My Story Ideas, please C&C

[Mindlessthing]

These are a few storylines I am thinking of writing, just giving you a synopsis for them.  The first three are mostly fantasy and pirate orientated but everyone loves fantasy and pirates, right?

First Story

Jim Brannon, an average seventeen year old teenager on Red Rum Island fins out a terrible secret about his family and the residents on Red Rum: They're all pirates.  He himself is a pirate by blood and by nature.  While training to become a pirate (which includes getting his ear pierced with a nail ) a wounded pirate captain is brought in and, well, what would you expect to happen in a pirate adventure?

Second Story

In an unknown point of time a group of priests resurrected the great demon Rek'esh and unleashed it on the Earth.  They thought they could control it, they were wrong.  The Gods of Earth round up heroes and heroines of Earth (and maybe other worlds?) from different eras and countries.  Only they can stop Rek'esh, but few of them see eye to eye.  Will they be able to stop Rek'esh's evil in time?

Third Story

Whilst praying in front of the great lake, retired knight Daniel Wilson see an apparition appear in front of him in the form of a human composed entirely of water (Think of Iceman but liquid).  The being warns Daniel of a great evil spreading through the land, armies fighting against it fall victim to it's charmand ordinary villagers are easily tainted.  The water apparition knows of only two group who could stop it: The Knights of Teradin (Which Daniel was part of until his retirement) and The Soldiers of Erdum ( A group that Daniel has fought with and against many times.)

Fourth Story

In the year 2484, the United Front waged war against a terrible force known only as the "Purifiers".  The war was devestating and the United Front only won by usng an experimental wormhole technology during a huge battle, flinging most of the Purifier fleet into and sending them hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lightyears away.  The war was won and peace slowly began to arise, but not for all.  Three years after the war had ended (2491), Bruce Wilson, one of the most legendary captains of the Purifier War, tried to destroy Earth, believing it to be inhabited by Purifier spies.  Now the year is 2499 and Bruce Wilson is about to be released from the Lunar Colony Jail, but unknown to him someone travels back in time and eliminates him from the timestream, radically altering the present.  Now, only one man can help him: Greg Banter, Bruce's former helmsman, friend and owner the one and only temporal bar.

Well, there you have it, four different stories, with different premises (although the second and third one is basically fantasy).  C&C, please.

[ildu]

Well, let me just jot down some notes about these storylines. I'm concentrating most on how well they would do in a traditional adventure game.

1. Story:
Pros:
- It can be humorous.
- It has a closely defined space to explore. You save time making only the necessary backgrounds.
- The defined space can easily be expanded to another island for example.
- It's a funny setting and it puts the protagonist in somewhat of a new situation.

Cons:
- I hate teenage protagonists, especially when the game puzzles are sparked by regular teenage problems and dilemmas, such as school, family and crushes. I think this a very amateurish style and shows a lack of imagination from the creators.

I think this is the best premise of all your stories. But the premise suffers a bit from boredom. For example, the ear-piercing is way too mundane to be a start of a great adventure. It's a funny dilemma, when a character learns something about himself that he should've known always. It's kind of the same as an insanely rich kid saying, "I thought every family had five mansions and a private jet." But it's gonna be hard to explain to the player. Why is this such a shock to the protagonist? If this was revealed to him recently, then he must've read something earlier about pirates and their role in the world. This would mean he and the community must've had some connection to the outer world.

The most effective way, in my opinion, to start an adventure game is to throw the protagonist into a totally new situation unencountered before. For example, it would be much more interesting if the protagonist was a member of 'ordinary' society and was shipwrecked on the pirate island. Then you'd need to be careful not to make it too similar to Monkey Island. Still, why not create the same premise in a different environment.

2. Story:
Pros:
- I really have nothing positive to say about this.

Cons:
- It seems like a devilishly boring and worn-out premise.
- You would need to explain way too much to the player to make it at all interesting.
- The story is just too megalomanical. To accomplish this you would need a large set of environments to explore and the storyline would most likely stretch way too long, overgoing the abilities of an amateur team.
- You would need really good writing to keep it interesting whilst still being original.

Seems like a very boring game concept that would need a lot of things going it's way to make any impression on the player.

3. Story:
Pros:
- Middle Age fantasy quests are very appealing to many people, (albeit not me).
- Quite a good premise with the retired knight and the two sects of colleagues.
- All the ingredients for a decent fantasy epic.

Cons:
- And while targeting to be an epic, a lot of work would need to be done, and not only on the story. You would need a team to pull off all the work.
- The whole 'two knights sects come together to defeat a common evil' -thing is good as a story, but it would take too much to create.
- The story seems a bit predictable.
- The story development would need very many stages; the activating of the protagonist, the protagonist's plea to his old crew, the two crews converging, the introduction of evil, the plans to defeat him. And after all this, the player would feel like the adventure was just starting.

A good yet predictable premise, but hard to accomplish due to the length of the story and the size of the fantasy world to create.

4. Story:
Pros:
- The whole history part could be explained with an intro narrative and the story could be started with an event leading to the current situation, such as the elimination of Bruce Wilson in the yonder years.
- The setting is quite good, it could be a bit like Beneath a Steel Sky.
- If time travel is involved, it gives you relatively much freedom to create the events. Jumping from time period to time period after the murderer.

Cons:
- You may run into problems when describing the relationship of the characters and also the radically altered present in relation to the real present.
- Also, it may be hard to design the story events. Supposedly he tries to stop the murderer by going back in time, but what then.
- It won't be easy to incorporate changes in the worlds to the adventure game. Too many backgrounds to create, depending on the length

This is second best, in my opinion. What I think would make this more interesting would be to add some animosity between the Wilson guy and the protagonist. So that he's saving him to preserve the changes in society, rather doing it for him. Maybe the protagonist has some political stand against the guy, but he's being forced to save him, because it's his job. Maybe he's just pissed that he tried to blow up Earth.

[Mindlessthing]

Ah, sorry, I forgot to say these aren't for adventure games.  I thought the Critics Lounge was for non adventure game ideas as wel.  Probably should have posted it in General Discussion...

Story 1 Notes. Oh, god no, I agree with you on the teenage dilemma, I hate teenagers myself .  Sorry, it's actually set in the 17th century (1680s to be exact), so pirates are still maruadering around, killing and pillaging. He basically lives on an island without any parents, so hit;s the old cliched no parents thing (whether they're dead or not will be left open.)  The ear-piercing bit is more likely to be part of the pirate training proccess  (The gold earrings caused pressure, making pirates believe it stopped sea sickness.  So, there is a use of them.)

Story 2 Notes. Yeah, I really just had an urge to do something with a mix of Crusaders, Roman Centurions and some Mythological elemnts.  I think I'll scrap and go with my original idea (Which involded a demi-god taking up the mantle from Hercules.  Stupid I know.)

Story 3 Notes.  Yeah, as this isn't an adventure game (something I should have mentioned in my first post) it might be easier.  Also, I have the idea of showing the Knights of Terradin meeting eachother again and explaining how they met each other.

Story 4 Notes. If I were to make this one into an adventure game it would be quite simple, after you stop Bruce Wilson from being eliminated from the timeline, they find that the murderer is: 

SPOILER



Is a Purifier Spy and part of the United Front's presidential board (can't think of the right word).  So, Brucee would end upbeing re-instated because he was justified in his actions for trying to destroy Earth (I'll have to make a stronger case than that though)

SPOILER


Then it would follow a bunch of "short" adventures with the player playing as Bruce and then alternating depending on the story (even changing to that of an ex-Purifier )

As for the relationship between Greg Banter and Bruce Wilson, well, it's the usual "I'd follow him into hell and back" sort of friendship, but Greg is wary of him because of the events that caused Bruc'es incarceration. 

Well, hope that cleared one or two things up for you, Ildu.

[Redwall]

Non-adventure game critiques are fine; you just need to mention that it isn't for a game in your post.