Chasm Story

[Toketsu_Puurin]

First: I have to say that I've been waiting for a game like this for YEARS.

I'm loving the demo, the art, the engine is as smooth as I could have hoped to see.

The one thing I'm concerned about: the plot that we can see in the demo is a little thin. 50% of the reason I love SOTN/AOS/DOS and the Metroid games is the story. I have characters I can care about who have motivations and desires. I love the game play but the line between a good game and a great game that keeps me coming back is often the plot. The game gives me a hook to care about the character I'm playing *right* away. As we go along we get more snippets of story.

The fact that this is setup procedurally and done more like a rogue-like tends to suggest that plot is less important in the game's development, but I think there's some really impressive potential here for something more like a multiple choice plot-line. If you're familiar with the board game "Betrayal at House on the Hill" that kind of plot setup would be brilliant for this sort of game. Every new game could have a different or branching plot for WHY things are happening in this mine.

Is it a mystery? ancient mystical artifacts? a simple accident at the mine? Did they dig too deep? Who is my poor soldier and what am I doing here? where was I going? what problem am I trying to solve?

I noticed the Kickstarter didn't mention anyone was tasked for writing story for the game. Do you have a plot planned or is this something we fans could help with? This game is looking awesome and I'll play it regardless but there's something amazingly satisfying about seeing more of the reality of a game unfold, both in the written story and the art. Everything else in this game is looking rockingly awesome and I'm really hoping the story can knock it out of the park just as much as the rest of it.

[fbnlsr]

I agree the game could use a bit more depth regarding the storyline.

While I think it might be a bit difficult to achieve the level of, say, Metroid, let alone from the fact the game is procedurally generated, the creative line that has been chosen calls for a deeper scenario. Even though when I play I'm focused on "more gold, more points, let's go deeper!", the first seconds of the game are telling a story. This story has characters, which we meet right from the start, and are completely forgotten the second the hero enters the mine.

I hope James has a storyline up his sleeve

[TobiasAmaranth]

I grew up on NES, so I have memories of games like Castlevania, Mega Man, Zelda, etc. ingrained in my subconscious. Looking back, the thing I loved most about those games was that they didn’t over-explain anything. Zelda was probably the most alluring to me, just how mysterious the whole world is, and how you’re left on your own to explore it and solve problems. To me, you can’t beat an interesting world in a game -- I’d take it over traditional narrative any day. To that effect, we’ll avoid telling you the story through character dialogue. Instead, you’ll be piecing together the history the of the world by exploring it, and finding and studying artifacts, discovering journals and notes, etc. These things will be collectibles, and you won’t see all of them on your first playthrough. Unfortunately, the story side really got the shaft in the demo, but we’ll be fixing that for the full game.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/23/ ... troidvania

[Ianuarius]

You love the story in SotN? D:

The plot in that game is like something a 9yo came up with, then got bored and just threw a ton of bosses there. Talk about paper thin.

The narrative in SotN is amazing, but it has nothing to do with the plot of the game. All games have some sort of narrative even if you don't say one word in the game. First example that comes to mind is Journey on PS3, but even games like Unreal are friggin' amazing. Even if you never read any of the messages that pop up during the game, when you finish it, it feels like you just went through an amazing story.

So what I'm all for is less text, more story! Don't type in anything that absolutely doesn't have to be said.

[marak]

...so in other words, you're looking for a good Cave Story?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

On topic, I imagine the dialogue with the townsfolk will be fleshed out quite a bit in the full game, with new dialogue appearing when you reach certain milestones down in the mines. For something that's basically "show off the concept and controls and animations to people at a convention", there's actually a lot of text in this demo.

[James]

Yea, you'll be able to ask questions and stuff in the final game. We took a lot of shortcuts with the story/dialogue side for the demo since were aiming at a convention, but I still wanted it to kinda feel like a real game

[Toketsu_Puurin]

...so in other words, you're looking for a good Cave Story?

Darn right I am. I beat Cave story years ago.

And yes, I'll completely admit the writing in SOTN was terrible. Story isn't always told through dialogue. It told a good 75% of the story through the art. There were little details in the background, the odd secrets you could find here and there like the confessional or the telescope room.

I don't require more *words.* In a game like this, wordiness is just boring. But a tight, concise story with the rare good dialogue? Yeah I want that. And with the other roguelike aspects of this game I'd love to be able to come back to it and every time say "this is a different story and the REASON I'm in the cave is different"