Topic: Team Competition - Project Leader Nov. 04th - Nov. 12th

[Ginny]

Quintaros: Just reading that idea made my mind flow. I forsee perhaps a very dark endong? Or an entirely different direction.

As I see I'm not the only one who feels leading the project would be difficult, perhaps there should also be an option for whoever has their idea chosen to choose at the end, someone else from the team to be the leader, and co-write? Though writing and leading does come together pretty much, it's a matter of vision after all. Leading the project tends to go by the persons vision Well, maybe a writers category then, or expanding the dialogs? Like writing puzzles and filling in and such.

All just suggestions of course

Anyway, I'll just add to the pool of ideas (so far all are interesting):

The main character (I, too, tend to have trouble with naming) is a lone traveler, who on one of her trips climbs a peaceful mountain area. Once she finishes setting up the camp, she takes out a notebook and takes some notes of what she sees around her. She is actually a reporter for a nature magazine, and so she begins to write her article. All of a sudden, as is common in that area, an earthquake occurs, and shedrops the book, grabbing on to a branch, but she can't hold on and she rolls down the mountain and falls into an ancient cave. There she finds an old book/diary (yet undecided) and begins to read. And the more she reads, the more the book draws her in, literally. On a break to find a way out, she is already dizzy in reality, and barely phones her friend, who is, incidentally, an archeologist, and a co-worker of hers. She asks for him to send rescue, and also tells him that she has found an interesting book/diary that she thinks he might be interested in. She reads on the meantime, and by the end she is so absorbed in the book she cannot exist outside of it, and she becomes part of the story, trapped inside the book in a new reality (not neccessarilly bad). She has already disappeared when her friend the archelogist arrives.

Side-note: Possibly there are two player characters, the traveler and someone from the book.

Just in case I decide to make this game someday - (c)

[|Alky|]

Okay, I was wondering whether I should post this or not, because it's just a random idea I had and not just one I've thought about for more than a couple of minutes.

Synopsis : A town, somewhere in the west in the present day. The beginning situation is simple, and purposefully so - you are an employee of a huge corporation which, while not particularly malevolant, is totally faceless and mysterious. It becomes painfully clear from the first act that your character is going nowhere, both professionally and socially, as he is almost completely ignored by his co-workers.

His boss finally notices him, but only as he is looking for people to fire. In a Kafka-esque way, you character is fired for no reason, and must pack up and leave. In the process of doing so, he meets the major secondary characters, Alyssa and Raissa. Both have very seperate jobs, but they are equally unwilling to make the protagonist's departure pleasant. As the company's employees start to leave the building, he is asked to perform a task by both of them (this sounds stupid, but I seriously only thought of this idea 15 mins ago, and therefore I don't actually have all the details laid down yet...) involving industrial sabotage, and the game is designed so that if he refuses one's request, he is forced to agreeing to do it for the other.

And so after a number of challenges, which are mainly based around dialog, the character retrieves the documents and heads for the meeting place, the cafeteria. But the person whom the main character either refused to help or did not talk to is present instead, and armed. Just as the main character is being forced to hand over the item, the other NPC appears, and the character has to negotiate or risk being shot in the crossfire.

Finally, he defuses the situation, but realises the argument has alerted the building to their presence. He is forced to get out of the room, with the documents still in his posession, and with two semi-hostile NPCs trailing. In order to survive, the worker has to escape the building, and in an adventure game this means solve a series of puzzles. But in this game, an extra dimension is added - instead of using his inventory, for 100% of the puzzles, he must rely on the people trailing him. But if he relies on them too much, he may end up dead, since they both care little for him. There are also different ways to solve each puzzle, depending on whether you cooperate with none, one or both of the NPCs, and at least two different endings upon reaching the finale.

Characters:
Primary
Prontaganist - Mysterious and never named. Knows nothing.
Seconday (Both women around the same age - late 20s)
Alyssa - An accountant in the firm, she is wracked by jealousy of her superiors, and is determined that she will not be beaten by them when she is so much more intelligent. Cool and calculating, she avoids killing the P.C. out of necessity.
Raissa - Her job is mysterious, and she seems to know very little about it. However, she has been working in the company for many years, and it has crushed her spirit and made her want to break free from it.
Tertiary(only those important to the main plot are shown)
Boss - Creepy, has an office at odds architecturally with the rest of the building...
Head of Security - Keeps appearing; Seems to have some sort of past with both secondary characters..
Rayneman - The Janitor, who also appears often and mysteriously. He doesn't have any personal link with any of the characters, but delights in scaring the hell outta them. He also helps them, but only occasionally.

About
The game is loosely based around the idea of 'consciences', but instead of having one urging you to be good and one urging you to be bad, you have one trying to convince you to be logical, and one trying to make you think 'outside the box'. Neither is more 'evil' than the other, and it is left open as to whether in fact they are doing wrong and not the corporation. In a way, it's meant to kinda represent the human brain, with the creative side trying to make you out do yourself and destroy reason, while the logical side tries to secure and strengthen it.

The setting is really nothing new, but I think it could be made very atmospheric by art and music people - the art that I visialise would be something 3 parts FOA and 1 part Picasso, so that while the scenes are given flair they are not made surreal. The music would have to switch between exciting and creepy fast, and possibly change in style as the story progresses . And dialog would be very important, especially with the S.C.s - this game needs loads of short witty snaps from Alyssa and passionate rambles from Raissa in order to work really well. It would probably also need a new GUI, and some linearity coding/design, but I think it could be done.

Influences
-The movies Cypher (Creepy industrial sabotage, the idea of open judgement),  Le Placard(In french, not sure of the title, but its about a guy who is rarely noticed in the beginning. It's a comedy, but the beginning has something to do with it.)
-The books The Trial- Franz Kafka(Strange Organizations, e.t.c) 1984 - Orwell (Big Brother, security cameras e.t.c)
-Scrubs/The Simpsons (The janitor - he's not really necessary to the game, though and could be removed)

I'd put more, but I'm outta time ^_^

EDIT : Crap, I just realized my clock was slow. Well, whatever. Stick to the deadline and disqualify me, or be like the cool people m0ds and ignore them...

EDIT: Oh yeah, thanks to Flippy for helping with this...

[Quintaros]

Ginny: I'm glad my story idea stimulated you.  I have a few scenarios in mind for multiple endings.  Only one is really dark, although the others aren't falsely happy either.

Alky: I like your central theme. My thoughts though are that conscience and logic are resources that a mind relies on.  Alyssa and Raissa strike me as antagonists that are not reliable so that decision making becomes the choice between 2 evils.  Perhaps thats your point.

[Meowster]

I’m a little late, but there was bad traffic, I swear.

Anyway,

That was a seriously tough call and I have to say you all showed extremely vibrant imaginations and quite frankly, I think all those games should be made. But the losers had to be hand picked and laughed at and here are those people that we can now ridicule cruelly:

The People who did NOT win
Quintaros, I didn’t choose you because I think although your story could be excellent, it’s very sombre and mightn’t be the most fun project to work on.

Mr Frisby... I didn’t choose yours because although the idea is quite funny, it’s a little too cliché, you know? Aliens have been done a lot. But I loved the art of the main character!

Ginny, again I love this idea. I once read a book called the Never-ending Story. I would imagine your story to be somewhat like this.

Alky, your idea is obviously well planned and thought out. I don’t mind that you didn’t stick to the deadline.

Now here’s the person we can pretend not to ridicule, but really we’ll just laugh at him behind his back and make snide comments about how the competition was fixed, and he’s a power freak and stole his idea from a book by that guy who wrote that awful book about the girl with the Zelda-Style fairy and the bears on the mountain in Alaska with the armour.

The Winner, dude!
The winner is SSH, and not just because he’s my assistant programmer! His idea could be made into a long or short game as seen fit, and contains enough magical elements for some really interesting and colourful backgrounds. The idea is not all that original but it’s a proven formula. Let’s see if he can make it work

If you want, you can choose a person from the list of runners up as a co-designer, or you can simply stick on your own.

So Far...
SSH, you should start developing your story a bit more. The next competition is for Artists and Musicians, and so you can pick a suitable style for your game. Or, three. Or however many.

Now you can all laugh and snigger and make snide remarks about me for rigging the competition and making bland comments. Do this while I’m setting up the next competition, so you don’t inadvertently hurt my feelings, okay?

[SSH]

Woot!

I ARES TEH 1337 PROWJEKT MANHANDLER!

 All will bow at my feet and quiver in fear at my prowess!


Meanwhile, can someone get Yufster her medication?

[Mr_Frisby]

Congrats SSH - Good story.
Here is my take on the main character for the anim contest (I know I didn't wait long but I couldn't resist)



As you see, she isn't appropriately attired for the hot, dry, desert-like plains of northern Scottland. I hope that won't go against her.