Plot Direction

The village building, exploration, and combat are all aspects of the game that I'm developing and concerned about getting right. But the plot will be the defining asset in the game's playability and re-playability. Our project recently acquired a new writer who has been pitching some great ideas that will be really fun to hash out. Because of him we're now ready to take on the onus of a branching plot structure where the player can embark on three different story lines.

The story so far has the player character escaping from his albeit video game cliche life of lab rat. When his escape fails and he finds himself trapped on the fragmenting crust of a dying world, suddenly a multi-planar organism reaches out and saves him from his demise. This ethereal being a "godlike" entity places him in the safe haven of the unconnected, unexplored forest world of Ellia, and charges him with creating a novel series of broad reaching events, with the express purpose of entertaining the bored hyper-powerful denizens of the spirit plane. The player explores Ellia and finds the village. While the villagers are first distrustful the player quickly proves his superior intelligence and leadership capabilities by streamlining the village structure and fighting off a small incursion of destructive and invasive alien beasts. In the large forbidding Manse or mansion on the outskirts of the village, a relic of a once powerful species of extra-world interlopers, the player finds the means to travel back and forth between the worlds. Here the player's path diverges, he can seek out and destroy the organization that experimented on him, he can try to reconnect with the history he lost when he became a lab rat, or he can set out on a path of universal domination to install himself in the opulent crux of omni-world supremacy. This last path will be more difficult and require substantial knowledge of the game mechanics and superior strategies. All the while completing the story behind each new world and directives from his supernatural benefactor.  The three paths are still in development and are likely to change, but for now they're the way we're going. Though the paths are mutually exclusive there is still room for player choice within each path.

Player story choice within each prime gameplay path takes place at each world where the player must decide how they want to complete the mini-story that is each campaign. These stories within each campaign will be decided by talk options and strategic options like where the player directs their army and when. The "normal" talk options will always be available but some talk options can only be selected by passing the right personalty checks. The main character's personalty is slowly decided by the minor decisions the player makes throughout the game. Unlocking some talk options will require that the player be acerbic, overly assertive, and generally douche baggy attitude while others will require a slightly more charismatic angle. The player can improve the main's character personalty over time but instead of starting at neutral he will start with sort of a bastard bent. I've always had the most fun playing over the top only in a video game obnoxious characters so I feel that's how the protagonist should start, sort of between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. With the decisions the player makes in game he can become even more of a bastard or approach the slightly more tolerable range. I might throw in a little something for the people who love to play as the goody-two shoes but he'll probably stay pretty much a jerk. I hope this will prove to be a really memorable fun character to play as and hopefully our new writer can reign me in when I get too over the top.