My Story (As of now)

[Neo Samurai]

Hi.
I'm new as you may well tell, heh.

I'm in need of feedback for my story if that's cool.



Roumu is the daughter of a rice farmer in the village of Gohan. One day, while tending the fields, she finds a young man asleep. He introduces himself as Hiroimono. He is a martial artist who received his teachings from his mother, who he is searching for.

About a year ago, his village was set on fire by greedy bandits hoping to create a distraction so that they may run off with the village's treasures. His mother had been helping people get to safety. However, vanished afterwards. Many presumed her dead, but Hiroimono would not believe it. Now, he is in search of his mother to prove that she is still alive…<br>
Roumu gives Hiroimono some O-Kane (Currency in game/Japanese for money) so he can go to the inn and buy provisions and gives him her best wishes. However, once she is done in the fields and returns home, some soldiers from the royal army are at her house. By order of Princess Eris, the land shall be used for her own purposes and all villagers must leave. Now, Roumu and her father must find a new home. Being simple farmers, it would be dangerous for them to leave alone.

To there luck, they meet up with Hiroimono again, who would love to help them due to the hospitality that Roumu gave to him. As they travel out, a gang of bandits attacks them. Hiroimono recognizes them as the same ones who attacked his village. After defeating them and searching through their corpses, they find a tattoo of an eagle upon their hands, the same one given to the royal soldiers.




So, what do you think? Is it okay?

[Tinbok]

Welcome to the Board! I like how it leaves you hanging near the end there. I understand you know a bit of Japanese? I know a little bit, but not too much. I think Gohan means "rice cakes" if I'm not mistaken. Anyways, I'm getting a little off-topic here... I like the story. Do you have a Battle System? Character bios, time period, theme, things like that? If you do, I'd love to hear some more about your game. ;D

[Neo Samurai]

Glad you like my story.

I haven't decided on a BS. I'm either going to alter the DBS, make a new CBS from scratch, or try the Action Battle System.

For timeline, I suppose it would be in the medieval times. And as for the character bios, I do have a few:

Name: Roumu
Age: 19
Occupation: Rice Farmer
Bio: As a child, instead of attending school, she worked on your father's farm. The other girls teased her about being somewhat of a tomboy. Since she never met her mother and her only family was her father, a hard-working man, she was used to being treated like a son rather than a daughter. One day, while tending the fields, she found a young man asleep. He introduced himself as Hiroimono and told her his story about his missing mother. Roumu gave him money and pointed him in the direction of the inn. When she arrived home, she was informed that they must leave by order of Princess Eris.

Name: Hiroimono
Age: 21
Occupation: Fighter
Bio: Hiroimono grew up in the martial arts city of Kenka, where he trained to become a fighter. His family has a lot of pride because his mother is the only female blackbelt in the entire city. Due to constant training, he was never able to make real friends, and so, he is stern. However, he always repays his debts. For this reason, his family was very wealthy. One day, there city was attacked by bandits. He lost his father and younger sister and he was separated from his mother while she helped people flee from the flames. He believes his mother to still be alive. However, if she trully is dead, he will avenge his mother by killing the bandits.

Kihaku
Age: 17
Occupation: Bandit
Bio: Kuraikodomo was the daughter of a merchant who dealed in selling illegal drugs. Once her father was found out and then, arrested, Kuraikodomo was on her own, an orphan in the port town of Umi. She lived on other people, attacking them and stealing their O-Kane, which she has become obsessed with. Eventually, she killed a high-powered noble and was discovered. At her trial, she was sentenced to death the next day. But by that time, she had escaped. She, once again, pursued her career of thievery, but this time, under a new name, Kihaku. Then, she met Roumu and Hiroimono. Upon discovering Hiroimono's mission to find his mother, she remembered that a wanted criminal that matched Hiroimono's description that those involved in her capture would be awarded 20,000 O-Kane. Greed flowed through her veins, and instigated her to help Hiroimono.

So, what do you think about some of the characters?

[Tinbok]

Interesting. So, the characters all have been separated from their family by (guessing) Princess Eris? You said the Royal guards had the same mark as the bandits, so I'm guessing that Princess Eris and the bandits are connected. I do like your bios and story though. As for your BS, try something different. A lot of ideas have been thought of but I think you could think of something unique. You could look through the boards and see what people have, then come up with an idea of your own... of course, this is just me. I like to be different. I'm just giving suggestions. ;D

[WarDragon]

I also understand a bit of japanese welcome to the board, our story is very good. What type of battle system do you have and any other info.

And gohan does mean rice cakes

[Neo Samurai]

I think I'm going to use the DBS, but tweak it a bit. I'd also like to do what DW did with the backs of the characters being visible whenever they were damaged or attacked (I give you your props for that, DW).

I'm thinking about having abilities that are unlocked when you cast certain spells at a certain time. Maybe, if it's possible, I can make it so unique abilities are unlocked when you cast spells of different elements. Dunno. I'll see.

Anyway, I'm liking all the feedback I'm getting! ;D

EDIT
BTW, sorry if it sounds a bit random, but I'm probably going to place custom music in my game, made by me. I found this really interesting site that lets you make your own MIDI files. So, with the help of this program and Vahalla's Music Script Convertor, I think I could create some pretty original stuff (Already working on what should be my Field song). The site is www.midicreator.net.

[Neo Samurai]

This is the type of criticism I love to receive.

To answer your question about being my first story, no. However, I tend to write my stories out of proportion.

With giving me this information about writing, you have helped me out a lot. I've read your game story before and it rocked!

I got into this game because of the thought of writing my own story, but I can never make it fall into the place I want it to.

Trust me...I will follow your advice, and surprise you with an a lot better storyline. It's lucky for me that the story was still at an early stage, otherwise having to do everything over would suck majorly.

Thanks for these posts, Will. I will use it as a reference when rewriting my story. ;D

[Doan the Nado]

I did think the story had promise, but I'm with Will on the cliche elements of it. It was a little strange that every main character was missing one of their parents. The connection of the princess to the bandit was a good start, and something that should be worked on in a re-write. If you can make it seem believable and be a little more shocking (perhaps not reveal it so early in the story), you might have something good on your hands.

As for coincidences, I think they are almost necessary. Even real life is full of life-shaping coincidences, so I don't think they should be entirely removed. The thing that makes them far-fetched is when someone coincidentally meets someone, then coincidentally meets them again, then they coincidentally meet up with one of their archenemies just strong enough to beat them. If you can better rationalize some of these events, it will make the entire plot's premise much more believable.

It really is a good start, though. Good luck re-writing it and fleshing it out.

[doyleman]

Will is right, not much people take advice as non-offensive, so, glad to have ya!
Well, the story, it just seems to....weird, I can't quite get it, could you perhaps put it slightly simpler? Also, RPGM2 takes times to make nothing into anything, so if you can get by the hard parts of understanding it, you'll do just fine.
still, any revisions of what the story is about'd be nice and good luck btw

[Neo Samurai]

To Doyleman
I'm not a stranger to RPGMaker 2. I've had it for probably over a year, since it's been released and I also have RPGMaker 1. So, knowing how it works isn't a problem.

Everyone else
I'm probably going to make a new story. So far, I'm thinking about having my setting be in the medieval times, but have a couple of inventions from Industrial Revolution (since, of course, it isn't the real world, anything can happen ;D).

I'm still typing out the background of the world (religion, government, ect.)

Anyway, hope this goes well. And maybe I might come back to this story and make it sound a bit more believable.

Thanks to everyone for replying, the comments and criticism .

Oh yeah, and to Will
Don't worry about it. I know you weren't trying to place me down. You were just trying to help.

[christi]

You didn't specifically say why you're wanting to start a new story, and I don't want to make assumptions, but I hope it's not because you feel that the story you presented us isn't unique or believable enough.

Personally, I think it has potential. Your first post gave us your story's beginning. In actuality, I could envision everything in your first post being told through cutscenes, before the title screen even came up. If done right, it would give the player a pretty good idea of what happened, but would feel open-ended enough to draw interest. You could then go back and fill in the blanks throughout the course of the game.

Your character bios give us a bit of backstory, which is good, as it gives your characters more dimension.

And, sure, everything could use a little bit more fleshing out, but in my honest opinion, if you get to the point in your game development where you're completely satisfied with what you have and feel there's nothing more you could improve, that's about the time you should be uploading it to the Max Drive and letting us all know it's ready to play.

At any rate, here's my point: You stated that you wanted to write a new story, set in the medieval times, with touches of the Industrial Revolution. However, you also stated in your second post that THIS story is set in the medieval times. Can you use the Industrial Revolution, and apply the religious/government background you're writing for your new story to THIS story? Unless you have more storyline written than you've shared with us, what you left us with in your first post is open-ended enough that it could really be taken in any direction you like.

Of course - it's your game... what you do is up to you. If you genuinely don't want to use this story because YOU don't think it has potential, that's fine. But I'd hate to see you scrap a story for any other reason, and since you said that you may eventually come back to this story and attempt to make it more believable, I just wanted to give you something to think about.

Best of luck in whatever endeavor you choose.

[Tinbok]

Yeah, I'm with Christi there. If you feel that your story isn't good or doesn't have potential, then it's up to you. Your story is good in my opinion, maybe you could change some parts you're not satisfied with. But again, if you feel you don't like the story, you can start a new one.

[vespuleth]

i definitely agree w/ christi.

[Neo Samurai]

christi said:

You didn't specifically say why you're wanting to start a new story, and I don't want to make assumptions, but I hope it's not because you feel that the story you presented us isn't unique or believable enough.

I might come up with a new story. Anyway, I'm not just going to throw away my old story until I'm sure what direction my game is going. We'll see...

I'm using KingSpoom's articles to help with my story and Will's 4 character types to (probably) modify those characters I wrote about, unless you like them. However, there are much more characters I'm going to need to create. So, I'll use his idea when creating other characters.

[Deleted]

I do agree with them too. Try to work with this one for a while (week or two), and if you find yourself having serious issues with major things that couldn't really be changed without almost starting all over, then I'd say start over. It's up to you, and in the long run at this stage this story or a new one both'll have good potential, and in the new story you'd probably find yourself making similar characters and what not any ways, probably. Now that your working hard to better the depth of the characters and alter the story some it's bound to turn out much better. I also like Christi's idea about doing this all in a cutscene before the credits and filling it in throughout the game (Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together did this quite nicely, where if they dragged the "cliche" 'massacreing of the village and killing of family' out lengthily it would've been boring and detrimental, but TO:LUCT's one of the best story and gameplay games in my opinion and that "cliche" wasn't THE, or a, main focus of the game). Just work at it for a while and see how it goes.

One other thing I'll add as advice is:

If you're having trouble making believable and 'round' characters, try to think of what experiences you've been through in your life and how those experiences have changed you to be who you are now. I'm sure you can easily split yourself up into multiple characters, so to say. This way, you'll understand why the character is the way he/she is, why they do and act (behave) the way they do, etc. Perhaps you can place the character's changing life experience before (past) and during (present) the game for various characters to to balance it out better (so it's not all talking about the past/flashbacks). Then, as long as you show (not tell) the player what you know about them they'll be pretty believable... That's what I did and it worked pretty well. Another thing to do is also to think of various heavy topics and your thoughts on them. It helped me to have the characters' stories be in Private Actions (optional, personal story scenes at cities with different characters, with various requirements to get different ones) because then their stories didn't have to intertwine with the linear story much besides 'we're here to help (main character)', which is I think very highly of Lord of the Rings and stories where all the characters have their stories but they're all inter-related somehow in one bigger picture (which is what I've not done).

[Tinbok]

Yeah, I agree with Will. (like your avatar by the way...)

[Neo Samurai]

Yeah. I agree with Christi as well. A lot of the best games have had good intro scenes.

Since intro scenes are basically a rundown of what your game is going to be, they'll determine whether the player will be absorbed into the world, or whether he/she will reach for the power button and turn it off.

I read ves' articles about intro scenes. Real good stuff, man. I pretty much know what I'd like my intro scene to be like.

Anyway, thank you everyone for all your help. You've done a great deal for me and the storyline of my game. Peace!

[Aaron]

I'd advise you to make one solid story that YOU are happy with and write it out before starting anything. If you don't, you'll run into problems like I did. I had to go back and hault my game's progress to get the story solidified so I know exactly where I am going as far as developement is concerned. I also advise you write your dialogues before hand to make sure they are in character and don't sound like one person all the way through the game. Just some pointers for you.

[Neo Samurai]

I may have done this with a previous game for RPGM1. I forget all about it, though (It's been long deleted).

[Neo Samurai]

I think I'm doing pretty well with my writing.

I've written about the world's religion, government, military, education system, climate, and entertainment.

I'm currently working on the main conflict of the story (which I will reveal when I believe the time is right ).

I'm taking Aaron's advice to write out dialogues for my characters.

If anyone's interested, if things work out, the theme of my story may focus around the ancient question of "What is my purpose in life?"

I'm gonna continue writing. Later!

[Deleted]

I'm intrigued. Writing a lot of background stuff about the world and its people'll definitely help for townspeople dialogue and story development (like detailing what happens/where go/who meet, etc.).

[Neo Samurai]

It is really helpful ;D.

Anyway, the climate in the story is in a Torrid Zone, meaning it is always hot. So, everyone in the game is tan...except for the main character, who is bizarrely pale (this will be explained why).

So, everyone in his village see him as a freak. It's pretty interesting what you can get from writing background stories about the world in your game.

[Aaron]

I like the fact that you are making the main character stand out in your game. I am doing the same thing because my main character has blonde hair which is highly undesireable in mine. I think it makes the player develope a relationship with the character. I am glad I could be of some help to you.

[vespuleth]

the only problem w/ developing tons of backstory/history/environment/sociology is that it is all stuff that will need to be directly/indirectly made aware to the player, and sometimes that can be a tedious task. back in my table topping days, and in my pbem days, i would dispense huge packets on my world, its ecology, and all that stuff, as well as stories/myths/legends that may or may not be related to what the players were doing. the reason i say this is because some of the information your building for your game, you will only be able to directly inform the player of, and that can be tedious for you and boring for the player. if you dont inform the player, it is a waste of time for you. if you find some means to indirectly inform the player, well, good luck w/ that.

[Neo Samurai]

Ves:

I'm not planning on truly using all of the backstory and such in my game. You know, just writing down some ideas. Hell, it would be interesting to read in my strategy guide (I remember from the Legend of Zelda: LttP Nintendo Power strategy guide, there was a lot of backstory that you didn't get to hear about and that was real interesting to read).