Good, complicated stories

[pandasFTW]

Hello all!
so, i want to make a custom story ( i,m already working on one, with splitheadproductions, but when i have any spare time, i want to make one myself ) but i am SICK AND TIRED of those, " waking up, unable to recall a thing " plots.... and so, i have made this thread to look for some good plots!
they need to be, may i say, " hard to figure out "... by that, i mean, by the end of the story, i really want the players to, sit there for 10-15 minutes, just figuring out what exactly the plot of this was, AND, i,d like it to have some sort of " deeper meaning" ( i,m dane, i dont know the correct word ) but, i want it to have this deeper, thing to it, so that players may sit and think, about what the deeper meaning of this CS was, kinda like " Nepsis " ( awesome story btw, if you read this thread )
with that being said, the one who comes up with a fitting story will, get a + rating from me, name in credits, username in one of the " core-items " of the CS... this is not to sound like some, sick dude, but i,ve tried this before, and i know, that with these complicated plots, people dont feel like working them out, if they dont get something in exchange

I hope i will hear from someone thx

[Datguy5]

(05-12-2012 07:50 PM)pandasFTW Wrote:  But i am SICK AND TIRED of those, " waking up, unable to recall a thing " plots.... and so, i have made this thread to look for some good plots!

Agreed with that.Im also sick of those stories in which you "wake up and dont remember anything" its so overused.

[Adny]

Although I can't directly give you a story, I can give you some advice on elements that should be included in it. (Keep in mind this is my opinion, I'm not trying to make it sound like some scientific formula for good story).

You need to have well established and relate-able characters, this will make the character/player relationship better, allowing the Player to become more engaged in the character's emotions and experiences.

Another important thing is having a sort of "twist" ending, like in the Justine DLC, (SPOILER) the player finds out he/she is Justine the entire time, and the revelation definitely gave the player something to think about in the end (or at least me ).

In addition to the main story line, there should be a "tangent", or side story, if you will. Something else that puts the player deeper into the Character's shoes. This can be done through flashbacks, notes, etc, and should be directly related to the character. Again, like in Justine, there are notes about the relationship between Justine and her Father, (it gets pretty messed up and reveals some disturbing information about the Characters).

You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Amnesia idea, I think its just been done so poorly by a lot of people it is considered bad now. Perhaps if you throw in a little cut scene, back story, or attention grabber prior to the game actually starting, it could work well. Good luck!

[pandasFTW]

(05-12-2012 08:24 PM)andyrockin123 Wrote:  Although I can't directly give you a story, I can give you some advice on elements that should be included in it. (Keep in mind this is my opinion, I'm not trying to make it sound like some scientific formula for good story).

You need to have well established and relate-able characters, this will make the character/player relationship better, allowing the Player to become more engaged in the character's emotions and experiences.

Another important thing is having a sort of "twist" ending, like in the Justine DLC, (SPOILER) the player finds out he/she is Justine the entire time, and the revelation definitely gave the player something to think about in the end (or at least me ).

In addition to the main story line, there should be a "tangent", or side story, if you will. Something else that puts the player deeper into the Character's shoes. This can be done through flashbacks, notes, etc, and should be directly related to the character. Again, like in Justine, there are notes about the relationship between Justine and her Father, (it gets pretty messed up and reveals some disturbing information about the Characters).

You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Amnesia idea, I think its just been done so poorly by a lot of people it is considered bad now. Perhaps if you throw in a little cut scene, back story, or attention grabber prior to the game actually starting, it could work well. Good luck!

thx dude!
i,ll think of those!

i really didnt think of any of them! ... thx

[Homicide13]

Heh, well as the creator of Nepsis, the best advice I can give you story wise is to make something that is important to yourself! A work of art is generally supposed to represent a meaning that the artist (or composer or director or whatever) wants to convey to his audience. Your story should be something that is important and meaningful to You, something that You want to convey to an audience - if it's not an idea or concept that is Yours you can't really put your heart behind it.

Of course that said, there are plenty of things you can keep in mind.

As far as the "amnesia" concept goes, there are plenty of ways to get around this problem - one being approach I used for Nepsis. The player doesn't forget his past, his past just isn't important to the story and so it is excluded. The player wakes up, finds a simple note explaining to the player why he is where he is, and then the story continues from there - only things that are essential to the player's understanding of the story are revealed to the player.

As far as planning goes, I would recommend you have the story generally planned out from beginning to end before you begin actually creating things game-wise. Of course it's impossible to know all the specifics, and things are very subject to change, but for example for Nepsis: When I started designing the game I knew that the player had to have taken such and such a potion that would have these certain effects (I knew that I wanted to use dimethyltryptamine as a medium which could be used to communicate with other life forms (ie other people) directly through their essence rather than through conventional means), and that the continuous use of the potion would eventually contort the player into a monster which could only be stopped through suicide. I then began making the levels (I didn't make the levels in the order in which they appeared either) keeping in mind what I wanted to come before and what I wanted to come after. In other words, I constructed the story as an entire element, rather than as just a series of levels where what comes next was only really decided upon completion of the previous level, which is a trap I think a lot of inexperienced writers fall in to. (It would be like if JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series without thinking about what she wanted to her next book to include.)

Anyways, I hope that helps some. A lot of it is just stuff that you learn from experience.