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Re-start?

  • Marrend
  • 04/29/2013 08:26 PM
  • 1321 views
The latest demo I passed on to my beta-testers met with mixed results. I'm still planning on releasing something, but I've been thinking a few things over.

The focus of this game is it's story. Or, at least, it should be. I sometimes forget that players want to know who people are, what's going on, and, most importantly, why they should care. Do I do any of these things with this game? Apparently not!

So, what's going to change? Most recently, I've been talking with my testers about a revamp of the first "dungeon" in the game. The basic premise of the location is that it's a run-down area of town where gangsters hang out. However, I was thinking of infusing the area with a bit more background story than this. The premise I'm thinking of working with is that the area in question was run-down from a more recent event rather than something gradual that occurred over time. A monster-made, catastrophe if you will. I'm mostly sure I have the tiles that I need to relay this (I may need to make some edits), but are my mapping skills up to snuff? This is what the "for feedback" box is for! Let's not even mention the fact that I have to change what kinds of encounters are in the dungeon, itself.

There was also a point raised about inserting puzzles into this game. Being something of a mystery game, this seems like something I want to do. Tools, in the the sense of Zelda or Wild Arms, are nice. However, having players be able to solve puzzles with whatever is on-hand is more like what I would be comfortable with. I recall the Earth Trial (Push them blocks!) and the Water Trial (Press them levers!) that I did for Matsumori Days, so maybe I'm not as lacking for ideas as I might think I am just interesting ways to execute them?

Posts

Pages: 1
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
As I re-think this game, the question of characters comes to mind. Can I assume that being a private detective Shizu's only profession? If so, how does she afford to take on Nanami and Masanori as employees, much less Masako should players go that route? Shizu does not have money to burn, so there must be some other source of income for her and her associates.

Either that, or Shizu is some kind of investigative reporter for a newspaper, and Nanami is her partner. This messes with the whole idea of Shizu owning a detective agency, and would require me to re-write pretty much everything from scratch, not to mention the re-mapping this entails. However, I firmly believe that this is the direction I want to take this game in.

So, the initial story is that Konae will be assigned to cover the catastrophe at Togo Road. There, she meets up with Tetsu and investigates the area until they find Rasuna.

Yeah. I think this story-line is definetly going to work better than my previous idea!
I think you could easily do side quests where you get hired to beat up a certain amount of bandits to clean the streets, or go stop bullies near the high school, to show your completing side quests to earn money. If this seems good let me know and I could write some up for you.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
If I'm going to have a side-quest involve fighting, maybe I would want to stay away from the default combat engine? Like, go with something similar to, if not an outright copy of, the Kojiro Duel that I whipped up for Matsumori Days? It's a thought!

Anyway, I've grabbed a modern city-scape tileset that could make the "world map" better. I'll be playing around with it. I haven't found anything for "street level" or proper office tiles yet. Then again, I'm half-thinking I could just go to the RMN Store, and get the futuristic tileset. I've a feeling I'd want to make a sci-fi game anyway.
Pages: 1