Working on the game, hopefully have a new update soon. Trying to get a commission finished for the next release, and it kind of got more involved and complicated than I was expecting while writing it. But that's part of the fun of writing stuff for this, and I think it's some pretty great stuff.
We've been getting some great discussion and dialogues going in the comments threads of the last few posts - this kind of feedback is both really helpful and encouraging, so thanks a lot guys. Hearing people ideas and theories about the mutants and the outbreak is great fun. It also made me realize that I haven't really said anywhere what the "true" situation on the island is. Originally, I was going to have several different possible causes for the outbreak, and have one chosen randomly at the start of each new game. This proved to be overcomplicated, and also made it difficult to have any kind of real cohesion behind the game world logic, so there's now a definite cause to it all. I know not everyone will want to know, and will rather wait till it comes up in the game, but I'll explain a bit more about the gameworld situation after the cut. (That is, cluck on the message title to see the extra info, if you're not too familiar with blogger)
We're still struggling financially until the PieWife starts her new gig. If you can throw a little cash towards the game, please do - it's your support that helps it grow, by keeping us fed and housed as we work on it. If there's anything special you'd like to see in the game, shoot me an email, and either me or the PieWife (author of Darlene) will be happy to write it in for reasonable rates, so long as it fits the game rules.
I hate to be all e-beggy the way I have been recently, but we really are in a tight spot right now, and this is the only income we got coming in. Okay, begging over. Game info after the cut!
Okay, game world info. As I said above, these are probably spoilers.
When Selena hypothesizes about the infection being something like cordyceps or toxoplasma gondii (both real world things, incidentally) she's pretty on the ball. There's a lot she doesn't know, because she's a relative newcomer to the island and doesn't know a lot about its history, but she's figured out the basics. The infection can get a hold in, and cause alterations in, women a lot easier than in men. But it needs to be in men as part of a later stage of its life cycle. This is why everyones gone sex mad, and why they're mutating - it's the infection trying to propagate itself. Each infected person has a rapidly altering strain of the infection in them, and it's in competition with all the other infected "carriers", which is why mutations tend to get "bigger and better".
The infection comes from a closed ecosystem in a system of caves beneath the island, getting it's energy from a thermal vent. It's been breached before, and there was an outbreak in the middle ages. There's an ancient abbey on the island, ground zero in the first outbreak, and there's famous old illuminated manuscripts about it kept there (not actually in the game yet). Of course, this is all seen as legend/superstition/end times myth in modern times.
But anyway, yeah. To try to summarize - The infection developed in this closed ecosystem of bugs and blind things that have been shut off from the outside world and evolving their own way for millions of years. It initially infects women as an airborne spore, mutates them so it can infect men by sexual contact, and then gestate fully (that's when you hit max infection). At that point, the infected guy will hunt out infected women for sex, and the cycle begins anew. There was one (at least) previous outbreak in the middle ages when the nuns in the abbey on the island got infected, which is now considered myth and legend. This was stopped from reaching the mainland by razing the island (as in burning everything, not elevating it). *Possibly* other outbreaks since, but I haven't really considered that yet. The most recent outbreak happened when a minor earthquake caused a breach in the caves - just a random chance deal.
Now, other npcs in the game will have their own theories - some of them are the old-alternate-possible-causes I mentioned earlier - like magic, science conspiracy, fertility cult, etc.Rumours and panic are always fun.
So yeah, that's the deal, if you were interested. It's a nature-runs-amok story, I guess. Which is kind of fitting - pulpy nature/animals on the rampage horror novels were a big thing in the 1980's, and I've always said I see the MMM world as looking and sounding like a cheesy '80's B-Movie - all latex masks and rubber suits for the mutants, and awesome crazy synthesizer music blasting whenever you get attacked.
Any opinions or suggestions, I'd love to hear them. The story is still rough and developing all the time, after all.
19 comments:
As long as there isn't ever a scientist in the game that throws his arms up in the air and proclaims: "We should never have meddled in the domain of GAWD!"
About the whole story background - just wanted to point out (although that would either warrant modifications or is now plain too late now that you've spilled the beans) - why not to make it vague or with little details about it random (as like you've said, making the whole background randomly chosen from the list may be quite a big task and there are other, more important things to be done [more sex descriptions! Several specific ones per girl and several per girl's 'variation! Rargghh!]).
What I mean is - okay, we have scientific explanation. But why not to leave hints, true or not, that the virus could have been possibly man-made. Maybe there was some suspicious laboratory outpost. Maybe there was some paranormal involved - some sex-oriented cult studied the caves. Add some weird artifacts, noted and texts hinting this or that later in the game when we'll be actually able to freely explore the whole island (I mean, I hope it's planned - but then also I have to remind you to give players far more time both in general and per day), give hints of some unexplained events that very much possibly could be magic, but it's not definite. Let the source of infection be officially retconned to 'Everything's possible!' (if it's not too late) and let us have our fun.
I see you decided which you wanted to go with. That isn't a problem, but I do think you should try to avoid it becoming an obvious and clear cause until the end game. In case you decide later on to add additional possible story lines to the game later on.
Personally, I think you're spot on with a great idea there for the infection's source.
I see a lot of potential ideas that could spring from that that could even play into the other "possible sources".
- A secret lab under the island in a closed off part of the cave system that is fully aware of the infection, and has been trying to classify whether it's a virus, bacteria, or parasite. They even create artificial variations in the lab, which you could (on purpose or by accident) release into the environment, resulting in "unlocking" new mutations or special versions of existing ones.
- A cult that survived the fires of the first outbreak that has existed in generations since, worshiping the infection as a deity's manifestation. It was the actions of this cult that created the earthquake, in an attempt to "awaken their god". They used magic to make it happen, and when your character finds their secret church and mission, you could complete the ritual they failed to do, and summon something from another realm that has nothing to do with the infection, but has sex-driven goals of it's own that alter the story's direction.
- An alien species has taken human form and attempted to infiltrate the area. Their own female agents have become infected, and they are looking for a way to cure the condition, and come into contact with the character for help. This would be a "easy-mode or hard-mode" option, helping them makes the game easier by making the character better, pissing them off makes the game harder, making the monsters better.
Everyone - yep, there's definitely going to be lots of other hints and rumour type set ups that will seem perfectly plausable. I've already got some stuff written - written way back before we even had graphics, actually - for a coven of witches who believe they've managed to summon back the "demons" from the islands past. You can see them briefly in a random scene outside the hotel, but I don;t think there's any more of them in the game right now. There's several roumours and things you can pick up reading old newspapers you find lying around, too.
There should be a lab in the next build, and that'll definetly have some ominous hints to it.
While I feel that the situation I outlined in the past is the true one, there's definetly room for lots of wiggle room, and things will never be crystal clear to the player. Who's to say that the infection wasn't put in those caverns by a vengeful god, or is the surviving mess of a crashed alien craft? The characters in the game have limited rescources open to them, and anything they come up with is really just their best bet.
Hopefully part of the fun will come from sifting through the rumours and working out what's true and what isn't - for everyone who hasn't read this thread at least. :P I just wanted to have this up as a kind of cheat-sheet for anyone interested in writing for the game - or just in general - to know what'll work in "game world logic" and what won't.
I must admit, it's kind of fun not knowing why the outbreak occured. Still, I think it would be interesting for the character to have pieces of what's going on - but not the full story, kind of a *what exactly's going on?!* thing.
Just curious, are you intending the sewers to go anywhere, like a shortcut to go from the seafront to Butts estate for example? Right now it just seems to be a loop. Something else I was thinking of was having some items in the sewer, like *why was this here?*. Also, is the sewer entrance supposed to be difficult to find? I can find it, but I seem to get the *you don't find anything* or *fight* a LOT before finding the sewer entrance.
Onr last thing (for now), I really like the variety of women that you run into, and like what happens when you lose to them. Haven't run into some of the possible encounters though, are some more common than others? I would think by day 38 I'd have run into all of them but nope, there's a few that just don't want to show up apparently.
the sewers run beneath the town, and will eventually link up to them - the navigation sytem of the sewers (the hubs with inscribed letters) give clues to this. Eventually, they'll function as a kind of rat run to avoid the horrors of the overworld, though the underworld will have hazards too. It'll also be a gateway to other areas, I got some good "dungeon dive" quests in my mind.
Yeah, some enemies are more common than others. I really want to get to a situatuion where you have to play the game several times to see everything that's in it. I've increases the game duration because people wanted to play beyond the 40 days, but the initial idea was a short, broad game, and I still want to stick by that.
What happens if you don't jump to the boats at the 40 day mark? Is there another trip later or do you get to play until you die?
The idea is you should try to get the boa on day 40. In earlier builds, it happend automatic, but enough people asked to be able to play longer that I made it optional.
After say 40, th island is placed under permanent lock-down, so there's no official way off. I might put in some sub quests to illegally make you way off the island and detail the results of that, but it really isn't a priority.
In short - if you miss the evacuation, you're on the island for goog, and good luck. :P
No plans for expanding the mutants development beyond the 40 days, either.
boat, not boa. No-one wants to get a boa. Boa's are scary.
I wouldn't mind a boa girl.
Maybe you could simply increase the days of the mutation stages to increase the overall length? Or if possible, add an option that enables this?
Increasing the time it takes for the girls to mutate has the side effect of making the game easier, since you get to rack up more exp before having to worry about the more difficult foes.
How about a couple post-evacuation endings ?
You could tame specific types of mutants with enough victories and/or sex. You'd still encounter them, but tamed species would focus on lust attacks instead of hp damage.
Also, it would be useful for the game to keep track of your infection% to compute a game-long average.
After dominating every single mutant species:
- if you kept your average infection low enough, you get a final scene where you welcome a journalist to the island and give her a tour, showing off the local unearthly flora and fauna, sexing mutant girls every so often while she hides.
Concluding with the journalist dropping her hazmat suit and jumping your bones, glorious lovecraftian porn with her mutating while fucking.
- alternatively, if your average infection is high, you use your brand new personal army to power through the blockade and start corrupting the world. Fast-forward a few weeks, you and your favorite girls are raiding yet another hospital trying to develop a cure, raping everyone in sight, followed by some sexy r&r after all that hard work.
... something like that ? :3
...I like the cut of your jib, sirrah. Fapfapfap, indeed!
Completing a certain quest to get a one time injection that will cure a girl of the infection permanently, but leave her body the way it is would be interesting. Of course it would take a fair bit of work to implement.
Game seems to crash if you die by eating a fruit
@anon #1, and if it were to be put in the game, it would be voiced by Jesse Cox.
I've noticed something, maybe others can verify this too, but if you *search the surrounding area* in the village green, it's a fight. EVERY TIME I tried to search the area I got into a fight. Is that intentional, is the probability just higher there, or am I just really (un)lucky?
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