My game idea

[blunder1983]

I've just finished playing a range of games created by AGS and I'm so blown away by the quality I imediately came on here and started researching.

I'd love to begin writing my first adventure, I don't think I will do my idea justice with the doubtlessly shoddy graphics I will be employing but it might be enough to get some friendly artists to come and help

I'm starting by writing the story and I am just looking for a guide to say if my idea is viable in programming terms.

The story background: The hero is mentally ill, suffering from hallucinations, paranoia. Basically I want the game to be telling you all one thing, but the narrator telling you something else (for instance you just have a friendly conversation with a character, however upon EXAMINEing her the description varies on your state of mind). The game ends with you going to the doctor and getting help, or destroying your mind completely, killing your friend/wife/lover and becoming trapped in your delusions. (think sanitarium but grounded in the real world). I am hoping to have altering item descriptions (based on your current mood/situation, but if thats too complicated based on which your room your in) and basically an organic style of prose that would disorientate the player to reflect the hero but not be so confusing as to be game breaking.

Another thing I am worried about is the fact this is not a particularly nice topic and do you think it would be tasteless or offensive if made? Obviously I'd go to any length possible to keep it respectful but the whole area may become to controversial.

What do you think?

My current "moods" I am hoping to have are
Exuberant - positive view on everything, even the knife wielding man mugging you.
Inventive- gives aural clues on how to proceed (e.g that rope looks perfect for a grappling hook)
Pensive- detailed descriptions of everything
Paranoid- everyone is out to get you
Fearful- everything is dark and foreboding, talking becomes difficult
ANGRY- you won't let em get you, you'll get THEM

Ways to alter moods:
Drugs- different combinations yield different moods
Company- if your in the room with someone you know well then ur mood goes up 1. (i.e ur frothing at the mouth in red rage, then your wife walks in and you rise to fearful
Locations- this probably will be necessary for the game to work, upon entering certain locations your mood changes to a required setting.

Anyway I've rambled on for long enough. If you think this organic sort of game is a viable one I'll write the story and post it in the critics forum.

Thanks

Chris

[Blade]

I think your idea is quite viable, though there might be some difficulties in the script, but I consider them minor, so they won't spoil all the idea. More important, this is an original concept. I'd like to see how you'd handle such game.
So two thumbs up.

[Mark_Yohalem]

Couple of quick thoughts.

1) I'm not sure that your mood progression makes total sense; cooling anger doesn't lead to fear.  Maybe reversing fear and paranoia would work, although from a functional perspective the two seem very similar right now.

2) Though my main interest is in writing, not design, I do believe that games are games first, and that you should concretely ground your idea in the genre.  If the moods are the central hook of your game, and your game is an adventure game, then the moods need to play a central role in solving puzzles.

That means that moods need to be in the player's control (to some extent), though obviously the challenge comes from putting them out of the player's control to a certain extent, too.

The challenge, though, is that making your player exuberant (though exuberance sounds manic in this case) seems to be a solution unto itself, and you really start to run into weird player-avatar dissonance when you have the player causing his own avatar to enter a bad mood to achieve some sort of desired goal.  Though in extreme cases like the Incredible Hulk or Alan Moore's version of Dr. Jekyll you can imagine a person actually desiring to change his mood so that he can achieve some specific goal, that doesn't really work for a real world setting.

So you're left with the player treating his avatar more like a third person.  It would be a traditional adventure game puzzle to, say, get the troll angry so that he smashes down the gate, or calm the bear so that you can pass.  But it's a bit weirder to get the AVATAR angry so that he can overcome his foes. . .

That said, I think that using the moods as puzzle devices is clearly the way to go.  So the player would need to get his avatar angry to beat up a mugger, but would then need to find a way to calm him down to interrogate an NPC, etc.  In that sense, the game would work a little like suit-switching games like Kid Chameleon (or any later incarnations of the same concept).

Seems like maybe an ambitious first project, though.  Also seems like one that might be uniquely well-suited to interactive fiction, rather than graphical adventures, sense IF has a lot more flexibility with altering avatar observations.

[Snarky]

Grrr! Bearly Sane is the obvious example of a game where players had to manipulate their character's mood in order to get him to do what they wanted. It also featured the main character going on a killing spree, so I wouldn't worry about tastelessness.

The idea certainly sounds technically feasible. I think the challenge would be more in the game design. Have you played Kyrandia 3: Malcolm's Revenge?