Story/Game Dev Log #1

Hey everyone. Today I am going to be doing a dev log of both the game I’m working on and my cyberpunk story. So let’s get into it!

Game Log

My cousin and I are working on a JRPG (or some hybrid J/WRPG) where I’m going to be doing most of the art and story. He’s more the programming guy. At the moment he is thinking of using the Unity engine. He has his reasons for it and I’m not going to over step myself. Godot looks easier for me because I suck at programming, but I’m probably going to have to learn Unity to back him up.

I’ve been working on the story and core mechanics of the game, pulling from inspirations like Crosscode. My main concern is being innovative and not a clone. I want the game to stand out and change things up, allowing players to try something fresh. And the idea I came up with is efficiency combat. Think Devil May Cry with the rating of D to S with how stylish or cool the combat is, but in terms of not being wasteful with resources. I know battle puzzles are en vogue at the moment, but I wanted something that requires more thought than just button mashing skill or selecting the right weapon for the correct enemy. I don’t want the player to be able to muscle through an area. Instead, I want the player to figure out what their priority is in combat (collecting drops, minimizing resources, etc) and to be efficient in it. I want the player to have several different approaches available, and each approach will have its pros and cons. There isn’t a right way, just the way that works best for the player. On paper it looks good, because I’ve balanced everything out, but putting it onto the screen is something different and that’s when I’ll see if this idea actually will work. That’s going to be a while.

Story wise, I’m making sure the story and game mechanics work with each other. It’s taken a few weeks to figure things out, but most of the core ideas have been hashed out. It’s important that the gameplay adhere to the story because a lack of resources is part of the story. I don’t want a story with gameplay that doesn’t really have anything to do with the story. I’ve also been firm on the point about filler powers not being in the game. If there isn’t a need for a power then it shouldn’t be there. Nothing like coming up with 200 powers and players only use three of them.

Artistically, the game is going to be in isometric perspective and pixel art style. Pixel has a lot of potential and is en vogue at the moment. As to character designs, I’m still collecting details before mocking up a character. Since the game combat is probably going to be slower paced, I’m thinking of being stylish with the attacks to counter the pacing and keep thing visually interesting.

My cousin and I are going to be having our first meeting soon about what we’ve been doing, so I hope everything goes well.

Cyber Story Log

The story I’m working on is a -Punk story (yes, the hyphen is on purpose), mainly of the original-punk branch, like cyberpunk. It’s going to have all the fun stuff a cyberpunk story should have, including the political, social, economical stuff, and more. But it isn’t entirely cyberpunk. It’s a mixture of some of the original-punks like post-cyberpunk, solar and lunar punk, bio punk, etc. What I’m aiming for is a world that has gone through a natural progression of technology. Society doesn’t exist in a vacuum and I want the world to reflect that, but I don’t want it overwhelming the reader. It’s a delicate balance, but most worldbuilding never makes it to the page anyway. It drips on the page and that’s what it is supposed to do.

At the moment I’m cleaning up the worldbuilding since the story is a collision of several older stories, mixed with two stories that progressed out of that. It’s an easy, if boring task to do.

My biggest issue was finding a character that was interesting and a narrative method. I like reading 3rd-person limited-omniscient stories, but I’m not a fan of writing them. Too much information can be passed to the reader because the narrator is always poking around in the character’s head. Full-omniscient isn’t like that. The narrator can disengage, but tends to be distant and follows other characters as well. However, I like using a close 3rd-person full-omniscient narrator. I like to be able to describe the character’s face while being able to follow (by choice) the same character while not always having to delve into his/her brain. It does have its own set of particulars but every type of narrator does.

The story itself revolves around a man who was kidnapped and forced to become an anthropomorph for science. Think of when doctors use to rob graves to study the human body. (I know there is the furry joke angle with this, but even Cyberpunk has genetic manipulation.) Anywho, the world isn’t populated by anthropomorphs. They are an extremely small part of the population, but it is something I thought would be interesting because they don’t fit in the world. The issue that makes them does and from this angle the story has commentary about questioning how far with technology is too far?

The protagonist suffers because of this. Every time he looks in the mirror, it isn’t him. It’s an animal-human hybrid. He can’t even go outside without covering parts of his face and body due to laws concerning memetics because he is considered a mild memetic hazard. It’s bad enough that he forces a different personality on himself to cope, causing identity dysphoria.

Now, a character full of woe isn’t fun to read, and the protag isn’t full of woe. He’s just broken.

The world he is placed in is one where the lingering question of things going too far or where is the line pops up. At what point do we allow cyberization or biomanipulation of people? It’s fun to play in games and read in stories, but when it come to the real world, it is a scary subject. Think humans undergoing bio screening and adjustments in order to clean up the natural defects of evolution, but there is always slipping through or can’t be corrected and the question being asked is how do we act? The same goes with AI and bioroids. Or when does humanity's quest for utopianism become a dystopian trap? When is it too far?

Asking these questions doesn't mean anything unless I put the protag in some situation to address them, and in the near or so future setting, he is a vice and virtue (virtue can go too far in the future) cop tasked with handling some of these questions and the squad he is assigned to reflects people who are different in appearance and ideas but want a rational world to live in.

The protag is tasked with his partner (a descendant of the old Soviet super soldier program) to find a missing person on behalf of the missing persons unit because the person in question is an anthropomorph. At first, the case seems straightforward. Miss anthros generally have lingering memetic compulsions to become full animals, and the person running away probably did such, but when it comes to the establishment the person was attached to, the protag knows the case isn’t going to go by the book. When they do find the person, the protag is left with a choice of finding the salvation he wants or the salvation he needs.

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At the moment that’s all I’m willing to talk about both of these. From time to time I’ll do a dev log on both of them. For those interested in my former pony story being worked into an original, it’s on hiatus for major worldbuild cleanup. It needs some love and there's too much work involved for me to focus on it.

Until next time, keep your pencils sharp and your minds sharper.