AuthorTopic: Pitiful Platformer Plot help  (Read 5421 times)

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Pitiful Platformer Plot help

on: November 25, 2010, 06:25:41 am
If anyone's checked out any of my pixelart threads you've probably heard me mention i'm working on a game. Everythings going pretty great except I can't flesh out my plot for the life of me. And until then I can't decide what graphics i need to do and where everything goes so the game is pretty much on a standstill. I am taking a lot of inspiration from earthbound and mother 3 in terms of story.

Here's what I have so far.
You're a young boy, living in a house on the edge of a village.
You wake up one night to a loud thump and bright lights outside your room (think alien abduction movies), you look out your window but you can't distinguish anything, so you go back to bed.
You wake up the next morning and look out your window to see a bunch of really buff men, glistening shirtless or in overalls, digging a big hole in your backyard. (this may go on for a few days or may not, i haven't decided) But you eventually go out there to confront them and see them all jump down the hole. You go over to look into the hole, but trip and fall in, landing at the bottom of a really deep pit unconscious.
Now your goal is to get out of the hole, while all the time wondering why the buff men dug such a big hole in your backyard.

That's what i have so far ???

As for characters

Noname main character
-boy, has stretchy arms to punch, wears colorful clothes, doesn't talk

Buff men
-buff, big,

Dirty blind man
-a man who you see periodically throughout the game who is attempting to dig to china, but unfortunately he is blind so he can't find his way. He acts as a save point

Band
A band that has also had the same misfortune of falling into a hole as you. One night they were jamming too hard and the ground beneath them collapsed, landing them underground.

And thats what i've got. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas it would be very much appreciated, i was not going to post, but i've been stuck with writers block trying to figure out this plot for over 4 months now and it's driving me mad how i'm not getting anywhere! Thanks a bunch everyone!

I'm mainly trying to figure out what the buff men could be up to building such a hole and what the whole storys going to become after "get out of the pit"
« Last Edit: November 25, 2010, 06:28:07 am by TheSilentRoomate »

Offline NaCl

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #1 on: November 25, 2010, 08:32:48 am
I'd keep it simple... perhaps the men were searching for something valuable, like an artifact. The artifact is used for... something sinister? You discover the plot and when you emerge from the hole you know you have to stop the evil whatever or he will blow up the world or something. You got a good turning point built right in there, the point when you stop just trying to get out of the hole and start trying to beat the evil whatever.

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #2 on: November 25, 2010, 02:51:08 pm
Yeah simple would probably be best! I'm not too fond of the whole 'get an artifact' just because every game seems to do that, and it has to be personal enough for the main character to go back into the pit to fight them. Yeah i do need a turning point though, hmm

Offline Ninja Crow

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #3 on: November 25, 2010, 10:39:58 pm
Going into a secret world has been the beloved staple of adventure fiction since the genre started (think Jules Verne and 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth').

So it seems to me that your character could find some kind of buried world?  There are fabled treasures there, and the Buff Boys have been searching all over for it, digging under half the town (perhaps they work for a well-to-do rich billionaire with lots of money, who is a flashy entrepreneur who has a chain of hip retail construction companies with their own brand of sports shoes, and that's why they know how to dig -- and also dance...all villains need to be able to dance).

The Boys are looking for ways to get into this lost world, but your character has found it first.  What compels him to go into it for the adventure of his life, and not go back to his favourite breakfast cereal?  Well the most endearing characters have non-selfish reasons for their actions, so if he has a sick mother or something, then he'll want some of the treasure for her medical bills.  She's too sick to run the museum she built (to display artefacts which inevitably turn up from the lost world from time to time), and it'll close down soon.  Rich dude has always been bugging her for secrets about this world, but she knows what he's like and refuses to help -- so maybe he's been leaning on the bank to keep them from extending her credit for her bills.

So its up to your character to explore this forgotten realm and to gather its goodies, while staying one step ahead of the Buff Boys -- as well as confronting them a lot.  But there may also be old robots that the people of the lost world left behind that give you trouble, and soon you come to realise that this place could be dangerous in the wrong hands.  Enter the wealthy, cash-flush rich guy with bursting bank accounts and lots of ready dosh (he's a real pain in the assets).

He learns that he can raise the lost world (oh no, your home!) and use its technical wonders to completely and utterly take over your whole entire town.  And maybe the next one, too, if -- ya know -- it all works out.

(SPOILERS?  And as for a happy ending, why not have the mayor show up just as you've defeated the last baddie, look around at all the loot, and ask what's going on -- at which point you reply that the treasures were found by the rich dude, so that he could donate them to the museum.  The rich dude will have a change of heart -- of course -- at being considered such a selfless, giving, philanthropic altruist and donor, as well as all around great guy, that he'll turn over a new leaf.  He'll even pay for your Mom's medical bills and make sure she can always afford to run her museum -- which will be the best museum devoted to the display of artefacts from the lost world in the whole entire town!)

What you have so far is really compelling and interesting -- I haven't played the Mother games (so sorry if I'm ignorant of any elements from it you are referencing) but it feels to me like a pretty fresh take on the 'boy trips into adventure' story, and if any of the ravings I've offered here can be of any help whatsoever (in any form) then I'll be more than happy.

Good luck with it!

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #4 on: November 26, 2010, 02:36:38 am
Wow! Thanks so much! That is very good, im not sure how much of that I will use but at least a good bit! I really do like that assets pun too haha. I think i want my game to be a bit more emotional i guess? If i can pull that off, but this is all very good! Also you really really need to play mother 3. It's actually the best game. Like it's so damn good

Offline Ninja Crow

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #5 on: November 26, 2010, 10:58:59 pm
Glad you liked it, and more emotion is definitely a good idea.  I'll look into Mother 3, thanks!

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #6 on: November 29, 2010, 04:36:37 am
Have fun! It's like a better cavestory!
So im thinking of taking your idea for the whole underground city thing that maybe the buff men came from
I was thinking that the buff men are from some sort of nearly extinct race of humans that got out of control and killed eachother off, then when most of them were dead they realized what they had done and decided to try to do humans right, which is what your timid calm people living on the surface are from? What does everyone think?

Offline michelcote

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #7 on: December 01, 2010, 01:24:01 am
I have to do a take on the story, all the ideas are brilliant!


(cut and pasting the beginning here)
You're a young boy, living in a house on the edge of a village.
You wake up one night to a loud thump and bright lights outside your room (think alien abduction movies), you look out your window but you can't distinguish anything, so you go back to bed.
You wake up the next morning and look out your window to see a bunch of really buff men, glistening shirtless or in overalls, digging a big hole in your backyard. (this may go on for a few days or may not, i haven't decided) But you eventually go out there to confront them and see them all jump down the hole. You go over to look into the hole, but trip and fall in, landing at the bottom of a really deep pit unconscious.

The boy eventually meets a elderly blind man, digging to China.  He logs having met you in his journal.
The boy also meets a band, but are separated when the ground shakes and a mining machine digs through the ground.  The boy and the band don't come across each other throughout the game again.  Peppered throughout the game where the boy gets into some deep trouble with the Buff Men and their mining machines are cutscenes showing the band's progress exploring the caves.  Some silly events always lead them to jam out on a new tune which becomes (gasp) the boss music!
BOSS FITE GO
The Buff Men suffer defeat every time, and the boy resumes exploring.  Rinse and repeat.

At the end of the game the boy finds where the Buff Men have been digging to, a massive deposit of SOME DIRT I GUESS!  The boy is spotted by a bunch of Buff Men and they combine to form the Buffest Man!  At that exact moment, the band crash through the ceiling and see that kid being bullied by the Buffest Man, so they help out the only way they know how, by performing an awesome live boss tune.
FINAL BOSS FITE GO
The final boss fight involves somehow having to hit a part of their super huge mining machine to spray them apart with some sort of valves on the machine.

It turns out the Buff Men are an alien species looking for a specific source of mineral that makes fantastic protein shakes, which can only be found underground in the boy's backyard.  The reason why they were in a fury the whole time is because they were really, really thirsty, which was soothed by all the protein shake the boy gave them.
The boy is okay with this, and forgives them.  Cue credits and cutscene where all the Buff Men, the boy, and the band are rocking out, dancing, and drinking awesome protein shakes.

EPILOGUE
The Buff Men give the boy and the band a ride to the surface and after goodbyes, zoom off into space carrying a full load of protein shakes.  The boy and the band also part ways and the boy returns home, just in time for supper.

A Buff Manian digging machine emerges from the ground in China.  The machine's door opens, and the elderly blind man emerges.  He made it.

THE END


I know it's nothing at all like what you had in mind, but maybe having silly throwaway ideas would help.  That's what I do, I always come up with assets before building a story around them too.  I find just having weird ideas to play with usually inspires something usable sometimes.  Hope I helped at all!

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #8 on: December 01, 2010, 03:45:51 am
Yeah that really helped! and i really love crazy ideas like that! I had one before, that the buff men would be digging to the center of the earth to use the core down there as a source for their new sauna, under the logic that"the more steam and the hotter the better" haha I still can't decide what to go with there are so many good ideas!

Offline McSkippy

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #9 on: December 01, 2010, 04:50:24 am
Your story is something the Mother series would come up with, ;D

Offline TheSilentRoomate

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Re: Pitiful Platformer Plot help

Reply #10 on: December 01, 2010, 01:54:53 pm
Thanks  ;D Their stories are always so amazing so thats a big complement! Ugh doubt i could make it as good as mother 3 though haha