Hey there, As you might know I have posted a fair bit about my Vehement Thrones idea and have been getting a lot of feedback. I also have been working on the storyline a lot lately and wish to know what people think so far. I know it's a pretty basic style of writing, but it is meant to show the story, not the gameplay. I'm also shite at English Studies ;). It just fills in the bits between levels and boss fights. It isn't complete yet even though I have the whole thing planned. I just keeping having writers block on how to write it so there will be more to come :) I have posted it on my forums and my website so I'll link both here: Website: Vehement Thrones Website Forums (You might have to join up to see them): Vehement Thrones Forums Like it? Hate it? Let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it. Cheers, James PS. Anyone wanting to help out just PM or contact me with the information on the website

Storyline was updated so I posted a bump.

Bump.

Also I think the forum's gone dead too. Just an opinion.

Cheers,
James

Ok so I finished the whole story and really want some feedback on it. It's roughly 7000 words but I know it;s not that much to read really. Just let me know what you think and tell me what I need to improve.

Cheers,
James

I only read a few paragraphs because the font was too hard to read.
I think your story gives the game flow context properly.

I think you should:
o Change font and font size
o Create a story outline

I read it all and I thought it was pretty good. Reminds me of some games I really liked.

Quote: Original post by Wai
I think you should:
o Change font and font size
o Create a story outline

I'll get right on changing it then :)
What do you mean by a story outline?

Re:

By story outline I meant a short description that summarize each section of the gameplay in its context, in the order it is introduced in the story.

For example, the section near the beginning where the main character arrived early, but was carried away and must rush to the tournament could be described like this:

o MC arrived early. Player controls MC to participate at booths of the festival to 1) learn how to navigate; 2)learn about the customs of the game world at food booths and info booths; 3) learn how to move at game booths.

o MC is late to the tournament. Player controls MC to rush back to the stage under a time limit.

Under each bullet, you could keep your original passage or expand on it to show the mood, flavor, variations and additional details. I have not read the rest of your story and your site is down at the moment. For some game designs, an outline like this would show whether the game is boring, because for a boring game, the same description just repeats itself. The outline allows you to highlight the evolution of challenges that you throw at the player. (I am not saying that each challenge has to be different.)

I have designed a timeline of events that happen within the story of the game, and the gameplay that the player will control, and the place it happens. It is fairly simple but I could expand on it a little. If you want I can post it on the forums so you can see what it is like?

You finished 7000 words; nice! I get too caught up in worrying about how everything is going to work and generally lose steam before writing even 1000 words, so simply getting it done is quite an accomplishment.

So it's a serviceable piece of writing, but -- and I say this in a spirit of friendly criticism -- I didn't find the story very interesting. To be honest, after a few paragraphs I skimmed the rest.


Partly it's to do with the ideas in the story itself; I don't play JRPGs, read manga, or watch any anime aside from Miyazaki, but it read to me like a collection of Japanese media tropes: the heroes sent to save the world are children/adolescents (when one would expect the best warriors in the cities to be professional fighters in their 20's or 30's, or something), there are four cities and four characters each representing some facet of some system of symbolism or something, then there are some kind of weird spirits that can somehow meld with people, airships, something about saving the world, boss-fights ... The problem is, if I have some idea of what the tropes that drive this sort of story are, I can make a pretty reasonable guess as to exactly what is going to happen. And I've seen variations on all these tropes in one form or another, so it feels to me like re-treading old ground, which I'm not willing to do unless it does something I haven't seen before.
Or maybe you take the tropes as a starting point and do something unique with it -- if you do, I didn't get far enough in to see it.

On the other hand, I'm definitely not your target market for this kind of game -- people who enjoy such settings/tropes for what they are will likely be more interested and willing to get into it. Also, what doesn't make sense in a written story will probably make more sense in a game when presented as a part of interactive media. People are willing to accept all kinds of crazy stuff if it just happens in a game, and otherwise nonsensical or uninteresting ideas are completely different when they're a part of gameplay. Take Mario for example -- this plumber guy jumping on things and eating mushrooms, what? It didn't make any sense at all but it made a great game.


Partly what turned me off was the structure of the story: The way it's written, we get info-dumped before establishing a hook; That is, we hear all about the setting and characters that the author clearly cares about, but which I the reader do not yet care about.

But then this is not supposed to be read as a straight narrative. It looks like an outline for your game (which I assume is what it is) -- frankly, the outline of any game might not look very interesting because it is a list of actions the player plays through, eg. fight this monster here, figure out this puzzle here, this character gains this power at this point, fight this boss next, etc. Gameplay doesn't often make interesting stories. (Did anyone else read the Doom novels? Heh!)


So like what Wai said: Written as a script or gameplay outline, your story might make more sense for what I think you want to do with it because I wouldn't be reading it with the expectations I have of a story in a book or something.

And as said, you're using certain tropes heavily. This is perfectly fine so long as you're aware that you're doing it.

Haha yes it was quite a mission but I'm glad I seen it through to the end.

Well I did get most of my inspiration from JRPG's and anime/manga so I can see how they have been seen through my work. And although I do use a few cliche elements (Even I noticed this, thank god), but I've added my own spin on things. If you read at the end, the main characters friends don't actually 'live', they stay in their coma, sort of giving the game a cliff hanger ending.

I wouldn't expect this to be read as a narrative because I just don't have the skill to do that, so I wrote it as, well yeah, a story outline. It follows the basic path of the game without a lot of detail (IE Dialogue, In-between major events) so it wouldn't be classed as that kind of writing, as you said.

I definitely need to go over it some more before I say it is fully complete, like maybe get a professional writer to re write it. And thank you for not flaming me for having a couple of similar ideas as to what is out there, but remember this is just the story side of the game, there is still the gameplay to add to it so hopefully together they create something you haven't seen :)

Any other feedback is still welcome.

Cheers,
James