FutureFragments
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DATABANK CLARIFICATION
🕑 Added 2015-03-04 06:27:38 +0000 UTC To clarify something by the way, as Barreytor asked me about the “Databank” text and what it means to get added to it, I wrote this out in an email to him and I figured it’d be good to post it here so you’d all be in the loop, too. As far as getting added to the databanks, basically if you’ve ever played Dark Souls or a TCG, think about the text that accompanies weapons or items, except here it would be a bit longer chunk of text and it would be in the form of computer terminals in each stage. These terminals are not all in a direct path, so unless you go off the main path, you will miss a good deal of them. So for example, something like this might be something you run into on the fire level, warning the player of an upcoming enemy that would hypnotize them as an attack; -------------- "…the researchers guaranteed that the demonic DNA wasn’t volatile, again and again. Upon arriving at the laboratory however, the signs of destruction were unmistakeable; they couldn’t be allowed to continue. As soon as I attempted to connect to my supervisors however, I was immediately paralyzed by those… eyes. They stared at me with such fervor that I was helpless to retaliate. I don’t know what technology or ungodly science they’ve brought to the table, but something very, very wrong was going on here, and now, I’m powerless to stop it. I soon passed out afterwards, waking up in this jail cell. I’ve been unconscious for who knows how long, and while they thankfully didn’t confiscate my PDA, I fear no one will see what I write here. By then, it may even be too late. I can feel the exhaustion of starvation setting in, so I must conserve my energy to live, live in the hopes that someone will come. If there are no more entries beyond this one, you’ll know my fate. -Junior Researcher, Barreytor” -------------- I’d also have things where I’d get everyone’s text from various levels, and then build a fleshed out connection from them. For example, let’s say someone (in this case, I’ll use my own name) wanted to be one of the evil scientists; I might tie in a line in that text above, where it would now say; -------------- "I soon passed out afterwards, waking up in this jail cell. Hentaiwriter was my personal guard; they assigned him to me as he knew me best, both of us being from the same facility back during our undergraduate days. I’m not sure how they got to him; he used to be the most moral student in the class… are they doing mindwipes at that facility as well?" -------------- And then later on you’d read in say, the Electricity level, something like this. -------------- "EXG-5000 DIRECTORY LOGS; LAST LOG RECORDED 60 DAYS AGO Factory supervisor’s log, supplemental. Submitting a request to the manufacturing team for additional parts for the EXG-5000; we apparently need to upgrade our security functions and the overall durability of the machine’s S-MRI, as both have been severely compromised. Until now, mindwiping and re-programming the grunts has been a simple task, the procedure taking only minutes apiece, as you know. However, a particularly troublesome subject, going by the name “HentaiWriter”, had a superhuman level of resistance to the process as a whole. We burned through nearly a year’s worth of fuel just attempting to grind down his ego’s resistance; I admittedly take responsibility for letting my own ego get the best of me and increasing the machine beyond its limits, which contributed to the damage as well. Regardless, we need faster cycles and stronger heatsinks if we’re going to burst down the resistance of troublesome anomalies like these in the future. After submission of these logs, I’ll be deactivating this unit until further repair. Do NOT under any circumstances turn it on; it appears the device might have taken on some of the aspects of this anomalous grunt’s psyche…” -------------- Therefore explaining just WHY “HentaiWriter” decided to help out in jailing his good friend back in college, as you read back in the Fire level. Additionally, this would lead as a segue into that stage’s boss possibly (which isn’t decided on yet, but it would be cool if it was a big ass machine!) The databanks will also have a bit of backstory into the game’s social state and why things are going on the way they are, so forth. So if you wanted to get your name in the game’s storyline/databanks like this (you get to request what kind of role you'd have in the story too, and I'll try my best to oblige it), it’s only $15 on the Patreon and it only takes one pledge of that. After it’s went through once, you never have to pledge anything to us again AND you’ll get a free copy of the game too of course :)Comments
The Future Fragments Team
Oh I dont ever say anything to sugarcoat it or be nice, im just saying it honestly :)
Studio Danza
Confidence without results is arrogance. I can't allow myself such weaknesses. Thanks for saying that though, I know you're trying to be nice. :')
The Future Fragments Team
That's fine, I understand :P gotta have more confidence in yourself though!
Studio Danza
Cool, that does make sense. I guess I just have this deep-rooted personal philosophy to reduce word count to the absolute minimum required to deliver a message. I always assume nobody wants to read my shit, so I make it a point to always slash words. XD I could see myself enjoying reading the sort of backstory datalogs/banks which you're describing.
The Future Fragments Team
This is going to be a rather serious game as far as the backstory goes, yes; it's set in a dystopian future where humanity isn't doing so well, and a lot of crazy shit is regulated for actually scientific and logical reasons (logical as in, ignoring social norms and a lot of other shit). That said, I'm not going to just make this some generic thing with no explanation as to what's going on with this, but yes, each databank entry will be this wordy, possibly slightly less at times. Additionally, note that people are paying $15 a pop for this; I don't want to write just some one line entry and shoo them away, I want to give people their money's worth, so my interests as a writer (and storyteller) and wanting to give people their money's worth coincided great here :P There will be a storyline based reason for many things in the game that are generally glossed over in h-games or hand-waved, like WHY all the creatures and enemies in the game want to fuck Talia. That said, the actual *gameplay* and *main story* will not be depressing, and in fact pretty cartoony, if anything. There's a lot of stories and games out there where, on a surface level, if the player doesn't actively choose to go into the backstory of the game, it's pretty upbeat, lighthearted, action hero shonen type stuff. But then if the player chooses to delve into the backstory of things, things become pretty insane. This is going to be one of those games. So as a player you have two choices; 1) Play the game normally, like a MegaMan/Metroid game, kick enemy butt, Talia gets fucked, go against challenging platform sequences and bosses, and ignore almost all of the backstory/story in general, and still enjoy the game just fine. 2) Do all of the above, except you actually also seek out the Databanks, finding the backstory of the game and finding out exactly *why* the world got into the state it's in, *why* there are enemies all wanting to fuck Talia's brains out, *why* these sci-fi artifacts are just lying around in random places, and so forth. There's going to be around 20 databanks a level, and probably 70% of those will be off the beaten path. You don't need to access any of them to get any given ending in the game; all endings are possible without looking at a single one. I like dialogue, intertwining backstory, and universe building in my games, porn or otherwise; there's a reason I chose to call my NSFW alias "HentaiWriter" :P Realizing that not everyone else will like that kind of stuff though, we built the game so that these things are optional, and not a requirement to enjoy the game or beat it. Also not sure what you mean about "hollow dialogue" or "empty lines"; all the text I had there would be things that were relevant. I do my writing with a boatload of Chekhov's guns; if I mention it in writing, it's relevant to the story or gameplay nearby, or will be at some point during the game. So yeah, hope that clarifies it more.
The Nanomatic
Oh, well this clears up a lot. I was hesitant to commit to a single theme because I thought my idea was too far "out there". Unless it is. 'o'
Studio Danza
Cool idea, though I would hope the texts won't be as wordy as these examples. Unless you're telling like a really heavy story, with some real shit themes, it's really nasty to be throwing empty lines in the reader's face. I absolutely hate it when games (ie. Mario&Luigi: Dream Team) which have absolute joke stories keep flooding hollow dialog on the screen. I don't know how serious you're planning to make this game, so I won't say which way you should go. This is my honest opinion though.
The Future Fragments Team
well it's much appreciated! :D
Patchorse
Sounds pretty darn cool and has convinced me to spend more money! :D
