Okay well if it's a scrapyard, we'd be talking something like this.



Sans the gun. Sorta muscular, well-built (he's gotta move engines/batteries and operate heavy machinery). He probably has a few holes in his jeans due to batteries acid, and some oily clothes. Mebbe a different color hair or more stubble.

Lol now we're back to this guy again?

And Sparrow, I kinda like the idea of having a puzzle where it depends on who you use, but we need to make sure we give some hints as to what characters we need to use for certain situations, otherwise it's just a luck puzzle.

But I think each puzzle should have at least 3 different ways to complete it, but each has it's own type of difficulty and each has it's own consequences.

I was thinking like an exhaustive puzzle.
So you can talk to the characters at each step and they'll be like "I can probably make it" or "I'm not so sure" or "No chance".
However, depending on which you pick, you might end up with characters stuck in certain spots, and then you have to use a character who can't make it.

You need to plan out which characters to send to which areas to get the correct items to get everyone back. Wrong choice and you lose a character, and it builds up over time until you get caught.

Oh I like that. Are these characters just going to be the 4 original ones, or are we having Eddie and Jessica too?

I like Jessica and Eddie.

For the Junkyard, I think having all Layer 2 characters will work.
This includes Jessica and Eddie.

Speaking of which, we should continue developing those two if possible. This plot's getting more complicated than an adequate metaphor explaining how complicated it is.

Let's write down what each of their skills would be when it comes to this puzzle.

So each puzzle will have a list of easy, moderate, advanced. So like, a puzzle such as being atop a pile of cars or something, you need to jump across to reach the powered crane. Advanced: If you choose someone will high agility such as Jessica, she will be able to jump across to the crane and move it so the rest of the party can cross. Moderate: If you chose someone like Johnny with an average agility, he will jump, but only grab onto a part of the crane, he will have to climb up the crane in order to activate it (since he has advanced strength, he can make the climb all the way up, if he had low strength he would fall off the crane onto a ripped up couch). Simple: If you have low agility then you will try to make the jump, but you will miss and land on the same couch.
So there are basically two directions, the crane way (the rewarding path), and the low path (normal).

Each character has their specialties.
Johnny
Strength: Advanced
Agility: Moderate
Intelligence: Moderate

Rossetta
Strength: Moderate
Agility: Advanced
Intelligence: Simple

Maya
Strength: Simple
Agility: Moderate
Intelligence: Advanced

Kevin
Strength: Moderate
Agility: Advanced
Intelligence: Advanced

Eddie
Strength: Moderate
Agility: Moderate
Intelligence: Advanced

Jessica
Strength: Advanced
Agility: Advanced
Intelligence: Moderate

That seems like a good way to go about this.

So you have to carefully consider which characters you send out. I also think that simple or moderate characters should be able to complete moderate or advanced challenges if certain items have been collected.
So Maya could make the jump if you find the materials to make a grappling hook. She then swings across to the crane by latching it onto the top of the crane.

The more dynamic we make these puzzles, the better.
At the same time, even if a person CAN make the jump, if it's dangerous then they'll become mad at you for making them do it. Meanwhile other characters will want to do it, but might not be able to.
Being mad doesn't change the puzzle, it just means later on you might get different dialogue, or different items, or if it's a romantic arc it could damage that in some way.

In later (much further) puzzles this could become a problem.
"Hey x, can you make this jump?"
"You know what? Why don't YOU do it this time?!"
which leads to the puzzle becoming harder, or impossible to complete.

What's with Rosetta's simple Intelligence and Maya's simple Strength? We're assuming everyone is moderate to begin with, since the simple and advanced puzzles can both be solved with moderate skill, while the advanced ones can't be solved without being an expert. (This makes Eddie on par with Maya)

Intelligence in this puzzle would be for making the crane work (moderate can turn it on, advanced can make it move stuff). If a person has advanced Strength, they can pull someone who has only moderate Agility up.

So in this scene, ideally Jessica can not only make the jump, she can pull Eddy up, and while she can only turn the thing on, he can move it from there.

Alternately, Rosetta can make the jump but can't pull anyone up. Johnny can't make the jump, and has to pull himself up, but once there, can pull Maya up and she can move the cranes.

Finally, two characters with Strength can pull each other down when the jump is made. That is, one person having strength will make the attempt to pull the other up, while the other will pull themselves up, resulting in the falling person pulling the person trying to rescue them down, and this makes a huge crash. So yea, never try Johnny with Jessica or vice versa. Jess can rescue Maya though.

These puzzles shouldn't be unsolvable (hence the removal of simple skills), but if you use the wrong combination (such as Maya or Eddie jumping first) you hit the ground, and the racket causes you to get caught. Other puzzles may also require teamwork, and the wrong member choice could get you caught.

Also, you can do this by skill possessed. Have skills called something like Strength (Moderate), and give them to the party for this challenge, along with their normal skills. If the character has that skill, do one thing, if not do the other, and ignore specific status. Or maybe just the high level version like Strength, if they have advanced strength.For example, the above list would look like this (any skill they don't have is assumed moderate, and gets them only through easy challenges).

Johnny
Strength

Rosetta
Agility

Maya
Intelligence

Kevin
Agility, Intelligence

Eddie
Intelligence

Jessica
Strength, Agility

If we can do it this, we, it simplifies the puzzle, as you can ask If Hero Strength skill possessed, and just change the leader.

I'd actually prefer not to simplify the puzzle, in fact, I'd prefer that we don't even tell the player what each character's advanced skills are.
It's going to take a bit of time before the characters arrive at the scrapyard, so I think we could imply what each of them is good at. (ei: Johnny and Eddie do some sort of silly macho competition and tie, Rossetta is a bit of a clutz, and Jessica narrowly evades being caught by security).

And this wont be unsolvable, it's just that choosing the wrong character might cause you to get caught instead of escaping and achieving the special item.

I'm with MEands on this one. We want the player to only make it through if they know the characters.
It's basically a ploy to get our players more emotionally invested in the plot... but it's also more challenging that just talking to everyone during the puzzle.

We'll make it fairly obvious, through dialogue, what everyone's strong suits are, then after than it's just a matter of piecing it together.
It is a puzzle after all.

Besides, the exact difficulty of the puzzles can be worked out via beta testing, and too difficult is easier to tone down than too easy is to tone up.

I didn't mean the puzzle itself, I meant how we deal with it.

If Rosetta is in party (if she personally is worse than the others), or if Rosetta has Intelligence (Simple) skill.

Versus

If Rosetta Intelligence is less than 10. Not only are such things unlikely to remain fixed since leveling up might occur, but they might conflict with in-game parameters (Rosetta for instance, would need intelligence to cast magic well).

Simplifying, in this case, mean just that we do it by something besides a numerical, and have a passive skill which can't be used in battle but needs to be there for events to work.

If we do this without telling what the skills are, then we should probably go the route of having it If (Character) is in party. Strict numerical formulas either are based on real stats (which change with the level), or fake stats 0-2 rating for simple to advanced (which involves 18 variables minimum, in addition to the extra 12 X, Y variables for character location). The code can be alot more user-friendly without that.

I'm not personally in favor of this, though, since I think knowing how characters stack up against each other makes you feel like the creators actually based this off something, and don't get the sense that it's random. I think we should display the skills, because it adds an element of strategy to the choices. Also, if you chose wrong, you can then figure out WHY you chose wrong instead of relying one your knowledge of the characters (let's be honest. Some characters you really like in a game, and some like Zell Dincht, you just breeze past their lines). Having their skills displayed allows for retroactive understanding, and increases the chance of later liking the character. Kevin for instance wouldn't be my first choice as a character, but finding out how useful he is in practical situations makes me feel I can rely on him. I might then use him more. The final reason is personality traits are highly subjective, someone might not get the sense Maya is particularly intelligent, just nerdy. So relying wholly on that creates a Guide Dang It atmosphere, where you have to replay several times to get a sense of the character or just try a zillion times. If by Try 3 you noticed characters had skills, this would mean you could plan around them, making the challenge difficult but not impossible.

Also, teamwork skills makes this more challenging while still revealing all the cards. Like that thing before where is both have strength, they pull each other down. Human pyramid for instance, works if the bottom character has high strength, the middle has high agility AND high strength, and the top has high agility.

Alternately, we could have it based on skill, but hide the menu for the duration (menu button calls the character switch), instead giving hints when selecting them through the character flavor text. "Jessica is lean and strong thanks to years of martial arts training, but she relies on Eddie for planning. Eddie is not very athletic, but he's the brains of the couple. Rosetta is completely different from her online persona, when trouble starts she's the first to run, and she's an airhead. Choose this character? Yes/No"

Idk, I'm still not completely for this. I was thinking since Layer 2 is a simulation of real life, we should try not to explain things, cause in real life nothing ever explains the situation to us or tells us someone's personality traits.

I was just thinking you'd get to a situation in the puzzle, and then your party would break off and "think about it", each one might say something regarding the situation. Kevin: "I think I could make the jump to that crane" Maya: "Maybe we shouldn't have come up here..." Rosetta: "Hey Johnny, maybe you could jump to that crane?"

I'm not really sure if I'm in favor of this entirely, but idk.

Well then, I think it should be slightly idiotproof, but still in line with character development. (So hidden stuff it is)

Example: Maya can't make the jump or Eddie is too weak to move something without making a loud racket. If they're average they'll complain about their shortcomings as they carry it out. But you're about to choose them to a task they will critically fail (i.e. fall on their butts or otherwise make alot of noise), you actually get the choice whether to go through with it or not.

That is if Maya tries to jump (she has neither the strength to pull herself up or the agility to make it), she'll say something along the lines of:

"I'm afraid I can't make it guys."

If Johnny or Jessica has made the jump they can grab them, they say something along the lines of:

"Don't worry, I've got you."

If nobody is there, or is strong enough, instead they say:

"Don't be such a chicken!" (Or something like that)

Choice Yes/No comes, and if you choose no, someone else goes first. If Yes here, well, you're kinda screwed. She makes you lose and you get caught as she lands on some metal or glass trash and makes alot of noise.

I don't think we should make the process so complicated.

Let's take it from the top:
You're in the junkyard, then the junkyard owner shows up. You all split off into different areas.
You, Johnny, try to traverse areas of the junkyard, but there are some things you can't do (You're not agile enough to grab the rope/You can't jump high enough to reach the rope. You can't figure out how to work this crane.)
Through solving simple puzzles, you reunite with a few of your teammates. By using your new teammates, you can retrieve previous items/locations you couldn't reach before. This teaches you the major strengths of the first few characters.
the next few puzzles are similar, only you choose which character to go ahead.
Play it right, you get more of your separated comrades. Play it wrong, you lose them.
With each puzzle there are multiple characters you could use, and it's pretty easy to decide which character to use, the problem lies in consistently choosing the right character. One slip up will make perfection impossible. You have to know the characters. They'll give you clues, but you'll have to know who's overconfident and who's serious. It shouldn't be too hard.

We won't need numerical values. Just a choice system.

Okay this is really good, I'm excited for this. The junkyard is now my favorite puzzle.

Hm, so before making a design we need to decide about how many puzzles, there should be at least one, maybe even two puzzles for each character. Also, maybe we should have some situations where if you choose the wrong character then they'll get stuck, so you can't use them for the rest of the puzzle.

The more open ended we make the puzzle the better.
I also think we should consistently do these kinds of puzzles in layer 2.

Layer 1 puzzles are about putting the right thing in the right place.
Layer 2 puzzles are about cooperation and using your characters right.
Layer 3 puzzles are about timing and wits.

Of course, we can break the above guidelines, but in general I think this kind of blueprint works.

Now about the junkyard puzzle itself. I think a fatigue counter would work well too. Like, you shouldn't use the same character three times, or twice in a row. Some characters will have fears (tight spaces, heights) and if you choose them to do a puzzle that involves their fear, then they're unlikely to do any more puzzles until you're out of the junkyard, or might refuse to do the puzzle outright.

Now, how about:
Johnny only puzzles. There are maybe 3-4 of these. They're mostly about finding items and reaching areas that Johnny can reach. It's open though, so one puzzle will lead to another character, while the other three puzzles get you items (battery, hook, leather jacket). When you reach the other character, you can go back and do 2 new puzzles, one of which gets you the rope, one of which gets you another character. Then you go back to where you met the second character and go ahead. Now the fun begins.
Let's say there are three paths through the scrapyard, each consisting of seven puzzles. The characters all have phones, and so can contact each other saying where they are. We then have a map detailing where each character is.
No matter which path you're on, you can always jump to a different path. You can get the good ending by just doing 7 puzzles, but to get perfection you have to cross paths, which results in doing more like 11 puzzles, or maybe even more.

I could draw a diagram...
2--2--2
-|-/-|-\--|
-1--1--1--
--\--|--/--
----0----

So you can move from 0 to one of three 1s. You can move between 1s as well, and so on. However, moving from one number to an adjacent number requires going through a puzzle.
I'll draw a better diagram if necessary.

I still think we should do it by (hidden) skill conditions. Not thrilled about the whole choice thing, I think it should be done with free motion, and allow for wide-range movement. But that whole fears thing is good. I think it would be most likely either a refusal to do the puzzle or they scream (see below). Penalizing for future puzzles makes it so if you need them and only them for the next puzzle, you're rather screwed.

Eddie and Jessica should already be there and in their own group. Probably Johnny in his own group to start with, then Rosetta or Maya splits away from Kevin's party to go find him. Then later some of the other teams join in and you have to figure out the right person to use in a major way.

Not in favor of a fatigue counter. With a well run character system, there should not be any reason why the same character will be used repeatedly, as the very next puzzle, they might fail due to phobia or incompatible skills. Also, there might already be a meter, and it would slow things down to have two meters.

I'm envisioning it as a sort of "Don't Wake Daddy" puzzle. There's a noise meter. Normal walking doesn't trigger anything, but walking into tin cans, glass, whatever, does. Failing teamwork puzzles usually adds to noise (you end up falling, dropping something, whatever). The whole phobias thing earlier? If you put them in a a puzzle they are afraid of, they scream like crazy and the noise meter fills 2/3.

We should make a phobias list, the same as the skills one. Jessica I want to have a really weird fear (carrots or something) since she initially seems fearless, maybe if you find out all the fears of others she tells about it. How do you figure out these fears without them screaming and raising noise? Well, just as there's an assist for skills, there should be at least one character who is able to talk the other character through crossing the area with them. Or remove the problem (killing the rats/snakes, dousing the fire, etc).

A carrot fear would be amazing! But I don't see how we can logically do that
What if she's afraid of cats or something people normally aren't scared of.

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.

So like, if you're perfect and make no mistakes, it should be an easy puzzle to solve.
However, if you make 2 mistakes it will trigger a cutscene where the junkyard owner realizes something is up, and goes outside to check. He will only stand outside of his office/trailer, but if you have done a certain puzzle wrong or if you fail the puzzle in front of his office, he will catch you immediately.
If you make 4 mistakes then he will begin patrolling the area (just a basic route)
If you make 6 mistakes then he will patrol in the area you just recently failed in at a much faster rate. (Gives you about 10 seconds to get out of the junkyard if you're at the end).

I kinda like the fear meter too, but I don't think it should be marked, we should just set a variable where if a puzzle has gone wrong for someone they might not attempt another one for a while.

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.

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?

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.

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.



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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

Eventing seems like a better approach.

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.

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)

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...



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



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: Click to view attachment


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...

(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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Also, he needn't necessarily be money obsessed to be highly self centered. There are plenty of people who can't function on a team. Example: a man obsessed with his parent's legacy, and avenging their lost honor.

This guy for instance could be effectively the CEO of the company since nobody else has any social skills, and his grandma could in fact be Sophia. In effect, he's keeping a very senile woman in power well past her prime or competence because of family honor. Also, not everyone gets easy redemption. He probably always will be fixated on himself and his family over the company, the only difference is he probably before got some people to sabotage the code of anyone but his grandma, but now although still selfish he at least has the sense to leave well enough alone.

I dunno, I think his character would work better as a supervisor or human resources type guy.
We have too many characters in charge, it's a bit unrealistic. I see the department having a Senior Programmer (Sophie) who is in charge of all projects in her department (but she mostly oversees the virtual reality created by the programming language) then we have the Project Leader (The Father, did we ever name him?) the supervisor (Logos) is of equal rank to the Project Leader, and it's his job to report progress to the higher ups and generally make sure everything is running smoothly. He'll often get into little arguments with the Project Leader, or Senior Programmer, over what is the best direction to take the project in. Then we have the Alpha programmer (Bark/Floyde) who oversees initial implementation of code, he oversees a small team himself to help him. He's equal withe the Beta programmer (Thomas Hooker maybe? Or a new character) who deals with tweaking and fixing bugs within the code, he also has a team.
Of course, we'll also have some security personnel, and maybe some maintenance, chefs, etc in the rest of the building.
We'll also have a character or two looking after the server room. There's also a doctor, or medical staff of some kind, who checks the Virtual Reality is safe for people to use (IE he gives the people who use it health checks frequently) he/she doesn't actually have to do anything most of the time.

So the Hierarchy of power is as follows:
-------------------------------CEO (unknown)
------------------------Senior Programmer (sophie)
------------------------Project Leader (The Father) --------------------------------------------- Project Supervisor (Logos)
Alpha Programmer (Bark/Floyde) ------------ Beta Programmer (???)
Alpha team --------------------------------------Beta team

Anyone can command someone below them, though it is generally expected that you only make requests of someone who is one step down.
Logos cancommand the beta team, but it is expected that he will talk to the Beta Programmer first.
This way we have a structure rather than a bunch of people in charge... and no one being charged....

I'm not really much help with a CEO (never worked for anything but small business and never set foot in a board room) in terms of realistic portrayal. Logos would probably be de facto supervisor and in charge of dealing with the public, I'm not sure what the distinction between this and a CEO actually is.

CEO owns the company.
Supervisor watches over a branch.

The CEO would be unknown in the game, because it's irrelevant to the plot. The CEO would be on the board of directors, who would decide on finance within the company, then they'd send the funds down to the respective departments (Chief Programmer, Head of Marketing, Head of Security, Investors Board, etc) and within each of those departments their would be smaller departments, and then projects.

Hey guys, I have an idea that would contribute to the meta theme we have in this game. So how about in Layer 3, we will reference this so called CEO throughout the events in the facility. We will never actually show him in game, but his name will be spoken of a lot. Then, once the game is completed, while the credits are rolling with our names, we'll throw his name in as well, hinting at the fact that layer 3 may not be the final layer.

So since we're doing this, who is going to be the everyman that kinda stays sane with all of this? Marketing director perhaps?

(Another random idea I had: Since this game community is somewhat a tightly knit community, do you think it would make sense for one of them to create a virtual character of themselves, not like exactly the same, but maybe we'll hint that the junkyard owner was modeled after one of the other guys, just for the sake of interest)

If he were included in the plot at all it would be a sort of "So that's why this company is so messed up!" moment where its clear that better people could be hired, funds could be better handled, etc. But yea, at most I'd see some guy like that having a face that's never shown, or perhaps handing out orders indirectly.

MEands, the credits idea is pretty good. (And Thomas Hooker basically looks like me)

I also think we should have a few game character cameos from our favorite games, that is, like Cookie Doku from Crystal Tears. Someone who is in a supporting role, like the guy you ask for a key needed for a puzzle, a classmate at school, or a merchant, not just someone with no lines.

We are including cameos of characters, aren't we?
Anyway, I like the credits idea.

Also, the everyman who stays sane is the project supervisor, I think. Samuel Logos.

Looking at the outline reminded me that we still need charsets for Luxis and Kaiju (Eddy).

Some of the characters on the outline aren't necesarilly going to be in the game, I just entered all of them so everyone would get a fair representation.

Still, Kaiju should be, as he's the Layer 1 version of Eddy.