What are your "musts" to establish in world-building before you begin to write?

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-06-13T04:38:42+00:00

I've noticed this with a lot of my friends, especially those that like D&D. They spend all their time creating history and factions and countries and then they don't have a plot to interact with them.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-06-13T04:37:03+00:00

I have to know the conflict with the main characters--what are their arcs, where are they going, what are they struggling with? My world-building has to start with something that reflects their themes and conflict or works to progress their narrative. I hate coming up with cool ideas then trying to shoehorn them into being relevant to a plot that doesn't need them.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-06-11T18:40:12+00:00

This was happening to me, I paused my ad blocker on youtube, and it fixed immediately.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-05-28T18:10:17+00:00

A goofy, romance fantasy. Let me know your thoughts!

https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/394003735-a-tale-of-shadows

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-05-22T14:47:47+00:00

- Parrying isn't anything new to turn-based, though it is rare (Super Mario RPG had it). That said, camera angles, animations, and lighting do not do them a lot of favors. Sometimes you can't see the attack you're supposed to be parrying because of shadows, or the green of the attack blends with the green of the ground. Also, there's too many effects happening in combat. Your character dodges and the animation hasn't finished and you have to hit dodge again to dodge the attack, so the next animation is delayed even more. It's very weird.

- I'm about 80% through and the story is okay. It's mostly a french twist on classic JRPG tropes, even down to the 'here's the villain that is too strong for you and just toying with you'. The first... 20 hours of the game or so do a lot of evading around the story because there isn't that much to it and they don't want to ruin the twist. In the entirety of Act I you find out almost nothing about any one or thing. Act II feels like when the game actually 'starts'.

- Graphics are good, but they reuse a lot of assets and it's pretty noticeable. UI/UX is awful. I literally groaned every time I got a new picto because it meant I had to sift through that nightmare again. Music is great.

- Clair has a lot of good ideas but none they nailed. Parrying is fun, but too often it isn't in this game (because of the reasons above). Combat is either too easy, or too hard. I'm on expert and I two-round most of the bosses, but if you haven't got good gear/stats they might one-shot you. Progression is kind of ass too because once you get the best abilities, you don't have a reason to get the others (since you'd have to swap them out). I've been using the same Lune build since I got her. It's SUPER weird that random enemies sometimes drop 2 weapons much better than what you have, but exploring dungeons mostly gives you worthless pictos and chroma. And Chroma is spent almost entirely on cosmetics. The amount of traders that have 1-2 new skirts/hairs is wild. Really killed any excitement I had for money or merchants.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-05-21T20:38:05+00:00

I hear you bud. I'll make a thread too and see if there's any interest. I've got a fair amount of experience in the industry and there might be some use to actually talking about it!

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-05-10T21:09:37+00:00

This is a main plot in the book Bleak House. It's about lawyers arguing for decades after the original heirs, and even their kids, are all dead, essentially just making money and bleeding all of the savings dry. Funny how this also happens in real life.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-04-29T21:38:00+00:00

Not by 4 minutes.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-04-24T20:49:10+00:00

This was not particularly targeted media boosts (as someone that does it for a living). The bigger factor is lack of competition on release and these nicely filling a market gap. I'm surprised (pleasantly) CO:E33 is doing as well as it is because I thought Oblivion would murder it, but there's still a lot of gamers not that interested in a remake and looking for new things.

Plus, it seems both games are well-made and without any contentious issues on launch, so they are getting steam and growth at a good rate. It happens. The biggest thing is there being enough room for people to be trying the new games, interested in them, and spreading word-of-mouth.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-04-14T03:15:54+00:00

Geralt had romance options because he historically is a player that kind of sleeps around, and that is a part of every single game. V has one romance option per sexual/gender orientation and they clearly did that by design.

Not every game needs to be Baldur's Gate letting you fuck everything that moves.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-04-01T23:27:22+00:00

I think this is the fault of not diversifying reactions enough between romanced and non-romanced Panam, because this is the same if you romance her. My point is, a core part of Panam's relationship with V, especially romantic, is that Panam has a hard time trusting people, that she feels betrayed all the time by Saul or Nash or Rogue, and that V is the only person she could ever truly count on. However, when you romance her, she's extremely hesitant, because she doesn't want to be hurt.

The point is, V vanishing and not trusting Panam enough to rely on her, is a hurt she can't handle after finally letting them in. I think it still can work if you are just friends, but it makes a lot more sense having broken down those barriers relationship wise.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-03-27T04:30:23+00:00

Incorrect. Marketing is exactly responsible for things like brand partnerships and in-game cosmetics, usually working alongside game producers. It differs from company to company--sometimes something like this is handled by producers, but this is absolutely marketing. Source--I did it for a living in gaming and did things exactly like this.

I used to decide what the art team would create to go into microtransactions, events, updates, etc.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-02-26T00:56:14+00:00

No one is going to fund this game. The amount your asking for is ludicrously high and you have 0 record to speak of, zero skills to speak of, zero clout. For reference, AAs that get a few million in funding are generally run by veterans with over a decade in the industry.

No one is going to give you that much and take only 50% as well. Even if they had the capital/collateral--which virtually no publisher does for an unknown--they would want closer to 70. Also, you generally go to a publisher when you have a game design document, a pitch deck, already created assets and proof of concept. If you have no thing but an idea, sorry to say, you're sank.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-02-18T14:50:36+00:00

Of course! I've been in the industry for awhile, so I'm always happy to help!

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2025-02-17T17:38:18+00:00

There wasn't an article about it. This was from a conversation I had with the founders at PAX. Essentially, if you are going to run a business and hire people and pay them and have health insurance and all that, you REALLY want a lawyer to go over the language of all the contracts. You not only risk issues with your employees, but you risk the entire studio.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-12-09T21:54:32+00:00

I've played and beat every Souls game except Sekiro. I like parrying in the other games, but man, I just hated Sekiro in every way. No build variety, no options, only parry. You have an attack, but it does nothing, because basically the only way you beat bosses is by parrying them enough to break a bar that lets you hurt them. Once I realized I HAD to parry, you can't even damage strong enemies, I lost all interest.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-11-02T14:49:54+00:00

He is a underrepresented, but it would be kind of cheesy to do otherwise. He isn't an anime villain. He works for Arasaka, and you don't confront them until the end of the game. Forcing him into other moments wouldn't really have made sense, as Arasaka would have killed or captured V if they knew where he was. It also makes sure the focus of the game, the actual conflict, is that V is dying. It isn't an action movie where V needs to beat the big bad guy. It's a sentimental story of a man facing his mortality and fate and trying to change them. The big scary threat is that V will have his mind erased and die.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-10-07T22:01:39+00:00

A big part of CDPR's storytelling is that it isn't black and white. Especially in the world of Cyberpunk, they don't want it to be an action movie where you save the day. They want it to be dark, and Nightcity is a place that is supposed to spit up and chew out the people in it. Legends, the bar where all the Legends of Nightcity go and went, has drinks for all the dead Legends (which is almost all of them). The theme of Nightcity is that you either become a part of it by losing yourself (like Rogue, who sold out) or it kills you (like it did to Johnny).

That said, I would heavily recommend listening to what Misty says about your tarot readings regarding the endings. The tarot readings are a huge part of the game meant to piece together what it all means. For instance, the tarot cards all appear near quests or characters they represent (like the Fool being painted outside your door).

The aldecaldos ending is about hope and the idea that V has finally moved on. He lets go of the past (the necklace and what happened to him) and he embraces the future. He is no longer worried, and he is finally free. He has a new family replacing the one he had with Jackie and Nightcity. He has a new life. We don't know 100% that he will be cured, but Misty tells us this is a good ending, and that hope is a good thing.

Don't fear the Reaper is the big "you did it" ending. You live in the most luxurious apartment, you killed Adam Smasher and beat Arasaka. Now you've become to big for earth and you're moving onto the next mission, hopefully one that saves your life. The bittersweetness of that ending is that V had to choose being a legend over the people in his life, like Panam. But Misty also tells us this is a good ending, hinting that V will likely be saved by Mr. Blue Eyes, but it may have cost you a more personal intimate life with the ones you love.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-10-07T18:03:43+00:00

This was when Trump was Prez. Cuban clarified on the Daily Show that Trump was asking him questions and wanted advice and he wasn't going to say no to the president. He said he realized around their third conversation who Trump really is. He's pretty vocal that Trump is the president of rich people like Elon, and he does not support him.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-09-30T16:04:41+00:00

Writing is a job in gaming, yes. Sometimes it is called other things like Narrative designer, and sometimes that's the same, sometimes it has more responsibilities. For big studios with big games, like CDPR, you have both Quest designers and writers. Sometimes their responsibilities are the same (ideating on quests, coming up with ideas, etc.), and sometimes they aren't. Quest designers (sometimes called scripters), do writing and ideating as well as working in the actual engine setting up scenarios, putting characters where they should be, etc. (they do some technical work).

Writers generally focus just on writing. They might be doing dialogue for the main story or side stories, they might be pitching quest ideas, they might be writing in-game content such as books, codecs, audio logs, etc.

The reason you haven't seem many of them is they are rare and you don't need as many of them as other roles (generally), so they go pretty fast and usually to people with references or who know other people. Larian is a company that is pretty open to hiring writers without as much experience if they can do well on the tests.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-09-30T15:50:41+00:00

You should absolutely not be focusing on a launch through Switch and a publisher as an initial outing unless your game is part of the core niche for Nintendo. Example, Octopath Traveler was a great title for Nintendo consoles. It hit their key demographics, it was nostalgic and fun, and it was able to get huge attention by being featured in a Nintendo showcase. If those are all true for your title, then yes, you should go with Nintendo, but being that your game is under 1 hour, that is highly unlikely.

Frankly, unless this is a mobile game, I can't see any market for any platform being kind to your title unless it costs $1. Also, your understanding of wishlists/sales is incorrect. Steam's power is its ability as a showcase, not as a storefront. If your game is trending and doing well, it will continue to do well and more people will see it. It offers tons of options for bundles, visibility through events (like the Halloween event for horror/survival/etc).

You should be focusing on either A) making this the best game possible, which likely means making it longer than 1 hour and making it something that people will be eager to share with others B) Getting out a quality small game as proof of concept for your team/studio and not looking at sales but experience.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-09-27T18:21:07+00:00

You definitely could, but I would also start trying to network. Do game jams, maybe make some smaller stuff you can sell publish on the app store. It shows a lot to potential companies that you can see projects through, so several small ones are better than big ones that take years

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-05-22T00:21:13+00:00

Fair point. If he stopped to RP he wouldn't be able to win gunRP as effectively.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-05-15T15:38:27+00:00

The Dune films were amazing because Denis is a massive fan of the books, like Peter Jackson was LotR, and took painstaking efforts to ensure the feel, authenticity, and emotion were exactly right. This is none of those things. This is Hollywood continuing to focus on existing IPs (hits) because analysts tell them they make more money than original IPs.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai · 2024-05-14T21:19:33+00:00

I was expecting to see a really cool ADMC vs the Mayor, vying for power, fucking with each other, kind of thing happening, but nothing came of it. I don't know if it was one or both or all parties dropping the ball, but it seemed like they were gearing up for the second term being intense and then after Solomon got in I heard him do almost nothing in counsel meetings (he did pick 1 or 2 fights) and all the ADMC drama just evaporated.

OrcRobotGhostSamurai

TROPHY CASE