Hey Veeky Forums, /v/ here

Hey Veeky Forums, /v/ here.

I'm in the process of making my own game and it's time to start crafting my story. I bought pic related because I've heard it's pretty good stuff and a lot of Bloodborne takes queues from it. What would be another book or series to read to help inspire me. Good story telling is acceptable as well since I don't know how to craft a story well.

It'd be more helpful if you tell us what the game is about/like.

...

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, the rare type of gothic fantasy written before Tolkien and is very unique as a result. Don't be discouraged by its difficulty, if you can read Crapcraft you can read him

Action adventure game. Technology around monster hunter level, with a high tech precursor race that lives in the clouds. World is built on a giant island that reaches towards the clouds called the steps of (name tbd). Some slight horror aspects in a couple areas. Emphasis on survival not so much like rust and things like that. Like a survival light with emphasis on surving the elements. Think like Lost Planet 1 snow gameplay. Large monsters and dungeon style game play. Think Monster Hunter + Xenoblade world building + lost planet survival style + dark souls/Witcher story telling.

Fallout: Equestria.

I've never even heard of it. Thank you for the recommendation. I'll look into it when I get home from work. Is Lovecraft considered bad or just overrated?

Another question. What makes a good story? Like how does one effectively tell a good story? I asked on /v/ and they said something about the human condition. I didn't understand what that meant.

Generally considered overrated, but definitely worth a read due to the impact he had on the horror genre, as well as a number of interesting stories. I especially liked The Color Out of Space and Herbert West: Reanimator, but there's plenty to like.

It seems you're after some dark fantasy and horror. is on the money with Gormenghast, and I'd say check out Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolf as well. It's technically Sci-Fi, but there are plenty of elements you'd enjoy. Horror-wise, Lovecraft will be enough to be getting on with (depending on how quickly you read, that's up to a month of material), but when you finish with him I'd check the Veeky Forums wiki (a good resource for good books in certain genres) or make another thread here.


What makes a good story is a bit of a tough question, but it sounds like what /v/ were driving at was the idea of having the main character's struggle be representative of an aspect of the struggle of being human. Hard to think of a videogame example for it, as I've not played a proper story based game in ages, but perhaps something like how Dark Souls is partially a story about humans being unable to prevent change forever, despite their best efforts to kindle the past.

Precursor race stories often have shades of that (if they're competent); the superadvanced precursor trope is basically a literal version of nostalgic views of 'the good old days'. Perhaps have shades of that?

It seems that /v/ are more preoccupied with themes than story though. In my opinion, for a game, the story should be very much focused on the character's journey (you cited Witcher as an inspiration, and that's part of what makes the Witcher so enjoyable). The player is going to be with the character throughout the game, so it's always best to try and keep the player in the character's mindset. Other than these general tips, it's hard to give tips on properly crafting a story, as what makes a good story is very delicate and down to personal taste. The best bet is to experience more stories and focus in on trying to work out what makes you enjoy them so much. perhaps give it a try with Witcher and Dark Souls, and see where you find yourself.

If you're making a game, the story should serve the gameplay, that's it. Nobody will give a fuck about how well "crafted" your plot is in a video game because it doesn't matter. Go back to /v/ now please.

Thank you so much for such a dedicated response. You're a god.

Thats the plan, brother. Gameplay design is the easy part for me, I'm inexperienced in story crafting though. You can have both a rich gameplay experience and story in a game.

Hey, no problem. I used to browse /v/ a lot, so I've seen a bunch of 'how do I make a game story threads', but you really seem to be going for it and genuinely want to learn. Best of luck with the game.

Thanks, man. It's the dream so I'm chasing it as hard and fast as I can

One last question. Are tropes a bad thing? You called precursors a trope

a more interesting sort of game, i think (and something i'd like to experiment with), is when the character informs/dictates the gameplay. the player still has choices to make -- these choices however affect what becomes possible or impossible in the future.

Tropes aren't necessarily bad, the term just refers to recurring themes across different works. Precursors have shown up in plenty of excellent fantasy and sci-fi, it's just a matter of executing the trope in your own way.

General rule of thumb is that if you include a trope and do it your own way, it isn't a problem. Tropes only become an issue when writers fall back on them as a crutch (e.g. lazy fantasy having elves, dwarves and orcs straight from the Tolkien mould). The only thing I'd be concerned about is making sure your precursors have a unique flavour to them. I don't necessarily mean that they should be super special unique people, just that they should fit the world and not feel like they're just there to be *insert precursor race here*. Basically do the preliminary stuff, and see if you're happy with how they turn out. You seem committed to it, so don't be intimidated. The only way to fail is to give up.

Clarification: when I say 'do the preliminary stuff' I mean set out what their society will be like, especially details that won't make it into the game. If you can get the background details set beforehand you'll be able to tweak them and then implement them consistently when you build the world (literally build it, I mean, in the engine).

I'm actually working with something similar to that with my game. They'll be cataclysm style events that can be induced by the player. Like raising or lowering the sea level, removing magic from the work and so on.

So I'm taking a trope I think and putting my own spin on it. Tell me what you think. There's a werewolf style virus or whatever that during certain times makes them beasts, but in turn gives them hyper intelligence. So the virus has been transferred to different species through out the world, meaning there is a separate society of all different species that have learned to speak and basically be sentient when they generally don't in the wild. Is that enough deviation?

that's grander scale than I meant, but that's cool.
what I'm interested in is something like: your actions affect the mood of your player, which determines which actions will be available to you in the future.
how are you making your game?
i can code fine but have been considering gamemaker so i just don't have to deal with boilerplate and gfx programming (which i know nothing about)
unity would be more of a 'useful' investment since i'd have to learn c#, but frankly it seems unnecessarily bulky for 2d games, and gamemaker seems quite good / streamlined.
like after all i want to make a game, not write a game engine at this point

Started of sounding quite BloodBorne-y, but quickly gained its own flavour. I like the hyper-intelligence twist and cross-species nature of the society. I'd oddly compare it to something like Eclipse Phase, with the virus taking the place of augmentations for humans and uplifting for animals.

It's a strong concept for a videogame fantasy society, and definitely feels like it's made to gel well with the gameplay and story. You have variety by having the virus affect multiple species and the ability to transition into horror when the game calls for it by having them transform into beasts, something that doubles as a good reason for their society being separated from regular human society.

We're using Unreal 4. I'd say if you're only doing 2D then stick with homemaker.

I'm glad you like it. I would also allow the player to contract the virus. Giving them benefits and stuff but having those times when the virus turns be really intense.

gamemaker* sorry about the auto correct, on my phone at work.

Dante's inferno and Dracula.

It's actually really encouraging the positivity you guys are throwing my way. I haven't put my idea on display for /v/ because I know they would shit on it like they do with everything.

island and precursor race reminded me of Melibonè, so I'm gonna rec you that. It's an saga but the books are short.

your gameplay idea sounds generic as fuck as you've described it. i hope you add stuff or actually make the combat interesting or whatsoever. it's not like it's hard to sell stuff like that, but i'd like to be able to play a game without having to call it utter shit for once in this decade. sorry if i'm shitting on it too hard, i know gameplay is a static thing inbetween games these days, but it still puts me off completely. if you want, give Sacrifice a try. the game has very interesting gameplay ideas. also, consider older crpgs with fucking shitload of spells, and complex spells system if you're going to add magic (basically, don't just add five generic spells like skyrim did)

also since i don't have a job and I'm a programmer, if you need anyone to write code, i'm willing to, even for free, since being bored as fuck is a bigger issue than money

I've put years of concepting into making sure the gameplay is a standout feature of the game. I know it sounds boring, but. I really have put in a lot of work refining and advancing my work. The magic system I can confidently say is nothing that has ever been done in a game before. The combat will be more similar to monster hunter than to dark souls or Witcher. Slow and complex combat is what I mean. We have our team pretty much set right now as far as coding goes, we need more artists than anything. I appreciate the offer and I sincerely thank you for the recommendations

>I haven't put my idea on display for /v/ because I know they would shit on it like they do with everything.
It's basically the same here when we actually try to talk about books.

I'm a booklet, but good luck OP, hope you make it

I think that's just what happens when you group up a bunch of people knowledgeable on a single subject. The differences in opinion become huge splits.

Thanks. I'll make sure to come dump some free copies here once we get into publishing.

what's your dev process been like? how many on the team?

If you're interested in Bloodborne and the ideas of dreamlands, you ought to look at one of Lovecraft's biggest inspirations, Lord Dunsany. You can get a good copy of the Tales of Wonder for like ten dollars, very worth it.