of a dragon.
And I'm sorry but : "I join you because a bird told me to!" Is so... silly.
"Phileas, plops downs,", sorry I don't understand. I will assume that the dragon appear near the party.
So a dragon, which is I guess, pretty big, manage to sneak (fly, land(!) and walk) an adventurers party without waking them up? They are sleeping in the open, in an hostile land, and they are not taking turn watching the surrounding or at least be a little cautious? That's a ninja dragon for you.
So, the main point are :
- Add reason/motivation for the characters to do what they are doing. They will be more realistic and loveable by the player.
- Add reason/motivation for the characters to go where they are going. Not because this is the next town on your way.
I will finish my post by saying good luck, I hope all of this will help you a bit :D
