1)
Elements:
non human characters
multiple characters
Title: We Could Make Such Nice Music Together
Characters Descriptions: Spheres that have inner music. Male spheres have one note and female spheres have two associated with it. If the chord that results from the two of them together is beautiful then we’ve found love.
Story Line : A young man finds love quickly but a tragic accident kills the love of his life. Having grown up believing that there is only 1 true love out there for any given individual – red string of fate idea. Years go by, decades even and he finally meets another girl. There music works but it’s slightly jarring. Both know but neither care to do anything about it having waited so long for this. They settle. The final scene is of them in a coffee shop and their perfect matches are only feet away from them.
2)
Elements:
Non human major character
events in non-linear order
Title: It’s a Dull World
Character Description: Characters are spheres with a single light bulb that represents each character’s self worth.
Story Line: We visit the main character seeing him from birth to death. At birth he is brilliantly glowing but through years of being pushed and prodded by those most close to him to do better, be better his light slowly begins to dim. Although his light dims with each attack, he doesn’t realize this until he reaches adulthood. One day he looks at himself, recognizes the damage caused and tries to build himself back up but at the end of his life the audience sees that even though his made major headway he was never able to fully get back to where he started.
Idea 1 – I like the idea of spheres and music, but I’m unsure how it would work with branching paths, especially when you already have an ending planned.
Idea 2 – Like idea 1, I have the same problem with seeing how choice and branching paths would work into this story. You put events occurring in non-linear order as a game element, but you didn’t write about how it will be used in the proposal.
Overall, however, I do like the ideas of both games and can see both ideas succeeding if you can get the player to deeply relate with the events that occur in the game.
For your first idea, I like the concept of finding your soulmate by striking the right ‘chord’ with them (although, in practice, this might mean that you would have a LOT of possible partners). However, although you define the characters as non-human spheres and they have some non-human qualities, the idea of settling for someone and missing your true love strikes me as uniquely human. Something needs to be done to separate it a bit more, in my opinion. Also, what choices would you make? It sounds like you already have a preset story and I’m not seeing where the choices are.
For your second idea, I like the way you want to incorporate events in non-linear order. But the concept is a little too abstract for me to grasp. What kind of choices would you be making? How exactly is it non-linear?
Hey this is Nathan,
I am more drawn to the 2nd Idea because I like the idea of defining the ever controversial and subjective “self worth”. The unobtainable goal of rebuilding yourself completely, however may discourage the chance for players to get into what it means to make amends and to right their wrongs. I do see a very engaging and conceptually deep narrative opportunity in It’s a Dull World.
Idea 1 – There is a nice story here but it is not a visual or textual one. I would love to be able to hear these chords and notes somehow. Perhaps the story is matching these notes and finding the paris that you enjoy. Can you please everyone or do some pairs fall short for the sake of more beautifully matched ones?
Idea2 – This would be very visual indeed. The inner strength could change. It is weakened at the stat but changes color and intensity as the character recovers. They find a new light with old scars from the past.
Both concepts are interesting.
I don’t really see the reason why the characters in both stories are spheres. They are all essentially human and somehow there sphere-y quality needs to have a purpose more than what’s internal. It has to be played up in some way instead of just acting human.
I think the storyline for your first idea is the most intriguing of the two. I like the idea of creating a relationship between love and music through this ambiguous characters. You should take into consideration using sound to actual convey the “true love” and “simply companionship” relationships that are experienced throughout the story. I would like to know more about the user choices will be for this particular story: it sounds like all paths will end in the same way, but I would like to know more about the possible ways to wind up at that ending.
I definitely prefer your second idea. While I think the first has some interesting qualities, I don’t find it quite as interesting as the second. It seems as though there would be very little freedom in it, as the story is basically already predetermined. The second idea however has some opportunities for choices to impact the story. Perhaps some choices can lessen/increase the damage done to the character’s self worth, while others affect situations that the characters find itself in.
The first idea is really intriguing, but I think it might be difficult to express it properly in a CYOA form. You wouldn’t be able to ‘mix and match’ the spheres, and the narrative seems like it would be a mostly linear narrative.
The second idea also has potential, but in its current form it seems like it would be a linear narrative. Perhaps the player could be able to influence the brightness of his light by picking more positive actions? That could go against the point of the idea, however.