Please criticize!

[Cookieswithmilk]

Ya I'm new to the boards, but everyone starts one time. I've had a story floating around in my head for a while for an adventure game, but I just don't have the drawing/scripting/everything else needed to make a game... Kinda sad (especially for me) but not really anything I can do about it. And note this is kinda a rough draft. And I don't have names for my characters (I try to nail down the actual character part before the name)

The style is kinda sarcastic and has a fairly cartoony (not as much as lucasarts stuff though) look to it, so It's not supposed to be extremely serious.

You start off as a normal teenager. There's nothing special about him, he's not even very popular or anything. He's a pretty carefree person, but in a sarcastic way. One night he's kidnapped from his bed and that's where it starts.

He wakes up in a jail-like facility. There are other people there, and he eventually learns that his kidnappers were from three months into the future. He doesn't really take it too seriously, and is eventually broken out of the building by some big guy who kinda busts in to get him out. He's told the whole story on the way to a "hideout"

Basically, aliens have landed, but the aliens are exactly like humans. They tried to take over the world for a short time, but eventually agreed with the government and now have their own chunk of land. However, the aliens couldn't keep humans as slaves, but the aliens wanted to take the world over still. The obvious solution? Go to the past and take as many humans as they can to the future, where they keep them, which is what happened to you! So you're goal is to stop the main alien guy and get back home.

It sounds too complex for an adventure game, but it'd work I'm posotive. Some environments include a dump for rich people and a giant, fake mountain that's a military base, a hobo's back-alley t-shirt shop, and an evil shoe factory. Fun, fun, fun... ! What do you guys think needs work out of that stuff?

[InCreator]

I don't think that's too complicated, but definetly doesn't sound too convincing. So..

If you are able to create interesting, loveable and most important - cartoony enough - main character, this could work.

Trying to have some sci-fi reality here won't help, in my opinion. But I imagine this well as a helluva good comedy. So cartoony and funny is the way to go.

Just remember that:
* The strength of sci-fi is that you may fantasize wildy, without any restrictions
...so you can create really interesting and original plots.
* The weakness of sci-fi is that you may fantasize wildy, without any restrictions
...so it may end up being confusing and even stupid. Same for puzzles, they may end up illogical

The story sounds interesting, and if you are able to keep it simple and well-explained-to-player throughout the game, it should work well.

[Cookieswithmilk]

I figured it'd be complicated because... well, it's got the government involved, which is not always popular.

It was always supposed to be cartoony and funny, just in a different sort of way than in most adventure games... except the first few rooms from Sam and Max. Those were the best parts of the game, because they were fairly realistic and pretty gritty, but the characters just made fun of it. That's what I was kinda shooting for when I said the thing about being realistic.

The main character is kinda like Alexander Zale from cirque de zale, except he doesn't wanna get home too bad and doesn't really whine. And nicer lol. The big guy is  smart, doesn't say too much, and usually has things under control.

I noticed I didn't put some parts in... like how you pair up with the big guy and how the world has kinda changed because of the aliens... in the way that you meet prototype robots that don't really know why they were made. I used the sci-fi setting, just not to the extent and not the same way others do, and that's what makes it different. Really, the only problem story-wise, is that over half the game is cutscenes... lol have to shorten that a bunch. The only problems with things non-story related are... everything lol

[Cookieswithmilk]

So.... I guess there's nothing wrong with it?

[Scummbuddy]

To be honest, I wasn't all that excited. It may have been the wording and pacing of the plot outline, but it seemed like:

Something happens out of the blue -> then something even more bizarre happens -> then something tops that....

the whole way through.
-----------------
It may very well work, and be a great game to play, but, now, I'm not sold yet. Perhaps I think the "you're an ordinary guy, then you are kidnapped in the middle of the night, now you are man kinds only hope" is well overdone.

I would think that in this lifetime of that storyline, its time for refinement, such as building on the old games, or parodying it. If you go either way, you must go full. Like Scary Movie was to Scream and all the horror movies that came out in the 1990's.
I would say, maybe make the main player a girl. That would start the way to opening up lots of new outlooks from the players perspective, but then people are better writing what they know, and I'm going to guess you're a guy.

Anyways, this game is your idea, so if you really feel for it, then by all means, just do it. Don't care what others say. Make it interesting and playable for us, and we will find it and, hopefully, love it.

[Cookieswithmilk]

Well that's why I posted it for critic-ing. It's not supposed to be particularly exciting, it's just supposed to be fairly standard adventure-game fare. I wasn't shooting for any sort of award.

The "something wierd happens... then something wierd happens..." idea applies to practically every game, that's just usually the way it works. And none of the transitions to the next wierdest thing are very jarring; they'd all be presented in a way that's pretty... subtle I guess, can't think of another word to describe it. This could be applied to the entire game; it never takes itsself too seriously, and that's why it never seems that "Your mankind's last hope!" or "You have to save the world!"

I appreciate the criticism stuff and I wish more people would tell me what's wrong with it, so I hope I didn't come off as some kinda defensive-attitude type person. Not that this has to do with much of anything, but I hated scary movie... felt like it was just trying to rip off the older (and better) Naked Gun movies.