Pastelland Forum

You mentioned you could give us a hand with the/ the deciding of scientific hardness of the story, could you elaborate on that?

We need to settle these disagreements soon. Ideas?

Ancient Crystal wrote:You mentioned you could give us a hand with the/ the deciding of scientific hardness of the story, could you elaborate on that?

I can help you create story elements to whatever degree of scientific accuracy you want, and background mechanisms behind any fantastic/fictional devices or phenomenons, again to the degree of realism we need, if we ever require them. I have some experience on that

Sounds useful. Perhaps you should begin with already existing backsories, they all seem to be attempts at improving the hardness of exising stories.

Babylon wrote:An alternate universe or timeline would be pretty cool, but it would take a lot of work to pull it off. We'd have to come up with a whole history, geography, social order, governments, etc. If we could do it (And I wouldn't mind working for it) it could be pretty good, because it gives us more leeway with things.

Ditto here...

OnyxIonVortex wrote:

Babylon wrote:An alternate universe or timeline would be pretty cool, but it would take a lot of work to pull it off. We'd have to come up with a whole history, geography, social order, governments, etc.

Well, not necessaily. The scope of most of the stories seem to be limited to inside one building, the character won't probably remember anything (or won't need to remember in the game), so we could set it in another universe without worrying too much about every detail right now.

However, we could hint at the carnage happening in the world with some little devices, or (again) the exposition-android idea.

An alternate history universe would give us much more control, and I think that it wouldn't be too hard to figure it out.

So so far we have:

In ______ in the setting of ________ a government is hosting an agency that they say can solve _______ problem by ______ However, the government decides to start providing ______ technology and the rest of the world gets uneasy. Meanwhile in the agency, they have come across dark forces from ______. They start committing war crimes, testing on humans, without the knowledge of the government, knowing if they get found by the world, the government will get the blame. The tests are ___________ and do ____________.Tests are relatively successful, until an experiment goes fatally wrong.

That's more or less...

So it's agreed that it takes place in an alternate universe?

Also, I think we decided on some of those blanks didn't we?

In ______ in the setting of ________ a government is hosting an agency that they say can solve -energy- problem (Oil running out) by ______ However, the government decides to start providing ______ technology and the rest of the world gets uneasy. Meanwhile in the agency, they have come across dark forces from -the source-. They start committing war crimes, testing on humans, without the knowledge of the government, knowing if they get found by the world, the government will get the blame. The tests are ___________ and do ____________.Tests are relatively successful, until an experiment goes fatally wrong.

EDIT: What exactly is 'the source' (if we are going with that?) Maybe something from space, like a meteorite or a piece of neutron star?

How about an unseen field of energy that exists throughout the universe that they are trying to tap into? Maybe this is the type of energy that claimed ESP users use?
And we should refer to it as "The Source". It sounds neat.

In year in the setting of i.e. universe type a government is hosting an agency that they say can solve The Problem (i.e. Oil running out) However, the government decides to start providing protective technology to the agency when they request it under the guise of "protection against insurgents and terrorists and the rest of the world gets suspicious. Meanwhile in the agency, they have come across dark forces from The Source. They start committing war crimes, testing on humans, without the knowledge of the government, knowing if they get found by the world, the government will get the blame. The tests are action and can be used to action.Tests are relatively successful, until an experiment goes fatally wrong.

I know I shouldn’t have, but I decided to attempt at an amalgamation of three of the four backstories. (Sorry, Mr. Officer... )
Yes, I shouldn’t have.
But here you go. One with more of the Sci-Fi traits, the other with much less.
Feel free to yell at me, or just quote the bits you wish to be different and put an opinion forward on the questions.
I felt that this was going too slowly, and if we have something to work with, we can always change, add, and destroy

This is the less ‘Sci-fi’ attempt at amalgamation
In {1} of {2}, a {3} government engaged in a program, codenamed {4} based in {5} to solve The Problem {6}. The said government told the rest of the world that they were pouring their monies into this peaceful ‘new world source {7}’ project. This new world source research was part of an initiative to look back in history to see where mankind {8} had gone wrong, and what things in the past could fix it. The extensive research was successful, and discovered upon The Source {9}. Apparently far back in history, The Source was used by {10} for good uses during the {11}, until the loss of The Source {12}.
Eventually the users died out. {13} This small amount of information however, was enough for the agency hired by the government to secure funding and a base was built. But on the base many forbidden scientific experiments were made. Experiments on humans, to try and get back to The Source. They started putting offers of a second-chance scheme to prisoners, vagrants, criminals, people that wouldn't be missed, to be used as test subjects {14}, that they would be set free afterwards {15}. At first only a couple, but the number grew to almost a hundred. {a}Then the experiments started going somewhere. They found traces of connection points {16} into the source, and on the last experiment taken, connection was successful. However, The Source’s energy came out and created a powerful mental and physical shock-wave {17}. The remaining subjects and all personnel died immediately {b} {18}, and the base was compromised {19} {c}.
In-Game references:
a) So, the player was one of these?
Excepting the player
What happened to it? Sucked into alternate universe? Half-destroyed?

Questions
1.Year
2.Setting. Alternate Universe?Future?
3.Whom?
4.Name of project. HAARP? Above Heaven?
5.Where?
6.What is wrong? Is the oil running out? Is the planet dying? (my favourite)
7.So called, anyhow.
8.If it’s mankind. Are they human? Convenience is a factor.
9.Okay. Most important bit, i suppose. What can it do? How do you access it? (Does the player?) And how does it exist?
10.Whom?
11.When? Dark ages?
12.How was it lost?
13.Why?
14. And what happened to them?
15. Did they?
16.How to connect? What are they? Is this how we will make the connection possible?
17.So what happened?
18.How?


This version ( of an attempt at amalgamation) is extremely sci-fi, it will involve The Source, hinting at magic, and darker times. It will involve the use of an alternate universe setting.
In {1} of and alternate universe, a {2} government engaged in a program, codenamed {3} based in {4} to solve The Problem {5}. The said government told the rest of the world that they were pouring their monies into this peaceful ‘new world source {6}’ project. This new world source research was part of an initiative to look back in history to see where mankind {7} had gone wrong, and what things in the past could fix it. The extensive research was successful, and discovered upon The Source {8}. Apparently far back in history, The Source was used by {9} for good uses during the {10}, until the loss of The Source {11}.
Eventually the users died out, except for a covert group {12} who remained and existed to this day {13}. They had a good idea of what they were using, but these days could not use it for bad as the source was inside them only, and would drain themselves(as they had lost The Source). {14}. However, the lure of re-discovering the process of tapping The Source was impossible to ignore, and extensive research using modern technology was the best option. Let’s call them ‘X’ for now.
The government were long supporters of X’s alias scientific company, The Agency. They hired them to do this job. The base was built. Of course, being X in disguise, they were deceiving the government and did not actually use the utilities provided for what the government hired them to do. On the base many forbidden scientific experiments were made. Experiments on humans, to try and get back to The Source. They started putting offers of a second-chance scheme to prisoners, vagrants, criminals, people that wouldn't be missed, to be used as test subjects {15}, that they would be set free afterwards {16}. At first only a couple, but the number grew to almost a hundred. {a}Then the experiments started going somewhere. They found traces of connection points {17} into the source, and on the last experiment taken, connection was successful. However, The Source’s energy came out and created a powerful mental and physical shock-wave {18}. The subject and all personnel died immediately {b} {19}, and the base was compromised {20} {c}.
In-Game references:
a) So, the player was one of these?
Excepting the player
What happened to it? Sucked into alternate universe? Half-destroyed?

Questions
1.Year?
2.Name? Or anonymous?
3.Name of Project? HAARP? Above Heaven?
4.Location (Alternate Universe, obviously, but where?)
5.What carnage is occurring? Oil? Dying Planet? (My favourite.)
6.Temporary name.
7.Not necessarily so, but convenient.
8.Okay. Most important bit, i suppose. What can it do? How do you access it? (Does the player?) And how does it exist?
9.Whom? Majority of the world? If so, why not anymore? Or select few?
10.How far back? What age?
11.Why was it lost?
12.Okay, who were they? Why did they survive? They might be an ancient cult of sorts in modern days, but...
13.When is that?
14.Because they couldn’t renew it.
15.And what happened to them during this process?
16.Did they?
17.How did they connect? Is connection the way of getting at it?
18.You work this out.
19.Yuck. Must be loads of bodies and gore But what really happened?
20.How? (Also see {c} )


Once again. sorry. I just felt i needed to give this thing a donk on the head.


So, next steps are?
1) sort background story out (By 10th?)
2) Decide on settings/history (By 12th?)
3) Confirm In-Game Story plot (By 14th?)
4) Create structure of Storyboard. (By 18th)
All by August 18th?

Interesting...... I'm somewhat sceptical to the whole crisis thing, whatever it's exact nature would be. Mainly because whatever we say on the subject will tend to get very aesopish, and we must be careful with those. Being as many as we are, we should avoid putting idealisms in each others mouths.

So, you're saying there shouldn't be a moral to the story?

Babylon wrote:So, you're saying there shouldn't be a moral to the story?

well, there's no need to. Most games don't have one. Where's the moral to Daymare Town for example?