Is a game concept I've had in my head, much more abstract than the other game ideas I've put out... I call it April Fools.
(note, all the below are player driven actions)
April 1st
You wake up in an unfamiliar room. You don't have any memories. Pictures of a girl strewn about the walls, and a calendar with the date circled in red, APRIL 1ST. There's a closet in the room, in which you see clothes that float in the air. A cricket floats, suspended. After bringing the cricket out, the cricket dies. There's also a computer with a camera screen, showing a girl bound. You realize this must be in the same house. You find a syringe on the table, with a note that the effects should last until an hour from now.
You go over to the room and find the girl tied up, unable to see, unable to move, unable to speak, and sedated. She's naked except in her underwear. You free her. In an hour, the effects of the drugging wears off... She looks at you with shock and wonders where the hell she is, grabs a lead pipe and kills you.
April 1st 2.
You wake up in a room. You remember what happened. You're not dead, so naturally this is still April 1st. You decide to leave her there this time. You take the lead pipe and remove it from the room. You go outside. You buy some female clothing. You go back and put it on her. She wakes up and asks who you are. You tell her that you're trying to escape just like her. She believes you and starts to escape with you. Unfortunately, the only way out is through the sleeping room, and she starts to question who you are, and ultimately doesn't trust you and runs away from you. You spend the rest of the day looking over things, and sleep.
Okay, so as the game progresses, you start to figure out more about the strange town, the girl, and who you are. You'll begin a rapport with the girl. You need to dress her in different outfits to find out more about her, as clothing seems to rewrite what she's able to remember. Dressing her like a doctor will make her tell you about her father. Dressing her like a soldier will tell you about her boyfriend. The closet seems to not be affected by all this, but going inside is something you're too scared to do. The goal is to get past April 1st by getting to understand her, and once you do, April 2nd begins. The goal of each day is only outlined by a single word on the calendar. "Remembrance" for the first, "Everlasting" for the second. It's a pretty weird game that's inspired by Groundhog's Day, the movie.
You can see much less evil game designs at http://rosewoodgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2049
I like the idea actually, though it sounds like it would be pretty hard to write since you would have to go back and write the day over and over again from the sounds of it. But it would be interesting to play. Kind of reminds me of Cross Channel in way. Maybe you should check that game out if you have the chance if you want some inspiration on time repeating?
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing that game to me. I like the game idea but I'd rather toss it. The key thing about April Fools was that you'd get to tailor the girl's clothes and it would actually matter what she wore (through dialogue). Still, the game is eats content too quickly even if the game repeats... I probably won't do it because it'd be a little hard to foster a "harem" environment. (although it would be neat to discover that another girl was also repeating like you)
ReplyDeleteI guess partway through the game your character might notice some areas seem to change in random ways. Which would end up being some girl trying to find out what is going on and that would present an easy way to convey something about the world that might be tricky to draw or program since she would just have to tell you her experience instead of you going through it. Though I guess if you want stats in it you might have to have a certain amount of 'persuasion' in it or something. You could also throw some suprises at the player depending on how you use her; for instance she might have caught sight of how you treated one of the girls before one of the 'resets' and could spread confusion amongst the characters for a day or more. (depending on if you make it to the next day or not)
ReplyDeleteFor a harem I guess it would depend how you mean. If it is having a few girls on the cast and you get to choose one to develop with then that wouldn't be to hard, since as you slowly discover ways to make each day pass they would just remember that previous day. But if it was wanting to hook up with multiple girls at once the player would have to make it through the day while interacting with multiple girls, you could always think up downsides to this, like some girls don't get along in the first playthrough or something so there are cat fights or a minus to 'chance' going in your favor when you need to find something or do something (as having multiple hot girls would be distracting right?). It would also depend on how interactive you want the game to be, or seem to be I guess.
Anyways it seems like an idea that would have alot of potential to go alot of different ways and I like the clothes idea alot. But definitely only work on it if you feel up to it, nothing like starting a project and then running out of steam right?
I didn't have stats in mind for the game because the game is suppose to be sort of eternal. Things keep repeating. In "common sense", this means that the player would also be able to infinitely build upon himself without any restriction, it'd be very easy and boring to reach 99 persuasion. Maybe having some in story reason on why you don't have unlimited days would be good. Stats would lock parts of the game away from the player until he further advanced by building his character instead of plain thinking his way out in an adventure style. That said, stats are also a good thing, locking away parts of the game away also means that the game sequentially makes sense, the game would be about going back to parts of the game where you think your stat is high enough to proceed. (but that's a lot of guesswork)
ReplyDeleteAnd by Harem, I meant the modern usage of it in anime, like how AD2 has 5 girls for you to date, but singularly date (although threesomes are possible).
At first glance the game doesn't foster that type of environment because it's so focused on the main girl. I guess I could come up with some unique girls for this game though.
1- Main girl.
2- Girl that's also repeating.
3- Girl that dies that day. Can you save her?
4- (sigh) Random girl that you could "repeatedly" try to go out with.
But yeah, that's what being a budding game designer is, I just come up with these ideas, play them out in my head and see if it's any good. The whole sedated girl in the beginning, the repeating day is a very unique and mysterious game to play but ultimately I can't find a way to "one man show" the game. Interactive adventure puzzles are fucking hard to make. (stats do seem like a good alternative now, heh)
With hentai games I'd think the audience is pretty open to abstract ideas like this, after all they're playing a game before the hentai. But it's still hard to say, some people are just in it for the story aspect, and rightfully so, visual novels have a visual aspect and a novel aspect that neither porn nor erotica novel can provide at the same time. We're all waiting to see a hentai game with a great game behind it before the hentai (persona 4?)