Hero Design, Character design for the mains Options

[MEands]

Well in a real sense a person would react to a noise only after it had occured multiple times, and if it persists then they would go investigate.
But I see what you're saying.

For things like slippery palms, how are we going to explain that in game?

[Sparrowsmith]

The slippery palms is just an example of how fear might make you lose a puzzle.
I doesn't have to be stated, though we could state it. It's just that every failure has a reason behind it. I don't want to arbitrarily fail people unless there's an actual reason behind it.

[bulmabriefs144]

I don't think we should have too many counters. Fears and noise should be relevant, but there's no need to count them.
Like, if a puzzle makes a loud noise, then you can't go backwards anymore, because the scrapyard owner will be heading to your location.
Fears could manifest in lots of ways. If someone has slippery palms then they might fall from a puzzle they could otherwise solve.

Basically, I'd like to make the puzzles 'real'. Not many counters or anything like that. We treat it like it's a very real situation.

The fear is a constant, and like the skills are hidden until you can use the menu again (at which point are removed anyway, so they're pretty much totally hidden). The noise meter should only flash for a second, then hide itself, and if no sounds repeat for awhile, it does gradually go down. However, once it reaches a certain threshold (2/3) it does not, and might even gradually go up as the guy gets closer. The puzzles you are on now have to be finished quickly, with each complete puzzle putting some distance from him (-10 to the meter for each puzzle section solved). Once you hit the threshold though, you can't really undo it, unless you can somehow convince him that it is a cat. Speaking of which, the person sending a cat towards him has to not be afraid of cats themselves.

Sparrow, sometimes being "real" has less to do with a clean screen, and more to do with simulating concepts like genuine nervousness of being caught, fear, and as you say, sweaty palms. The best way to get the player tense is to make it clear that things were reversible before, but they're not now, because now things are on a meter timer. I do not want a situation where the player has no concept of why they were caught, so in some way we need to make it clear that the reason was you screwed up and made too much noise. A counter is needed anyway, but we could do the metering largely through text and sound effects. ("What's that sound?"/loud sound effect, you make a loud noise; "Oh, it's probably nothing", meter decreasing back to 0; "Who's there?" and footsteps, meter reaches a threshold and starts counting). Actually, this might be preferable, having a Warn system instead of a meter. It does add to realism, but it also adds to the genuine feeling of tension.

I like the noise meter thing, we could just make a noise meter, or we could just count it with variables. Perhaps it takes 6 mistakes to make the junkyard owner catch you, every 2 mistakes it shows a cutscene of him starting to notice something is going on.

It isn't a fixed amount of mistakes. Noises should have values, as stepping on glass is minor, and can only heard so far anyway. Falling on glass, or screaming your head off, however, is major. One of those could add a substantial amount. Noise goes away, gradually, if the source in question just sounds like something only a small animal could make.

Yea, let's do a warn system rather than a meter, and have lines/noises/cutscenes pop up instead of showing something up. Make it clear to the audience, that the owner is becoming aware, without showing something "game-like." We'll probably have to start with a meter to get the system working right, and gradually phase it out, in favor of lines and sound effects.

I chose carrots because with everyone screaming it's a nice "after-the-fact" explanation on why she seems to have no normal fears. The guy could in fact have a nice big backyard garden, that triggers this, but you'd have no idea why she's panicking. She only tells you after going around the field, if you don't get caught first.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Sep 20 2012, 05:17 AM

[Sparrowsmith]

My only worry here is that the noise and fear will become puzzles in themselves, instead of being part of the actual puzzles.
It really depends on how we do it.

In any case, we don't need a meter. Having someone make a noise and then someone else say a random phrase "keep it down", "Shhh, you'll give away our position" should warn the player enough. After that there could be a character you can talk to that lets you know (estimating) how close the junkyard owner is. "I haven't seen any signs of him in a while." "I think I saw the flash of his torch a few minutes ago, but we're probably okay." "Man, I can hear him rummaging around out there. He's close." "Dude, he's RIGHT THERE, run!"

The problem with meters is that, while they help the player see the situation, they're too accurate. No one ever knows exactly how much noise they've made, or exactly how nervous they are and when they're gonna blow.
Take Amenisa. That game is scary, and there's no meter telling you how scared you are, weird stuff just starts happening.

So yeah. We use conversation to work out how close the junkyard owner is. We can use heart beat sound effects to show fear, or darkening of the screen, or both.

[bulmabriefs144]

Well, I dunno about an extra person (it's a bit contrived, unless they actually plan it that way beforehand), but we could have the sound of him coming (something like 15% volume, then 25% gradually all the way up to 90%). As he gets closer, you start to see text from him speaking. But he only starts coming when he's sure it's actually a person and not a cat or a rat (i.e. you screw up rather than just making noise). The more you screw up, the faster he gets there, but if you screw up there is sort of a time limit.

Yea, I'm liking the idea of a warn system of some sort alot more than a meter. Like alot of this stuff it's gonna need some tinkering to work out the exact, but it seems pretty good.

[MEands]

Lol Sparrow, I get what you were saying about Amnesia, but it actually does have a fear meter, the insanity is a representation with how afraid your character is, hence when you have complete insanity you scream and drop to the floor.

I like the warning meter idea, I don't know about having people say "he's coming" and stuff, but I'm just not really in favor of stopping and reading dialogue in an intense scene.

I actually think a meter would be cool, showing the player exactly how close they are to losing adds a ton of suspense, especially if the meter is fluctuating to give them jolts of worry and adrenaline. (wrong word choice, but do you get what I mean?)

And actually the game .S.T.A.L.K.E.R. did have a noise meter, and the game was supposed to be realistic.

But conversation would be cool way to show where the guy is I suppose, maybe if we had voice acting it would really help.

Dude where getting places with these puzzles.

[Sparrowsmith]

Okay then, if we are going to have a noise meter, it'll be handled by scripts, yes?
Setting the y.length to a variable of some kind?

I've done something similar in flash, so I'm pretty sure it won't be hard to script.
Unless we're not doing the noise meter?

[MEands]

I'm not sure if we want that or not. Maybe a meter of the location of the junkyard guy?

[bulmabriefs144]

Bleh, Enough past posters have convinced me we don't need the meter or the scripts.

Eventing seems like a better approach.

[Sparrowsmith]

My original thoughts exactly.

Anyway, this thread has gone off topic a little. Back to character design.
We need a list of each character and what information we currently have about them, where they fit into the plot, what they look like, etc.
I'll wade through what we have, but I have to go offline soon, so if anyone else wants to gather up a few and post them, then I'll handle the rest when I get back.
Split the workload.

[bulmabriefs144]

Okay, this will take many many edits, but I'll try to gather things.

Hero (either a fighter or a defender)
Real name: Johnny
Username: Ragna
Class: Warrior
Details: A well balanced character build. He takes the game very seriously and has made sure his attack, defence, and speed are all very high. Because of this he is able to do quests without the assistance of others (perhaps we could include a room where only Johnny is present?)
Backstory: He's from outside the game. An accident put him into a coma. The main party unravels this secret, while Kevin and Alethea try to rescue him.





Character2 (probably a priest type)
Real name: Rosetta
Username: Melon
Class: Cleric/Priest
Details: Very low defense but has high speed, accuracy, and magic. This class relies on the other classes to protect her. (We should make skills that can take damage for other players). The class also has various status effect moves that can drain enemy health or slow them down.
Backstory: Rosetta lives in the center of town, and tries to dress provocatively to impress Johnny. Johnny sorta thinks she's overcompensating though. Unlike her online persona which is very shy, her offline persona is very extroverted and she could probably go for a secondary love interest if Johnny rejects her. Possibly bisexual, so Maya is as good an interest as Kevin.



(This red stripe needs to be finished)

Character3 (I was saying ice/lit wizard type, simply because we don't want duplicate elements below)
Real name: Maya
Username: Glade [meh]
Class: Wizard/Mage
Details: This class relies on magic power to deal damage. Their physical strength is second lowest in the game [unless they take the battle mage subclass]. This class of mage has taken the ice skill path in order to unlock some extremely deadly ice moves.
Backstory: Unlike Johnny, Rosetta, Eddy, Kevin, and Jessica, Maya lives just outside of town. Her family owns a farm, and her internet stinks so she has to walk to the nearby library to play online games like the one in question.



(I think it was this)

Character4 (probably either another fighter/tank type, or a specialty class)
Real name: Kevin [Is this name too generic?]
Username: Trick
Class: Thief
Details: Thieves have a very high speed and a moderate attack. They are not known for their defence but this does not mean it's terrible. Thieves are one of the most popular classes because of their abilities that affect the game outside of battle. They can use the sneak ability to not be chased by enemies and can also pick locks, which is crucial for certain quests.
Backstory: Kevin is Johnny's friend from outside the game. He works with Alethea to pull Johnny out.



(Umm, did we have the layer one and three? It's all mixed up in the other section. It was also supposed to be a mohawk making this incomplete)


Outside Character 1 (fire mage/pyro)
Real name: Jessica
Username: Edwin (Yea, she plays a male character)
Class: Fire Mage
Details: This class uses magic power to deal damage. Unlike the other mage, this one emphasizes physical power at the expense of magic strength (Jessica has done a number of very strange class building moves so now her physical damage is nearly as strong as her magical, except on fire weak enemies).
Backstory: Jessica is a tough girl, who is probably from the streets. Eddy rescued her from her plight, so she admires him.



(Her online persona is male, and based off Eddy)

Outside Character 2 (probably a monk)
Real name: Eddy (if you'll notice, Jessica named herself after him as a username. She's a tomboy but obviously into him)
Username: Kaiju (joke name, as a monk I decided it should sound Eastern, and this word refers to monsters like Godzilla)
Class: Monk
Details: Monks basically use unarmed attacks (lock weapon as Unarmed, two handed). As they gain levels, their unarmed damage increases the number of attacks they can deal (swap weapons by event, giving them gradually ones with more attacks). They can double as healers, but unlike the priest, most of their healing effects are self-only. They also have a Ki Attack which deals holy damage to one enemy. It's basically a DPS class, not doing a great amount of damage but with multiple hits there is less miss chance, and criticals are devastating.
Backstory: Eddy is from super wealthy family. As such families often are, he feels stifled. Probably an arranged marriage was involved. Their relationship is complicated, as she owes him a debt for what his money has done to improve her lot, and he wants out of the money (and the arranged marriage?) and sees Jess as his ticket to adventure and freedom.



(We need a layer 1)

Junkyard Guy (Rogue Program)
Backstory: He starts out a friendly guy the part meets in layer 2. Learning he's in a game kinda messes him up, but the party tries to save him, and the end he sort of helps.

(Had alot of pictures, but I dunno we decided)

Blind Girl (Alethea is her name thus far)
Backstory: She was involved in the same accident as Johnny, and is probably his RL friend/gf. She and Kevin are involved in trying to rescue Johnny from the game. There should probably be some sound puzzles for her.



(Before being blind and after)


(Hopefully, no mistakes with the pics. I'm not sure if we had backstories for Maya and Rosetta so I made some on the spot)

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 2 2012, 06:24 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

That's pretty extensive. Great

I have to go for a driving test soon, but I'll be back in a few hours to fill in any gaps in our hero list.
Edit: It actually looks like you got everyone... Apart from the programmers...

[Show/Hide] without lab coat

[Show/Hide] with lab coat

"The Father"
Layer of origin: Layer 3
Age: 47

[Show/Hide] spoiler

He is the big wig behind this expensive project. Using the computer science (and a dash of business) expertise that he had collected over the years, he was able to start a small company to fulfill his dream of being self-employed.
Before Project Matryoshka was started, he and his colleagues worked on the back-ends of numerous online games, designing the framework for packet transferring, log-ins and log-outs, the handling of server-side details, and many other numerous things. They would get these jobs from separate gaming companies looking for some techies to make their multiplayer games work. As time grew onward, his company grew little by little and eventually started to work on their own games, instead of just being the grunts behind the machines of the other guys.
"The Father" once had a wife and child, but was always sort of distant to them compared to his devotion to his work. Despite these rough edges, he still cared for them very much, making sure that they had the "absolute best" available to them.

This all changed when the incident happened. It left his child in a coma with no hope of recovery.
In desperate guilt, he attempted to research and work on a solution to this problem as if it were just another puzzle to be solved. With the arduous assistance of his team, they were able to develop a virtual world with a method of "full mental immersion", which would essentially put the player directly into the world, instead of just letting them control a proxy, or avatar.

But this task was definitely not an easy one. He spent countless days and nights plugging away, never even returning home to his wife at any time between. His wife left him after watching him obsess over his project and his general disregard for the immediate members of his family and friends.

As perhaps imagined, "The Father" became fairly wealthy with his company's server work, netting him and his colleagues quite a bit of coin. It was because of this that they were able to stay financially afloat during the great grind of Project Matryoska, not to mention the power bills associated with the life support machine that they installed in the building for his child.

At first, the world that was the base for Project Matryoska was an older game that the team had worked on before, taking place within a modern suburban setting: supposedly perfect for raising a child. From there, they built unique landmarks, scripted numerous essential events, and programmed a great deal of realistic characters for him to interact with. They did not give the child privy to the world beyond the one that he now resided within. Instead, they watched from afar, using avatars to masquerade as characters within that world.

Now with the brunt of the hard work with Project Matryoska slowing down, "The Father" is starting to doubt himself a bit. Even though he saved his child from certain comatose doom using his company's technology and hard-working research and development, the fact did not change that his child was physically still in deep sleep, likely to stay locked within his virtual world until the day that they run out of resources to keep the child and the project's server in working condition. He feels that this "great distraction" is merely borrowed time, not nearly close enough to "the best" for his child. But even so, he continues, along with most of his team, working on Project Matryoska.

Name: Bark/Floyde
Age: Mid 20's-early 30's
Playable Character: No
Bio: "This stupid jerkface is annoying as heck, we only keep him around cause he knows how these programs work better than the rest of us." -One of the more irritable members of the Layer 3 team. Bark was raised in a wealthy home and was homeschooled by his father, resulting in a very wide range of knowledge, but a lack of social skills. He graduated college early and went on to become an engineer. He made simulators in his spare time that had become very popular in recent years. He was then hired by the Layer 3 company to create their extreme reality simulator.
Strengths: Understands how to build a realistic virtual world. He understands the small details that are able to make Layer 2 so believable. He is also a very fast sprinter, just in case you were wondering.
Weaknesses: Being slapped by other members of the crew. Spider allergies.
Appearance: [attachment=5712:b.jpg]


Name: Sophie
Age: Mid 80's
Playable Character: No
Bio: Gives a whole new meaning to "senior" member, she's older than the rest of the members by at least 40 years, and the younger of them by as much as 60. She's fairly knowledgeable, but her true strength comes from the fact that she's Father's (one of the programmer's?) mother (Or a high ranking member of the company). Even if she messes up a program, which she has done on occasion when her mind wanders enough, he hasn't the nerve to fire her, as she had a real temper when he was younger. (I'm not sure when layer 3 is set, so I can't tell much about her past)
Strengths: Fairly decent programmer (she learned it when she was younger, so despite her senility she managed to retain it). Also the person to talk to if you want Father to do anything (he's still afraid of her).
Weaknesses: She's kinda senile, and mistakes various programmers for past lovers, children, etc. Sometimes it affects her programming.
Appearance: Something like this.


I think a lot of this might have changed...

[bulmabriefs144]

(I think there's two other programmers. Thomas Hooker and... I forget her name. Then there were some minor characters. Edit above instead of adding, so we can keep this consolidated)

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 3 2012, 01:55 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

I tried not to include minor characters. We have several layer 1, 2, and 3 characters that hold little relevancy to the plot.

I think what we need is another programmer, the one who first addresses the characters when shit starts going down. Could be the same one that originally attempts to kill the junkyard owner, or a different one.
In any case, we need a character with a sense of professionalism, like a flight controller talking down a rogue airplane with only passengers to land it. A character who starts off having it all together, but as the tension rises has to face some serious moral dilemmas (pull the plug on layer 2 or not?) and we see them get angry, distraught even, but always trying to maintain that cool, guiding attitude.

Basically, we have an office full of boxed in geniuses, mad scientists, and an old lady. We need at least one of them who's focussed, on the ball, and at the reigns.
The kind of character that pulls all nighters to keep the layer 2 characters safe.

[bulmabriefs144]

But if we had that, would we have such a mess? Father sorta fills this role when he's together, but since Johnny's accident, he's a basketcase.

Sometimes, the best recipe for disaster is leaving a bunch of disorganized geeks in a room, running a massive system.

Besides any programmer I'd design would be one of two things: a face (customer service guy, who doesn't know the program), or a competent developer with no social skills. Anyone else would be too competent unless they burn out midway through the story.

I'm going with the Customer Service idea.

Samuel Logos
Customer Service/Supervisor/Beta Tester



Unlike the others, he doesn't wear a labcoat. He's not an engineer, and he can't program. He is assigned to deal with customer complaints, and by extension he playtests the system for bugs, pointing them out to the programmers. Since he's basically the only one there with people skills, aside from Alethea (Kevin doesn't really count), he's also the general supervisor. Understandably, this might be the cause of all this burnout, that he has so many jobs because the other workers can barely pick up the phone.

[MEands]

The only thing is he looks a little bit devious. I was thinking this one guy should be more of an everyman.

[bulmabriefs144]

I like his outfit, but yea, I think I see what you mean. I'll try to change the hair and eyes.

Somehow when I got to thinking of sort of the face of a tech company, I ended up with this.



Look familiar? Well, not only is it in fact an everyman representative of a tech company, it looks remarkably similar to this guy. That's right, because of Bill Gates, you always get the whole short haired dude with geeky glasses = face of a tech company. Steve Jobs looks like that too, after he got glasses but before losing hair.

[Sparrowsmith]

I like the latest design, and that he isn't a 'tech' character.
This creates additional obstacles, because if he's trying to resolve a situation, he needs to get the programmers to help him, even though he doesn't know what's physically possible.
Even if he's an ideas guy, the most likely person to solve the situation, he's held back by not having the necessary skills.

Now, how about we make him a bit... edgier... more 'grey' area.
This is a guy with a good head on his shoulders. I'm imagining him being a bit ruthless, but in a way that seems friendly. Hell, you modeled him after Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and the two of them were RUTHLESS back in the day. Stealing tech, lying to the government to get grants, shipping stolen projects.
So lets say Logos has been in the company for a while, and has been waiting for an opportunity to get involved in something BIG before it launches, that way he's basically gonna be set for life. He gets involved with the programmers soon after they start because it turns out they need supervision to get anything done. So he's looking out for himself really, and when the project starts going wrong, he takes it upon himself to save it. If he can protect a project worth potentially billions, then his career prospects are gonna sky rocket.
At some point in the story, he has a change of heart, and he realizes he'd rather save the layer 2 characters than protect the data. Maybe he's about to shut down layer 2, when the father (or the old lady, sophia?) talks him out of it. After that he's not only ruthless, but much more of a good guy.

However, because his motives were dubious at one point, some of the programmers don't really trust him. This creates conflict in layer 3 that we can work off of.

Thoughts?

[MEands]

Just make sure the change of heart isn't "I want money!" "But they have feelings!" "Oh nevermind, I guess I'll change my entire philosophy in life"

Yknow? Make it believable.

[Sparrowsmith]

Well, I wasn't thinking he's about money, he's just about making something out of himself. He's never been heartless, just a little ambiguous. His dilemma is deciding whether the characters in layer 2 are real or not. And his change of heart isn't about giving up success, it's about finding a better solution. A solution where everyone wins.
No one ever re-writes their entire philosophy, he just decides to get his own way AND save the L2 characters.
part of him does it to be a good guy, part of him does it because then he'd be an even bigger success.