Our Game

This is my first post here on the blog. I’ll try to be semi-interesting.

Just got off the phone with Ryan, and I’m not sure where the concepts came from but we had some interesting ideas.

Ryan and I have been getting a kick out of reading the super-harsh reviews over at www.actionbutton.net, particularly the ones by Tim Rogers. Ryan brought up the idea of how Secret of Evermore is a game built around the format of a JRPG, but without a JRPG template. And that pretty much fits. I remember playing SoE when I was a kid, and thinking about how cool it was that you combined different items to create some kind of magic (alchemic) effect. It was a pretty unique system, albeit the rest of it was pretty much a Secret of Mana clone.

But SoE doesn’t follow the normal tropes of a JRPG, you’re not some kid who has a destiny to save the world. You’re just trying to get home with your shapechanging dog from a corrupt virtual reality environment based on the imaginations of four creepy scientists.

Anyway, Ryan and I have been talking about simplifying our design ideas. We’ve been asking the question of “What elements are essential to an RPG and what aren’t?” and using that to come up with a basic list.

So far we have menu based combat and some kind of leveling system.

So I posed this question: If we’re going to throw away the small story we’ve written so far, and just go as basic as possible then we might as well just dial the simplicity up to eleven and make the game as elemental as can be. Specifically… lets make a story about something everyday or common. No save-the-world, no related-to-the-antagonist protagonist, no peppy female sidekick.

But lets avoid going into the artsy. Lets make a legitimate rpg, something playable. Something Cloverfield-esque, with a story that takes place that doesn’t involve the characters except by proxy. Where the events of the story are a background to the objectives of the characters themselves.

And this may be crazy-talk, but lets do it without text.

Seriously, can it be done? An RPG with no text? Maybe with a menu-based combat system with icons, emotional scenes communicated through simple music, antagonists and protagonists that have clear objectives without needing the hand-holding of a tutorial, level-design that directs the characters from point A to B clearly?

I think its achievable. The human brain processes a vast amount of visual data. The portion of the brain devoted to smell on a dog is enormous compared to a human’s because smell is a canine’s primary means of detecting stimulus. On humans it is eyesight. We’re not eagles, but our eyes are the best sensory organ we have. And from childhood we’ve been trained in basic pattern recognition (stoves are hot, stop at red lights, door knobs twist). It’s not inconceivable to make an RPG where clear animation and music communicate a story, and the combat can be represented through iconography.

Ryan also wanted to make the main-characters squirrels.

- Your character wakes up in a vat of goo. The setting is mildly sci-fi, kind of like a mad scientists lab. Your character (we’ll call him Jimmy, cause that’s a funny name), Jimmy, is in his prime, 20’s or something. He’s nekkid, strong, and totally confused [brackets indicate explanations or developer's notes or something: a confused character is a perfect proxy for the player. He doesn't understand the world, doesn't know anybody, etc. Maybe we'll make him mute also. That'll eliminate the need for dialogue trees and thingz].

Jimmy has to find/fight his way out of this underground lab/labryinth. Inanimate objects are attacking him for some reason.

He exits through a hidden door in the study of a mansion. There’s no humans in sight, but random objects continue to attack Jimmy. Throughout the house and lab there are clues to what’s going on. He sees lots of research on cloning and aboveground sees newspapers and things. He can’t leave the house, because it keeps saying “You have a strong feeling that there are still clues to your existence in the house.” Jimmy sees a huge TV/Theater thingy. When he turns it on, its on the news and he starts to find out a little about what’s going on.

On the screen he sees… Himself. [At this point, I'm just coming up with stuff] There’s a news report about Jimmy #2 being the leader of this huge cult. They’re currently in a standoff with police in some compound. They’re live webcasting some arcane ritual that they’re performing that will… do something bad. [on second thought, this might be way too much this early. Maybe the player should find out that Jimmy is a clone later on in the game].

Jimmy leaves the house and is fairly in the middle of nowhere. Still, trees and bushes and rocks and things are attacking him. There are several different paths that he can take through the wilderness, but only one direction.

He finally arrives in a town. The police see him and instantly arrest him, “We’ve been looking for you.” etc… [they're mistaking him for the dude he's cloned from].

They dump him in a jail cell. In the adjacent cell is your first party member [no details yet]. You guys escape. [that's it so far]

GAME MECHANICS aka TRICKS:

- The player doesn’t level up, he levels down. Something about the cloning method has him rapidly aging, and almost detoriorating. Maybe he becomes wiser, so he can use skills [hereon called tricks]. Jimmy has to rely on his party members, who do level up, to have a powerful party.

- Enemies are visible before fighting, they wander around and chase after you when close. Also, most battles are story related, there are small areas that you have to walk through that have things that are dangerous.

My friend Chaz and I are trying to make a game. Really, any game. We’ve floundered a bit on the type of game and story and such, but we think we’re kind of on track now. My idea is to use this blog to go through the development of the game (if we ever finish it). At any rate, it might be mildly interesting to someone other than ourselves and might help us organize our thoughts.