Week 26: Vision of the Golden City

(Late post here due partly to someone putting a backhoe through an important cable, knocking out the neighborhood's phone / DSL -- although to AT&T's credit, they had it fixed in just over 24 hours.)

Without further ado, the new and probably final title for this game:

Vision of the Golden City

In a certain country, many of the children start developing unusual powers as they approach adolescence, gaining powerful fighting skills and other abilities. This always begins with the children seeing a vision of a mysterious city of gold, opulent but empty under a hot sun.

The country often comes under attack by monsters or other nations seeking the power of the city, but the chosen warriors are always able to defend it. It seems as if the Golden City gives the children however much power they need to defeat any challenge.

However, many of the chosen children have noted that they change in strange ways after receiving the power of the city. They no longer feel themselves and some feel separated from the very people they are protecting. What is the truth of the Golden City and its power?

*****

The main character and her childhood friend are two of the newest group of chosen children. As they grow in power, Friend begins acting strangely, desperately seeking still more power because he thinks that he needs ever more to be able to protect the people. The main character will have to discover the truth about the Golden City and her world in order to save her friend and maybe more.

One helpful aspect of this plot is that the middle can be expanded or shrunk a great deal depending on how much time I have to put into it. There's a whole general arc -- exploring, fighting off dangers, gaining power, and Friend losing it -- that can take up pretty much any amount of time and attention, although it will become less effective if it gets too short.

This story takes place in the setting of Last Ancient, but some time earlier than that story. I was having trouble working out the details, and I clearly wasn't going to be able to do justice to the story I wanted to tell in the time frame I had, so it made sense to drop back to a simpler story. (Which is rapidly gaining complexity from some ideas for story elements that I've thought of and quickly gotten attached to. Oops.)

Even if I keep things simple, time is still very short. I think there's a good chance that for the contest I'll do something simpler still: a battle-only game with the battle system fully developed, and basic power development tacked on, but no plot, and with areas, enemies, abilities, etc. likely to change for the real game. My goal in this case would be to make a complete, fun game showing off the battle system, and post-contest filling it out into the complete game I have in mind.

OK, enough blogging for tonight, time to go do some more stuff.