Ive been working on a new game called Ronen Children. It wouls be a pretty massive RPG, but understand that I am truly taking the time and effort on it. Since I cant really program, Ive worked primarily on the plot. Below is a basic plot design for the game. Im still trying to figure out if its any good. But, please dont reply with a "You shouldnt bother, youll never finish this game" or a "This idea suks." I see those replies to alot of things, and I feel, if your gunnu insult me, give me reason. I want actual ideas as feedback, not random insults, meaning, I need to know weaknesses and advantages in my plot. Now, onto my plot. -------------------------------------------------------------- Long ago, their was no real form of matter or soul. The universe was filled of what was simply the absense of light, of anything. Though this darkness was called an abyss, it was not an anything. It was the absence of anything. But this "nothing" was like a bag, holding all the other elements inside it. So after a long time period (or so it seems, thier really is no time when their is no matter. This god was born without memories, without scars of battle, and was to forget all its memories every 500 years, for the perfect being was always the young child over the scared man, they said. Shiro destroyed the abyss, and out flew the many materials of life needed form the earth. Many more nature spirits also came out of the abyss. So they were really just immortals, but people would be soon to worship them, and it seemed smarter to warship a god than a spirit, so their. But the lessor gods were jealous of Shiro’s power, and rebelled in a mad attempt to kill their powerful leader, and spread the energy to themselves like Shiro did to the abyss. This war slowely deteriorated the earth until few people were left alive. This era in the world was called the dark ages, because nobody all records of it were long destroyed. Shiro, to end this age of terror, split his power into the original energies, placed it in a temple, for Shiro never trusted the lesser gods, and hired the Knights of Shiro, men and women with abnormal talents, such as summoning stuff and holding over 15 tons like a toy, and hired them to guard this temple. Little did he know that this would be not simply ending a threat on earth, but beginning one threatening even the heavens. Kairi was the goddess of stealth. She married a mortal and gave birth to a child named Sorasen, and a child named Marie (Sorasen was named to mean, opposite sky, as chaos was reverse of whatever mixed with it.) Of course, like Hercules or any other demigod, Sorasen bor extreme strength, mind, and knowledge. Through his father, the chaos soldier Havoc, Sorasen learned of the power of Shiro, and the guardians of Shiro forming a barrior keeping people from it. Sorasen was not tempted to take the power, for he had no reason, but Havoc was a real warrior. He wanted his son to do what he had always failed to. Havoc killed Marie, and placed her soul in a human body, destroying her memorys. Why did the world have to be so cruel? Sorasen would think. Why can we not escape death. Why... By now he was a Rank A Guardian, and, with a meeting with Shiro, Sorasen got the power for guardian reasons. But Sorasen had other plans. He was to be the new ruler, and to get his revenge. He was to destroy all, for, he believed that if he did so, he would be able to take the souls, and, like his father, move them into beings. He would place all mankind into Heaven, where no one could live or die. These too people were the only other Rank As in the world, as their were 26 rankings. More importantly, they watched and witnessed it happen, they saw Sorasen take the power. And, though Shiro said he could, they knew more about the impurity of humankind. They stopped Sorasen 50% through the formation, and gave the power to their real son, Itsuki, and their 2nd cousin, Riku, and sent them in a boat to an unknown part of the world. Sorasen, in fury, used the 50% to kill the two humans. Now he needed to get to Riku and Itsuki, to get the power, and become the master as he planned, but how... Now Sorasen was only half as strong as he thought he could be. He needed that power, and he was going to get it. His wrath was only starting. He created powerful monsters to do his bidding (he could do this), which spread across the earth, wreaking havoc across the world, and got stronger the closer he was to them. He built his castle which bases in the center of the earth, which only someone with a strong spiritual sense could see, meaning, you’d have to be dead or something. This castle was known as Makai. But the parents were much smarter than youd expect. They sent Riku and Itsuki as far as possible, an orphanage in the north of the world, and, to stop people from knowing that THEY had the power at all, formed them in special “keys.” These keys were the spirits of a phoenix and dragon, entirely made of energy like the energy of the elemental spirits, meaning they could be formed into a body when needed, with extreme difficulty. These keys were needed to unlock Riku and Itsuki’s power. With the sudden arrival of these strange monsters, the churches, of course, were questioning. For they lacked logic, as believed Shiro was doing this to them, even though he had no power to do so. They did some investigating, and figured it out. On the other hand, they didn’t have the expected reaction. They lost their respect for Shiro, saying that thier job was to support the most powerful ruler, and, this was Sorasen now. They simply told the public that the new monsters were caused by their greatest sins. Apparently, these sins escape because human-kind’s expedition into the center of the earth, and that continuing it would only make the monsters stronger. They pretended to still worship Shiro, and blmaed him, asking for forgiveness. Little did anyone remember that Shiro was powerless, but alive all the less. He used his body to form in the body of Zacharias, a young apprentice at the young age of ten. The church, of course, figured this out, and sent Zack on a suicide mission. Zack and Vince were brothers. Actually, more than brothers. Vince was 10 years older than Zack, and this age difference made Vince more of a father to Zack than a brother. Vince felt strongly about right and wrong, and had made his own definition. Right, to him, was what Shiro wanted, and wrong was what could hurt Shiro. If Shiro made the world, he thought, then Shiro made the rules as well. He knew that the church spent their entire life worshiping this god, and, since it was what was right, Vince sent Zack to this church. Years later, Shiro was defeated, and Vince, knowing that Shiro was powerless, went to tell the church. His reaction was less than satisfied. But Zack was attached to the church, and he refused to believe that Vince was telling the truth, that the church was working for Sorasen. Zach and Vince spread apart, never to see each other. Marie was banished from the very heavens, in the body of a girl with no memories. The only thing she was left with was a coin clutched in her hands, with a phoenix on it. This coin unlocked the power of Riku’s soul, and was grabbed by Marie so she could maybe help Riku and Itsuki before she was sent to earth. Marie was left with no memories of her past or her powers, and is in an endless search to find them. She was marveled at by people for her stealth skills, and was hired as a spy, soon becoming a shinobi. She believes that if she keeps this job, she’ll eventually find somewhat who can tell her her past. 11 years later, the boys brake out of the orphanage, and begin their search. And this is the adventure, of Ronen Children. [Edited by - Ronenriku on September 25, 2004 12:31:23 PM]

This probably belongs in the Writing for Games forum, but anyway...

Quote:Original post by Ronenriku
Long ago, their was no real form of matter or soul. The universe was filled of what looked like a swirl of darkness.

If form doesn't exist, how can the universe look like anything? Also, according to the rest of your post the universe doesn't exist yet.

Quote:Though this darkness was called an abyss, it was not an anything. It was the absence of anything. Soon though, this nothing had torn, and out of it flew the elements of life, the first deiti.

How can nothing tear? Why did this happen?

Quote:This god was born without memories, without scars of battle, and was to forget all its memories every 500 years. This god named himself Shiro.

Why would a diety name itself according to human terms before such a lifeform existed? It may be more convincing if later followers of this diety create a name for it. Why does this diety lose its memory every 500 years?

Quote:Shiro destroyed the abyss, and took the little remaining energy from it, energy that did not make him, and made the universe.

I thought the abyss was nothing, how can it be destroyed and how can it possess energy?

Quote:And this universe was, of course, run by more gods which were the simple essences of nature.

How did the original diety define nature? What purpose does it serve? How do these demi-gods serve this purpose?

Quote:So they were really just immortals, but people would be soon to worship them, and it seemed smarter to warship a god than a spirit, so their.

Where did spirits come from? I think an interesting idea would be that people placed their belief in different aspects of the world around them, and this belief caused the original diety to split its persona into several sub-forms.

Quote:But the lessor gods were jealous of Shiro’s power, and rebelled in a mad attempt to kill their powerful leader, and spread the energy to themselves like Shiro did to the abyss.

Spead the energy to themselves? What energy? I thought Shiro drew energy from the abyss. The use of the phrase "did to" is confusing.

Quote:Shiro had every power any of his lesser gods had, and could combine his powers in any way, so fighting off the lesser gods was a simple task. But their was a hire threat none of the gods had even realized. Everyone was so busy in the war, their was little effort to help the earth.

If Shiro can so easily defeat these sub-dieties, why is this war of any signifigance? Where did this higher threat come from?

Quote:The earth suffered without most of its gods, until only one man and one woman were alive.

That seems awfully fortuitous.

Quote:This era in the world was called the dark ages, because nobody lived to write records of it.

What happened to the man and woman? Were they too busy getting it on to write anything down?

Quote:Shiro, to end this age of terror, split his power into the original energies, placed it in a temple, for Shiro never trusted the lesser gods, and hired the Knights of Shiro, men and women with abnormal talents, such as summoning stuff and holding over 15 tons like a toy, and hired them to guard this temple.

What? If Shiro never trusted the demi-gods, why were they created in the first place? Why does the supreme creator of the universe have to hire people?

That's as far as I can make it into your post tonight. Maybe I'll have another go at it tomorrow if you don't mind constructive critisicm [grin].

Ps. What's the signifigance of the name "Ronen Children"?

So is this gonna be 2d or 3d? I hope you're looking at a 2d project here, because it is much easier to create. I'll recommend a few game development tools, because they're easier for someone who doesn't have enough programming knowledge to make a game from scrath (me and you!).

http://rpgds.org - It's possible to make any type of game with this tool, but it's mostly geared toward RPGs. Right now, it's in the beta stages (Beta 3 comes out soon!), so there are a lot of bugs (Beta 2.5 right now). If you use Linux, email the lead programmer, Akuma, and he might send you a working copy (not the engine tho, because he's porting the engine from Direct3d to OpenGL) of RPGds Beta 3. You'll need to know how to program to use this tool. It's easy to learn though. The scripting language uses BASIC syntax.

Google for Game Maker - a well-known game maker. You can use it's click interface or learn GML (game maker langauge), which uses C++ syntax (I think..).

Thanks for the comments, and Im serious, not sarcastic.

Quote:Original post by thedevil
i think that your plot is a bit too large to handle.
after looking how long it was i dicided not to read it.
if you really want to make a game and you just want to be the creative leader or anything like that you should start getting people(artist, programmers ......) on board with your idea.
then see if the plot works out.

Well... Ummmm... I dont have my command prompt built yet. Im starting it, but I want to make sure the basic idea is good first. And please, if your not going to read my plot, dont jugde it.

A lot of people post the back story of their games, (about what happens before the game starts) but I think what happens during the game is the most important part of the story. If you want people to tell you what they think of your game, you should dwell more on that.

Thanks, I will.

Quote:Original post by Boku San
In response to Kelly G's comment...

Am I the only one who doesn't like backstories? I think that giving a backstory in writing is a "cheap" way to add imagined depth to a world, whether the aforementioned writing is a book, movie, other in-game object, or given by an NPC. I'm a Tarantino fan, and if you watch his movies, you'll notice that there's no backstory (but I couldn't bear to watch Jackie Brown and I have yet to see Hero, so...correct me if I'm wrong there), but you feel a genuine attachment to the characters.

Personally I've always found myself much more immersed in games that give a visual backstory, with clues indicated by the development of their world; although I no longer play the game, take the city Boomtown from City of Heroes. If you haven't played, the entire city is a destroyed mess -- and you don't need a backstory to guess what happened. If you dig deep enough, the game will let you FIND out what happened, just like with your local library that you never go to. I'll admit that though I've lived on Earth for most of my natural life, I'm not a scholar on its history. If somebody walks into my town covered in blood carrying weapons and various slimy things, I'll be a little bit reluctant to tell him about how my great-great-grandmother was actually her own niece and how that nearly destroyed the world 1000 years ago.

I dislike back stories when they're tacked on at the biginning to make sense of a seemingly inplausible situation. In these cases they are almost always told like you're reading a text book. In the context of a game, it's a lot like telling the player they have to eat a stale bran muffin before they can have a slice of that tasty looking chocolate cake.

However, if you look at films like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (since you did mention Tarantino), there is a very definate back story that unfolds during the course of the action. In Pulp fiction we have the various wheelings and dealings centered around Marsellus Wallace's soul, and the entrepreneurial failing of Brad and his friends. Kill Bill is primarily about the sordid history of the Black Viper Assassination Squad.

A back story is just like any other literary tool; if used properly it can be used to give shape and depth to a story. Used improperly, a back story can be used to cause much pain and discomfort in the audience, just like furry websites and kitten poetry (badly written or not).

Are you people telling me that my story should simply begin now, and that my characters should just sprout from the ground with no history or secrets to take over nothing? They wont find it all out at the begginning. Im just wondering if the plot is good, not if it is explained right... That made no sence. Well, reply with possitive feedback please.