My Ideas: Something New For Once

That's right, tonight's idea is fresh off the vine! Well, it's relatively new, at least, being less than a year old. But that's still recent, at least for my work, and I'm sort of eager to get a new idea off of my chest instead of recapping another decade+ old idea.

Today's project is called A Tale to Tell, and it was inspired from Odin Sphere, among other things. Odin Sphere is a two dimensional action/RPG game for the Playstation 2, but the details aren't that important right now. What is important is that the game has a framework of a child who reads about the exploits of the main characters through a series of books, each about one of the game's protagonists. The game is notorious, however, for its long loading screens, periods of required grinding, and extending time spent cooking recipes, mixing potions, and watching plants grow. Seriously. These aren't too distracting in-game, but it struck me as amusing how this must have read in the book. "Then the hero sat around, watching a magical plant grow. Then he spent two hours fighting random monsters. Then he tossed everything out of his pouches and put them back in to organize his items better. Then he..."

It was a funny image for me, but it didn't become an idea until I expanded the idea of "game=storybook" until it became the central theme. Instead of a little girl reading alone, A Tale to Tell is about a grandfather reading the story to his grandchildren. The story is, or at least was, a classic tale of high adventure and fantasy in a traditional setting resembling Middle Ages Europe, with Lord of the Rings being a classic example. The grandchildren warped the original concept in to funny ways. First, they get to be critics to the story, mocking the conventions of the video game's story and game play elements as if they were written in the story. More importantly, though, they got to be the story's editors.

As the concept of the game changed, I decided that this wasn't just a story; the fantasy world of the book existed as an alternate plane of reality, and for it to sustain itself, the story must be told to a fresh audience through the book every generation or so. But the book the grandfather (who is also a Gandalf-style wizard in the fantasy land,) reads it the last of the first printing, and thus the last one capable of keeping the realm restored. Thus, the grandfather doesn't just want to tell this story to his grandkids; he has no other choice. If they lose interest, his world dies!

And so the grandfather must bend over backwards as the grandchildren, all modern kids of ages ranging from about 5-12 or so, impose their own views of fantasy on the book. The theme of the game, therefore, becomes how the idea and means of expressing fantasy evolves, and this is not a battle between right and wrong. Sometimes, the children are wrong as they disrespect tradition, mock old heroic archetypes, or (in the case of the twelve year old,) fill the story with juvenile titillation. Other times, they're insightful, noticing that the heroes are all pretty much straight white people, with the female roles barely acknowledged. Other times, it's more debatable, as the more tech-savvy children compare the story to modern cartoons and, in a bit of meta-commentary, video games.

Mostly, though, the game is intended to be humorous. The grandfather and his family are sometimes seen, but most of the story takes place inside the story. There, the children can be heard as echoing voices in the background, their every demand (and the grandfather's occasional rejections,) altering the world in real-time. If the kids are bored with a monster, it suddenly gets much bigger. If an argument about how many monsters the party must fight breaks out, their enemies literally poof into and out of existence. As for the actual characters, they are normally unaware pawns of the story, not even looking surprised as their world shifts. Between chapters, though, they meet and discuss the changes, sometimes afraid of what they are becoming, and other times welcoming the improvements.

There are other gameplay elements tied to the game's core concept. Fighting earns the player AP (Awesome Points,) which can be used to turn one of the children to their side, earning a beneficial alteration to the world. This can be as simple as a scan of an enemy's weaknesses orgaining new special moves, weakening monsters or forcing them into passive roles, or skipping fights entirely. And the multi-party action-rpg format, which I'm tentatively planning for at this early stage of planning, allows switching using the "paragraph" system. That is, the player can't switch at any time; another character's battle is still being resolved in the story. But stick with one character for two long and the paragraph gets long and boring, weakening that character until the player switches to a new one.

These are just the starting ideas, though. I see some interesting plans in the story, from rivalry between children siding with "good" and "evil" paths of the story to the growth of the children through their appreciation of the story, however mangled it may be. Scared ones become confident, and cynical ones find themselves emotionally invested in the story as well.

But I need suggestions for this one more than most, assuming I get anyone to read it. As a new idea, the concept is both exciting and modern, requiring less revision, but it is still very indistinct in my mind, with few characters even created. I can use my own semi-appreciative but edit-happy audience on this one.