I was reading the Good Versus Evil thread, and came up with an idea for the storyline of a game. How about one where the player''s character *thinks* he''s the good guy throughout the entire game, only to find out in the end he really was the bad guy?

I think the flavor of this idea was touched on in the controversy threads. One way to make it work would be have the player working for an agency which provides missions for the player. In the end though, the player discovers the agenda of the agency and the missions the player was engaged in were actually counter-productive to the player''s true goal. So the last half of the game would be about undoing the damage the player did and defeating the agency he worked for.

Not really replayable though...

I don''t know... Maybe put in some extra details that can only really be noticed on a second time around (Like in Fight Club and The Usual Suspects ). Then, the player could always try and change their status... Just make different outcomes for people who try and change their environment

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

You must really make the twist unpredictable if you do this. I''ve played adventure games/RPGs where I have known that the good guys were really the baddies and that I would have to defeat them in the end. That made the first part of the game really uninspiring.

Henry

That is why you make it a HUGE twist. That is why you need immagination to do so... And make sure that everything is disguised enough to keep the player from seeing what is really happening

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

This is no more than a band-aid, but what about a game with two plots, exactly the opposite? It''s random at start, but in one the good guys ARE the good guys, and in the other, the good guys ARE the bad guys.

Then the focus would be on the gameplay, and actually trying to figure out who is who.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Or, you could just remove the whole idea of good and evil and just leave it with a gray centre. . That way, you never have to worry, because the player will form their own opinions

Good application of that bandaid though Wav

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Aren''t these story ideas kinda like Deus Ex?



Jack