Falling Existence [Working Title]

[manimerz]

Good day everybody 

Recently there are so many ideas for RPGs in my head, so I wanted to share one with you and listen to your thoughts (well I actually read them, but that's a different story XD)



Title: Falling Existence (Working Title)
Genre: Drama
Engine: RPGMaker VX Ace

Initial Idea
Well I had the idea of making a game about the loss of a friend and all the problems, emotions and feelings that come with such an event.
The main characters are the player as himself (Only the name though, sprite and face is preset) and his best friend Manuel.
The game consists of 3 Acts.


Story
The story tells us the tale of the Player and Manuel along with some side characters.

Act 1: Manuel and the Player spend some time together. The Player learns that Manuel is a very kind but introverted. He is also an outstanding musician, but has no confident in his skills. After a while the Player notices changes in his personalities. He does not small talk any more and gets more silent and introverted than ever before. Shortly after these discoveries, the Player gets a voice call telling you that Manuel has committed suicide.

Epilogue Act 1: After the tragic events of Act 1 the ceremony is shown

Act 2 The Player wakes up on a normal school day, as if nothing ever happened. He walks to school, always talking about how awesome the day will be and that this stupid dream never happened, and what things he wants to do with Manuel. After you entered the classroom the Player realizes it was not a dream at all.
The next scene is with the players mother and the player in the living room. The player shouts at his mother for no reason at all and locks himself into his room. On the next day, the Player notices that the people in his class are completely normal and happy. This triggers the next anger moment for the player. He hits one of his classmates and heads home, skipping school. Soon after that the Player starts to research what could have happened. He asks everyone related to Manuel what they know. He desperately wants to know where he went wrong, what could have prevented the death of his friend. With that in mind the Player falls asleep

Epilogue Act 2 The player enters the dream world and walks around where he spots the ghost of Manuel

Act 3 Manuel explains that both of them cannot move on, Manuel to the afterlife, the Player with life. The Player cannot accept the death of Manuel, and Manuel's personality and mind is too broken to rest. Then they realize they can help each other. If the Player fixes Manuel's mind, Manuel's past will be revealed. To do so they travel to Manuel's mindhouse. Manuel explains that a mindhouse is a visual display of conciousness, mind and traits of a persons personality, with each room resembling a specific trait.
There are currently 5 rooms to clear (maybe more, maybe less): Self-Confidence, Loneliness, Depression, Parental Issues, Second personality
During the room missions, flashbacks reveal what caused the problem. Clearing a room resolves fixes one of the issues Manuel has.
After completing all the room levels and finding out the reasons behind the suicide the Player can finally accept Manuel's suicide and Manuel can move on to the afterlife.

Epilogue Act 3 The Player wakes up and walks out of the door into a new day

Credits


Game Design

Act 1 is more like an interactive movie, there are no objectives to achieve, you talk with the people around you and get to know them. This is because I want to make the player familiar with the story and the situation. But here is what I have in mind specially for this game. I give the player choices that seem to be good and bad, but in the end they don't change anything. I know what you might think, why do I even bother to give options when they don't change anything. It's because Act 1 should make you feel that way. There is nothing you can do (this is important for the story in Act 3) as the story unfolds itself and reaches the climax (Presentable Liberty, Little Inferno, ...).

Act 2 now you get some story progressing choices and actions. This Act is about discovering the reasons why Manuel killed himself so I thought it would be good to give him freedom and information, but not enough to understand what happened, so that Act 3 will be interesting to play.

Act 3 this is the most explorable part. Puzzles and mysteries need to be solved to get all the pieces together.

Maybe you noticed something in the story (Act 2 and 3), the 5 stages of grief are present. Denial, Aggression, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance (according to http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/), so what do you think of that?


I hope you understand a word, because english is not my native language, if you find typos just keep them or wrap them all up so I can correct them
Any feedback is welcome, as long as it is friendly and constructive (sorry for this line, but I had bad experiences with other projects)

Sincerely manimerz

[Prpl_Mage]

It's certainly unique, I'm looking forward to seeing what you can achieve with this ide.a

[Moosetroop11]

Kinda cool idea, but you run the risk of the player becoming bored until they get to what they consider to be the main game.

You'll have to have a really, really, good soundtrack, excellent writing and some stuff that feels like it's going to be relevant later, I think. It's a nice idea to force the player to feel like everything they do is pointless and that there's no hope for them, but that will probably make them get bored and stop playing, no matter how clever it is.

Maybe what you could do is have him have regular dreams that are the puzzle sections with the ghost, and levels in between which are the real world and the character's interaction with his douchebag classmates. So alternate them.

[manimerz]

Well the first Act will be relatively short, because I've only planned 2 main characters and they are the only important one, so the s

You'll have to have a really, really, good soundtrack, excellent writing and some stuff that feels like it's going to be relevant later, I think. It's a nice idea to force the player to feel like everything they do is pointless and that there's no hope for them, but that will probably make them get bored and stop playing, no matter how clever it is.

Well I try to make the player more curious what happens. I try to rise the curiosity level with each act to make up for the part where you are. You can explore the world in the 2nd act and find out information with various small side quests (f.e. looking at his computer reveals some tweets he did). You get to know he got more and more depressed over the time, and that he shouted out for help, but nobody ever did something.
I hope I can do the writing properly, especially making both characters appealing and sympathetic so that people care. Though it just needs some memorable moments and conversations to do so. But the soundtrack will be the real issue. I don't want the game to have copyrighted music in it (I can't afford the licenses) so I try my best to find BGM on Soundcloud, Freesounds, etc.

Maybe what you could do is have him have regular dreams that are the puzzle sections with the ghost, and levels in between which are the real world and the character's interaction with his douchebag classmates. So alternate them.

That's a cool idea and I see where you want to go with that. Though it would take away a crucial moment. At the end of chapter 2 the Player will be at his most desperate moment, and that's where the puzzles take place, they strenghten the bond between Manuel and the Player even further. It also fulfils the desire of finding out what happened exactly and what was the cause for his several problems was. So I'll stick with my initial script, if it fails blame me ^^

But see for yourself when the Demo (a.k.a Act 1) is out and I appreciate your critic

[Donut]

Sounds interesting. I had a similar idea for a game a long time ago, also it was more like an adventure game, and not cut the same way as you do. As Moosetroop11, I'm concerned about your 2 firsts acts, and the player getting bored. But who knows, maybe it'll be awesome and not boring at all. Looking forward to trying that =)

[manimerz]

Well if you want, I could post snapshots once in a while. This is the first game so I need feedback as much and as precicely as I can, especially at the writing part.
Though I will not give in easily on parts that I like, but I will consider every critic you give to me

BTW I will change the name, I think "Fading Existence" sounds smoother than the current title, should I change the header of the topic or just note it in the first post (I read the forum rules, but I think in the title would be a bit better to follow)

[Fisherson]

I'm sorry but I have enough sorrow in my real life without simulating digital sorrow too. ^^; Not for me but I wish you luck.