Concept The Lost Scrolls of Angard

[Helen1701]

You wake up and head out to work on the farm, when you arrive, your boss says that the Mayor has called a town meeting. You then go to the town hall and attend the meeting where it is explained that overnight, the Museum has been broken into and the Sacred scrolls have been stolen. After the meeting you talk to the Mayor and he explains that the townspeople thousands of years ago believed that the Scrolls came from the Divine Realm, and that as such an important part of history, it is imperative that they are found. You offer to go find them.

 

After searching, it becomes apparent that the scrolls are not to be found anywhere in town, so you go back to the Mayor and tell him that. He concludes then that the scrolls must be elsewhere, and that because it is dangerous to leave town unarmed, you're given a bow and arrows, a shield and a sword. You can then head out into the world.

 

I plan to have 50 individual scrolls hidden in various places across the map, some in dungeons, some in mines, houses, forests...etc.

 

When you find all 50 scrolls, the mayor rewards you with a medal for services to the town and the game ends with you and your friends having a beer in the local tavern.

 

Economy - Coins can be earned by either finding them inside chests, are dropped by killing certain enemies, or you can sell renewable goods from your inventory in shops. Coins can be spent on arrows, health potions, and maybe buying a horse.

 

During your travels you meet a few sentient creatures you never knew actually existed, like Unicorns, Dragons, Elves and Fairies.

 

Edit: I think it might be a good idea for some scrolls to be hidden not just on the normal overworld, but also hidden in the overworlds of the near and distant past, and the near and distant future, in addition to some on other planets altogether. I have been giving it some thought, and maybe there could be a companion NPC who is an alien. He is helping to save the scrolls, because without you going back in time your civillization never existed, and without your civillization there wouldn't be a Galactic Empire spanning half the galaxy by his time. By helping you save your world, he is helping to save his own.

 

The culprit who stole the scrolls is an evil alien from the future who wants to rule the galaxy, and he can only do so by ripping the heart out of the Galactic Empire and preventing our survival as a species. Fortunately, this is resolved when you teach your distant ancestors how to irrigate their crops from the local river (being a farmer you know all about this). But it does create a temporal paradox.... how were you taught if the bronze age people were not before that point?

 

Basically you and the alien stop the evil alien, and recover the hidden scolls.

 

So... does this sound like a good concept for a game?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Helen1701
Adding more information

[Weylon Santana]

My personal opinion: I didn't like it.

But stay tuned to what I said: "personal opinion".

 

What I really believe is that no one can say it's a good concept or a bad concept, maybe that's why there were no answers so far.

 

The concept should also be shown with graphics, ideas already implemented, so that it can generate interest, in this game area, the book is usually judged by its cover.  You are giving the contents of the book, but not the cover.

 

Having said that, whether or not it's a good concept, nobody knows, people will give an opinion based on what they like or dislike, not necessarily your concept is bad, but it also doesn't mean it's good.

 

How it all fits together is mainly visually what will shape people's opinions.

 

But emphasizing here again in "my opinion"

I believe it's something totally meaningless, alien if it wanted to take over the earth, he would destroy everything, he wouldn't take some scrolls, and if he stole it, why are they scattered all over the place and worlds?  And if there's going to be time travel, why don't you travel to before the scrolls are stolen and kill the alien?  That way your game would end in 1 min.

 

And about end game

If you're talking about a single player, that's fine, but multiplayer games can't end

If it finishes, the player will not stay any longer and will give up your game, and the success of his game will depend on the amount of player + amount of time you can hold them online + content + visuals + sounds/musics

[Helen1701]

It's intended as a traditional single player RPG adventure, so it would make sense for it to have an end point. If I was designing a multiplayer it would have to go on forever otherwise all but one player would end up not being able to finish and it would just be broken.

 

I have not included graphics in my post because... I don't yet have enough to properly show you. I am only just completing the insides of my first house, and I am yet to discover how to insert NPCs and create dialog with them. I am a complete newbie to game development and I have never tried anything like this before. I'm designing all my own graphics from scratch so as things develop further, I will be able to post some into this thread.  All I have so far to actually show is my general idea.

 

I think it took so long for anyone to respond because my post was not approved until yesterday, I think the mods probably wanted me to add a bit more information before they approved it, unless it just takes them a few days sometimes, I don't know how often they're online because I've only been here for a week or so.

 

My plot: Okay, maybe it has some holes I need to fill, but it doesn't have to be totally believable. For example, nobody believes it is possible for people to carry monsters in balls around in their pocket, but pokemon fans suspend their disbelief so they can enjoy the games. In Zelda, Ganon keeps resurfacing just to cause destruction to Hyrule and spite the Royal Family, one would think he would give up already, but without that unlikely plot device there would be no need for Link and therefore no story and no games. Star Trek fans know full well that it is impossible to travel at faster than light speed, but we again suspend our disbelief because otherwise the Starship Enterprise would go nowhere and there would be no story. People suspend disbelief every time they encounter a work of fiction, whether that fiction be in a game, in a book, or on TV.

 

Now, I have been thinking about the plot some more, and I can have the scrolls contain special magic powers of some kind that affect the timeline. So, if they're stolen and taken out of Angard and out of the time when they should be.... it causes temporal paradoxes like our species never developing beyond Bronze age, unless of course we go back in time, reclaim the scroll, and teach the locals how to irrigate their crops. Of course, people in the present time don't know that, they just think that the scrolls are some kind of old religious document from a bygone era steeped in ignorance and superstition. The evil alien basically disrupts the timeline by putting the scrolls in specific places (magic points) at specific points in the timeline according to HOW they alter time. Some of the scrolls are also hidden in the Future, one in Angard village in the distant future where there is nothing left but a few ruins of the houses you knew (Ruins are just outside an enormous futuristic City also called Angard which wasn't there in your original time). The special magic points on the map are only visible when the good alien picks them up on his scanning device, and these are the places where the scrolls are. But you still have to fight monsters in dungeons to actually get the scrolls.

 

Does this make more sense now?

[Beefy Kasplant]

Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but generally, a good story follows the rules set in universe. 

 

Sure, Ash carries monsters in a ball in his backpack, but if he would suddenly gain super strength and speed, that would not make sense. We suspend our disbelief and we accept that Pokémon exist, but there is no reason for ash to go super Saiyan.

 

In your story, we accept that time travel exist, but there is no reason why you can't go back in time to before the alien steals the scrolls. 

 

Feels like you kinda jumped the shark too, with the sudden addition of some alien overlord.

 

That said, unless you're a very gifted writer, the story should serve as a backbone for the game. The gameplay should be fun, so focus on that instead of the details of the story

[Weylon Santana]

Make sense? it does now, but it's my personal preference to find aliens and time travel weird (I even find marvel weird, even in the context of heroes), because as I said it's a personal preference of mine.

Regarding the meaning of the game, it doesn't have to be believable as you said, but there were these flaws that I questioned, a sign that needed to be worked on better.

About the date of the post, I saw that it was posted sunday, so I thought it was strange no one comment.

About the look, I saw your other post that is making your own graphics.

About me thinking it would be online, it was for lack of details about how it would be done or which engine used, since the main engine of this forum is to build online games, lack of specification made me believe this by default, as it won't make any sense have an end.

And remember, that no one can say that the concept is good or bad, the good and bad comes from personal preferences, as I do not like this fusion of themes very much, I believe the concept is strange, but it is not an absolute truth, and when your game go out I can be surprised.

 

9 minutes ago, Beefy Kasplant said:

In your story, we accept that time travel exist, but there is no reason why you can't go back in time to before the alien steals the scrolls. 

right? haha Anyone with common sense would do this

[Helen1701]

Thanks for the feedback. I know I need to do more work on the main plot, but I intend to add out side quests and stories as well, in order to flesh out the world I am making. As for why you can't immediately go back and kill the alien before he steals the scrolls.... you're nowhere near powerful enough yet. Over time you will get experience points and level up your max health, learn spells... etc.. (basically, the same reason as Link doesn't just go into Hyrule castle the moment he leaves the great plateau in Breath of the Wild).

 

As a question, can this engine be used to make a one player RPG, either for online or to make a downloadable .exe that can run in windows? I ask because I am a total beginner and if I've chosen the wrong tool to suit my purposes where should I be looking? Or maybe I should revise my entire game design and make it a multiplayer online game without an end? I'd have to abandon the object of the game if I were to do that, because you can't have a game end if it's online and multiplayer. If I do the latter, I would need to create other stories and reasons for playing the game. Perhaps a chilled out world where people can do fishing, craft stuff for sale...etc. Much as I like my story... I might need to give the whole project a rethink if I can't download the .exe and if I have to make it an online multiplayer.

[Cheshire]

8 minutes ago, Helen1701 said:

I might need to give the whole project a rethink if I can't download the .exe and if I have to make it an online multiplayer.

 

This engine is basically entirely designed to make multiplayer games. If you want something single player and similar I'd highly suggest looking into rpg maker. 

[Weylon Santana]

This tool only makes multiplayer games online, tools that make games offline have rpgmaker, construct, gdevelop, many of them don't even need to know how to program

[Helen1701]

Okay, thanks for the advice folks, I have a lot to think about here. I like the look of Intersect and I am beginning to understand how to actually build a game with it. I might look into the other options to see what they have to offer for single player downloadable RPGs which can be played whether connected to the internet or not. But, it would be a shame to put in so much work here and then abandon it, so.... I might just change my game concept and go from there. Glad I found this out now and not months down the line.

 

Edit: I've just taken a look at RPG maker, and it looks like XP would be the version I'd want, it is an older one, but it does allow for games to be played on Windows (meaning I must be allowed to download the finished product as an .exe file). I might just learn both RPG maker and Intersect, it is worth learning both because then I can use either depending on what I want to make.