Shadow - Narrative Summary

Okay, I know I'm not supposed to bump or anything, but did anyone really read it.... like at all? It's only about 4 pages.

You chose Easter weekend to post it which might explain some delay in response.

Ah, that explains it. Still, I'd like to have some opinions from the people on this site regarding what I wrote.

I would say that it's very hard to judge. There are a lot of generalities rather then specifics that are described in your narrative summary. For example, you say that "despite it being dystopian" (an anti-utopia), it is "intriguing and beautiful." But how so? It doesn't paint a particularly vivid image but rather a contradictory one. Perhaps give some more detailed context like "Despite the seemingly dystopian setting, the NPCs express no such fright in their surroundings as they cannot comprehend the true nature of the tyranny they live under. Humans have learned to fool themselves into believing themselves in a paradise in order to accept this reality that they cannot hope to escape."

Your story plays out similar to Fable and many other choose-your-adventure kind of games. You are an adventurer that has been thrown out into the wild with a weight on your shoulders that pushes you to pursue a vague objective. The weight is the "dark past" and the vague objective is "getting revenge for betrayal." Since it is the viewer who "chooses where to go", you need to better describe the consequences of each of their actions.

It's okay to leave things to the imagination for readers, but you have to give enough concrete details for people to start up that imagination process. Just like how Sponge Bob needs a cardboard box to boot up his imagination, you can replace Sponge Bob with viewers and the cardboard box with specifics. Otherwise, the viewers are doing too much of the imagining for you.

Cliches aren't bad things because the key to an interesting story is in the details.

Yeah, you got a point. But the thing is, I don't wanna give the audience an impression that it's color is samey grey and brown that plagues modern gaming. I mean, it's dystopian, sure. But I like to have the viewers to imagine a dystopian world but with some optimistic point of view there and there. But in the end, it will be the player who put the fate of it. Whether bleak or bright future

In my position, it was to give myself a full understanding and planning ahead for the plot of my concept. As of now, I've been writing a plot rundown to develop my concept further and use it as a baseline for the eventual script.

Anyway, I'm grateful for your feedback.

Bump from the void! Sorry for that though, been a month with no feedback yet =(

Some thoughts on your work

Accepting that you have noted an existing gender choice i.e. Alex/Rebecca Walker it is not good practice to continue this on throughout the document in the style of "his/her" as this interrupts smooth flow of text, better to simply select one gender for use in delineating the outline after having recognised the capacity for gender choice in the beginning or alternatively use non-gender specific terms such as the character (or the player) will have to face their past as a Shadow Ranger etc. Unless you are planning to diverge the character roles from each other substantially due to different genders it is fairly unnecessary to bring it into focus at this stage of development.

A new resource called the Derectus has been discovered....I am left confused as to the nature of this resource given its capitilisation which leads to impressions that the form of resource is less likely to something like coal or oil but rather an AI or an ancient library or even a derelict spaceship or a military force suspended in stasis. The fact that you don't mention it further in your document almost trivialises its existence yet I am assuming this will be the resource and the control of said resource upon which all the interactions in the game will lead to.

The hybrids remind me of the reapers from Mass effect i.e. part organic/part synthetic life forms that routinely cleanse the galaxy of sentient organic life in order to save the galaxy.

The Galactic Dominion being a fascist collective interests me in how you will balance the xenophobia towards others outside of the collective while providing a legitimate argument for that same form of xenophobia not tearing the three races comprising the Dominion apart.

The UCSG are extremely nationalistic. I will be interested to see how you offset this against the Dominion's government which is also another form of nationalism.

Voice of the Milky Way. Anarchistic factions are tricksome to play with as you usually have multiple interests with their own agendas working together for a common purpose i.e. you can have situations such as the enemy of my enemy is my friend until my enemy is dead and then my friend is the enemy. You might observe a high degree of organisation in some of the interests that comprise the VMW and at the same time you might also find a bunch a rebellious grannies whose contribution is to knit doilies with inflammatory slogans.

AT the end of the day - what you have is very much a beginning but giving feedback on a limited piece of work is difficult when the scope of the game is not outlined very well. I would be more interested in the seeing plot rundown you are working on

Agreed that it's pretty vague. A few thoughts:

• Beautiful but dystopian can be done, e.g. the Eloi from the Time Machine, the city of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite, Stepford Wives, etc. Basically the perfection has a terrible hidden price. Pick in which ways it's perfect, and what the price is.
• I agree about the his/her thing, it makes it very hard to read.
• Please define your terms - what is a Shadow Ranger?
• "lauded as a murderer" - really? Are you sure lauded is the right word?
• Overall the world seems reasonably generic, e.g. there don't seem to be any issues that wouldn't apply to most conflicts on Earth. Perhaps that's your angle - people are just people wherever they go - but I like to have a bit of sci-fi edge. For example potential points of conflict could be resources (specifically existing or lacking on certain planets), species with bizarre societal mores such as cannibalism, identity issues such as hive minds, biological incompatibility such as terraforming planets for one species only, advanced ancient civilisations, privacy issues such as a big brother society or thought police, limitations on travel such as wormholes, etc.

What you have is a good start. You need to work on detailing the protagonist's initial character profile and motivations. Right now, it could be like Han Solo, Ripley, Mal (Firefly), Riddick, or Jack Burton. Or even someone else entirely.

The factions of the setting are a good start too, but again, more detail is wanting. Set the up board and the pieces to play the game, and you'll have laid the foundation for your story.

Agreed that it's pretty vague. A few thoughts:

• Beautiful but dystopian can be done, e.g. the Eloi from the Time Machine, the city of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite, Stepford Wives, etc. Basically the perfection has a terrible hidden price. Pick in which ways it's perfect, and what the price is.
• I agree about the his/her thing, it makes it very hard to read.
• Please define your terms - what is a Shadow Ranger?
• "lauded as a murderer" - really? Are you sure lauded is the right word?
• Overall the world seems reasonably generic, e.g. there don't seem to be any issues that wouldn't apply to most conflicts on Earth. Perhaps that's your angle - people are just people wherever they go - but I like to have a bit of sci-fi edge. For example potential points of conflict could be resources (specifically existing or lacking on certain planets), species with bizarre societal mores such as cannibalism, identity issues such as hive minds, biological incompatibility such as terraforming planets for one species only, advanced ancient civilisations, privacy issues such as a big brother society or thought police, limitations on travel such as wormholes, etc.

Yeah, I was a bit vague about Shadow Ranger, sorry about that. Shadow Rangers are pretty much your typical elite human super-soldiers equipped with advanced cybernetics.

Lauded was the wrong word, perhaps. English isn't really my first language.

And about the world. Keep in mind that it's not fully built-out yet. For a while, I've been thinking about putting fantasy elements in the sci-fi edge. You know, mix the mysterious and mythical elements of fantasy with the hard-hitting edge of sci-fi. I've been wanting to make the world being begged to explore, to make the players explore and adventure through different kinds of planets. Also, while I've been playing Dark Souls, I've pondered about the way the game itself presents the lore. It doesn't explicitly tell you as you have to search it on your own and bring pieces together to understand the whole lore itself. It's not flawless, but it's damn good lore. And I thought of doing something like that with Shadow.

Some thoughts on your work

Accepting that you have noted an existing gender choice i.e. Alex/Rebecca Walker it is not good practice to continue this on throughout the document in the style of "his/her" as this interrupts smooth flow of text, better to simply select one gender for use in delineating the outline after having recognised the capacity for gender choice in the beginning or alternatively use non-gender specific terms such as the character (or the player) will have to face their past as a Shadow Ranger etc. Unless you are planning to diverge the character roles from each other substantially due to different genders it is fairly unnecessary to bring it into focus at this stage of development.

A new resource called the Derectus has been discovered....I am left confused as to the nature of this resource given its capitilisation which leads to impressions that the form of resource is less likely to something like coal or oil but rather an AI or an ancient library or even a derelict spaceship or a military force suspended in stasis. The fact that you don't mention it further in your document almost trivialises its existence yet I am assuming this will be the resource and the control of said resource upon which all the interactions in the game will lead to.

The hybrids remind me of the reapers from Mass effect i.e. part organic/part synthetic life forms that routinely cleanse the galaxy of sentient organic life in order to save the galaxy.

The Galactic Dominion being a fascist collective interests me in how you will balance the xenophobia towards others outside of the collective while providing a legitimate argument for that same form of xenophobia not tearing the three races comprising the Dominion apart.

The UCSG are extremely nationalistic. I will be interested to see how you offset this against the Dominion's government which is also another form of nationalism.

Voice of the Milky Way. Anarchistic factions are tricksome to play with as you usually have multiple interests with their own agendas working together for a common purpose i.e. you can have situations such as the enemy of my enemy is my friend until my enemy is dead and then my friend is the enemy. You might observe a high degree of organisation in some of the interests that comprise the VMW and at the same time you might also find a bunch a rebellious grannies whose contribution is to knit doilies with inflammatory slogans.

AT the end of the day - what you have is very much a beginning but giving feedback on a limited piece of work is difficult when the scope of the game is not outlined very well. I would be more interested in the seeing plot rundown you are working on

Well, first off, and I don't mean to be offensive, is I want to have some difference with the players playing Male Walker or Female Walker. I don't want to give the impression that Female Walker is just Male Walker with tits.

And I'll talk about the Derectus. I like to think of it as similar to Tiberium from Command and Conquer. The intention with the Derectus is to keep it's role ambigious until the player finds out about it in an implicit way. Hopefully, well thought-out of course. Derectus sounds kinda stupid. I feel I should name it something else. Maybe ''Shadow'' or something.

Anyway, I'm very much appreciate your feedbacks. Right now, my mind is playing around with building the lore, writing the plot rundown and continuing on the prequel story series of my setting (That's right, and I've finished with the first one. Second one still has way to go.). I'll keep this thread updated whenever I make progress.

P.S: Sorry for the late post. I've been busy with real life.