Well, somehow, yesterday I managed to make the changes and get the story intro into the game. I had to rewrite the intro a few times in order to get something close to the character I want, and even now it will surely be rewritten again sometime in the future.
@p
The problem was, I kept getting all serious! When in reality what I want is something of a lighter approach, I ended up in the first draft writing something that was completely serious. It contained most of the information and backstory that I wanted to put in, but in the end it was kind of unreadable when I knew that the style of the game was going to be very much lighter than that.
@p
Second draft was much better at the start, but actually then I started to degenerate into more seriousness! Crap!
@p
Third draft was the same start as the second, I think, I just killed the last few paragraphs. So now, what I have is a fairly light and (I hope) entertaining few paragraphs to start the game. When you're starting with mainly text (as opposed to some kind of opening cinematic) that text had better be good...
@p
Now the neccesary work is mostly in working out the story generation, that is, the sequence of events which the player must uncover as the game progresses. This is thus far laid out fairly well, it just needs filling in. Once I have that, I can proceed with giving the player directions as to what they should do first. I've already decided that after the story intro, which seems to place you quite well into your ship flying above your homeworld, the player will fly around aimlessly for some time. The goal is basically to get them accustomed to the play mechanics, and to have a little bit of fun exploring. However, quite soon after they will recieve a CommLink from an unlikely source, which will give the first hints and suggestions as to where the player should travel to next.
@p
I read quite a bit of "Uncle Orson's Writing Classes", which is basically an online list of writing tutorials by Orson Scott Card. I found them really actually quite helpful; I'm not writing a novel but pacing in games can follow many of the same ideas. Well anyhow, I have my work cut out for me today!
2004-06-02