Monday 30 March 2015

Game Announcement: Marvel: Director, and request for Alpha Testers

The multiverse is collapsing. Heroes are missing. What is left of humanity is sheltered within one city and a few pocket universes. The only thing that seems to be stopping the collapse completely is you, the new Director of SHIELD. It's your job to find heroes, give them assignments, and fight off dangers, all while dealing with the new universe which scientists have dubbed a class-XXX.

This is my announcement for an upcoming game Marvel: Director (working title). I'm far enough along now that I'm confident the game will be released, though it could be a few months down the road depending on how fast I work on it. This is also a request for a few Alpha testers (I have the testers I need, thanks to everyone who replied. If you sent me an email and have not received a reply with the current Alpha version, please contact me again) willing to take a look at the game/offer suggestions as it finishes development. I have been working with SpiketheGoat who has been extremely helpful, but he is short on time and expanding the pool is probably a good idea.


Here is a quick overview written in FAQ style, though I'm guessing at the questions:
What is it: The game has what I think of as three layers. The primary layer is a strategy game where you give assignments to the various heroes to protect humanity and make decisions about what to research and spend money on. The second layer is the recruitment where you enter smaller universes seeking new heroes via story CYOA (mostly) mechanics. The third is the interaction with those heroes once recruited (relationship building and sex). That is under development.

What it isn't: It's not an exploration game (x object, search object, etc) nor will likely be a 'deep' game in relationship building. It is a strategy game surrounded by leaps into different stories and, while all those stories connect to the player, they don't directly connect with each other.

What Game Engine: Twine

Who is in it: If the character is in any Marvel continuity, they may come up. For initial release there will be at least ten female characters, though they will have varying levels of interactivity.

What do you mean by initial release: There were two primary elements I wanted to incorporate early 1) A game that can be continuously expanded 2) a game that multiple people could work on (though I'm currently working on it solo). The game works via a lot of self-contained 'parts' that interconnect with the strategy layer. So in the future if I wanted to add additional characters, stories, or options they are easy to plug in. That could go on theoretically forever, practically it will only happen so long as there is interest (which might mean a lot of updates, or none, after initial release).

What is the current status: I broke the overall design into three parts

1: Strategy Layer (done, though refinement and additional options might happen, and a ton of balancing will be necessary)
2: Story (in process, sections are being added)
3: Adult content (outside outlines, not started, the plan is to add this once I'm confident that what leads to the adult material works)

What happened to the X-Men Game and/or that non-fanfic Alpha requested you mentioned a month back: The X-Men game tried to do two things, be a superhero game and a school game. They didn't mesh. Also a broad game for all Marvel characters works better (which was suggested to me early on and I should have listened then). The non-fanfic game had a lot more problems in it than I anticipated and is on permanent hiatus until I feel like I ripping it apart and putting it back together. Which might be never, as I have a much easier time motivating myself to do something with fanfic.

How much of Marvel do I need to know for this to be enjoyable: Hopefully just a little knowledge will be all that is necessary to enjoy the game. If you know nothing at all I don't know how well it will come across. I will be including plentiful links though for additional information.

What am I looking for in Alpha testers: Other than the standards (willing to write feedback, ability to tolerate first draft writing) the following would be nice, but not essential:

1) Familiarity with Marvel
2) Interest in discussing game mechanics
3) An understanding that the adult content will be in a very limited state.
4) The game concept to interest you.

If you don't know anything about Twine, that isn't an issue. The programming isn't a problem for me, the help/feedback I'll be looking for is on story/mechanics.

If anyone is interested in testing, or just has questions, please comment or email me at archerfifteen@gmail.com.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds good! I won't volunteer because I'm a lousy tester at the best of times and now isn't the best of times, but good luck.

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  2. Hope Marvel Don't find out about this

    ReplyDelete