Backstory introduction

[Blitz]

I was thinking recently that although we have a backstory on each character, we do not have a backstory on the ship that crashed. Sure the game has the typical 'you are here now, have fun' splash screen starter box, but what if it had more.

Here is what I am thinking: instead of having boxes you click through when you start the game to pick your characters and your AI, you would start the game on the ship. The ship would be breaking apart for any number of reasons (randomized backstory to set a setting). On that ship, there would be the a 10 person crew, and a lot of supplies and weapons. You then realize you only have 4 escape pods that were not damaged and you can only fit in 3 people in 3 pods and supplies in the 4th. If you really wanted to test out your survival skills, or or you wanted to save 1 more person, you could opt to fill the 4th escape pod with another person instead of supplies. If you wanted more supplies, you could take 1 or 2 people and fill the other pods with goodies.

Now that you have your character 'customization' done, you would pick your AI. The AI would be based on map location. Your ship would have a console to pick your crash landing position. You would be able to see the map layout, but not the resources on the map. You wouldn't have 100% certainty which AI you got, but each of the locations would have a different description based roughly on the AI the area would have. For instance: "This location is very close to raiders and the scanners show increased electrical storm frequency which causes the local fauna to have increased mental disorders" (Randy Random) or "This area is far away from any know raider locations, in addition, local fauna is not recorded to have any issues (Passive).

I also think it would be fun if it had a timer count down 2 minutes or so to make your choices. This would help show the ingame pause and time system.


Let me know what you think!

[CommieKazie]

I like it!

     But perhaps instead of choosing from a 10 person crew (it seems to me a lot of people like to shuffle through random).  Perhaps you start as the AI of a cryo-transport taking people from point A to point B.  You then shuffle through the bios of all the cryo-tubes and choose who is most fit for survival?  (If you want to be able to choose from more that 10 people).
     Granted, I like the idea of having 10 characters sitting there waiting for you to choose their fates.  More guilt involved than just cryo-tubes.  Do you pick the women and children to survive?  Or do you pick the characters that will help you stay alive?

I like the idea of the 4th tube as well.  Alternatively you could send down one or two people with more supplies.

I don't know if AI should be tied to map layout.  But I do like the ability to choose where you're going to drop (a few random maps, or perhaps later this would just be biome choice of the planet?).

(And if you lose the game, it jumps back to the initial choice of who to send.  Because the whole game is actually a probability scenario run by the onboard AI to decide which people to let live!!!!)

[YBenjius]

This really sounds great, it would absolutely add depth to the story. Like CommieKazie said, I do believe people like to shuffle with that random option, but for the sake of the story it would be awesome if you are the one who has to chose between the lives of those ten people. Maybe an option for the player to chose between them, or even better have ten generated colonist, with the ability randomize them (the only problem is then that the whole idea of your choice between 'the ten' will be kinda pointless).

Also, I think you should always be able to decide which AI-storyteller there will be. It would ruin the whole idea if you want one particular storyteller and just restart the game till you get the one you like.

I also like the 'when you lose' suggestion! It gives you a good reason to try again.

[CommieKazie]

A way to mix the two:

You're on a long-range transport ship that makes short-range stops on the way to its destination.  So it has a large store of cryo-tubes, but also short-range passengers.  Due to an explosion only 10 people have access to the escape tubes in time, and the limited number of supplies in the room.

However, if you don't like the 10 people you're given to choose from, you have the option to choose from randomized cryo-tube people.  Thereby condemning more of the 10 to death than you would otherwise.

You still get to tug on the heartstrings knowing that the virtual people you don't choose will die.  And if you take the cryo-tubes more of them will experience death (instead of not waking up, like the icy sleepers).

And to give this choice more impact, there could be an artsy cutscene where you see the escape pods leave the ship, and watch them fall while the ship crumbles into a fireball in the background.

[Blitz]

I like the combonation idea as well, but with another stipulation. If one of the cryos was a superfreak that you wanted to play with, you would have to sacrafice some supplies while your crew unthawed him. They would use their time unthawing instead of packing supplies in a escape pod.

[CommieKazie]

Ok, so fleshing out the idea more (bear with me on this):

You press "New Game"
A menu appears and you get to choose the difficulty as well as the AI Storyteller.

You press "Begin":
Asteroids cross the menu screen as it fades to black.  You hear crashing, impacts, thuds, and screaming.

From here on out you're "In-game"

Fade in to escape pod bay:
"Warning, 2 minutes until hazardous atmosphere entry.  Abandon Ship now."
     There's blood and a few bodies.  You're on the ship which is obviously in bad shape.  The navigation system messed up and sent the ship into an asteroid belt.  You can see that most of the escape pods are destroyed, only four have the green indicator light above them.
     There are 10 survivors in the center sitting on benches.  You have control of a couple of android/robot things.  The game starts paused.  You can click on each survivor and see their stats and traits (as well as any injuries they start with.  Perhaps "Better suited survivors" have a higher chance of having sustained an injury?  Nah, probably better to just have it be random).
     There's also a cryogenic pod stabilizer.  You can send a bot to the console and scroll through available cryogenic tubes.  There's also an equipment rack you can work with.  You get to choose how many survivors to take, as well as what (if any) gear to take.
     Also, some cryo-tubes were destroyed (no gameplay effect, just flavor) and some are damaged (it doesn't display all of the characters trait information).  (Hey look!  An ex-military survival specialist!  Too bad the information that he's a serial killer was corrupted in the asteroid belt...)

     So initial gameplay would be selecting people, and unthawing cryo-tube survivors, as well as loading them and their equipment.  (Do you care more about a gun or a med kit?  More choices, more better!).  Maybe the people not selected would throw a fit?  That could get interesting, although may be more trouble that it's worth...

     I think it'd also be interesting if there were some windows in the background too.  Starts off with some asteroids, about 45 seconds in you can see the start of the planet you're going to land on, and it begins to get larger the longer you wait.  If you wait the full two minutes everyone dies and you lose.  (Granted the time allotted is ample to do the task (doesn't have to be 2 minutes).  More for flavor than anything else.  You also have control of pause and whatnot). 
     Alternatively, if you wait too long the people who are aboard the ship start rioting, and rush for the escape pods.  The stronger/more violent characters then survive because they're the ones who made it to the pods while you were being indecisive.

After loading the tubes a you get to choose where you're going to set down (map/biome selection).  You hit launch, and the tubes drop out of the area.  The people you didn't select start to freak out and it fades out to black again.

Fade in: 
You're outside the ship, you watch the four tubes drop into atmosphere as the ship begins its entry.  The tubes drop safely as you watch the ship catch on fire and get torn apart on entry.

Scene cuts, you watch the four tubes hit the planet, and now you're playing the game.

[Difficulty and AI Storyteller would affect what you have to work with on your ship.  How many injuries, how much data corruption, how soon do people start throwing a fit?  Harder difficulties mean you can choose between people you have assurances about who they are, but are injured.  Or a bunch of uninjured wild-cards.  Basically they'd effect all of the %chances towards things.]

Thoughts?

[AspenShadow]

I think you guys have to be really careful with overcomplicating things on this thread. The rough idea being developed could be a good start; I don't have an opinion on it, but I'd advise to try and avoid having people injured at the very start of the game or the player not getting what they selected. The rest of the game is for those sort of issues after all.

[Zeiph]

Very cinematique, said this way, but also pretty good IMHO. At first I was bothered by the 2 minutes timer, but the fact you control time negates it. Next thing is to know if this scene would't be requiring excessive programming and artwork from our poor Ty...

[CommieKazie]

I think you guys have to be really careful with overcomplicating things on this thread. The rough idea being developed could be a good start; I don't have an opinion on it, but I'd advise to try and avoid having people injured at the very start of the game or the player not getting what they selected. The rest of the game is for those sort of issues after all.

The player not getting what they selected would come if you let the 2 minute timer go out (or whatever time was decided.  Since it'd be ample to do what needs doing it'd really just be a choice for people who wanted to see what would happen.

I'd imagine that starting with injuries would be pretty toned down, cuts and scrapes.  Maybe the occasional wound.  But the system would allow for increased difficulties/storytellers to make things harder for the player.  Lots of people would appreciate more curveballs.

The default difficulty/normal storyteller would only have it in there as flavor, it wouldn't be set to a level to crank the difficulty.  Plus you could always choose the cryo people who wouldn't have injuries.

Anyway, just ideas.  Open for tuning and discussion of course.

Next thing is to know if this scene would't be requiring excessive programming and artwork from our poor Ty...

Artwork:  Nope, that's what the kickstarter is for!
Programming:  I honestly have no idea, but it seems like it'd just be a few more variables in character generation, and some scripted sequences.  Certainly less work than creating a new system that has to interact with all the systems that are already in game, and then balancing them together...

[British]

Like AspenShadow, I think that's overly complicated.
I'm very fine with the way things are now: pick an AI, choose your colonists, and you're set.
I'm not again some evolution of the "choose colonists" part, but what you guys are proposing is a bit too much.

Also: no to picking your landing zone.
That counters the whole point of having randomizations everywhere, which makes for good stories ("We arrived in an awful place, couldn't find a proper location to settle...", or whatever).

[Hypolite]

Right now the landing zone is very not random, you always have a big metal vein nearby, and geothermal geysers are always placed far away.

[British]

My bad, replace my "landing zone" by "map" if you wish.

[Semmy]

I really really like the idea.

What also would be awsome if you had a certain amount of time to get some supplies into a shuttle before you chrashland.
So you can fit X number survivors in there and X amount/weight of supplies and you only got so long

[Jakadasnake]

Seriously great idea. Would add a lot of immersion/artistic value to the game, and prevent you from having the convenience to repeatedly random a character. Make sure each ship has at least 3 nobles, though.

[Spike]

I'm not sure if I really like the idea.  It definitely sounds neat, but I kind of like the current theme of "here's the situation you find yourself in".  Plus it sounds like something that would take a bit of work to add in and balance - which takes time and effort away from other things that could be done.