1SENTENCE

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Basically the purpose of this topic is to aid us to be better story writers and game designers through setting our story a purpose. This is likely to have been overdone as hell, but I challenge you to compress the story of your game in a single sentence!
That's it. The main conflict, what drives the plot (even if behind the curtains) and what makes your game. Also, 1sentencing commercial games are fine.

...I shall begin. Not with my games, though. I don't feel they are solid enough for that.

Final Fantasy X
The protagonist's pursuit for his father.

Final Fantasy X-2
The protagonist's pursuit for her lover.

(Don't hit me. I know these are lame >_>)

Also as a side note, although FFX has many more important overtones and subplots than this, that weigh a lot more than it, etc. this is still the main plot.

Wich means that you can create a game with a main plot that is totally unseen by the player and let them focus on something else.


That was obvious but heh, doesn't hurt to take note.
Game in Progress: Merchant Quest

Newbie merchant journeys to a mountain town to deliver potions with two annoying companions.

:)
Legion Saga X (Episode 1)
A young man controlled by his parents searches for his own purpose.

In the end, no matter how much you want to hide the rest of the story behind the convoluted politicking that the original game tried to hint at (and that I'm trying to embiggen) this is the core of the story - Ridman's search for his own purpose. It doesn't matter that it's veiled in prophecy and leading, inevitably, to something bigger.

A Fatal Hope (a side project I haven't discussed at all yet...)
A young man searches for revenge before the world ends.

I had to think a lot more about this one - it may even end up changing, as the plot's a little in flux at the moment (the actual plot isn't, but which character is the 'main' character is kind of in flux).
Luckily for my current project, I already came up with a 1sentence:

Legend of Alkior: The Impending Storm
Tension between two kingdoms rises as the seal on the renegade archmage, Xargath, inevitably fades and must be promptly restored.

I think being able to come up with a single sentence for your game is good because 1) you are able to advertise it better and 2) every RPG should have some central goal or conflict in its plot. You can have subplots and side quests, etc, but having a core plot/goal is definitely a must from both the developer's and the player's perspective.
I haven't fully fleshed out the story for my new game yet, but it'll be something along the lines of:

FADE
Spiky haired anime dude with sword has to kick King of Darkness butt to save the peoples.

I know. It's very deep. It'll be compelling, too.
author=Shoobinator
Tension between two kingdoms rises as the seal on the renegade archmage, Xargath, inevitably fades and must be promptly restored.


I do think however that this 1sentence could be toned down a bit. Less "tension", "renegade", "Xargath" "inevitably" "promply", etc. While this is nice for advertising, effectively fuddles with actual design.

At any rate all 4 core sentences sound potentially fun, for potentially different games! 8'D

Also I never played Legion Saga >: I know, you can call me Rpg Maker Poser. >:
author=JosephSeraph
I do think however that this 1sentence could be toned down a bit. Less "tension", "renegade", "Xargath" "inevitably" "promply", etc. While this is nice for advertising, effectively fuddles with actual design.


Well, this came after most of the plot creation, so I guess this is less of a creative direction and more of a summary of what was already thought out, but I see your point (which was to not focus too much on the central goal? correct me if I'm wrong).
Names and adjectives pollute from the central goal. The idea of a 1sentence is to completely depersonalize your story, run it so dry that only the backbone of it can be seen. :D
That's what I meant. <3
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Matsumori Days - A group of teens fight against planeswalkers.

I'm mostly sure that's what that game boils down to.
Fire Emblem :
Girl restores order to her country.

Banjo Kazooie:
Bird and Bear stop a witch who kidnapped the bear's sister.

Minecraft:
Guy looks for diamonds.

Come on. No matter what you are doing in Minecraft, more often than not you are looking for diamonds, or at the very least would be happy to find them.
Pokemon:
A person who adopts surrealistic animals inside tiny balls.
author=MrChearlie
Pokemon:
A person who adopts surrealistic animals inside tiny balls.


Pokemon would be more "A boy's coming of age story," if anything. It just so happens to be framed around enslaving wild animals to fight for your amusement and keeping them in improbably small cages (seriously, Pokemon is a cruel game when you think about it).
Pokémon is extremely creepy in every way possible and
author=FlyingJester
Minecraft:
Guy looks for diamonds.


Also, this thread is making me realize that I actually played very few games.

Star Ocean:
Girl unwillingly journeys to discover more about herself. (?)

(this applies no matter if you play as Rena or Claude.)
Hey, can't play em all. Specially with dem Steam sales.
How does this help us improve our story-writing skills if we're only doing this for commercial games?

Chrono Cross
When a young boy finds himself in an alternate dimension, he soon finds out that he could be the trigger to either the saving of the world or the destruction of everything that lives.
Hero's Realm
Four heroes save the world from demons

Generica
Four heroes save the world from a demon

Generica TNG
Four heroes try to prevent the resurrection of a demon

Hellion
A lone hero investigates an ancient pit and prevents a demon's resurrection

Village Brave and the Escape from Dread Mountain
A brave recounts his tale to find a cure to a curse affecting his village

Befuddle Quest
A young man wants to marry a beautiful lady, but her father has locked him away in a tower of puzzles that he must now make his way through.

Befuddle Quest 2: Charmed & Dangerous
A young man wants to marry a beautiful lady, but her mother has locked her away in a tower of puzzles that he must now make his way through.

Befuddle Quest 3: Love is a Four-Legged Word
A young man wants to marry a beautiful lady, but a rival suitor has absconded with her deep in to a tower of puzzles he must now make his way through.

Befuddle Quest 4 Dead
A young man has married a beautiful lady, but their honeymoon island is overrun by zombies with puzzles he must now make his way through to save his new wife.

Befuddle Quest 5: Zack to the Future
A young man's beautiful wife is trapped in time and he now must solve puzzles in time to rescue her.

Befuddle Quest 6: The Next Generation
A young man is abducted by aliens bent on annihilating humanity, but they give humanity a sporting chance by pitting the man against a series of puzzles which he must now solve to save the world.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
My games!

Love Has Eight Legs:
Space octopuses try to get frisky with the Earth

Lantern:
A bunch of paranoid people with guns are locked in a dark house

Nine Lives:
A cat must escape his owner's trap-filled box via pinball physics

A Quirk of Humanity:
Rebel against authority across the evolution of the human race

Squidmancer Goes to the Drugstore:
Squidmancers solve all their problems the same way

Tinybot vs. the World
A small, insecure robot must escape a factory of evil robots by jumping a lot



These are really fun :)
author=JustRob
How does this help us improve our story-writing skills if we're only doing this for commercial games?

Chrono Cross
When a young boy finds himself in an alternate dimension, he soon finds out that he could be the trigger to either the saving of the world or the destruction of everything that lives.


Actually, it helps more than you think - you have to look at a story and decide what it's key plot points are. What is the actual driving story? And then, you refine it down to one simple sentence. For example, you haven't quite looked deep enough for Chrono Cross - you've left in too many unnecessary details:

A boy finds himself the catalyst of the end of the world.

It's about stripping the details out of the plot to get the core of what the story is. Going back to Chrono Cross - how much is this story really about Serge anyways? Sure, he plays a big part in what appears to be the plot, but is that actually what's going on? Could Chrono Cross not really be better summed up as "Time itself is threatened by a monster" - after all, the Time Devourer is the 'real' enemy of the game, with everything that happened all just a big plot by Belthasar so that Serge could destroy the Time Devourer and end the threat of Lavos once and for all.

Doing this with commercial games (or hell, any already extant story) is just as beneficial as doing it with your own writings - you're still learning the skill to look at a story and pick out the key plot point, even if it is hidden in a bunch of other useless details. Suikoden 2, for example, is framed in this huge, lavish story of war between nations, but in reality it's about two friends forced against each other - the war is the just the backdrop upon which the main story plays out.
Okay. Redo:

Legend of Alkior
An evil wizard must be stopped again.
author=kentona
Hero's Realm
Four heroes save the world from demons

Generica
Four heroes save the world from a demon

Generica TNG
Four heroes try to prevent the resurrection of a demon

Hellion
A lone hero investigates an ancient pit and prevents a demon's resurrection



Rofl

And Shoobinator, it's still too full of details and at the same time too vage!
We don't need to know that the villain is a wizard. IT doesn't matter, in the end. But we do need to know who is the protagonist because of its role.
The 'again' part isn't very meaningfull either
So it
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