Teuthida

I kind of fell off the Telltale wagon after the QTE that was Jurassic Park. Maybe I'll give Walking Dead a chance (still waiting for more Sam & Max). I can't blame you, Jurassic Park was kind of a train wreck. Walking Dead is fantastic though, you'd barely think they were done by the same people. Definitely recommend giving it a try! It might tide you over until more Sam & Max happens

I really enjoy moments like this in RPGs. It serves to make your party members feel like real people with their own goals and wants as opposed to mindless yes men following you around and hitting things for you. Definitely hoping there will be more, and I'm confident there will be - the many ways you could mess with/fight/force your party members into leaving in Mask of the Betrayer is one of the reasons that game is still a favorite of mine today.

I'm glad it was helpful! I'll start looking for some tutorials for the main post - those would be good resources to have for a lot of developers just starting off. I'm also happy people find the mind-mapping software useful. I used to think it was sort of silly at first, but now mind-mapping has become one of the most crucial steps to my narrative design. Especially if you plan on having branching paths or a lot of characters, it's a great way of keeping your thoughts organized.

No. They could certainly have a city (or tribal village), especially one populated by non-humans, in which females fulfill certain administrative roles. An advanced human matriarchal society would be ridiculous. This hasn't happened once in the history of mankind and there's pretty obvious reasons for that. I am so done

I was and still am so impressed with how Obsidian dealt with morality in Neverwinter Nights 2, specifically Mask of the Betrayer. I'm not the biggest fan of D&D's alignment system, but they really made it work. Not only that, but in MotB they integrated moral choices into the gameplay itself with the Suppress/Devour mechanics (I know people weren't the biggest fan of that system but my god I loved it). I also love the depths of how evil you could really get in that game. There are very few evil choices that have no gain or reasoning behind them. Evil choices that are so absurdly dark as to be illogical were rare in NWN2 - even if you abhorred the reasoning behind a certain choice, there was always a reason it made sense. As for other developers, I think Telltale has been doing great things with The Walking Dead series with regards to choice. As my friends and I have been playing through each chapter, we've been arguing about the choices we made long after we've finished the game - "Oh my god, you left her there?!" "Why would you do that?". Because the game doesn't tell you that an option is good or bad, and you know there is no "correct" decision, the player is the only one able to decide what is right or wrong in their eyes, making the overall story that much more emotionally significant. While I obviously don't think having the constant stream of no-win choices like The Walking Dead is the right direction for Project Eternity, these are more the kinds of "moral choices" I want in RPGs.

Obsidian has not let me down as far as ladies go in games - Kaelyn the Dove is one of my favorite characters of all time, same with Safiya and Neeshka and pretty much any other female character they've made. I have no doubt that they will provide new women for me to swoon over and admire. As far as having a female player character - I don't want to crush the patriarchy in a video game, I don't want my lady characters to have to overcome sexism, I don't want my character's gender to be a major point of contention, I want every NPC to not care because excuse me I am saving the world for you people why would my gender identity matter at all

Thanks for all the great additions! Since I just signed up I actually didn't know that I couldn't edit my post after a bit of time had passed, so I'm not sure how to update the list. Could I message one of the mods with the updates?

This is a great idea for a thread! Writing for games is my biggest interest/hobby/obsession, so just from my experience - the best thing that sets game stories apart from movies/comics/novels is that games are interactive. If you're not taking advantage of player interactivity, why are you making a game in the first place? In story-driven RPGs, player choice is one of the most important ways to make the plot compelling. Lots of options, clever ways to solve problems, and most of all the game acknowledging your choices and changing the story or world around you to reflect it. For me, characters are another big part of the package. In a movie or a novel you never get the opportunity to pause mid-action and ask the characters, "Can you tell me about yourself?" In games you have the option to ask your companions who they are and to get to know them. Making the players care about the characters they're surrounded by leads to them investing themselves more emotionally into the story, which provides writers more opportunity to mess with their emotions.

You're right, I love being complimented about the way I look. It makes me feel great! But there is a huge difference between a stranger telling me in person, "You look nice today!" and a stranger online making anonymous comments in a visible and public place saying things like "Show me your boobs" (of which there was a lot going on in the stream last night). You have to recognize there's a major difference there, right? If you wouldn't say it to a woman on the street, don't say it online. Of course, if you make a habit of telling women to show them your breasts in person anyway, that's just super rude.

what did I just read

If you have a bit of cash to spare and you'd like a good example of in-game dev commentary, check out the special edition of Monkey Island 2. Or you could just look up some of the videos on YouTube. You can turn it on or off, so it won't really be breaking the fourth wall or messing with your story unless you want it to. I don't know how Obsidian is going to do it, but Monkey Island's was an audio track of the game devs talking about why they made what choices where, or what challenges presented themselves when developing a certain part of the game, etc. It adds some cool insight into the development process so you can understand more about the game.

You can't get ye flask!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to provide a list of resources for game developers out there. I'll try to keep things on the list free for the most part, and this is by no means a complete list or resources for people to use! But it should be enough to get any aspiring developer started. I haven't tried some of these so I'm not sure how great they are! If anyone has things to add please feel free to post them in the thread, these are just resources I've thought of off the top of my head. GAME BUILDING: Adventure Game Studio - Windows only; has an active community/userbase. Wadjet Eye makes most of their games using AGS, such as Gemini Rue and Resonance. Spring Engine - Multi-platform (Windows & Linux, Mac support in progress). Open source. Used for building RTS games. GameMaker - Link is for the Windows version, as I have heard GameMaker on Mac is buggy as hell. "Lite" version is free, everything else is at least $50. Sphere RPG Engine - Windows only, Mac & Linux support in progress. Java-based. Ren'Py - Multi-platform (Windows, Max, & Linux), open source. Python-based. Used to make visual novels or life simulation games, such as Magical Diary by Hanako Games and the Heileen series by Tycoon Games. Novelty - Windows only. Also for making visual novels. Targeted towards people who have no programming experience, although there is a scripting interface for users with C++ or Java knowledge. Construct - Windows only. Open source, HTML5. Free if you're not planning on selling your game. UDK - Windows only. Free to use so long as you're not selling a game commercially - if you want to sell a game made with UDK you have to purchase a $99 commercial license. Unity - Multi-platform (Linux support coming with Unity 4). Y'all know what Unity is I don't need to explain this Twine - Multi-platform. Used for writing interactive fiction and text adventures. No programming experience required. Inform - Multi-platform. Used for writing interactive fiction that also prides itself on being accessible to people with no programming language. XNA - Windows only. For XNA Game Studio: Windows games are free to release, but if you want to export your creation to the Xbox 360 you'll need to pay a $99 annual licensing fee for admission to the XNA Creator's Club. Blender - Multi-platform, open source. 3D art asset creation. Modeling, rigging, sculpting, animating, etc. Also features a built-in game engine. Ogre3D - Multi-platform, open source. 3D engine with a lot of support and extensions. WRITER RESOURCES: FreeMind - Multi-platform mind-mapping software. Labyrinth - (I think this is Windows only?) More mind-mapping and story-charting goodness. yWriter - Windows only. Text editor that organizes your document by chapters and scenes, and allows you to store character notes as well as other things. I love this software. Scrivener - Mac and Windows, $40. I haven't personally used this so I'm not sure if it's worth it but it seems very cool! Enjoy! Start making things!

I'm assuming this was directed at me but my goodness there's no need to be so rude Of course the developers are not saying "this is how all bisexuals behave". And a few aggressively flirtatious bi characters in a few games would not be a big deal, but the thing is this is pretty much how all bi characters are being shown in games today, which isn't great. Even if you personally don't object to the content (which is fine and I do understand that it's not a big deal for most hetereosexual people), from a strictly narrative/writing perspective, that character archetype being reused repeatedly is just plain boring. It just makes it a bit different because these characters are also playing into stereotypes in the real world that do exist and are harmful to some people. If me wanting to see more LGBT people portrayed in a realistic/positive light makes me "sensitive" then yes I am a giant sensitive child and I see no problems there

First of all this is a good post and you should feel good about it Secondly yes thank you, I really hope that if romance options are included there are at least some non-heterosexual ones. I'd also love for video game writers in general to stop with the trend of any openly bisexual characters falling into the "sex-crazed rogue" archetype (pointed stares at Zevran and Isabela). It really adds fuel to the ridiculous argument that bisexuality isn't a valid sexual orientation, and the stereotype that all bisexual people "just really like sex", and so on and so forth. It's a harmful stereotype to keep perpetuating and I criiiinge every time I see it happen in games.

Prose before hoes, I guess? :>

Well, Viconia romance was indisputably great, but I guess it won't convince the majority of female players that BG2 had good romances... Hopefully we're past the age of games tailored to male players. I did end up modding my game so my female PC was registered by everyone as male, then proceeded to wonder why female characters had to put up with Anomen while dudes got Viconia. I wanted us to be two badass ladies kicking everyone's backsides and engaging in vicious, snarky banter together!

Thanks for the title, Farudan! Now I just need a neat badge to put in my signature :>

I can't ever cite Baldur's Gate 2 as an example of good romance options because I just... I just hate Anomen so much...

I completely agree with you - the idea of having sex scenes as a "reward" has always creeped me out. Just a gross sort of mentality there. I also wonder if people realize that very few real relationships work that way? The whole "not even kissing until saying you're in love" thing? "Well, we've been aggressively flirting for a while now and we haven't even kissed but I think it's time... I just can't hold back my feelings for you anymore, Player Character..." "I love you." "OH GOD I LOVE YOU TOO, LET'S DO IT RIGHT NOW" (FADE TO BLACK, ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED)

I love detailed epilogues in RPGs, and I want to know that any choices my character made had an impact on the world. It's great to see a character's legacy after the bad guy is defeated and the world is saved. Just, for the love of god, don't make the ending be a binary good/evil choice. Or any sort of binary choice at all.

Oh my god this made me laugh so hard

I gleefully killed Anders in every playthrough!

I can enjoy romances in games quite a lot if they're written well. A lot of game romances, unfortunately, seem to only exist to make the Love Interest swoon over the player and to inflate their ego. Jack's romance from Mass Effect 2 was one of the worst examples I can think of. The writers completely confused vulnerability with emotional attachment and had Shepard fill in the role of "saving" Jack instead of just aiding her in realizing her own strength, which was sort of creepy and... ick. To top if off, if you met her again in Mass Effect 3, there was no additional character growth there except for her constantly bringing up the fact that you two shared a night of passionate pants-on hugging. If romantic interactions are going to be present, they need to show character development in a way that is meaningful and significant. In a lot of games that choose to include romantic options, it's actually more difficult to avoid entering a romance, which is a big mistake in my eyes. If the player wants to pursue a romantic interaction with a character, then let them, but I think they should be the ones to initiate it. One of my least favorite parts about Dragon Age 2 was how I couldn't walk five feet without a party member aggressively hitting on me (Anders, I already told you to get you and your ponytail out of here!). That's a lazy approach as far as writing goes. This sort of writing also means that getting to know party members just as friends suffers, which is no fun at all. If I had to choose (and I hope I won't have to with Project Eternity) I'd rather have well-written, compelling friendships than ham-fisted romances any day.

Hi there, I joined the forum and just bumped up $8 onto my PayPal pledge! Because of my icon I think it's only fitting that I be the Warrior Princess of the Obsidian Order, right?