And now Part 4! More story plot, more spoilers. I warned you! As I create the plot of the game, that will influence how I use the game mechanics, so that’s why it’s important to go through the story I want to tell. It’s a balancing act, where I’m trying to make sure the story doesn’t go beyond the scope, and the story tells how I’ll use the systems.
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EDITING PLANNED GAME MAPS AS STORY PROGRESSES
Sidenote: I’m not really seeing much use for the Hometown right now, we can easily have the first dungeon be in a grassy area outside the city, and just have the players background be that you traveled far from home to take the Hero Test. This takes away designing another town and all the required NPCs for it.
I should note that I don’t like using World Maps, all areas will be open as if an ‘open world’ more like the Pokemon games were.
BACK TO PLOT
Okay, so what about assassin?
—SPOILERS—
You kill the mid-boss monster to hear an alert that everyone is summoned back to the castle. The King has been murdered. As you are being told, Rival notices something and leaves in the middle of some speech by the queen, he leaves the room and you follow.
You are confronted by the Assassin. Until now they have been a silent protagonist, but they stagger up to you: “help…me…” a female’s voice moans under the mask. But then a dark portal opens, “No! No!” the assassin cries, as she is pulled into the portal.
“What the flip just happened!?” Rival exclaims
Grace feels compassion, “somethings not right. I feel the assassin is under someone’s control”
In walks the Quest master, concerned.
“Was that…?” He turns away from you, thinking for a moment. “No, it couldn’t…”
He turns back to you, “You three, I remember seeing you three. There was something special in you kids. Do not tell anyone else of this, but see me afterwards, I can help you find the Repunzel’s Flower before anyone else. I fear there is a great evil going after it, and I need you three to get there first.”
Cutscene, you’re back in the inn. The three of you are talking, Rival isn’t so sure about doing this, that portal freaked him out, he may act like nothing gets to him, but things have been getting strange lately.
Grace is starting to not care about the attention from the flower, she’s concerned this great evil could hurt a lot of innocent people and she wants to stop it before they can.
They turn to you, Grace is about to ask if you want to help find the flower, but Rival interupts “Of course they do! They’ve been leading us since the beginning! I may have started this out solo, but without Player, we wouldn’t have gotten as far. Right Player? We’re going to get the flower!”
Player happy/excited emotes.
–END SPOILER–
[Honestly, there are SPOILERS EVERYWHERE I’m just trying to keep you from the larger ones]
The player is made to talk to the Quest Master before leaving again, the Quest Master gives the team 3 items: A Letter for the Summoner, a part to make any weapon an indestructible (use wisely!) and something else that will either affect story, or just be useful to player.
Basically player goes back into the dungeon, through the teleport, and eventually gets to Summoner, at first Summoner doesn’t want to join your party, but when you give him the Quest Master’s letter, he obliges, he says that originally he would have made you fight him which you would have lost many times, wasting lots of their time, but with this letter of approval from the Quest Master the can go on, without wasting that time.
Summoner joins the party.
I want some mentioning that the Summoner and Quest Master was part of the Hero Test about 20 years ago before the Princess was born (because it turns out they know the Dark Lord from the Hero Tests)
Anywho, Summoner joins the party, and this time the cutscene takes them just outside the Capital, in the woods looking north. Summoner mentions how the 3rd Dungeon is just past that way and they need to get to the top to get Repunzel’s Flower. It won’t be easy as the Corrupted monsters there are really tough, etc etc etc
And so, the player can travel through the woods to the 3rd dungeon
ARE WE GETTING OUT OF SCOPE?
Sidenote: I feel like this story has gone out of scope. I’m not sure where to cut it back tho. I know I cut out the Hometown, and maybe it’s just all the cutscenes making it feel longer than it is.
Also, am I leaving enough room for the player to do the side quests? While the storyline seems very linear and urgent, I actually want players to be able to do side quests as they like, and level as they like.
But then how do we keep boss battles and dungeons balanced? Use some sort of Enemy Leveling system? Probably that, combined with keeping better items locked behind Quest Events, causing the player to want to advance, as they end up running out of things to craft, so their weapons don’t match their leveling ability? As well as make sure exp drop works for what level the player should be at, and the higher the player goes, the less effective the exp drop gets?
Yep, this game is so far out of scope, I kinda want to scale it back
Well, I’ll say for dungeon one, you’re only really able to go down 2 or 3 levels before you hit the assassin, so basically, make dungeon smaller. More levels can be unlocked as the player progresses the Main Quests, as they will be unlocked with new Side Quests to help keep everyone at the appropriate level. So Quests have Levels, and until you’re past a Main Quest they won’t unlock.
For 2nd dungeon, you only have to get to the end of the 3rd level before you hit the Mid-Boss and then from Mid-boss to Summoner will only be 2 levels, but there will be a few more after that, unlocked with Main Quests for use in post-play.
Okay, so I basically shortened the playtime by making areas smaller.
BACK TO PLOT
spoilers spoilers spoilers
And so! Up the mountain we go! UP UP UP AND
Assassin.
—SPOILER—
However, this time the group is able to battle and defeat the Assassin, upon defeating Assassin (if player doesn’t, they are sent back to Capital City, and some jibber jabber of having to get past Assassin to get Repunzel’s Flower) When you defeat Assassin she is unmasked and ya’ll are startled to see that it is the Princess, sick from a fever. Summoner is devistated and doesn’t know how to react to his friend’s daughter’s condition. Rival is shocked his crush is the villain.
Player steps up to the princess, and turns to Grace, Grace nods or something. “You’re right, I should look her over.”
Grace checks the princess to see the signs of ‘rare posion mind control drug’ it uses rare materials and is hard to make right she tells the team.
Assassin feared it was this, and he knows of only one person who would dare pull it off Dark Lord a failed student when he took the Hero Test with him 20ish years ago. They must find Rapunzel’s Flower, it is the only thing that can save the princess, as the potion will kill her after being in her system too long.
New portal that sends the player outside of Capital is made, there is a cutscene of the Queen crying over the death of her husband and the illness of her daughter, and knowing it was her daughter that was a puppet to kill the king.
Some guard in the background scoffs good riddance to the jerk of a king.
Queen throws something at him or something.
Player is given some super powerful weapon or crafting piece and then they can go back up the rest of the mountain
You get up to the rest of the mountain and are confronted by the Dark Lord who does on some rant about loosing the Hero Test and the King calling him pathetic and getting his revenge. You fight him and each time you loose are sent back to the Capital.
When you defeat him, he gets hauled off to jail to get tried. Cause like fairness and stuff….IDK
Actually when you defeat him you get the Rapunzel’s Flower and some jargon about having to get it back to the princess.
Cutscene, the princess is given the medicine and is healed, she vaguely remembers what happens, but remembers she was used to kill her father and burst into tears.
At first the Queen is going to step in to comfort her but Rival beats her to it “I have no words, Princess, but know that I will make sure no one blames you, because it was that butt head Dark Lord who used you like a puppet.”
Princess heart emotes.
Another Cutscene, the queen and princess stand at their thrones, with the Summoner and Quest Master with them a happy crowd all celebrates as our three young Hero Test contestants walk up,
There’s some jargon from the Quest Master and Summoner on how they are all proud of them,
Grace immediately gets shy, not knowing what to do with the attention “this is humbling, I didn’t realize the sacrifice one must give to be a hero, but I’m glad we were able to come together and help. Player kept us together as a team, they should be thanked the most!” She pushes the Player forward blah blah blah reward ceremony.
CREDITS
After the credits the player is in their room or some common room and the Quest Master comes to them to congratulate you again, and to tell you that, now that you are a licensed hero, there are some more quests they are now able to perform, however none of them are currently as daring and exhilarating as what they had just went through. He says you can meet them in their office and walks out.
–END SPOILERS–
And thus the post-game starts with some more unlocked side quests and maybe some new NPCs that weren’t used before or something. Or maybe the queen asks for quests or the Princess or something.
Also in the post-game you can manage your party and decide who goes with you, maybe you’re even able to set your level or something to play around with the dungeons.
Maybe some portals are also made at the end of each dungeon that connects you to the next one that would be the stronger dungeon or something.
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And now you know the whole story.
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Thanks for reading and God bless,
Meike Kima