Saber Marionette The RPG That Never Was

Discussion in 'Manga and Anime' started by BakaMattSu, Jul 14, 2011.

  1. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
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    The RPG That Never Was

    Many years ago, in the time I like to regard as my creative high point (The regular 9-5 grind and responsibilites of daily life had not yet begun its daily sap of energy and spirit), I had a number of projects enthusiastically on the go. I was writing and drawing as a creative outlet - nothing of masterpiece quality, but I like to think to some level of entertainment. One of the most ambitious undertakings was the desire to put together a complete RPG. Like much of my creative outlet at the time, I set my sights on my favourite anime, the Saber Marionette series. I mapped this one out in mind and even did a bit of construction with some of the available RPG engines out there, but it never really got up and running.

    Enough time has passed now that I'm confident I'll never put this together in any capacity. At one point I considered salvaging the plot floating about in my head and giving it a full written treatment. However, revisiting that idea, I've come to realize that it wouldn't work as well as it would in the confines of simple text - this story was envisioned within a game framework. Rather than keep the ideas bouncing about in my head, I think it's time I let them out. What follows is an account of the scenario and some of the plot that I had evolved for an RPG that may have been created in the past had I devoted more effort to it.

    The Initial Spark

    I was discovering the internet in the early days (we're talking mid to late nineties!) when I stumbled upon my inspiration for this entire thing. Another fan (called himself RyogaOtaru IIRC) was working on exactly this - a Saber Marionette RPG. Rabid fan boy that I was, I prodded to see his unfinished work in progress. What he handed out to me was the simple, unadulterated start of a cheesy fanplot. It starred a youth named Dandy who stumbled upon three humanlike marionettes with names following a theme (sound familiar?). I can't recall all the names, but they were cake-themed - One was Lemon, the second was possibly Strawberry, and I remember the third had an over-the-top name like Angel Food Cake. It wasn't a very long piece of game, and it wasn't very special, but I was engrossed due to the appreciation fellow fan gush. One thing that was certain was that regardless of how good or bad it was, it was far from being finished.

    In a classic bonehead move, I offered to take what he had and promised to run with it into a finished game. It was kind of silly to offer to continue it, since I had already decided not to use his foundation as a base, but he had indicated he was about to scrap it anyway.

    Aimless Production

    What I found out of place with RyogaOtaru's start was that it lacked that Saber Marionette feel. It was like he shoehorned the idea into a typical fantasy roleplaying game. The first thing I adamantly decided on was to bring in the full original cast. My spriting was terrible, so I turned to a community I knew little about for help.

    I boldly hit up the owner of what was a beautiful showcase site for the series of the time - Saka of "I Breathe Your Love". Her fansite was my absolute favourite, and the one to where I initially published my Saber Marionette fanfic series, J vs M (Yes, it's not finished, and I'm likely to post a very similar thread to this one discussing the ending plot and how everything ties together). What possessed me to ask for Saka's help is beyond me (I think she may have had a short text blurb indicating she was accepting art requests), but I did. She produced an amazing Lime sprite for walking about the field. Unfortunately, Saka wasn't too receptive to produce further offerings, but it gave me a start. I went on to create the remainder of main four (Cherry/Bloodberry/Otaru), Hanagata, and even a small Ponta. At the same time, I found a great Edo-style tileset to draw out the city-state of Japoness.

    With this material in hand (and the Original Soundtracks at my disposal), I mapped out Japoness from the Castle down to Kasahari Apartments. I set up the interior of Otaru's apartment. I laid out the opening cutscene complete with choreography and dialog. I had a complete demo of this kicking around for the project's entire lifespan, and while I tweaked it here and there, it never graduated from this state.

    The issue here was that I never had a solid foundation of a plot, or least not a plot that fully satisfied me. A major hurdle was how to fit the story into the exisiting Saber Marionette timeline.

    Plotting in the confines of SMJ

    The earliest idea I had was a renewed threat in Gartlant. Faust's former second-in-command Goeddel would take the reins of the falling Empire and lead a new war against the planet. A major turning point was to be when the marionettes get caught in a huge explosion, lose their memories, and Otaru spends the game trying to find them and restore their memory. Sound familiar? It should - it's almost point-by-point the plot of J to X. Keep in mind this was before I had seen or knew anything about J to X other than it somehow involved traveling to Xi'an. It's still jarring to think back about how similar my initial RPG plot was to the series I knew nothing about.

    I remember bringing these initial thoughts up with Lady Aoi (former M2A board goer and Hanagata's #1 fan) over an IM chat. She had asked if the RPG was going to be a game version of my J vs M fanfic, and I answered with a negative, presenting the ideas above. She promptly responded with "it's been done". This was in my "hadn't yet seen J to X" days, so I thought she was referring to how cliche it was. Later, I would find out I'd indavertedly recreated some of the major plot points of J to X. D'oh!

    I thought about scrapping the plan following that discussion, but an RPG didn't really work without a reason to go world trekking, so I clung to my plans. However, to lessen the repeat effect of Gartland of SMJ, I made two changes. The first was to remove Goeddel from the picture.

    Instead, I brought in a disgruntled head of production from Japoness. This unnamed scientist snaps after finding out that marionette production is to be discontinued (following "Woman's Rebirth" with Lorelei available for female cloning). His entire obsessive life was devoted to producing beings that were about to be tossed aside and forgotten. He plots destruction of Lorelei as well as all cloning material and documents related to her. Seeing Otaru and his marionettes as the biggest threat to his plan, he forms a plan to separate them and plunge Japoness into chaos during their absence. Striking a deal with ten crime bosses, he promises them the city-state in return for Lorelei.

    The player was to start the game with some minor questing in and around Japoness. At some point they would travel on an official state errand whereupon an earthquake orchestrated by the big-bad-villain separates Otaru and company. The majority of the game involved Otaru traveling around Terra II to reunite with everyone only to return to Japoness under the rule of the ten mob bosses. Many confrontations later would have escalated into a final showdown with the scientist and mechanical deathtraps of his design.

    That was the gist of the initial plot, which was the same as my first thoughts, but with the final showdown in Japoness rather than Gartlant and against a different protagonist.

    I didn't get to a further level of detail with plotting, but I did have some scattered ideas:
    -The first "quest" was tracking down an envelope containing Otaru's rent money for the month, which Lime misplaced while playing in the forest
    -I wanted to include a boss fight in the form of Mother Ponta-Kun, but threw it out because it was retreading too much ground
    -There was a sequence where Gennai's marionette Gemini malfunctions and goes berserk
    -Bloodberry was to be discovered following her separation in a primitive settlement that had never seen a marionette before. She would have been appointed a queen (or goddess) of sorts, and the plot would have involved somehow convincing the tribe to let her go
    -A pseudo dating simulation was to be in place during the full run of the game. This was pretty much set up like Final Fantasy VII's Gold Saucer scene. There were to be a number of dialog options at different points of the game that tilted favour towards different the different marionettes (and Hanagata). Near the end of the game there would be a dating sequence where Otaru takes the highest scoring character out for a date sequence at night.
    -Playable characters were to be: Otaru, Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, Hanagata, Luchs, Tiger, Panther, Ponta-Kun (one of the little guys, not Mama Ponta)
    -There was an optional sidequest to repair Marine (who would then be an available party member) that involved finding some rare missing parts hidden around the game world.

    As time went on, I was just never fully satisfied with the jumbled together plot. As I mentioned above, a major hurdle was fitting the game into the Saber Marionette timeline. Before J Again was too soon - it predated the Saber Dolls joing the cast, Marine as an available sidequest, and I felt it was a bit early for the discontinuation of marionette production and the scientist's coup d'etat. After J to X was out, considering I didn't know its ending or any implications of it at the time. That left me in the period between J and J to X, but there were still some incompatibilities. Xi'an was a definite exclusion in keeping the RPG compatible with any existing canon. That still left the other city-states such as Petersburg and Romana, but the more I explored it, the more globe trotting with these set of characters didn't appeal to me.

    Bringing Back Dandy

    I eventually came full circle to where RyogaOtaru had gone before me. I had found out that as familiar and credible using the main cast was, it was a double edged sword that was stifling creativity with a restrictive boundary. To truly have full freedom, I'd need to cut loose and play in a sandbox of my own creation. However, there needed to be enough ties to the existing material so as not to distance it too much - if that happened, I felt it wouldn't feel right being placed in the Saber Marionette story.

    Being terrible at producing my own names, and wanting to give some recognition to RyogaOtaru's work, I decided to use Dandy as the protagonist. That would be the end of our similarities - Angel Food Cake would not be making an appearance.

    There was no doubt that I wanted to focus on Maiden circuits, with three marionettes so equipped. As cliche as that setup was, it has always been the heart of the Saber Marionette story. The problem was deciding how to justify the existence of three more circuits - in canon, only three countries developed them, Japoness, Gartlant, and New Texas. New Texas was clearly a later addition, as Faust and Ieyasu were the only two characters shown to have direct involvement with Lorelei during the Mesopotamia disaster, so it would have been as simple as just writing in a set from Romana, Xi'an, or Petersburg.

    I was also looking to tie the game to Saber Marionette J specifically, yet only faintly. A very early draft involved going to Japoness with heavy cameo appearances there, but it was too forced and obvious. I don't remember how or when it dawned on me exactly, but one session of thinking I suddenly worked out the full plot.

    Marine was the solution I was looking for - both in the form of available Maiden circuits and as a bridge between the RPG saga and J.

    I once had a conversation with luvweaver about fanfics where he suggested an outline for a Marine story. He had the basic premise and indicated I should take those ideas and run with them. I politely declined. I already had a Marine story to tell, but it wouldn't emerge in the form of fanfiction, at least not traditionally. No, my Marine story was to be my RPG.

    It wasn't to be an obvious story - in fact, while it involves Marine at its heart, she didn't actually make a proper appearance until the end. The RPG involved subsets of Marine. What follows is a synposis of what would have been the plot of the final RPG, had I completed it.

    The Final Scenario and Plot

    Many years following J to X's completion, Marine's Maiden Circuits are reclaimed by New Texas and repaired. While they are in transit following the repair, the vehicle carrying them is involved in a serious accident and the circuits plummet into the bay. Each drifts along the currents ending up in very different places.

    One circuit eventually finds it way to Romana where it falls in with other pieces of garbage in a scrapyard. This is where Dandy, a young student of Romana academy, happens upon it. He and his buddy often sneak into the scrapyard to salvage bits and pieces of material they sell to a local elder man who loves to reminisce on the past and the technology he grew up with.

    Dandy has a small group of friends which consists of himself, a human girl, and a boy who more or less fills the role of Hanagata in the RPG. I had names for these characters once, but I'm not sure where I've filed them away since.

    The girl is a second generation female clone. Female clones are regulated and restricted in this time period, following disastrous results from the first generation. These first females contained genetic defects that resulted in a widespread and controversial recall. A large campaign involving cover ups and misinformation was applied to keep the event out of the public's mind. To avoid another possible large scale incident, the second generation was more selective. Dandy's friend is the daughter of a powerful and influential crime boss, but this isn't common knowledge. She detests the long list of special laws and priviledges applied to her because of her status as a female clone. She first took a shine for Dandy when he treated her as nothing special, but as "one of the guys", in stark contrast to the rest of society who put on a facade whenever she was in her presence.

    Dandy's guy friend is a weirdo with a marionette fetish. He keeps a large collection of old catalogs with various models, and they tend to be the focus of his conversations. However, he's never owned one himself - they are no longer in production, and the old working models are cost prohibitive. There is a particular marionette in the store window of a pawn shop he's had his eye on for some years, and he regularly points it out as the item he has been saving all his money for.

    He meets Dandy in the scrapyard where they typically scavenge parts just after Dandy comes across the Maiden Circuit. However, his friend trips the alarm, and the two have to beat a hasty retreat as alarm bots swarm the place.

    His friend admits his carelessness was due to the fact that he was excited - tonight's the night he buys that marionette from the shop window.

    They stop off at the old man's place and he gives them some change for some of their items. When he gets to the Maiden circuit, he is perplexed. He's never seen anything like it, and claims it's too valuable to buy. The best he can determine is that is some sort of control circuit.

    Dandy's friend buys the marionette and they rush off to his place. They're working on the model late into the night and Dandy decides to stay to see it through to the end. with everything in place, his friend powers it up, only to find the model isn't in working order. He gets depressed, and while Dandy tries to comfort him, no words are of any help.

    Dandy returns to the room with the marionette alone, letting his friend sulk. He checks the wiring one more time, but everything appears to be in order. On a whim, he pulls out the Maiden circuit and finds it plugs in easily. The marionette shudders to life.

    Across it's internal display trail the words:
    Power On...
    Initializing Core.....Initialized.
    Program Start...........Failed.
    Backup Program Start.......Jade Program Started.

    (As an aside, the main program was in fact NSM-X1 aka Marine. However, since the program runs on three circuits, subset programs were installed on each Core as failsafes.)

    Jade is sort of a Lime/Cherry hybrid (Pure/Maternal). She's energetic, but not the point of bursting. At the same time, she's a gentle soul who has difficulty understanding her surroundings. Naiivety incarnate - along the lines of Lucia in the early stages of Lunar 2.

    Dandy's friend walks back in as she awakens. Jade immediately bonds to Dandy and asserts him as her master. A short scene involves Dandy and his friend attempting to convince her that she's his friends' master, but she insists Dandy is the one.

    The next few days are a heap of problems as Jade neds up following Dandy to class and getting into general trouble around the city by virtue of being a curious member of a near-extinct robot.

    Then the dreams begin. Jade relates a longing to go to a specific mountain far from Romana. She gets more and more insistent until Dandy agrees to take her there. His friend tags along (It's HIS marionette after all) and they begin what is to be a long trip. Dandy's human girl friend also secretly trails them, but this fact isn't revealed until some time later.

    [Continued]
     
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  2. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
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    First stop - a treacherous combinations and cliffsides known as the wind tunnels on the outskirts of town. I hadn't fleshed out their reasoning for taking such a dangerous route, but it served as the first "dungeon". I planned on scripting spouts of wind that could drop the player back, sort of like a snakes and ladders kind of maze. Nothing too frustrating as this was early game. Eventually they reach the source of all the gusts and it's a large cave dweller.

    After the cliffside, it's the first time outside of Romana for any of them, so they share a sort of downtime at a makeshift camp in a clearing before moving on. Possibly some more side stuff (forest path with a hermit) to help along character development.

    Next major event was in New Texas, where they encounter the two last protagonists. The first is a bit of an outcasty scoundrel sort of fellow. His story would unfold just a bit later. The second was his remarkable marionette companion, Ruby - yes, another of Marine's cores running in backup mode. Ruby's sly, sharp-tongued, and confident, very much a direct contrast to Jade.

    Their introduction scene involved the scoundrel sitting at a game of poker with Ruby watching from behind him. He drops out and takes his chips away from the tables with an incredulous Ruby asking why he just walked away from a good thing. He answers that sometimes you have to quit while you're ahead, to which she quips, "That's too bad, you were just about to win." Much later at the climax when Ruby would leave him, the same scene would play out in reverse with him asking why she has to go, her quoting him with the bit about quitting while ahead, and him noting she was about to win (all in reference to their affections, naturally).

    Dandy and crew plan on just using New Texas as a stopover to their final destination when they overhear of a plot to assassinate the president. This leads them into the sewers (the next dungeon), where they have a run in with the "Psyclones", a group of hush-hush New Texas clones that were engineering with ESP. The project was shut down when a clone went haywire and killed government officials and the remainder were to be executed before they escaped to the city-state's underbelly. Dandy is unable to convince them to abandon their plot and decides to instead warn the president directly. The president is receptive and thankful for the warning and invites them to a dinner almost as an afterthought. Having suspected something regarding Jade's behaviour the dinner is really a facade in order to bring them into custody. Discovering Jade is part of the NSM-X1 superweapon (although the actual designation is not openly said at this point of the game) the president plans on keeping it and letting Dandy and his friend rot in jail. Ruby, feeling a bond with Jade, convinces her scoundrel companion to come to their rescue. Onwards to the super secret research facility to rescue Jade! The party is joined.

    At some next stop over (wilderness trek), the human girl's cover is blown and she officially joins, forceably as a rival for Dandy's affection (although Jade seems oblivious to the fact). Ruby mentions having the same strange dreams as Jade and how they are becoming clearer the closer they get to their destination.

    The next major event is a stopover at a town on the borders of Petersburg. The scoundrel builds up the place and they're all excited to have a great time back in civilization... until they arrive and find the entire town slaughtered and in wreckage. Jade and Ruby find something familiar about the scenario and are drawn to it, although all are in horror at what they find. This is the work of Coal, the last of NSM-X1's circuits, and one that unexpectedly became unstable on its own. Coal is unable to bond to any actual person upon activation and a flaw in the Maiden Circuit causes her to ruthlessly and emotionlessly cut a swath of death in her path. Coal is encountered, but the battle is short lived as she radiates an aura of draining energy that knocks the group out.

    They arrive in Japoness for a week long festival. When things settle down at night, Dandy's guy friend ends up drunk and passes out. Ruby and the scoundrel end up walking off together. The human girl sees this as a signal for her to make her move on Dandy, but can't find him. After looking all over, she finds him sharing a romantic moment with Jade and she runs off heartbroken. As Jade and Ruby reach the next level of maturity they each independently realize the significance of Coal and that she was calling to them this time within their dreams. They part with the guys. Morning breaks and the two are depressed. They decide it's over and that it's time to head back to their respecitve places. Dandy finds a note that human girl ran off and pushes his hungover buddy to rush to catch up with her. As they reach the city gates, her father's cronies stop them - he found out she left after them and he requests Dandy's presence. We have a Godfather-esque scene whereupon her dad finds out she's missing and demands Dandy bring her back to Romana safe and sound, or else...

    Details are foggy in my head at this point (I think a rival gang kidnapped her or something), but it follows that Dandy reunites with the female girl, who blunty confesses her jealousy cause her to run away and it leads to a new resolve awakening in Dandy to not give up on Jade. They rush off to the lonely tower mentioned in her last dream and find the scoundrel waiting. Up the tower (dungeon) past a number of mecha, etc, and they reach the top where Jade and Ruby are facing off with Coal. They attempt to convince Coal that they need to be made whole again and she rejects them. Coal begins firing up her miasma, but the two resonate against it. Cue others joining in for a battle with Coal. Just as Coal appears to be defeated, she overrides some her functions and elevates to a new entity - Diamond - Final Boss, go.

    As they defeat Diamond, she questions this possibility and finally accepts that the whole is stronger than parts. Dandy and the scoundrel have their final moments with the marionettes, attempting to convince them to stay (cue the reverse introduction of Ruby as per above). It's ineffectual and the three circuits are joined again, forming Marine. Marine is saddened by many of her now merged memories (Coal's unspeakable acts, Ruby and Jade's longing for Dandy and the scoundrel) and collapses in a heap.

    Fast forward to years later for closure. Dandy and the human girl are together. His buddy has a new (but more normal and lifeless) marionette. Scoundrel stops by - he's still single, but has worked with the psyclones to help begin establishing their own city-state. Why did he come, though? He brought an old friend. Dandy has a moment alone with Marine, who admits she has never forgotten about anything over the years. She thanks him for all that he's done and reminisces on some of her older past (faint links to JAgain). I never worked out the full ending, but it was supposed to be a mixture of longing for what could have been and a happily ever after of what did happen.

    I'm sure there are other pieces I've left out - it's been brewing at the back of the brain for years. There was definitely more foreshadowing and talk about the things going on from Coal throughout. Small moments of character development as well. A major part of the scoundrel's past was that his mother was one of the original clones recalled by the government. She was executed and he somehow was missed, but he has a hatred of New Texas as a result. And I couldn't resist involving the Ponta-kuns in some way, so there would have been something around the Japoness area to do with them.

    Anyway, that's it! Rambling and remembrances of a project that never really got off the ground. This has been a long writeup, so I'm somewhat exhausted following it - so forgive me any typos, grammatical errors, or stuff that is plain nonsensical. I may go back at some point and edit those out, but for now, I just wanted to spill my brain out into words.

    Next up: What I had planned for the remainder of my "J vs M" fanfic, what I wrote partially, and what I never completed.
     
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  3. wertitis

    wertitis Proud Mary keep on burnin'

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    RPGs are a curious beast. In a sense they are games in that without human interaction the plots never go anywhere. But in another sense, they are stories locked within the framework of player activated combat, more than a game, per se. Super Mario Bros (the original, for those who remember mushroom stomping in the early 90's before SNES) was a game whose plot was threadbare to the point of nonexistence. Final Fantasy I took the first steps toward fleshing out a real story amidst the repetitive grind of uninteresting fighting. Fast forward to Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI and now the games are less like slogs through waves of preset enemies with varying color palettes, and more like Epics, with deeply moving and engaging plots that span the course of continents and, often, years. In order for an RPG to flow and develop, it must have a powerfully strong backbone (it's plot), to keep the player tied into the events and hold their interest long enough for them to cut through waves of idiotic, cookie cutter enemies to reach the conclusion. Gamers don't care about the combat so much as the plot, which must be engaging, thrilling and spark the desire to see the entire project through to its end.

    In my opinion, so many RPGs today lack this one vital quality. Developers focus on one or two aspects of the game and leave the rest to languish. Graphics seem to be a big thing for them, as well as overblown character development trees. As a result, the plots, the pacing, the music (good god, the music, how I weep for thee), and even the combat, which should at least be satisfying if nothing else, are all left neglected. They've been doing this so long that today's RPG fans don't even remember the glory days (they were too young to appreciate them), and they've accepted cr*p like FFXIII (and WoW, to an extent) as the new gold standard by which they rank everything else. Players don't need an open world sandbox with their RPGs, but neither do they want a completely linear game, holding the player's hand from exposition to exposition.

    This is bullsh*t. Many western gamers grew up on JRPGs, and are slavering at the mouth for another, fun, powerful and gripping JRPG to renew our trust in the fading genre. Somehow the likes of CT, SoM, FFVI, and FFVII managed to give us the whole world, bits and pieces at a time without making us feel like we were being handheld the whole way. We fell head first into the plots, and developed empathy for the characters. We gave two sh*ts what was occurring because we could identify with the action on screen and we wanted to know what happened next. We wanted those boss battles, twisting mazes, and minigames that seamlessly meshed the plot together. We wanted clever ideas, creative implementations, the concept that what we do now has an impact later on in the game, even if those impacts were small and fun, like different items becoming available, or perhaps a different boss, or even, god forbid, a different ending. The sandbox style of gameplay leaves much to be desired, and to date I have only played one Rockstar game from beginning to completion. To paraphrase Tycho Brahe, in an open world game there is so much to do that I often end up doing nothing.

    In an RPG, the one element above all others is the story line. It should be strong enough to stand on its own. No matter what, if the plot is not engaging and it's not interesting to follow, if it cannot hook me, then it is an empty waste.

    And that, my dear Matt, is what I enjoy about your synopsis. It is well thought out, creative, interesting in its own right with the necessary twists and turns to keep a player engaged. You bring up mild points (small details here and there) that are indicative of a greater device beyond what is initially given to the player. You shouldered the cannon and wrote in your down subarc, which seems to keep itself true to the main SM universe. Coal to Diamond, the initial failure of the MC's primary program on boot, the dreams and callings of the two aspects of Marine towards their remaining sister; I found these points, in particular, to be rather clever. It provides insight into Marine and her three MCs, and is, in my opinion, a fascinating variation of the same old SM rehash.

    And then I discover that all this hard work was for nothing, because you let the 9-5 break you down. And for that, I am immeasurably disappointed in you. I spent 6 years in the US military, and the entire time, whether I was on deployment, standing duty, or staying late at all hours of the night on rotating shift work, I was making progress towards my own little project here and there. When I abandoned it, it didn't do so because work was getting too hard and I wanted to simply veg (though some nights it can seem that way, I understand). I put my SM project down because after over 1000 pages, I realized that I wanted my own universe to play in. I didn't want to steal someone else's ground work, I wanted to create my own, with it's own events, its own plots, and its own ideas. It was my baby, and I wanted to breathe life into it from the ground up. Even now, as school places it's weight upon my shoulders, I find that my creative drive is stronger than ever. Six hours of Calculus leaves my brain limber and when I put finger to keystroke, what develops is brilliantly wonderful. When you write your own story, an original IP, Fanfic, RPG or whatever, you know you are doing well when you can empathize with your characters. There were times when I was up to six in the morning, burning the midnight oil, and in actual tears over the events that I constructed.

    Of course a second read through later on didn't have quite the same effect, but I was still genuinely surprised how little I needed alter to ensure that the proper form of my vision came to pass.

    And to think that I, a mere lowbrow, 27 years old and still in junior college, a military dropout who called it quits after his first term, can create something so fascinating, so intriguing even after life gets in his way, is stunning to me.

    And you cite a 9-5 as the reason you put this project down, Matt.

    Shame on you.

    Remember that an RPG is nothing more than a story, an epic, placed within the confines of a game. For every great RPG there was a powerful plot that captured our imaginations and brought the series forward. You have the basic groundwork for the same, a fun story with likable characters, clever arcs and big villains. Don't just let this project languish on M2A as a blurb about might have been's, pursue this, even if it's for your own private collection. Write down the story and lock it in stone. Don't let it drift away into nothingness because of the tedium of work. Your job isn't stopping you from crafting your own universe, you're the one stopping yourself. Even if it comes to nothing more than a fanfic in the end, at least you have proof of your brain child, at least you gave it life and breathed possibility into its existence. You gave it tangible substance, which is so much more than many of our 'great ideas'.

    Writing is an organic process where we chose to play god and when we write well, our great plan comes to fruition, but never like how we expected. Characters and events spin wildly out of control, and we're left with something that grew on its own from the seed that we planted. The things that make the story interesting are the characters we develop, and watching them forge their own path, make their own decisions, and create their own adventures. As authors, we are like gods. We breathe life into our creations, we give them form and substance, and they take the world we gave to them and move in ways we never expected, always fascinating. Give them a chance, you never know how they will surprise you.

    ~W
     
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  4. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
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    Well, that was quite a lengthy and constructed reply! Let's see if I can break it down some...

    I've always found it interesting to look at the evolution of the video game industry. One particularly notable point is how much influence the RPG genre has had on almost every other - almost every game, be it action, RTS or some other form has now made story a key component. Sure, it has mostly been there before (Mario is a carpenter whose girlfriend was kidnapped by a Gorilla, the galaxy is being invaded from space), but games were first and foremost the gameplay itself with a story reason tacked on afterwards to explain what those sprites on the screen were supposed to represent. Now, it's almost a requirement before piecing together the first set of assets - to the point where some action games are so involved that we're truly straddling the line of playing a role (The RP in RPG). Development may come in other forms than collecting gold coins from random battles or increasing numerical stats, but that clear contrast that used to exist isn't always there anymore. Whereas many games have benefited from this trend, some RPGs have actually been hurt because of it - developers are obsessed with devoting zots to producing stuff that's a visual feast, and they can't really be blamed - I've seen my share of reviews that rip into games by stating it uses "last-generation" or "sprite" graphics. Sure, I'll concede it draws a bigger crowd to have incredible CG, and it's prettier to look at, but I'll agree with you here wert when you say it's the heart and soul of the game that matters. I don't care if it's line drawings if it's engaging enough. There has to be reasons for me having the desire to go back to games with outdated or subpar visuals before finishing the latest and greatest visual feast - I'm sure that some of it is nostalgia, but there are also those titles that were cutting edge graphics in their hey-day that have aged even worse.

    Insert surprised reaction here. I admit with all that lead-up, I was more than half-expecting to read a "it's just as well you didn't spend all that time and effort, because at it's heart there really isn't anything all that engaging." It's good to hear that there was at least some foundation to work with.

    One of my intents was to flesh out and explore Marine beyond what I already knew. Splitting her in three was a way to scrutinize the different aspects of her personality. It was also my hope that I could come away from the project with a better understanding of who she is and represents. There were surely some key opportunities in this tale.

    It isn't the entire reasoning behind my shelving, but probably a prominent one, yes. And yes, it's probably more excuse in practice and general laziness that truly accounts for it.

    I was about to write down just now that I'm simply experiencing a drop in creativity, but as I thought about how to put that into words I realized it would be untrue. Just over the past week I can admit to: planning possible encounters for a D&D session that may or may not happen for some time, fleshing out motivations and initial plot lines for a cat-girl-time-and-space-opera I've kicked around in my gray matter for a few years and revisiting thoughts of working out what to do with the concept I had for a horrific virus that grants superhuman abilities and the resulting look at the inner darkness.

    I was about to lay blame on the fact that software development as a job has killed off about any interest I had in coding off hours for fun, but that's not really valid either, given how mind-numbingly simple it is to arrange and construct events within the context of an RPG-Maker.

    I was about to lay blame on my terrible spriting and how terrible it would look as a result, but if I really had faith in what I was doing, that wouldn't be a high priority anyway. Hell, since story is the heart, nothing would stop me from just scripting it out in text.

    No, it's the fact that I'm simply to lazy to put it all together.

    I commend you for continuing to keep up with your creative outlets and recommend you don't let up if you can help it. Once you're off track, it seems it's a difficult thing to get back on.

    Thanks for the inspiring words, but I think I've lost motivation, at least for now.
     
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  5. wertitis

    wertitis Proud Mary keep on burnin'

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    I'm not saying that you need to press forward with the game. I understand that there is a great deal of work that needs to be done for such a project to be completed, but you should still try to at least get the plot down, at least get the story developed and on paper. Your idea is leagues away from terrible, and would be worth at least a few pages considering all the work you put into it.

    At least you're not making up excuses, and I have to grudgingly acknowledge your honest appraisal of why you quit. There's not BSing that, lol.

    ~W
     
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  6. BakaMattSu

    BakaMattSu ^__^
    Staff Member

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    Nor did I interpret that. Getting something out at all, including "on paper" is what I was speaking to (although I can see how the programming point doesn't fit). I guess this entire thread is somewhat as far as I was planning on going at this point. It's shelved for the time being in any medium, but I wanted to at least get the details out there.
     
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  7. b-tuvs

    b-tuvs Member

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    I have an idea for a plot that might fit into the SMJ timeline. I was actually thinking of a side story about the revival of Marine and the appearance of another fruit named marionette called Apple who appeared in the original PS SMJ game.

    The plot opens up with an alarm sounding off at the Edo castle and all the marionette guards including Baiko and Tama Saburo are trying to find what triggered the alarm. Lorelei later discovers that the chamber where Marine's body is being kept has been breached and Marine was stolen.

    An investigation was instantly conducted and all three marionettes naming Lime, Cherry & Bloodberry joined the investigation party. Meanwhile, Otaru was assigned to scour the streets to look for further clues and leads to find the whereabouts of the thief, of course tagging along with him is Hanagata. While looking for clues Otaru can't fully concentrate with what he's doing because Hanagata is constantly fawning all over him. The thief turns out to be one of Dr. Hess' clones and he seeks to perfect the technology behind the three maiden circuits occupying a single body. I think that the investigation and the hunting for leads itself will make a good adventure plot that would lead the group all over Terra 2 and this would open up a much more broader horizon giving way to a much more opportunity to include an extensive array of characters that they might meet along the way, such as shady organizations that hold information about who the thief is, or other individuals that are also on the hunt for the mysterious thief, they can also meet new/old friends and foes and other stuff like that. One funny thought I have is that while Otaru is out hunting for clues, he is riding a scooter that was given to him by those wacky castle guards that gave him his first weapon. Although Otaru requested for some high tech transport equipment, but due to lack of funding and resources, they only gave him a scooter. You can just imagine those wacky guys enumerating all the latest features the scooter has and the best feature of it is that it is less likely to be hit by plasma lightning.

    That's the initial plot I have came up with. Now, for the conflict part. Like the BS game, the girls will face similar looking clones (similar to dark lime etc.), but these clones come with upgraded parts like jet packs and oversized appendages. The clones are implanted with one of Marine’s maiden circuits and the SM girls (or one of them) must defeat all three clones to get Marine’s circuits back. The final boss will be Apple, the assimilated version of all of Marines circuits. The combination of all three circuits makes Apple a potent Battle Saber that would require some team work or wits to defeat her.

    After defeating Apple, she will be reprogrammed to be part of the imperial guards and stuff. It's just a rough plot, but I think that would make a nice background story for the game.

    It would have been interesting to see the game. Too bad the game never saw the light of day :(
     
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