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Intentions and Endings
Liberty- 03/21/2016 10:35 AM
- 1035 views
Hi guys, Liberty here! Today I'm gonna talk about what I'd intended to do with the project when I got it and how that fell through. Also, the different endings.
See, Gredge set this pretty cool system up for rewarding you for exploration. It changed the tone of the game depending on how seriously you played, from music to scene changes. It felt rather Undertale-ish, if I'm being honest, and I thought it was a pretty cool little feature.
I'd intended to continue on with it a bit, to give the player one of six endings depending on your Morality and the choices you made in the second part. Needless to say, that fell through.
Originally I'd thought about having three different end games dependant on where your morality would fall - one for low, one for medium and one for high. Each of these would have a failure and success route for slight changes in their respective endings.
Just need to say that since I eventually reused ideas in the game from these points, the following hidden information has spoilers for the game endings.
In keeping with the idea that low morality would be for those who weren't keen on exploring everything and just wanted to breeze through a game without getting to deep, the low morality run would focus on a few hunt quests.
For succeeding that path you would become a legend among your fellow hunters, eventually taking over Rosalee's position as leader of the Guild in Resea. Failure left you losing some prestige, but still being well-regarded by your fellow hunters.
As you can see, there wasn't much depth to that idea and it has some small pay-off but nothing that was lore-building.
The second path, middling morality, was a little different in that it added the idea of teaming up with someone else - changing the gameplay. It would have actually become a very big game changer due to what I had planned - Ella would step back as the main fighter and be a supportive role to Tenne, a second-year hunter who was to take an examination to see if he was good enough to be bumped up a rank.
As Ella you'd have chosen a support type of skill each turn to use on Tenne, while he auto-battled against enemies. Depending on your support, skills would be locked or unlocked for that turn. You could also use items to heal him, but otherwise Ella would have been hands-off during this arc.
If he passed the exam, Ella's ending would have told how they teamed up quite often, the both of you eventually becoming well-known as great partners to work with. If he failed the exam he would have decided against staying in the guild and Ella would settle into life as a normal hunter.
The increased interaction between two people would have been better for the story, however Ella was already shown to be a silent protagonist. Add to that that I just wasn't sure I could get the system to work how I wanted in the short amount of time we had for the event... I decided to scrap the idea, though I kept Tenne as a character, as you can see.
The last path - that of high morality - led to a more interesting and story-based path. Ella would be given the role of trainer to a new recruit and have to teach her how to be a hunter. This part was aiming to be more of a raising simulation - a bit like Princess Maker - where you give Isla tasks to perform and her stats grow depending on her success or failure (which was dependant on her stats).
More interaction than the second path was planned between the characters, however I again ran into the problem of Ella being a silent protagonist. I wanted to explore the idea of a spoiled, city-raised rich-girl becoming a good hunter, but without anyone for her to play off or interact with it would have been a bit harder.
I also realised that the kind of simulation I wanted for Isla's path was going to be impossible to do in the time-frame, but I didn't want to compromise the idea too much, so I decided to scrap it.
Isla's failure path is very similar to the bad ending in the game itself, so I won't talk about it much except to say that I always planned for her death and for Ella to go back home in disgrace.
Her success path was also similar to the good ending, where Ella becomes a teacher.
When push came to shove I quickly realised that I was being a bit too ambitious and instead decided to blend the three path idea together into the end-half story you see, with only three endings total.
The choice to keep Isla and Tenne in the party came about from realising that having two characters that could talk would allow for dialogue and interaction, without it being too stilted when bounced off the silent wall that is Ella.
The cutting of Ella's hair was not a big part of the plan but I actually had a dream about her hair being cut off - much the same way it happens - and I decided to add it in. It becomes something of a symbol in the same way that Garnet's hair does in FFIX - a cutting of past ties and acceptance of moving on with your life.
Though it doesn't actually become a huge factor in the game, I liked the subtle message it gave, that Ella is moving beyond her past by killing a monster that she would once have not had to, and accepting that change in her life - that sometimes to protect you have to kill. It is an important realisation on her part that the real world has more shades of grey and sometimes you have to take actions you wouldn't normally want to in order to survive and to protect. It also serves as a symbol of her innocent ideals being struck down at the same time as she kills the monster.
There are three endings total, and I hope you all look for them. In fact, it shouldn't be hard to get them all as you can do so just before the last battle - by choosing how you go forward.
Ending 1 - Good: Return to the guild and talk to Rosalee instead of entering the cave.
Ending 2 - Normal: Enter the cave and beat the boss.
Ending 3 - Bad: Enter the cave and lose to the boss.
I hope this gave some insight into the second half of the game and that if you play it, you enjoy it! Thanks for reading! >.<)b
See, Gredge set this pretty cool system up for rewarding you for exploration. It changed the tone of the game depending on how seriously you played, from music to scene changes. It felt rather Undertale-ish, if I'm being honest, and I thought it was a pretty cool little feature.
I'd intended to continue on with it a bit, to give the player one of six endings depending on your Morality and the choices you made in the second part. Needless to say, that fell through.
Originally I'd thought about having three different end games dependant on where your morality would fall - one for low, one for medium and one for high. Each of these would have a failure and success route for slight changes in their respective endings.
Just need to say that since I eventually reused ideas in the game from these points, the following hidden information has spoilers for the game endings.
In keeping with the idea that low morality would be for those who weren't keen on exploring everything and just wanted to breeze through a game without getting to deep, the low morality run would focus on a few hunt quests.
For succeeding that path you would become a legend among your fellow hunters, eventually taking over Rosalee's position as leader of the Guild in Resea. Failure left you losing some prestige, but still being well-regarded by your fellow hunters.
As you can see, there wasn't much depth to that idea and it has some small pay-off but nothing that was lore-building.
The second path, middling morality, was a little different in that it added the idea of teaming up with someone else - changing the gameplay. It would have actually become a very big game changer due to what I had planned - Ella would step back as the main fighter and be a supportive role to Tenne, a second-year hunter who was to take an examination to see if he was good enough to be bumped up a rank.
As Ella you'd have chosen a support type of skill each turn to use on Tenne, while he auto-battled against enemies. Depending on your support, skills would be locked or unlocked for that turn. You could also use items to heal him, but otherwise Ella would have been hands-off during this arc.
If he passed the exam, Ella's ending would have told how they teamed up quite often, the both of you eventually becoming well-known as great partners to work with. If he failed the exam he would have decided against staying in the guild and Ella would settle into life as a normal hunter.
The increased interaction between two people would have been better for the story, however Ella was already shown to be a silent protagonist. Add to that that I just wasn't sure I could get the system to work how I wanted in the short amount of time we had for the event... I decided to scrap the idea, though I kept Tenne as a character, as you can see.
The last path - that of high morality - led to a more interesting and story-based path. Ella would be given the role of trainer to a new recruit and have to teach her how to be a hunter. This part was aiming to be more of a raising simulation - a bit like Princess Maker - where you give Isla tasks to perform and her stats grow depending on her success or failure (which was dependant on her stats).
More interaction than the second path was planned between the characters, however I again ran into the problem of Ella being a silent protagonist. I wanted to explore the idea of a spoiled, city-raised rich-girl becoming a good hunter, but without anyone for her to play off or interact with it would have been a bit harder.
I also realised that the kind of simulation I wanted for Isla's path was going to be impossible to do in the time-frame, but I didn't want to compromise the idea too much, so I decided to scrap it.
Isla's failure path is very similar to the bad ending in the game itself, so I won't talk about it much except to say that I always planned for her death and for Ella to go back home in disgrace.
Her success path was also similar to the good ending, where Ella becomes a teacher.
When push came to shove I quickly realised that I was being a bit too ambitious and instead decided to blend the three path idea together into the end-half story you see, with only three endings total.
The choice to keep Isla and Tenne in the party came about from realising that having two characters that could talk would allow for dialogue and interaction, without it being too stilted when bounced off the silent wall that is Ella.
The cutting of Ella's hair was not a big part of the plan but I actually had a dream about her hair being cut off - much the same way it happens - and I decided to add it in. It becomes something of a symbol in the same way that Garnet's hair does in FFIX - a cutting of past ties and acceptance of moving on with your life.
Though it doesn't actually become a huge factor in the game, I liked the subtle message it gave, that Ella is moving beyond her past by killing a monster that she would once have not had to, and accepting that change in her life - that sometimes to protect you have to kill. It is an important realisation on her part that the real world has more shades of grey and sometimes you have to take actions you wouldn't normally want to in order to survive and to protect. It also serves as a symbol of her innocent ideals being struck down at the same time as she kills the monster.
(Highlight above for spoilers about the ending scenes of the game.)
There are three endings total, and I hope you all look for them. In fact, it shouldn't be hard to get them all as you can do so just before the last battle - by choosing how you go forward.
Ending 1 - Good: Return to the guild and talk to Rosalee instead of entering the cave.
Ending 2 - Normal: Enter the cave and beat the boss.
Ending 3 - Bad: Enter the cave and lose to the boss.
(Highlight lines for spoilers on how to get the different endings.)
I hope this gave some insight into the second half of the game and that if you play it, you enjoy it! Thanks for reading! >.<)b
