Stuck with you

[Cognisant]

This kind of power dynamic where a really powerful character is stuck with and can't really do anything to directly influence a far less capable character could be great for a videogame. Of course it could also be extremely annoying if the character you're essentially escorting doesn't act intelligently to avoid harm. Rather you want the intelligence to be the main source of the player's problems, your escort character is the one leading you around and has its own goals and desires. It might be easier to kill everything that's a potential threat but doing so will damage the relationship with the escorted character and your character's relationship with them determines the degree of influence you have over them.

Compare/contrast this with how Bethesda's Fallout games give your character family members that your character cares about and the game expects you to play along but you don't care because they're not your family, you're not in the headspace of your character. Whereas Farcry 3 did a fantastic job of making the player inhabit the same headspace as their character, when the game starts you're a bit lost and confused and not confident in combat but as you progress through the game you become more competent at it and likewise Jason becomes more of a warrior. There's a poignant part where Jason meets up with his friends and they're glad to see him and he's glad to see them but something's off and this sense of distance increases as the story continues, he's changed but they haven't and they don't understand what he's becoming.

Imagine you're playing an open world game like Fallout III but you can't go where you please, you have to escort someone and they're leading you through the world and interacting with the people it in a natural human (albeit scripted) manner. The player naturally fits into the role of being this outsider, something powerful but on a leash, frustrated by the limitations, having to play along and play nice to try and regain some control over its situation. And if the character you're escorting has goals and desires and motivation they could actually be quite interesting and as you follow them around you become engrossed in their story, both as an observer and a participant, having to make interesting choices about when and how to intervene as events unfold.

Suppose you're in a large complex and you can see an ambush prepared a few rooms away (one of your vision modes lets you see through walls as though they were glass) but the character you're with has no idea what's up ahead. If you look at the enemies with the walls-are-glass vision mode and press the talk button your character warns the other that there's an ambush up ahead and they may or may not believe you depending upon how trustworthy you've been so far. Alternatively you could offer to scout ahead and just go murder them, maybe hide the bodies to hide what you've done, or let the character find them, each may affect their state of mind in various ways. Or you could not say anything, watch what happens, these enemies might not be the shoot-on-sight kind they might be police looking to make an arrest which could take the story in a different direction, or a last minute intervention could make the person you're escorting more willing to accept violence committed on their behalf, after all you saved them, wasn't that heroic?

 

[Deleted member 1424]

You're describing ico fairly closely, and it's inverse trico/the last guardian, where you're the one being escorted. Both are made by the same team who did Shadow of the Colossus, which people largely prefer. It could simply be the strength of Shadows concept, but I suspect the absence of an escort components is a large part of its enduring critical and commercial success.

People, and gamers especially, are easily frustrated by escort mechanics. You very rarely hear positive things about them. "10/10 game, except for the escort section" is a common refrain. It's pretty easy to understand why, as a weak companion constantly acts a restraining bolt, and frustrates the player. Trico attempted to subvert this and prevent that frustration, by making the player the weak companion instead, but from what I've heard does not completely succeed, though I haven't played it myself.

Maybe you could try an optional bard companion that doesn't fight? You don't have to keep them alive to progress, but they give amusing commentary or hidden backstory (that never repeats) so that most players willingly do so anyway. Making it a choice to do the work to keep them alive creates a willingness in the player to participate and rewards them for keeping the bard alive, instead of punishing them when the damsel or companion dies with a game over or reduced combat function or inventory space. The bard meanwhile would have no function beyond entertainment, their survival purely up to the whim of the player. Now you just have to convince the studio to invest a lot into an optional character.

 

[Cognisant]

I get why escort missions are often so annoying, you're essentially playing goalie for a moving goal so your attention is split between protecting it and keeping track of it, furthermore it's hard to balance the difficulty. Either you give the player plenty of opportunity to fend off attackers which defeats the point of it even being an escort mission if the enemies can never get close enough to threaten the goal. Or you have to contrive ways to put the goal in danger, reducing the player's opportunity to intervene, forcing them to react to a situation forced upon them rather than proactively exercise their agency by approaching it in the way they want to.

With what I'm describing I think it's better to err on the side of giving the player too much opportunity to intervene, indeed it shouldn't be a question of whether or not they can intervene but rather whether or not they should.

Imagine you're playing Hitman and replace Agent 47 with IC-0n, now 47 is already quite dangerous but IC-0n is on another level entirely, as a videogame character she would have an "instantly kill everyone in the room but Max" button and she can see through walls, move through walls and has a plethora of other abilities. So the "escort" part of escorting Max is utterly trivialized, a bit like starting a Hitman mission with a silenced M60, sure if you just want to pass the mission you can mow down everything in your path but the game is about stealth and subtlety even if it give you the toys to play otherwise.

Now the game could be that IC-0n has to protect Max but not let Max find out about what she's doing, the challenge being in hiding the bodies and not painting the walls red rather than actually overcoming the enemies which is again trivial. Now that by itself is a fun little power fantasy, bit of an Alucard and Integra sort of dynamic where yes the player is being kept on a leash but it's a long leash insofar as the one holding it doesn't find out what you're doing.

But what if they do?
IC-0n has to hide the bodies but why does she have to hide the bodies, because she wants Max to trust her and if he sees them he'll trust her less, right? Well maybe, maybe not, it all depends on context doesn't it? That's what really interests me about this the whole interpersonal dynamic and how that dynamic can change based on events and the context in which those events occur.

Furthermore these events may not be entirely positive or negative, if Max encounters a bloodstained wall it might raise his suspicion meter but also his fear meter and if IC-0n can keep his fear high and suspicion low that'll be conducive to him trusting her, feeling he needs to rely on her. So IC-0n needs to spare Max but that suspicion meter also needs to come down, hence the smiley face eggs and bacon at the diner, a meal together could be something to bond over.

Part Hitman part dating sim, LOL

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Alas I never played the hitman, so I didn't follow you that well. Sounds like a really fucked up relationship though. I doubt the average writer could resist revealing the protag was a liar via plot point though. Maybe you could give the protagonist forbidden superpowers they have to hide them. Vampire is too obvious. Were-badger? Maybe make them a demon or witch hiding out in one of those creepy bible belt towns, where they have to blend in and corrupt locals. They surreptitiously draw pentagrams to use their powers and constantly have to explain to townfolk why they can't step foot in church. If they get caught they're burned at the stake or maybe they're forcibly baptized.

I definitely didn't dream about that last one recently or anything. >.>

 

[Cognisant]

Sounds like a really fucked up relationship though.

Yeah a bit like Yandere Simulator if the player character has a romantic interest in the character they're escorting. I like the IC-0n and Max dynamic where IC-0n is like some demon that's been bound to Max, a bit like Sun Wukong and Tripitaka in "Journey to the West". Although if we wanted to make the romance plot the focus of the game it could be like Inuyasha, he would be the sort to scout ahead to take out demons which Kagome would have ethical issues with, but that seems kinda silly given that they're y'know demons.

Maybe you could give the protagonist forbidden superpowers they have to hide them. Vampire is too obvious.

It's a classic monster for a reason and I think were-anything is essentially just a palette swapped werewolf.

Maybe make them a demon or witch hiding out in one of those creepy bible belt towns, where they have to blend in and corrupt locals. They surreptitiously draw pentagrams to use their powers and constantly have to explain to townfolk why they can't step foot in church. If they get caught they're burned at the stake or maybe they're forcibly baptized.

I definitely didn't dream about that last one recently or anything. >.>

Of course

I've always thought it would be interesting to tell a story from the perspective of a cultist in the Lovecraft universe or a heretic in WH40K or even a legit Satanist in a Christian horror universe (it'd be funny if ours was their horror too). I mean they've got to know they're messing with dark and terrible forces, that even if they achieve what they set out to do that they're not going to get away from this unscathed.

So what's the goal of this game, get preggers with the antichrist and herald the coming of Armageddon? Become a vampire or lich or something? Start a coven and try to build up enough power and influence to overthrown Christian society?
All the above?

 

[DingusLord]

Maybe you could try an optional bard companion that doesn't fight? You don't have to keep them alive to progress, but they give amusing commentary or hidden backstory (that never repeats) so that most players willingly do so anyway. Making it a choice to do the work to keep them alive creates a willingness in the player to participate and rewards them for keeping the bard alive, instead of punishing them when the damsel or companion dies with a game over or reduced combat function or inventory space. The bard meanwhile would have no function beyond entertainment, their survival purely up to the whim of the player. Now you just have to convince the studio to invest a lot into an optional character.

I'm writing a vid-game, and have nearly that exact same character.

I was toying with the idea of having no music besides that that naturally occurs. A bard would ameliorate that void. Thus he/she was written. an off-kilter companion who sings quirky tales with lore overtones.

To add some perspective to the companion narratives I undertake: there will be a boy desperate to join you in whatever medieval hijinks you're currently up to. His mother will vehemently disagree. Many tears. The kicker is, depending on your subsequent performance the boy can die, or train and develop.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

I find it funny that you think I need background on yandere simulator or inuyasha. As if I didn't spend part of my tweendom trying to figure how the dog dude was connected to satan. As a side note, I've always loved how anime portrays Abrahamic mythology.

So what's the goal of this game, get preggers with the antichrist and herald the coming of Armageddon?

ew no.

I was thinking your demon would tempt the small town debauchery and blasphemy, maybe some light cannibalism to show homage to creepy rural christian cult roots. Then have the town get Gomorrah'd by God, except he's not really mad at the town about the anal sex or the murder or the cannibalism that your demon incited. At the very end he'll directly speak to the camera all condescending and moralistically about something really dumb, like the evils of working on a Sunday or wearing two types of cloth together. The town was, in fact, doing this before your demon even arrived. Your demon will be spared.

You could have character classes based on the seven deadly sins! Not a novel concept, but still a good one.

 

[Cognisant]

I find it funny that you think I need background on yandere simulator or inuyasha.

Well you haven't played Hitman and everybody's played Hitman.

ew no.

Yes but consider:
You character walks into the local general store to buy some supplies.
"Oh wow you're positively glowing, when's it due?"
"Hmm? No. I'm just fat."
The absolutely mortified look on the clerk's face

I was thinking your demon would tempt the small town debauchery and blasphemy, maybe some light cannibalism to show homage to creepy rural christian cult roots. Then have the town get Gomorrah'd by God, except he's not really mad at the town about the anal sex or the murder or the cannibalism that your demon incited. At the very end he'll directly speak to the camera all condescending and moralistically about something really dumb, like the evils of working on a Sunday or wearing two types of cloth together. The town was, in fact, doing this before your demon even arrived. Your demon will be spared.

If I don't get to raise hell, tear down the heavens and kill god what's even the point?

Murder and cannibalism are blasé, you kill people in every game and the only thing wrong with cannibalism is that people are disgusting, imagine how awful a pack a day smoker would taste, ugh. But getting pregnant with the antichrist that's the most based thing ever, just imagine the uproar that would come from Christian groups if a game like that was released.

I dunno why you're more grossed out by this than I am, I could play a male character who gets manpreg somehow and not be grossed out by it but I think that would make it too easy to hide, of course nobody's going to question some guy's beer gut.

In games like Rimworld, Project Zomboid and Hobo: Tough Life which are all essentially survival horror games there's this whole thing about the fact that winter is coming. You start off well off but the clock is ticking and everything you do to prepare and all the progress you make is a race against that clock because despite your best efforts your situation will become more dire and the game will become harder. Pregnancy is perfect for this and there's this triple whammy, pregnancy itself is pretty horrifying, then add on the fact that the kid the player's character is pregnant with is a literal hell-spawn (so as the pregnancy progresses all kind of weird shit will start happening) and to up the ante even further there's crazy Christians and later professional witch-hunters after you.

Almost certainly the final hour will be a desperate holdout with the player character all but crippled by going into labor. Sitting on the floor in the basement, behind a barricade, shotgun trained on the door, your most loyal cultists are in a shootout with police upstairs then you hear the sound of breaching charges and the staccato of sub-machine guns. The gunfight intensifies, boots thumping, the boom of flashbangs, screams and clips being emptied in panic, the gunfire stops, more thumping of boots, they're at the door now forming up for the final breach.
With less than a minute until the midnight, the final midnigt, you put the stock to your shoulder and watch the door through your iron sights, planing to fire blind until your shells are spent just to keep them out for a few... seconds... longer...

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Yes but consider:
You character walks into the local general store to buy some supplies.
"Oh wow you're positively glowing, when's it due?"
"Hmm? No. I'm just fat."
The absolutely mortified look on the clerk's face

I think I'd go with cancer instead.

If I don't get to raise hell, tear down the heavens and kill god what's even the point?

Murder and cannibalism are blasé, you kill people in every game and the only thing wrong with cannibalism is that people are disgusting, imagine how awful a pack a day smoker would taste, ugh. But getting pregnant with the antichrist that's the most based thing ever, just imagine the uproar that would come from Christian groups if a game like that was released.

Binge on sugar and you won't be able to taste sweet. Plus you want to make the protagonist the typical center of the universe power fantasy? Come now, that's the potato chip of video game writing. People eat it up, but it never satiates.

I dunno why you're more grossed out by this than I am, I could play a male character who gets manpreg somehow and not be grossed out by it but I think that would make it too easy to hide, of course nobody's going to question some guy's beer gut.

In games like Rimworld, Project Zomboid and Hobo: Tough Life which are all essentially survival horror games there's this whole thing about the fact that winter is coming. You start off well off but the clock is ticking and everything you do to prepare and all the progress you make is a race against that clock because despite your best efforts your situation will become more dire and the game will become harder. Pregnancy is perfect for this and there's this triple whammy, pregnancy itself is pretty horrifying, then add on the fact that the kid the player's character is pregnant with is a literal hell-spawn (so as the pregnancy progresses all kind of weird shit will start happening) and to up the ante even further there's crazy Christians and later professional witch-hunters after you.

Of course I'm more grossed out. Plus y'know.... anti-christ baby... everybody and their dog has done that. It's never fun, interesting, or enlightening. Alien will always be better. Btw you watched raised by wolves? You should.

Now if you're determined to make an mpreg simulator, don't let me stop you. The heart wants what the heart wants. Just don't expect me to play.

Almost certainly the final hour will be a desperate holdout with the player character all but crippled by going into labor. Sitting on the floor in the basement, behind a barricade, shotgun trained on the door, your most loyal cultists are in a shootout with police upstairs then you hear the sound of breaching charges and the staccato of sub-machine guns. The gunfight intensifies, boots thumping, the boom of flashbangs, screams and clips being emptied in panic, the gunfire stops, more thumping of boots, they're at the door now forming up for the final breach.
With less than a minute until the midnight, the final midnigt, you put the stock to your shoulder and watch the door through your iron sights, planing to fire blind until your shells are spent just to keep them out for a few... seconds... longer...

Yeah guns just don't do it for me, like they clearly do for you. Plus I'd rather portray the devout as comically inept, hypocritical and petty. It's closer to reality. I'd want people to recognize the people and practices from their own experiences and demonstrate how utterly absurd they are. They're a proper threat of course. It's never wise to underestimate the power of bad memes and stupid people, but they're not the predator. I think we just prefer a fundamentally different tone.

 

[Cognisant]

Btw you watched raised by wolves? You should.

Before I read the Wikipedia article I thought "this reminds me of Prometheus, it's artsy nonsensical and chock full of pointless drama and spectacle" then I read that it's directed and produced by Ridley Scott, well that explains it.

Assuming you didn't recommend that to me out of spite the premise does indeed have some merit and so here's my version of it.

A pair of androids arrive on an alien world to raise human embryos, given that they're the epitome of human technology they're not complete fucking morons and this all goes fairly smoothly. As with any ambitious mission everything is extensively planned and meticulously choreographed, there's redundancies and contingencies and everything is over-engineered to a ridiculous degree, it would be boring to watch.

After a couple thousand years of peace and prosperity the androids are starting to break down, simply put they're getting old, they have self repair mechanisms but without proper maintenance that only delays the inevitable and the highly sophisticated infrastructure required just doesn't exist yet. At this point there's tens of millions of people, fairly spread out, rapid development to the level of the level of the industrial revolution and no shortage of uncontested arable land had made them rather lazy.

The people are fairly well educated, kinda lax about it, they've been told the androids are constructs created by their precursors but this is also the only world they've ever known, the loving and patient guidance of the androids is the only leadership they've ever known. Despite their misgivings the androids have been raised to the level of pharaohs, despite being told not to people worship them, their flawless advice is taken as divine edict and to be fair the people's faith in them is well placed.

So it comes as quite a shock when this god-king and god-queen announce that they're slowly dying, that the time has come to make preparations for their entombment and to record as much of their vast stores of knowledge and wisdom before they're not able to share it anymore. Thus sufficiently motivated the people set about building a vast stone tomb complex (kinda like the temples of ancient Egypt) in a desert that has large river running through it for ease of moving the large stone blocks from far away quarries (also a lot like Egypt).

Within this tomb complex, which is quickly becoming a palace despite the android's misgivings, the androids ceaselessly recite and simultaneously write down everything they know while a legion of scribes and stone masons ensure everything is meticulously recorded and carved into the stone walls of the complex. Imagine Wikipedia in its entirety, now add the contents of every textbook, reference and manual in their entirety, now imagine that's all being recorded, in stone, on the walls of a sprawling stone city and it's all in alphabetical order.

With the passing of centuries the androids become less mobile, they lose their voices, their fingers cease to be useful, they communicate by pointing and looking and tapping, and before they wear themselves out completely they go still. The time has come, with great fear and mourning humanity entombs its masters and look upon the great edifice of knowledge that surrounds them, its splendor is unlike anything mankind has ever created and to scholars it's a nightmare.

Suppose you want to learn how to bake a cake after reading about how delicious cakes are on one of this complex's many engraved murals to knowledge, ok well that wall told you everything you would ever want to know about how many different kinds of cake their are but little to nothing about how to actually make them. So you want to see the mural on baking, given that you have the word "baking" and this place is sorted alphabetically you know approximately where to find it, in the b-a-k section which is only about three kilometers long. Most of which pertains to math and subatomic physics concepts you have no hope of understanding and thousands of other topics that have no relevance to you. Then when you find the mural on baking you create a list of the other murals you need to visit to understand what that was about, like what the hell is granulated sugar and where do eggs come from?

Now imagine you're trying to make a combustion engine, it's the same problem but exponentially worse and scholars spend their entire lives trying to solve such problems, not just to understand how a combustion engine works but also all the manufacturing processes involved and enough about those processes to start to make the equipment needed to perform them.

Six thousand years after the androids landed on this alien world humanity has reached a level of technological sophistication roughly equivalent to where we are now, they've got simple robots rolling down these corridors scanning every mural, compiling them into a database where pattern recognition software runs day and night trying to patch this all together into some kind of wiki structure.

This is where the story takes place.
Will continue later.

Coming soon: Religious dipshits ruin everything.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Assuming you didn't recommend that to me out of spite the premise does indeed have some merit and so here's my version of it.

Nah it's good. Way better than Prometheus. Your premise is similar to what I initially thought was going to happen more or less, but it's executed quite differently.

 

[Cognisant]

Nah it's good. Way better than Prometheus. Your premise is similar to what I initially thought was going to happen more or less, but it's executed quite differently.

Why is it good though?
It's Ridley Scott, if it was anyone but Ridley Scott I'd just take your word for it but it's Ridley Scott we're talking about. Hey we're the best scientists money can buy and we found an intact alien head, lets clamp some jumper cables to its ears and crank up the voltage to see what happens. It's a decapitated head, were they expecting it to talk?

In the 22nd century, two androids, Mother and Father, escape an Earth devastated by war between militant atheists and a religious order known as the Mithraic to colonize the planet Kepler-22b, bringing with them human embryos with which to begin a new civilization. Twelve years later, only one child, Campion, has survived.

My reaction:

 

[Deleted member 1424]

It's difficult to talk about without getting into spoilers.