Re: GAME IDEA

[GP <EnderWiggenRules@aol.com>]

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In a message dated 3/11/01 3:51:29 PM Central Standard Time, 
tom@thewebb.screaming.net writes:


> Her father has been seeking her ever since she left and finally finds the 
> monastery, bursting in he pushes aside the monks and searches the place, 
> eventually finding his daughter he grabs her arm drags her out to find that 
> she has had a heart attack from hear, the tough and resourcefull girl he 
> once knew could not take seeing her own father. As she falls to the floor 
> he smashes up the room, the monks flee from him as he storms out. He temper 
> is not stemmed when he finds he camp burned to the ground and his men slain 
> by the legion, now he wants revenge.



VERY interesting idea. Storyline is very important, and this (or something 
like this or at least as detailed) could serve as a good premise. As for the 
issue of offending audiences, I think that we could handle it in such a way 
that wouldn't be controversial. Perhaps we could make it so that the 
character is both angelic and demonic in nature throughout the course of the 
story (perhaps start very evil, then some sort of realization, and all of a 
sudden, poof, the bad guy turns into a good guy) Few examples from the past:
       - Yeah, yeah, I know I'm too old for this, but I'm a Starcraft freak 
(NO I am NOT EnderWiggen1 on Battle.net, though I did beat him once). I just 
got Brood War and I am currently enjoying the Terran campaign. Well, the 
thing I enjoyed about the first, original Starcraft was the change in 
viewpoints. I distinctly remember that while I was playing the Zerg campaign, 
I was obsessed with killing the Protoss. However, as viewpoints shifted and I 
started controlling the Protoss, all I wanted to do was defend against the 
Zerg. The game was very successful in this; while I was the "evil" Zerg, I 
could easily play the role, then as I became the "good" Protoss, it was still 
very fun. Just a very good example of a platform that uses an evil and 
twisted viewpoint that is very effective and not offensive. It is also nice 
that you can be both good and evil, to your preference.
       - I remember this really really old RPG game from the early 90s. 
Unfortunately, I don't remember the name. However, it did have an interesting 
feature: you could choose if you were good or evil at the start, and you 
could even specify the degree of goodness/evilness. This choice would affect 
how characters responded to you, how hard magic spells were for you 
(depending on whether it was "Light" or "Dark" magic), and how the story 
would pan out. Another interesting feature is that a good character could 
easily become evil or vice versa. In this game, such things were determined 
on how much you gambled/saved, what sort of magic spells you used most, and 
other factors. I was very impressed at the complexity of the story line, and 
I would get a different story every time I played it, depending on how good 
or evil my character turned out to be. That must have been a lot of work.

These are just a few examples of games that have both good and evil 
viewpoints. It is possible to write a game that is not offensive, even though 
the point of view could be evil. However, it is also possible to write a game 
that incorporates both good and evil into the character. Those games are most 
fun for me to play, though it does make more work for me as a programmer.

-Ender Wiggin
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