I am making an RPG/Adventure campaign heavily based on dialogues, cinematic, mini-games and original NPCs. No leveling up or fighting at all, the game is focused on something that rarely or never presents in usual RPGs or strategies. Two gigantic maps are already done, tons of dialogues and quest ideas done too. However, since I am far from a professional map-maker, implementing some ideas takes a lot of time. I cannot evaluate how much it will take me to finish this campaign (if it finishes ever at all), but surely not less than 2-3 years (maybe less if some people will agree to help with testing). However every finished map, even not tested really well, will appear here (do not expect it too soon though).
World
Campaign takes place on some far away planet inhabited by humans, orcs and many other minor races. About 2,000 years ago, after industrialization, humans and orcs built up two empires fighting each other for many ages. 50 years ago piece treatment finally was sealed, and old enemies united into a single empire which quickly started expanding through the planet. Everything went well for The Empire until its borders touched the elves who before have never had any contacts with humans or orcs. Elves surprisingly proved to be able to hold The Empire's expansion and even drove them back a bit. At this moment the main story starts.
Story
Human captain among thousands others arrives in an encampment at the border of elves. Soon his life will change significantly. I must say right now that, though the very following events remind the ones of the movie Avatar (captain is taken as a prisoner by elves and soon starts liking them), it is only for a while since soon elves will be conquered by the Empire and the captain will have to run away from The Empire, not alone of course, but with his new elven girlfriend. Then they travel between different countries and islands, exploring - this is the main part of the campaign and the very reason of why I decided to make it.
Features
- Many-many dialogues and cinematic with original NPCs (among which are crab-nerd, grunt with some... eh... toilet problems, skeleton-actor who is looking for a skeleton-girlfriend, lava-elemental who wants to become water-elemental and so on).
- Logical tasks and mini-games all around - I promise that there will be not a single quests of common "Bring me something" or "Kill an evil beast and I will give you $500". The campaign is generally very peaceful, there will be very few times when you actually have to kill.
- Infinity of external musics and sounds. I use only the ones I can find on Youtube so that there is no rights violation, and there are really many of them: almost every NPC will have some musical theme associated with him. The maps will be heavy on size, but it is a single-player campaign so, I think, it is OK.
Undecided
- I am not sure whether to use or not the multiple choices dialogue system, as in Dragon Age, for example. I wonder if the campaign actually needs it and it will take 3 or 4 times more to write dialogues then.
- It is difficult to decide if it is better to use many small maps, rather than few, but gigantic maps. Small maps are easier to test and faster to load, but I already have 3 created gigantic (maximum size allowed in the WE) maps with a lot of doodads, units and buildings.
- I liked the Bioware style of DLCs so I think about making also many mini-maps with short stories of some NPCs. Will people be really interested in this? I do not know if I will.
Problems
- The main problem is my English. It is not bad I hope, but it is impossible to avoid some mistakes and uncertainties.
- It takes really long to create so many texts and NPC biographies. Usually game developer companies have many writers working who's main job is to write the texts, and I am trying to do all this alone. So I may give up one day, I admit.
- I am afraid that the result of the work will more or less resemble a book rather than a game. So many texts and cinematic are nice, but how much time will be left for an actual gameplay? Already the starting cinematic of the 1st level takes about 7 minutes to finish, and one of usual conversations, while being reach on events, takes more than 10 minutes.
So this is an announce and, you know, many announces remain announces forever, so I cannot promise anything. Any tips, suggestions will be appreciated, especially ideas for original mini-games, NPCs or quests. Interesting triggers to work this.
Special thanks to RDZ who's maps inspired me to start working on it. You are the best!
World
Campaign takes place on some far away planet inhabited by humans, orcs and many other minor races. About 2,000 years ago, after industrialization, humans and orcs built up two empires fighting each other for many ages. 50 years ago piece treatment finally was sealed, and old enemies united into a single empire which quickly started expanding through the planet. Everything went well for The Empire until its borders touched the elves who before have never had any contacts with humans or orcs. Elves surprisingly proved to be able to hold The Empire's expansion and even drove them back a bit. At this moment the main story starts.
Story
Human captain among thousands others arrives in an encampment at the border of elves. Soon his life will change significantly. I must say right now that, though the very following events remind the ones of the movie Avatar (captain is taken as a prisoner by elves and soon starts liking them), it is only for a while since soon elves will be conquered by the Empire and the captain will have to run away from The Empire, not alone of course, but with his new elven girlfriend. Then they travel between different countries and islands, exploring - this is the main part of the campaign and the very reason of why I decided to make it.
Features
- Many-many dialogues and cinematic with original NPCs (among which are crab-nerd, grunt with some... eh... toilet problems, skeleton-actor who is looking for a skeleton-girlfriend, lava-elemental who wants to become water-elemental and so on).
- Logical tasks and mini-games all around - I promise that there will be not a single quests of common "Bring me something" or "Kill an evil beast and I will give you $500". The campaign is generally very peaceful, there will be very few times when you actually have to kill.
- Infinity of external musics and sounds. I use only the ones I can find on Youtube so that there is no rights violation, and there are really many of them: almost every NPC will have some musical theme associated with him. The maps will be heavy on size, but it is a single-player campaign so, I think, it is OK.
Undecided
- I am not sure whether to use or not the multiple choices dialogue system, as in Dragon Age, for example. I wonder if the campaign actually needs it and it will take 3 or 4 times more to write dialogues then.
- It is difficult to decide if it is better to use many small maps, rather than few, but gigantic maps. Small maps are easier to test and faster to load, but I already have 3 created gigantic (maximum size allowed in the WE) maps with a lot of doodads, units and buildings.
- I liked the Bioware style of DLCs so I think about making also many mini-maps with short stories of some NPCs. Will people be really interested in this? I do not know if I will.
Problems
- The main problem is my English. It is not bad I hope, but it is impossible to avoid some mistakes and uncertainties.
- It takes really long to create so many texts and NPC biographies. Usually game developer companies have many writers working who's main job is to write the texts, and I am trying to do all this alone. So I may give up one day, I admit.
- I am afraid that the result of the work will more or less resemble a book rather than a game. So many texts and cinematic are nice, but how much time will be left for an actual gameplay? Already the starting cinematic of the 1st level takes about 7 minutes to finish, and one of usual conversations, while being reach on events, takes more than 10 minutes.
So this is an announce and, you know, many announces remain announces forever, so I cannot promise anything. Any tips, suggestions will be appreciated, especially ideas for original mini-games, NPCs or quests. Interesting triggers to work this.
Special thanks to RDZ who's maps inspired me to start working on it. You are the best!
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