Hi fellow AVWWers
I had an idea for the game which I wanted to run up the flagpole. Any comments gratefully received.
I was thinking about the opening narrative, and I like the background story of the player character. You are a henchman of Demonaica, secretly undercover as a member of the resistance, waiting for your moment to strike and lead an uprising using the power of the Oblivion Crystal. Nice! I like it -- however, the current way in which this story is presented seems to me a little uninspired. You get one big exposition dump on the title screen, a quick word with Demonaica, and a few bits of text from the survivors you first meet and that's it. It's all over in a flash and it doesn't really have much weight to it.
Here's my suggestion for a way to provide the player with a more engaging introduction which would simultaneously also function as a helpful tutorial.
Basically, you design a simple prologue level (much like the Richter one in CSOTN) depicting the events of the mission that Demonaica had you undertake in order to prove your worthiness to receive the Oblivion Crystal -- ideally without the player knowing your character's true resistance nature in order to provide an interesting story twist later on. Throughout this prologue as much of the backstory would be revealed as possible: the five henchmen, the power of the Oblivion Crystals, the existence of the resistance, the corruption plaguing the land etcetera. Mixed in would also be as many tutorial hints as you could discreetly get away with. This seems like it would be a much more compelling way to present the background story to the player than is currently implemented.
Now, in practical terms, how feasible is this to actually create? Well, only the developers fully know the answer to that, but it seems to me that all the assets required are currently present in the game. There would need to be a series of custom slices, with henchmen and survivor characters driving the narrative, the dialogue engine is already in place, and the only real thing needed is a suitable climax, possibly culminating in the assassination of one of the resistance leaders. Technically, I don't see this being completely impractical, although it would require great level design and some compelling dialogue.
This might be a little out of the scope of what the developers currently have planned, but I think it's a solid idea and worth airing.
That's about it actually, thanks for reading!
