Game Project Update: The Storyline.

Since I had a little time to sit back and think non-stressful thoughts that might aggravate my fever (heh, more aggravating actually), I had time to play some of the 1001-or-so downloaded games I’ve haven’t had the chance to play. On the top of my list was Aveyond. I had always wanted to try it out but only recently I’ve cracked a full-version file out of it.

Aveyond isn’t a new game nor was it made with any high-tech type of game engine. It was made in ye’olde RMXP, released last year by Amaranth Games, a sequel to a previous free-to-download project, Ahriman’s Prophecy.

I’ve played the older, free-to-download game ages and ages ago and though the gameplay was good, the storyline was nothing super, just the average linear concept. But Aveyond was something different. Not patient enough to take the game on the scenic play, I opened the spoiler guide to read the rest of the storyline.

Heh.

Oh, come on. It’s not cheating when I just want to know what things play out. Look, I’m just skimming through the plot puzzles, the NPC facts, the... er, okay, I’m cheating. So might as well get it all out and say that I cheat at a lot of PC games. If the game I’m playing has no cheat codes, I’ll look for a trainer. If I ever had the chance to get a PS3, I’ll buy Gameshark port as well.

All and all, I don’t play games for the gameplay (which is a sin not to enjoy gameplay, a blasphemy should my buddies in GW heard me). Instead, I like games for the storyline.

Cheat codes help me breeze through the game so I won’t have to spend so much time on it, thus enabling me to proceed with other games and more new games in the least amount of time. There’s no shame in being a game whore.

Which brings us back to Aveyond. It’s not the game itself that make me decide to adjust the storyline of my own game project, Unlocking Pandora, but it was the deciding factor. A lot of the better games had been chosen by the public as best-to-play have multiple endings segments. Like the visual novels Tsukihime and Fate Stay Night. Heh, even free Flash Games comes in multiple endings (see my previous entry, Other Age).

My game is divided into 4 chapters; Act I, Act II, Act III and Act IV. Storywise, the entire project is done, right down to the words uttered by aimlessly working NPC (non-playable-characters) in the villages/outpost/seaport/mouldy cave.

But since I wanted to convert it into a more choice-based oriented plot, this is going to take a lot of thinking. Especially since I’ve already cemented halfway through Act I. Fortunately, I don’t think it’ll be anything too dramatic.

Though the game focuses on my female protagonist, there are other characters that will play equally important roles in the plot; thus, deserving of their individual endings. So depending on player choices in certain situation, frequent use of that character in battle and/or tasks and so on and so on, the final Epilogue will be of the most chosen supported character’s ending.

This is going to be a major challenge since I’ve created nine characters (including the protagonist) which mean I’ll have to outline ten endings, an extra as the chief ending. I think I can pull this off from theory to coding. I don’t think it’s going to dramatically prolong the work either.

Ooo, some of the GW-ers is going to squeeze milk-money out of this one. I once proclaimed to the forum boards at large that I’ll never do a multiple-ending type game (due to it’s being an overused concept).

But as this is a case of Classic-Not-Generic, I must bow to the tried-and-true reason. I just wish I didn’t like it so much.