Hey its my first game dev related post --- woot for me i am currently studying computer games technology as a degree and one of my projects is too complete as part of a 3 man group, a working 2d rpg the first part is to write a short introduction in the form of a short story to introduce the game and some of the characters as this is my first attempt at anything remotely in the vein of creative writing i would appreciate some feedback on the story as a whole. both positive and constructively negative feedback is welcome i'd particularly like your opinions on the continuity and character progression throughout, but remember it is a short piece meant as an introduction also it was written in about 2 hours if that is relevant Thank You Ps. if you do think its any good i could probably do commisions lol EDIT: also i believe that Huo is taken to mean fire(or thereabouts) and Shui to mean water, if this is not the case or there are more relevant alternatives plz let me know EDIT: after review i have added the names of who is in each section(or who it is about) obviously i can keep up cause i wrote it but it didnt occur that it may be confusing :) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Story Start /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// GENNA A vehicle is being chased through a forest; the driver notices too late a cliff and plummets sideways down a short drop. An object is thrown from the vehicle to the ground, the pursuers lose sight of the vehicle, while they speed around the forest road leading to the crash site. SOPHIE A woman is patrolling the woods….. well….. she's pretending to in any case, strolling would be closer to the truth. For she had drawn the short straw and had to patrol on this freezing night on the look-out for The Cross. Truth be told it wasn’t all that bad, The Cross rarely ventured this far into Star territory and it gave Sophie some much needed time to herself. So she walked in the cover of the trees just as she was trained to,until that is, she sees a flash of light and almost immediately hears a loud explosion. Fearful of an attack she approaches her destination with caution. GENNA “Thank god we were in a Cross transport or that explosion would have killed us outright” thought Genna to herself , immediately turning around on the seat she was in and reaching to check the safety of the cradle’s, “Oh no” she cried “there’s only one …………I’ve ….failed…..” she silently sobbed to herself “…but I must at least deliver this one to sanctuary”. She blocked out the need to grieve and quickly assessed the situation, the transport was in a bad way, it was never going to move, in fact the only reason they survived at all was the extra shielding between the floor and the potentially explosive inner workings. She quickly double checked that at least the remaining cradle was unharmed, it was fine, in truth it was in much better condition than she was. Genna surmised from that pain that she had broken at least 2 ribs and had hit her head hard in the fall, but she was a woman of determination, she couldn’t give up no matter what. Thankful that her legs were mostly unharmed, she would at least be able to run. DAVID AND PETER “Charlie One to base ….The transport can proceed no further, continuing pursuit on foot……over ” “Roger that Charlie One” “Let’s go” the first agent ordered, they both exited the car while simultaneously drawing their weapons with practiced ease. “This is not good” panted the second agent as they flew through the trees, taking advantage of any and all possible cover they could. They both knew exactly who it was they were chasing, and although they couldn’t begin to fathom why the 2nd in command, the right hand of the Cross, would run, they also knew that everyone who had previously gone up against her had died, without exception. Continuing through the woods, from their perspective it seemed like the longest three minutes of their lives. Suddenly a shot rang out, Charlie One with his vast experience immediately dove for cover, Charlie Two however returned a single shot and was immediately hit with the second of two more,almost instantaneous,return shots, he fell injured. Charlie one shouted “Charlie Two …you ok?”, Charlie Two Replied “I’m still here Dave, hit me in the collar bone, cant use my left arm….luckily I’m right handed ….hehe”. “Just wait I’ll call for backup” shouted David, annoyed at his friend Peter’s apparent levity, “No point Dave,we need to get her now or we don’t get her at all” replied peter struggling to stay conscious, “That’s insane, we can barely see the fire from the transport and she can hit me with nothing but a muzzle flare to guide….She’s everything you said” ”I have an idea though”. “She hit me ‘cause she saw the muzzle flare… so if I fire again you can go around and surprise her from the side” continued Peter, “Yes but that close to suicide you idiot…..you know she could kill you next time” replied David, knowing it was their best chance “so we better make it count” he said to his friend, they both realised it could be their last exchange of words. “Ok I’ll give you ten seconds to move around and then I’ll fire” said Peter, rising to his feet “Go..Now” he shouted before his friend had a chance to reply. Peter, determined to not waste their one chance moved silently through the forest, almost like a shadow…………BANGBANG… the exchange was so quick it almost sounded like one shot, but it gave him the opportunity. He burst from the forest determined to close the distance before she could react, but she saw him….she moved at almost inhuman speed to swing round and face him but unbeknownst to him her injuries prevented her from reacting quickly enough and he clubbed her with all he had, hoping it was enough. She just lay there, for an instant he thought he had killed her, killed his own mentor, his teacher, he reached down tentatively for a pulse and ………… laughed to himself “ hehe I should be so lucky….you really are indestructible aren’t ya” SOPHIE & GENNA(Genna is only in flash back) Sophie stopped dead as she heard the first shot, “Thank god I got out of there when I did” she thought to herself selfishly. She ran on, holding the bundle of rags like her very soul was contained inside. When she originally approached the source of the explosion she looked on from the relative safety of her cover behind a tree, to try and ascertain the situation and to possibly try and turn it to her advantage. What she saw cried out, even to her hardened heart, there was a badly injured red-head leaning over a metal container and lifting from within,a baby. Sophie noticed there was an urgency in the woman’s movements, almost like she was hurrying for some reason and then impossibly the red-headed looked straight at her, Sophie muttered under her breath in disbelief “There’s no way…..not from that …..distance… in this dark…impossible” but yet the woman called out to her. “You there” the urgency was clearly present in her voice “come here quickly, we don’t have much time”. Sophie was no fool but she quickly assessed her options and judged that with the woman’s injuries and the clear lack of a weapon, that it was possible if need be to restrain or kill her easily, that being said it was of no real benefit for her to expose herself even more……so when her body began to move, she was surprised. This whole thought process happened in a split second and the Star scout sprinted to the woman cautiously and as she approached, immediately regretted the decision as she was easily overwhelmed by the surprisingly agile, injured red-head. Beaten and restrained Sophie was not expecting to live much longer, so when the woman turned to her and said “I’m not going to kill you, but you will do as I say, quickly for we have no time ” she almost cried with relief, the red-head removed the restraints and said “ I am sparing you life for one purpose only, you will do exactly as I say without any deviation do you understand child” Sophie nodded just glad to be alive, The woman continued “ good, you will take this child to your Citadel and you will protect him until you breathe your last, you will never speak of what happened here, not to the child, not to anyone…. Am I understood” Sophie was astonished, it was insane but before sho cold think more …”AM I UNDERSTOOD” the red-head bellowed with a voice quite frightening for a woman of her stature, this interrupted Sophie’s daydream, “Y..yes…o..o.ok” she meekly replied. “I shall take that as a sworn oath on your word as a disciple of the Star” said the woman, Sophie immediately regained her lost composure at the mention of her faith and asked “what shall I do”. The woman was not even facing Sophie anymore, as she had said already…they were out of time, “take the child and run, I’ll cover you…..Oh and his name is Huo” the woman said as she picked up the weapon, “ Run?” Sophie replied confused “Run from whom?”, the woman just calmly loaded the weapon and said “Trust me…. You’d rather not know”. Sophie already struggling to keep up with what was going on, was hesitating and trying to make sense when she was given her last chance the Red-headed woman turned to the forest behind them and said to Sophie softly, with a barely hidden anger “Do as you have promised…..or I will shoot you myself”, she needed no more incentive she, in one fluid motion, jumped up to her feet grabbed the child carefully and began running into the jungle…towards home. GENNA Genna shot a single round into the forest in the direction she knew they would be coming, not expecting to hit anything, just to buy time….any extra second she could buy could make all the difference. A lucky break, return fire and with it “muzzle flare” she now had a better idea of where one was, she aimed for that position and fired. Two more shots rang into the dark,and a moan as one hits its mark. She knows she can’t win….not as she is…. especially against…him, but this is all about time…time for her to get away ….with the child. Then something she couldn’t expect happened….she started to cry…..for the child …for the young woman….for the loss of both her children, but this was the worst possible time for her to lose control of her emotions for another shot rang out and she replied with her inhuman reflexes a mere instant after, aimed at the now tear-blurred muzzle flare, as she did she realised all to late the deception and swung to her side to try any counter him. Alas she could not swing properly because of her broken ribs and was hit, and then ….black. EPILOGUE(Sort of) Shortly after, the Cross backup arrived they removed all traces of their presence including wreckage, shell casings….everything. Charlie One - David Levau was found standing over Genna Levau – Former Charlie Leader and one of the target cases, on further inspection the case was found to be empty, it is not know what happened to the infant contained herein. She was placed in custody and then in a healing tank. The second cradle was thought lost in the crash however David then lead the team to Charlie Two - Peter Granger who was by some minor miracle still alive, he was found however 400 metres away from where David had left him… unconscious and holding the second cradle which still contained the healthy second infant aptly name Shui. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Story End /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// [Edited by - Wardyahh on November 10, 2006 5:10:04 PM]

Not so bad.

As far as critique:

1. In a short introduction, try not to jump around. Feel free to throw in flashbacks and other discontinuities with wild abandon later on, but for now just introduce the story.

2. Introduce your characters. That's what the introduction is. It's difficult to follow otherwise. Sophie? Who's Sophie? Oh, she's that one girl. No, that was Genna. Was it that girl before? Must be.

3. Don't feel like you have to toss in twists and other perspectives. It's a straightforward story, and you can fill in what really happened later.

But don't take that to mean I don't like it. I do.

might be a bit easier to keep up now :)

as far as twists i didn't notice any
could you point em out for us please ?

thanks

Oh, I meant where Genna has the child, and then runs off into the woods in a firefight and gets whacked. Then it turns out she passed the baby on to Sophie. Seemed like a twist.

Also, what is Sophie's bundle of rags?

The story is much clearer now, thanks.

i think i just confuse everyone :)

Genna never runs off into the woods in fact she never leaves the car(edited to say that its actually a flash back of her before sophie runs into the woods alone- with the baby in rags)

i suppose it could be a twist that the babies are hers but i never intended to hide the fact it just never came up :)

Ah, reading it again I can see where you implied that. I think it was a mixture of Genna's inner dialog about how she was wounded, but could still run. Then, the operatives get to the scene and narration references chasing her, after which they are in the woods. And most likely, my confusion over the original version.

So Sophie had two babies a few months ago and lost them, but now they're being returned? Care to expound on that?

ok here's how it goes.......

Genna is in a car with the two babies being chased by the Cross agents

Sophie is a scout/patrollman for another organisation called Star
and just happens to be walking nearby when the car crashes

the babies are Genna's

Sophie is given one because the agents havent seen her and dont know her

the other one was thrown from the car as it fell and is later found by Peter

and thus the main part of the story begins as each organisation has one child

it must just be my writing

should just stick to drinking i dont confuse anyone with that :)

ths for the critique btw, looking at it, from outside i suppose it is hard to cotton on to the fact its written from 3(4) different viewpoints of the same event i still like the idea and the way it is set out, but maybe a bit more practice making it obvious that its like that :)

Well, like I said, it's an interesting idea, and it's not poorly written. I think one major difference between writing it here and using it in a game, is that you'll have graphics to tell the story with. In that way, it's kind of like a script instead of a short story, and a lot of the things I got tripped up on will be obvious to the player. That, and just tossing in "5 Minutes Earlier..." and then going into a flashback scene makes the story, as you envision it, clear and easy to pull off.

So, the way you envision it being implemented, I'm sure it wouldn't be confusing at all even as the first version. Next time to have a story to tell, you can just briefly describe the scene, when the scene takes place, and what any new characters look like and are doing.

All in all, for the first time around, not shabby at all.

I think you're just trying to discredit him as an author so you can get 25% of his story. :)

as i said any feed back is appreciated but if you could specify what about it isnt convincing it would help a lot :)

thanks