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#1

Game Name: Earth’s Entrance Exam

Objective: Take mankind’s first experimental and unfinished interstellar vessel through an exam laid out by an unknown captor!

Backstory:
You are a pilot for an experimental craft built by a space-enthusiast trillionaire and his scientist friend. Obviously, the reclusive scientist possessed a genius mind; but, more importantly, his mind had stumbled upon a daring, never-before envisioned faster-than-light drive design-concept.

The scientist was paranoid of the drastic implications of his faster-than-light drive, and not simply because such a scientific and engineering breakthrough would thrust him into the spotlight. The technology was dangerous, and currently outside the hands of men hungry for power and control. It would have been safer… to bury this discovery… but this idea, this revelation… had a mind of its own. It was one of those thoughts that demanded attention and fueled the fire of curiosity. In the case of this reclusive scientist, the fire burned hotter than his own paranoid nature, and maybe even his good judgment. He made his trillionaire friend promise to keep the project secret, safe, even from government eyes.

You were recruited without any pilot experience, or any real background for attaining such a perilous and skill-intensive responsibility as piloting humankind’s first interstellar spacecraft… all you had is a dream to be an astronaut, a love for space and what you could find… for all those tv shows and games about spacemen and explorers… why did they pick you? How do they know that you are even capable of becoming proficient in the skills necessary for… oh, I don’t know… not crashing into the side of a moon? That you don’t know… but you were willing to sign your entire life away for this opportunity, and they knew that when they approached you. Maybe that’s exactly all they wanted…

In the night… while you were sleeping in your reserved bunk in the secret testing facility that had become your new home for the last several months… you hear loud bangs, and are awakened by the scientist pulling you down to the floor, thrusting you up to your feet, while yelling “they’ve found us! Get to the ship! No time to explain! Launch now, right now!” She shoves you out the door. “Go go go!” she yells.

You run to the launch bay and grab your suit on the way. You have not yet completed training; you were supposed to have years! More shakes, thunderous booms, and you cover your ears as they are assaulted by the squealing of metal against metal. You know you don’t have much time… you slip your arm into the final dangling sleeve of your suit, the helmet deploys automatically, and the nanofibers contract within your suit, supporting your movements. You jump into the vessel, and search for the navigational control. “What??” You stare at unfinished consoles and hanging wires where monitors are supposed to be installed. You quickly find a working console and check the status of your vessel… Engines, maneuvering thrusters, the experimental FTL drive… all are installed, it seems, but the assisted navigation system is not complete. The only viable method of navigational control is an emergency system, entirely manual, rudimentary at best. “Screw it,” you mutter as you initiate launch sequence.

The launch was smooth… “at least the dampeners were installed,” you mutter under your stressed-out breath. You intend to head for behind the moon, a refuge out of range of prying eyes and weapons lock… Crap, weapons lock!! Alarms begin blaring loudly around you as missiles are launched at your currently defenseless vessel. The ship is fast, but not fast enough. You make it into space, but those missiles are catching up fast. They are clearly not your run-of-the-mill offensive weaponry. You have no choice… you power up the untested drive, jump coordinates pre-calculated for Alpha Centauri. The ship begins shaking violently, the portal opens, and your stomach turns as the whole cockpit stretches and contorts in your vision… suddenly, your whole body is slammed into the back of your seat, and the cockpit is inundated with a blinding light…

You open your eyes to find your vessel is floating down a long dark tunnel… your heart sinks into your stomach as you stupidly mutter “this doesn’t look like Alpha Centauri.” You reflexively scream in fright as you hear from no particular direction “Welcome, Pilot. Your presence is…unexpected… We believed we had several more years until your arrival. No matter… we can commence early. Your exam begins… now.”

4 Likes
#2

Woah you had me hooked! You are a great writer :slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

Thank you! I appreciate you reading it too (it’s one of those tldr posts XD)!

#4

Mate that is a amazingly well written back story. Felt like I was there in the game already, it was that descriptive. How long did it take you to come up with this?
Have you made the game yet as I would like to give it a test. :eyes:

1 Like
#5

Thank you!! Haha I actually really appreciate this feedback. I love story-writing and tbh once I am finally up to snuff with game development, I want to be able to bring stuff like this to life!!
It took a few minutes and some imagination haha
And if/when I actually have a full game ready and made, I would be so psyched and low-key honored to have someone playtest it!
For now I’m knee-deep in the RPG Combat course, still learning.

1 Like
#6

No worries, It is very impressive let us know how it turns out.

1 Like
#7

Might I suggest to first dig into something like RPG Maker, here’s the reason as to why. Story Driven Interactive Experiences, as I like to call them, are not video games, that means that the skills required to do them are far less focused on game design, you also don’t require a lot of programming knowledge.

If this is a hobby for you, then you can ignore this completely, I’m focusing on how you can make the most out of your time and increase your chances to make a living out of this.

Why SDIE are not video games?

After thinking a lot about games, I came to the conclusion that things like Gone Home or The Last of Us, where the main experience focuses on cinematic and reading dialogue, are not video games because the approach to develop them is extraordinarily different from a regular game. For instance, it’s not the same to develop a Breakout clone than a Text Based Adventure Game, in the latter, what keeps the player engaged are not the mechanics but the story you are telling, the focus is the narrative, the options just add a little but of flavor, but in the Breakout clone, what keeps the player playing, is how interesting, engaging and difficult the game is to manipulate.

Why try RPG Maker instead?

There are lot of benefits from doing that. Since the narrative is the focus, you don’t want to spend too much time coding, designing or doing illustration. What a writer should focus on is story development in an interactive space, reading a book and maneuvering through a world to get the story going on are quite different things, the pacing is key, if you spend too much time coding you won’t get the experience to create a successful SDIE, it can become quite frustrating, specially because this kind of things are very rarely successful, RPG Maker removes a lot of that work load and frustration because you can experiment with your writing first. Check the biggest names, SDIEs like That Dragon Cancer, Firewatch, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch, and more, had success due to marketing, not necessarily paid, but the press and youtubers tend to pay them way too much attention, is not easy to achieve that, also, the mechanics tend to be quite similar between each other, there’s nothing truly innovative from a game design perspective.

I get you, but having different skills is always beneficial.

Agreed, that is always a good thing, but hear me out. Unless you are literally crazy and are planning to do all of your games alone, then go ahead and continue with the heavily focused on coding courses, but if you are not that crazy then start small, otherwise you are going to end up making nothing, specially because writers, as far as I’ve seen, have a tendency to make games that are just not suitable for the type of story they want to tell, which, to be honest, makes me mad, I’ve seen way too many projects cancelled because they don’t know that there’s a huge difference between a SDIE and an actual game, I don’t blame them, no one makes that separation, this is probably the first time you heard something similar to what I’m saying, actually, I think this is the first time someone was said it, I’ve being thinking about this for a long time, I have to yet fully develop the concept and idea tho.

Hope this helps you.

1 Like
#8

Hi Yee!

Thank you for the perspective. I will be honest, I had no idea there was a category strictly devoted to Story Driven Interactive Experiences, and I am grateful for you opening my eyes to this!

I enjoy writing stories quite a bit, and I do want the player to feel immersed in the story of the game they are playing. Without a proper education in game development, the only benchmark from which I could measure a player’s enjoyment was what I personally found myself enjoying in games. I enjoyed games in which the story was important, in which a large motivation was to see how a story might unfold, or how a character’s development might progress. However, I have never lent myself strictly towards games that are entirely dependent on dialogue. They are wonderful for what they are, and I enjoy them, but my main goal is not to necessarily make something like that.

My main goal is to construct a detailed, meaningful story, but have it be the result of the player’s playing of the game. A perfect example of what I mean is the way Portal and, more aptly, Portal 2, designed their gameplay. It was a puzzle game first, but it had a very prominent and integral story/mystery component! Something along that same vein is what I truly wish to design. I am not certain if that falls under the category of SDIEs. But if it does, I welcome your guidance and advice! I will be honest, the game dev world is overwhelming and there are about 1000 directions to go (AI, 3D modeling, game design, shader development, story writing, …), and I certainly don’t think it is reasonable to assume I can learn all of it. So whatever advice you have in regards to what path I should take in terms of game dev education, I would be extremely grateful for it!

At the moment, I have completed the Unity 3D course, am halfway through the RPG combat course, and have also been on an amateur team in which I am responsible for implementing movement in a space RTS using animation. (Whoo has that forced me to learn a lot particularly about C# and game design patterns that honestly surpass the C# education of the RPG course in most ways XD). I also have a degree in physics so I love anything motion/kinematics related, hence why they put me in charge of movement. I also have experience in voice acting, acting in general, and to a lesser extent music composition.

These are the results of my current attempts to educate myself XD I am entirely unsure of what direction I am supposed to go in, and, as such, have been floating on the wind learning whatever hits me in the face. XD
So whatever advice you, or anyone can give, I will be exTREMELY grateful. Like I will offer my services for this advice haha whatever it takes. XD

#9

Let me start by explaining SDIE a little further. There’s no such thing as a strictly devoted category, I came up with that, so it’s not like an industry-standard, I’ll probably end up writing a book about this because is something that has been bothering me for years now, and I truly believe the separation is desperately needed for the industry to truly evolve, we’ve been playing the same kind of games for over two decades.

You pretty much answered yourself, you are obviously quite capable of learning, coding, and more, just choose a path, if you pick one and have any doubts, I’ll be glad to help, but as of right now, you gotta choose first.

The only thing I can fully recommend that will help you regardless of which path you decide to walk, is to develop games, developing games is the best thing you can do to learn how to make games (obviously :sweat_smile:), this isn’t science, and a lot of people approach this as part of the tech industry, it isn’t, this is the entertainment industry, which is way harsher than tech and it is way more unpredictable, the only thing you can do to succeed is putting in the work and getting better every day, and for that, you need to develop games, don’t go and create your dream game first, do at least 5 games beforehand.

As for which kind of games, well, it’s entirely up to you, they don’t have to be super big games, but complete games will work, with a start menu, a saving system, pause, and so on, that will truly open your eyes, if you can publish any of them, that would be awesome.

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