Gamifying my story
- Thread starter NoJo
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LoquiSordidaAdMe
Reader/Writer
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Once upon a time I was big into tabletop role playing games. I wrote and ran a lot of game plots in many different genres. None of them were inherently erotic, but I once ran a Star Wars role playing game that involved WAY too much wookie porn.
SimonDoom
Kink Lord
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Looks like you need to do the reverse: turn your games into stories.
When my kids were into Dungeons and Dragons I was always the Dungeon Master. But as you can imagine, my games were short on erotica.
Bramblethorn
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as in P&P RPGs? I've run and played in my share.
NoJo
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Well, this being an author's hangout (as opposed to a tekky's hangout -although I know quite a few of us have or had very technical careers), I was thinking when starting this thread, mostly of the creative writer's contribution to computer games. It's common knowledge that it's now bigger than the movie industry.
The kind of RPG I'm talking about has a single protagonist ("You", the hero), and one or more antagonists and side-characters, who you have to defeat or interact with. There's usually a mission explantation at the beginning to make the aim of the game clear. RPGMaker is usually the tool used to build these games.
In these erotic RPG games, the "battles" are usually sexy ones, the eroticism being provided by the quality of the art and animation.
I've been disappointed by the simplistic characters and unoriginal, repetitive scenes in erotic RPGs.
So I've been trying to work out how my experience in writing erotica can be used to make these games work better.
The kind of RPG I'm talking about has a single protagonist ("You", the hero), and one or more antagonists and side-characters, who you have to defeat or interact with. There's usually a mission explantation at the beginning to make the aim of the game clear. RPGMaker is usually the tool used to build these games.
In these erotic RPG games, the "battles" are usually sexy ones, the eroticism being provided by the quality of the art and animation.
I've been disappointed by the simplistic characters and unoriginal, repetitive scenes in erotic RPGs.
So I've been trying to work out how my experience in writing erotica can be used to make these games work better.
Blind_Justice
Universe builder
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The huge problem with game making is the effort involved in art and animation. No wonder most "fap games" are either cheap flash games or visual novel style which mostly rely on either pre-rendered CGI images (done with Poser or - at the worst - an in-game camera tool for Skyrim or the like) or static hand-drawn artwork. Artists don't work for cheap and dealing with any kind of game engine like Unreal or even Unity can be a damn headache without coding experience.
So, to turn a story into an RPG, you feasibly would need (at the most basic)
- a coder who knows his way around an engine or framework. A popular, free one is Unity.
- an artist for the visual assets
- a musician/sound guy if you want that
- of course the writer/producer, for getting the plot laid out and the whole thing on track.
The other, less attractive option would be to go Interactive Fiction. The HUGE drawback - no graphics (usually, there are IF interpreters who allow for graphics to be compiled into the game). The upside - most IF interpreters are not that hard to learn, they allow for a certain degree of sophistication (stat tracking, random number generation, dialogue trees). Then it's just a matter of "transcribing" your story into said IF "language". Lookee here: http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Interpreter
The advantages here: It only takes one guy to do all the work, maybe add a few testers to "break" the game for you. But even so, turning a point-A-to-B story into compelling gameplay is nothing you just knock out at your first try.
So, to turn a story into an RPG, you feasibly would need (at the most basic)
- a coder who knows his way around an engine or framework. A popular, free one is Unity.
- an artist for the visual assets
- a musician/sound guy if you want that
- of course the writer/producer, for getting the plot laid out and the whole thing on track.
The other, less attractive option would be to go Interactive Fiction. The HUGE drawback - no graphics (usually, there are IF interpreters who allow for graphics to be compiled into the game). The upside - most IF interpreters are not that hard to learn, they allow for a certain degree of sophistication (stat tracking, random number generation, dialogue trees). Then it's just a matter of "transcribing" your story into said IF "language". Lookee here: http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Interpreter
The advantages here: It only takes one guy to do all the work, maybe add a few testers to "break" the game for you. But even so, turning a point-A-to-B story into compelling gameplay is nothing you just knock out at your first try.
NoJo
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I agree, the best games are at the very least a collaboration between an artist and a coder, and obviously the bigger games need storyboarders, animators, riggers, renderers, and various other gaffers and gophers.
I've used Unity, Unreal, RPGMakerMV (**********), played with and got reasonably adept at Blender, Daz Studio, and particularly the Reallusion suite (iClone, Character Creator). I have to say they're all fantastic tools, and do pretty much everything I'd ever want - But my skills in all of them fall far short of a professional.
Music is a no-brainer for me, that's what I do all the time
In music, I have to "fake" the band members etc in software when I record demos, because I don't have time or money to get real musicians in - and I don't pretend to have the feel or tone of a real drummer, guitarist etc, playing real instruments.
Similarly, I think I can "fake" the animations, artwork and gameplay mechanics using the above tools in my own amateurish way, knowing full well that it may end up clunky and cruddy.
But my main aim is to try to get an engaging story into the game, where you relate to the characters as though they had personalities. Which calls for some writing skills, as well as some AI, of course.
That's the component that interests me most of all.
I've used Unity, Unreal, RPGMakerMV (**********), played with and got reasonably adept at Blender, Daz Studio, and particularly the Reallusion suite (iClone, Character Creator). I have to say they're all fantastic tools, and do pretty much everything I'd ever want - But my skills in all of them fall far short of a professional.
Music is a no-brainer for me, that's what I do all the time
In music, I have to "fake" the band members etc in software when I record demos, because I don't have time or money to get real musicians in - and I don't pretend to have the feel or tone of a real drummer, guitarist etc, playing real instruments.
Similarly, I think I can "fake" the animations, artwork and gameplay mechanics using the above tools in my own amateurish way, knowing full well that it may end up clunky and cruddy.
But my main aim is to try to get an engaging story into the game, where you relate to the characters as though they had personalities. Which calls for some writing skills, as well as some AI, of course.
That's the component that interests me most of all.
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