Hey this is my first post so... yay! Any way my bro is a pretty good programer and we are always trying to make a game, and I useally come up with some story ideas, and we need some more imput on this idea, so I'm wondering what you guys would think. So here it goes.... Ok so first off thers this kid (this is just a general description of the character) in high school, maybe a juinor, and hes just a normal kid. Hes not really popular, on the quiet side, but not like a social outcast. He's into video games and fantasy books stuff like that, I know he sounds familiar right? Ok so he has a normal day at school and goes to sleep one night. Ok now picture another plane of existence, these two scientist guys are trying to summon a "creature" from another plane. There can be mutiple reasons for them doing so. Anyway the machine or magic they use to do it reaches out for someone. It's the same high school person. So he ends up into the onther plane and crazy stuff happens. But when he wakes up, he is pulled away. The only way the machine or magic could pull hime into the other world is when he is in a dream state of mind, so when he wakes up he does't really remember what happens to him, but he has a vauge idea. Just think of it when you dream and you kind of remember the dream. So every night, he is pulled back to the other plane. So the game can have 2 parts to it. One part is the basic adventure when he is on the other plane, and the ohte part is when he is at school and his real life, and you can out little mini games and develope the character more and interesting things will happen, but the games main focus will be the other plane. Thats just a basic idea. I been researching dreaming and things like that to I will know how all that stuff will work, also I have a lot more ideas for the basic plot thing, but for now I'm just posting the basic idea.

The two-part game idea is interesting. Will what you do in one part affect the other? For that matter, what sort of mini-games do you have in mind? You could go the generic flash-sim route and boost strength/intelligence 'stats' and allow these to make you a better warrior (or whatever) in the other plane. What about the other way around - will what you do in the dream/scientist plane affect your everyday life at school?

Dig into the main character some more. What does he want to do? You can have the character be normal, but even normal people have dreams. Normal people remember events that have shaped their lives, and normal people have their own special strengths and weaknesses. Then jump over to his friends - who are they, what are they like. Make up some events that happen between them to give the player a real connection to the game. Continue on into the other dimension and figure out the motivations for your scientists. What are they up to? Why do they need to pull this guy into their world, and why do they allow him to return?

I wouldn't really call what you have a story, though. More of a general concept for a game - just an idea. Just flesh it out some and it could be pretty interesting.

Really though, the idea is pretty cool.

Also, everyone is probably going to mention this, but spelling, grammar, and clear thought structure will help out immensely.

Yeah it is more of a basis idea. But I do have a lot of ideas for mini games and things like that. and ill try to watch my typing a little more heh. thanks for the input

Cool, cool.

If you want more comments from other forum-goers, just post some additional info, responses, drawings, anything. Otherwise you may suffer the fate of many an ambitious post that never gets more than one reply.

With any luck, others will post constructive thoughts about specific ideas.

I just want to add that I am curious about the questions I asked. While the questions can simply serve as a jumping-off point for thoughts, I would really like to know why these scientists are pulling this poor kid into their realm of existence.

We need to get our moderator in on this - it's amusingly similar to her long-time project in some ways.

I'll try to drag her away from gaiaonline and Inkscape/Photoshop stuff for long enough to get her to read her own forum for a bit when I get home.

Kallisti - Of course I read my own forum.

Yeah, it's sort of similar to my novel idea, but I think there's an important distinction between this setup, where the player is getting pulled back and forth between two worlds (like little Nemo) and my setup where the main character gets pulled into the other world and remains stuck there permanently. The two mechanisms accomplish different things.

jedi_ewok - Hi, welcome to the forum! ^_^ If you and your brother are trying to start putting together a serious game design, you may want to read this textbook on how to design computer games which I am writing.

Heh wow I did't know I was stealing people's ideas heh. If you have it posted some place maybe I can read it and steal some more ideas hehe

I don't think you've stolen anything, the idea of a person's soul getting summoned to another world is pretty common. But here's how the summoning happens in my novel-in-progress. (Note that this is from a dragonlike alien's POV.)

Quote: The young alpha female stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed her work, her jaunty feathered crest cocked forward with satisfaction. The construct body lay on the worktable, in the center of the musk circle she had just finished painstakingly painting on the floor. Her own musk, of course, carefully milked from the scent glands behind her cheekbones – it had to function as an extension of her body, so she could channel her spirit through it when she cast the spell.

The construct body was a particularly beautiful one, if she did say so herself. Broad-shouldered, long-legged, beautifully muscled – one would have thought him a perfect specimen of an alpha male if not for the blond crest feathers which marked him as a construct, where a real man would have ebony feathers. But other than that he was perfect – handsome face, sparkling green eyes currently hidden behind tiny, perfectly detailed feathered eyelashes, waaaay too much work invested into the perfect detail of his, erm, male equipment, also currently hidden in his sheath... and to make him unique, his foremost crest feather curling to the side in cute rebellion. Her artistic vision of the ideal man.

He was slightly oversized, because this project was to prove her skill as a constructor, earning her a promotion to the rank of Junior Mistress, and she had wanted to do something a bit grandiose and slightly larger-than-life to really show off her skills. Not that he was a giant; just a feather's breadth taller than the tallest alpha male she'd ever seen. His size would be useful anyway – constructs were often used to do heavy lifting and hauling, and this particular one was intended for military use, where his size would also be useful for fighting. Well, he was intended for military use if she could manage to summon an appropriate breed of soul into the body to animate it. Ensouling was always a bit hit-and-miss. Fairly often the animal's soul would simply go crazy upon finding itself in a dragon's body. Then of course the soul would have to be banished, and any damage it had managed to do to the body would have to be repaired before they could try again. Then, even if the soul didn't go mad, it might be useless – the soul of a Serpent, for example, would never be able to figure out how to operate a body with arm, legs, tail, and wing-spars. It would just... wiggle ineffectually.

In hopes of increasing the efficiency of the ensouling process, the construction company had developed several standard summoning conjurations, each targeted at a particular breed of animal soul: Dogge, Equin, Coon, Catte, etc. Even the ill-omened Oeasel, for their souls made clever-fingered constructs, and they were safe enough as long as they were kept far away from the eggs they craved to prey upon. But this student, like other dragons who claimed the Clever Coon as their own metaphorical soulbreed, was never satisfied to do anything the standard way. Damned if she was going to create a body which was a work of art, then completely spoil the effect by animating it with a stupid, placid soul which would shuffle or not even walk upright, and drool, and look at her out of dull moronic eyes – she shuddered. Such a travesty of the art she had poured her heart and soul into did not even bear thinking about. No, that would not do at all. So she had... modified one of the conjurations slightly. Now it would reject any soul below a certain level of intelligence, which ought to ensure that her construct would be animated with an acceptable amount of flair.

Of course, she had still been careful to include the standard clause which forbid the spell from taking a dragon's soul – her career would be over before it began if she accidentally killed someone and trapped his or her soul in an artificial body intended for servitude. Even though his looks would be a drastic improvement over some alpha males she could think of. She snorted. But they probably wouldn't appreciate suddenly being blond, or sterile, or being fed animal feed and treated like an animal. Oh, but wouldn't it be fun to see that happen to her annoying brother for a day or two, might make him realize he wasn't evolution incarnate, modestly ready to father the next generation of progressively more godlike dragonlings...

Suddenly her teacher bustled into the room, startling the student constructor out of her daydreams of vengeance. The teacher beamed around at the student's preparations with motherly pride. “Are you all set up?” she didn't wait for an answer. “Good, good! Put up the barrier and let's begin!”

Gathering her wits (It was always hard to keep up with the overwhelming enthusiasm of a Coney like this teacher) the young alpha female carefully placed her feet at the keypoint of the diagram, outside the painted circle of her musk and directly above the construct body's head. She followed the standard safety procedure of making sure her teacher was also standing safely outside the circle – a beginner's precaution, but you never knew with someone whose totem was the Coney – she just might spontaneously dash forward to make some last-minute check or correction. So the student kept a suspicious corner of her eye on the teacher while she raised her hands to draw in spiritual energy from the world around her and channel it into the musk circle, building it into a transparent, protective barrier rising from the floor to the ceiling and cutting off the construct body from any random outside interference which might sabotage the delicate ensouling process.

Such a barrier went somewhat against the natural order of things. Magic was evolutionary destiny, which flowed through the universal soul of the Great Feathered Serpent which all creatures contained a piece of – and this was a bubble interrupting that flow. So the barrier was difficult to maintain for any length of time. But that actually made the ensouling process easier – the unnatural void inside the bubble wanted to be filled up with spirit and life. All a constructor had to do was carefully open a small 'hole' in the ceiling of the barrier which would let in just one soul, of the type desired. Then give a little extra tug to free that soul from the body it currently inhabited elsewhere, and quick close the hole again, so the soul had nowhere to go but into the waiting body.

She began her carefully-modified conjuration, opening the hole. First she shaped 'search', to give the spell its basic purpose. Then she shaped 'soul', the target. To that she added her clauses – all the boring standard ones, then 'intelligent' and 'not-dragon'. And yes, there it was, a soul teetering on the brink of making the quantum jump from its current body to her construct. But what was going on? It was taking so much energy! The amount of energy varied, of course, on how far away the soul was being taken from, and how hard it wanted to cling to its current body. Maybe more intelligent souls fought harder, and that was why these lazy old aunties contented themselves with shambling, drooling things. She felt slightly smug. But then a wave of tiredness washed over her, feeling like a lead weight pressing down on her shoulders, and she began to be truly nervous. It was rushing out so fast... but the conjuration was almost complete, just a little more...! Stubbornly gathering up her remaining energy, she gave one last shove and the ensouling was... done! The soul snapped into its new home like a dislocated joint rediscovering its correct configuration, and she quickly shaped 'end' to close the conjuration. She gasped, almost drained. Taking a deep breath to restore herself, she firmed up her ethereal grip on the barrier. Then she peered at her creation. Nothing was happening, nothing was happening... AHA! His chest rose and fell. Then his eyes opened.

“Oooh look he's awake! Excellent!” the teacher rubbed her hands together with the delight of an artist watching her work come to life. “And he's not even panicking or trying to break the bonds! Go ahead, drop the barrier and let's see what breed of soul you managed to catch.”

The student hemmed and hawed nervously. Experimenting with the summoning spell had seemed like such a clever idea at the time, but the execution hadn't felt right – it had definitely taken too much energy out of her. She found herself suddenly afraid of the tall, strong body she had sculpted – afraid that the creature she would find looking out of her carefully crafted pretty green eyes might be something quite a bit more dangerous than the usual tame Dogge or Equin. “Ah... perhaps we should wait a bit, don't you think? Give him a moment to, er... calm down?” The barrier did NOT want to wait – she could feel it wavering slightly in her grasp.

“He's not going to get any calmer if we leave him trapped like that.” chuckled her teacher. “Having second thoughts? I thought you were a brave and foolhardy little Coon?” The young alpha female flushed, embarrassed by the suggestion that she wasn't living up to her totem, and her teacher chuckled again. “Come on now, drop the barrier, there's a good girl. No reason to take all day about it, we need to evaluate this construct and see whether you were lucky enough to get a keeper on your first try or whether we need to flush this soul and try again. Don't forget I have hatchlings I want to go home and play with when we're done with this handsome fella.”

“Ah, yes, sorry ma'am.” The student bit her lip. She was starting to shake with the effort of holding the barrier. Well, there was nothing to do now but wish for luck and entrust it to the invisible coils of the Great Feathered Serpent as they slid through all of us. That was what she always ended up doing anyway, tossing things in the air and trusting destiny to sort them out. She was a Coon after all, a trickster, a gambler. And the teacher was here, she would fix things if they really went wrong... right? Even if she was a silly Coney, she had been doing this for years. Yes. Everything would be fine.

Courage revived, the young alpha female raised her arms above her head, framing her feathered crest (starting to droop slightly), and prepared to drain the barrier back into the universal flow of spiritual energy. Now, if only she could get the barrier down before she was so exhausted she dropped it and it collapsed with a magical 'Pop!' that would blow all her papers on the floor and make her look foolish...

Wow that was really good, the pulling in of a soul to a construct is a interesting idea, I think you got something good there. So I'm guessing the soul she took is a soul from our world. It will be interesting to see how the student and the construct interact. Also I like your explation of magic works. Now I just have to start writing something.. that might take a while heh