Castle Paradox

[Durandal]

I had all preliminary work done (most of it anyway) for this game that was originally made to spite the community. Thanks to the limits on the OHR engine, it will probably never see the light of day on this site. Maybe if I find an engine suitable for it.

First, the setting: It's a sci fi universe, and planets have been colonized all over. One such planet, on the fringes of civilized space, never got named, since it was, up until recently, worthless. A high concentration of ore was found pretty far into the planet's crust, and it was summarily divided up amongst mining companies. These companies formed a giant city that took up a good portion of the available landmass outside the Ash Wastes.

Several years pass, the city's booming with commerce and prosperity, and the planet is a regular stop on trade routes. Then, disaster strikes. Out of nowhere, a rather large foreign object smashes into the center of the city, collapsing the first few levels. This object was later identified as an alien colony ship. Though extremely rare, these derelict ships do wander in from the void, coasting on an unknown power source. When exposed to crashes, this power source tends to leak. The substance that leaks out has an adverse effect on the surrounding wildlife. And by adverse effect, I mean rampant, uncontrolled mutation.

All the mining corporations pulled out at this point, leaving their employees stuck on planet. For about a year, they had to scavenge for supplies until the trade ships came around. But despite all the badness that had befallen them, some chose to stay. They made a new, drastically smaller city that served as a base for those brave enough to head into the city and bring back whatever they deemed profit worthy. Eventually, offworlders started showing up and scavenging as well. This occupation was shortened to scav.

Anyway, the only non-optional character in the game was Null, a new scav to the city, hoping to make his fortune. Null has no background or personality, since the player makes every dialogue option for him. Every dialogue would have at least two responses to it, plus the everpresent Attack button, which would sytart a combat between the player party and the NPC in question. Null uses bayonets as his weapon, which can be attached to a rifle for slower, more powerful attacks or a pistol for faster, less damaging attacks.

I feel I should explain the above a bit more. See, I'm not a huge fan of Interactive Movie RPGs, like most console RPGs or any of the OHR games I played, so I wanted to get rid of that with a Fallout-esque system. Thus, you have the freedom to respond however you want to quests, NPCs, shops, etc. You'd also have the freedom to attack and kill any character you could talk to. Don't like the views of a certain individual? Kill him. Several endings revolved around killing townpersons. This was the biggest bad when it came to the engine, since you can only have two dialogue options that don't relate to shops.

Aside from Null, there's also a supporting cast that is entirely optional, that is, the game would be completely beatable with just Null.

First off was Dirge, a mercenary who sports a set of genetically enhanced organs and a rack of combat drugs on his back. He uses katars, and is generally regarded as an unsavory character. He is found engaging in his favorite part of his job, drinking heavily, in one of the bars around town.

Ivan, a displaced researcher, became obessessed with the zombie phenomenon that started just after the Crash. He thought he could create a zombie slave race, and has been researching zombies ever since. His attacks revolve around using scraps of meat and other highly scientific materials to bend zombies ot his will.

There are others, but enough about them.

There are two main plots that Null can attempt. The first, and most readily appearent, has nothing to do with the Crash at all. It has to do with a property dispute between the only corporation, the Matsuda Mining Corp., or MMC, that stayed on planet after the Crash, and a band of freedom fighting mutants who live in the city. The mutants seem to think that since they technically are the owners of the city, MMC and to a lesser extent, the scavs should leave the planet. They express this by killing prospect teams, bombing MMC drilling rigs and occasionally hijacking an Ash Crawler, which is a large, train like vehicle that sifts through the ash to pick up any residual bits of valuable resources. Null and co. can either throw their lot in with the mutants and eventually push MMC off planet, or crush the rebellion with MMC labelled justice.

The other has to do with stumbling across a crashed Navy lander. It seems that the Galactic Council is interested in the ship, and wishes it surveyed, and more importantly, turned off, so it can be excavated. They sent a team, headed by an Intelligence officer named Rome, to perform this duty. They lander crashed in the city, leaving only Rome and two Marines to complete the mission. Rome offers a very tidy sum to Null, which will probably entice the player into helping Rome out.

This plot path will eventually lead to the center of the alien ship, where the player is given a choice: keep the ship on and assure a steady source of income, or turn it off, for the benefit of the Council and those scavs not good enough to stay alive. If you choose the first option, then Rome and the rest of the "good" alligned characters turn on you, and that's the last boss fight. Otherwise, it's the alien ship's last defense system: a frickin' huge organic tank thing.

Of course, there are a ton of other game ending quests. You can kill everyone in the town, kill the authoirty figures, uncover a giant robot, or do one of the character specific quests (Dirge wants to find a secret bank vault, Ivan wants to further his research, Yuri the land pirate wants a ship and his career back).

If this interested anyone in the slightest and you want to hear more, say so. I enjoy reading my own work.

[JSH357]

I don't see why that would be impossible to do on the OHRRPGCE.

It seems like a fairly interesting story idea, but be prepared for lots of plotholes- letting the player kill anybody in the game can be risky business.

[Me]

I was thinking about letting the player attack anyone in one game I was thinking about making . . . it wouldn't be that hard, just use a text box that only appears if the "Attack" tag is on, which is activated by using an item or pressing a key.
Sounds pretty well-thought out, Durandal. I'd play it if it was done well.
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[Iblis]

Sounds pretty good. I think it would all be possible with insane plotscripting. Most people don't want to do that so another engine may be better (I've never come across another RPG engine that didn't suck though).

Heh, being able to attack NPCs reminds me of an Ultima game I played on the NES. You could attack anyone but if you killed random townspeople the guards (who were really strong) came after you. Fun stuff.
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[Me]

That's Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. If you attacked people at rondom, it would lower your compassion and justice virtues and make it harder to beat the game, since beating the game was mastering the eight virtues. Likewise, giving money to beggars would raise compassion, killing criminals would raise justice, etc.
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[Iblis]

[Durandal]

[MultiColoredWizard]

Try something like The Games Factory or Jamagic. It'll probably take more scripting because you'll have to do the battle system and stuff... but if you really don't want the OHR's limits(which really I don't see being possibly touched here), then those are the way to go.
Oh, and I suppose I should plug The Curse of Dracula here. It's not interactive movie-ish. It's just, there aren't any people to interact with other than the bosses.. but all you do is kill them and you're done. Tis non-linear, which is what I'm assuming is what you want.

[Durandal]

[Me]

Well, now I know about Ultima . . . to tell the truth, the only one I ever got into at all was IV, and even that I quit after a short while . . . didn't grab my interest, really.
And if you mean you're looking in to RPGToolkit (not RPGCreations Toolkit), then I HIGHLY discourage you. It sucks, is buggy, and sucks some more.
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