When You Hear The Bell Ring [Suspense] [Game]

[AlgaeDrone]

When You Hear The Bell Ring is an upcoming strategy game where players take on the role of a competitor who has entered into a deadly competition. In this contest the victor will win a small fortune, and the losers will be promptly murdered. The gameplay will have players concocting elaborate schemes in an effort to outsmart their opponents and emerge victorious.


The Game
In a way, the competition is very simple. The game is divided into multiple rounds, interspersed with brief intermissions. At the start of each round, the contestants are arranged in a circle facing one another, and every contestant is given a flintlock pistol. However, only one of these pistols is actually loaded and the others will be empty. The players then take turns aiming their pistols - they are allowed to target any of the other players that they choose. Right before everyone pulls their triggers, each player is given the opportunity to withdraw from the competition if he wishes to. Finally, the contestants fire, usually with one of them being killed.

Here is an illustrated example of how a typical round might progress:

After each round of the competition, there will be short breaks when you will be given the chance to perform Actions, such as researching your opponents and conducting schemes.



Actions
In between the different rounds, there will be short intermissions where you and the other players can conduct Actions. These are ways for you to gather information and manipulate the outcome of the competition. However, these intermissions are only a few minutes long. And each action will take up a certain number of those minutes. You will have to carefully choose what actions you would like to spend your time on.

Here is a list of some of the Actions that will come up in the game:

• • • Research
      • You can investigate their background.
        • • Find out if your opponents have any information that can be used to blackmail or
            threaten them with.
      • You can investigate their personality.
        • • Can you trust this person? Are they the type that will seek revenge on you if you
            plot against them? Use this to help you predict your opponents' behaviors.
      • You can investigate their Luck.
        • • As mentioned above, people's luck is determined by points. If you know someone's
            point value, you know who is more likely to get a loaded pistol.
      • You can find out who someone is planning to shoot, and who they are cooperating with.
        • • This will help inform your other decisions.
    
    
    • Agreements
      • You can make an agreement with another player to not aim at one another
        • • This is one of the most simple Schemes, but also one of the easiest to break.
      • You can agree to aim at a particular player.
        • • This will probably be your main tool. Using this, you can get several people to aim at
            one opponent, which will increase your odds of success and also will protect yourself.
      • You can instruct someone to drop out of the competition.
        • • This is difficult, but if you can get someone to withdraw, then you may be able to
            eliminate a player without even firing a shot.
    
    
    • Reactions
      • If someone rejects your offer, you can bribe someone into following your instructions.
        • • Remember that people are only in this competition for the money. You can
            override most people's logic for the right price.
      • If someone rejects your offer, you can threaten someone into following your instructions.
        • • If you have private information about someone, then you may be able to blackmail
            or threaten someone close to them, to get them to follow your orders.
    
    
    • Miscellaneous
      • Other players can come to you and offer you any of the previous Schemes.
        • • This can potentially be very helpful, or it can be a trap.

But be careful who you trust. Just because someone has agreed to your offer, that doesn't mean that they will necessarily go through with it. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't double-cross them on the first opportunity that you get.


Setting
Although the player is only given a brief glimpse into this setting, it is clear that this is a very different world with very different rules from earth.

The key difference is that everyone has real-world stat points, like you would see in an RPG, that determine their different attributes. These points are tangible and can be gifted, traded, and sold between people. The points are inherited genetically, and the only way to raise your various attributes is by accumulating more points. So if someone gives you more Strength Points, you instantly become physically stronger and they instantly become weaker.

This poses a unique problem to you in the upcoming gamble. Each player in the game will have a luck score, and this will determine who is most likely to receive a loaded pistol. But unfortunately for you, you have a low Luck score. So you cannot expect to win by Luck alone, and you will need to actively defeat people with higher Luck scores than yourself.



Format
This will be a short VN - each playthrough should take less than an hour for the player to complete. However, "visual novel" might not be the best term, since I'd like to focus almost entirely on text and sound, with almost no visual imagery.

The game will have two modes: Story Mode and Arcade Mode. Arcade Mode will be entirely randomized and will serve as a the main focus of the gameplay, with multiple modes, difficulties, and the potential for countless unexpected situations. Story Mode will have more static elements, and will partly serve as an introduction to the gameplay, the setting, the story, the overall feel of the game, etc - and partly it will serve as a sort of jumping-off point for people who are more used to visual novels, as this mode will be much more linear and in a format that is slightly closer to that of VNs.

Additionally, because of the short nature of the game and the emphasis on suspense, there will be no save feature in the game. On each playthrough you will be forced to play through until the end, whether you win or die. Only then will your various scores and achievements be saved.


You see how far along in the development process each element of the game is on this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... PZWc#gid=0

[Coren]

This sounds freaking cool. Keeping up with this!

[azureXtwilight]

Seconded, I will be watching out for this

[MarineScripter]

A different approach than with the standard VN, which is a good thing here. The play style should suit the plot line perfectly. Looks like it'll be great. Looking forward to it.

[jghibiki]

I agree very interesting and it sounds more strategy based and less storyline intensive.

[Kinjo]

Sounds like an awesome idea. The game mechanics reminded me of Liar Game... except with guns.

Even if it's not a "true" visual novel I think a game like this would be fun. Looking forward to it!

[AlgaeDrone]

It's great to see some response! Initially I was keeping it intentionally vague, but I've added some info new info now.

Thanks a lot! If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[AllegroDiRossi]

So, it's basically a digital version of Ca$h 'n Gun$? That's pretty exciting, especially with the whole concept of breaks, alliances, blackmail, etc. I hope you are successful in making this!

[Malevolent]

Whoa! This is a great concept! Definitely looking forward to it.

[lordshadowisle]

The concept is certainly very exciting and interesting! It's not really resource intensive, so the only hurdle may be the programming (which may be complex, depending on how you structure things).

A question though, since the assignment of the pistol is based on luck- would something not based on luck be better? I can imagine that if a RNG is used to choose the gunman, this will promote save-scumming. Even if the RNG's are fixed (say from start), this doesn't exclude the possibility of save exploiting (eg, oh I know player 1 has the gun, so I'll reload the game and just focus on convincing him).

[jghibiki]

The concept is certainly very exciting and interesting! It's not really resource intensive, so the only hurdle may be the programming (which may be complex, depending on how you structure things).

A question though, since the assignment of the pistol is based on luck- would something not based on luck be better? I can imagine that if a RNG is used to choose the gunman, this will promote save-scumming. Even if the RNG's are fixed (say from start), this doesn't exclude the possibility of save exploiting (eg, oh I know player 1 has the gun, so I'll reload the game and just focus on convincing him).

You could do that but wouldn't that just ruin part of the fun of the game?

[AlgaeDrone]

So, it's basically a digital version of Ca$h 'n Gun$? That's pretty exciting, especially with the whole concept of breaks, alliances, blackmail, etc. I hope you are successful in making this!

Oh, I'm looking that up now. Very interesting stuff, I hadn't heard of it before.

The concept is certainly very exciting and interesting! It's not really resource intensive, so the only hurdle may be the programming (which may be complex, depending on how you structure things).

A question though, since the assignment of the pistol is based on luck- would something not based on luck be better? I can imagine that if a RNG is used to choose the gunman, this will promote save-scumming. Even if the RNG's are fixed (say from start), this doesn't exclude the possibility of save exploiting (eg, oh I know player 1 has the gun, so I'll reload the game and just focus on convincing him).

Excellent question, because that's something I forgot to address. I was hoping to have pretty much no saving in the entire game. My theory is that since the game will be sufficiently short, it shouldn't be too huge of a problem to force the player to complete each playthrough in one sitting. And hopefully this would increase the suspense when you're several rounds into it, and several opponents are aiming their guns at you, AND you haven't saved. However I would like to have a system where it saves after the game finishes, whether you die or succeed. That way your high scores and achievements and such are recorded.

And secondly, although I mentioned the part about players having a Luck score, I honestly don't know if that would be possible to implement. Because each player would have unequal chances of getting the loaded pistol - one player might have a 10% chance, one might have a 30% chance, etc. And as players are eliminated, these values would have to change. It seems pretty complicated, so I don't know if that would end up in the final product.

[Kinjo]

Excellent question, because that's something I forgot to address. I was hoping to have pretty much no saving in the entire game. My theory is that since the game will be sufficiently short, it shouldn't be too huge of a problem to force the player to complete each playthrough in one sitting. And hopefully this would increase the suspense when you're several rounds into it, and several opponents are aiming their guns at you, AND you haven't saved. However I would like to have a system where it saves after the game finishes, whether you die or succeed. That way your high scores and achievements and such are recorded.

Rather than having no saving, you could implement an autosave system after each round, win or lose.
If the bullet is randomized each time you could allow a new game; if not, force the player to load their autosave no matter what.
This way the player can still load the game without having any future knowledge of events.

(note that I'm not sure how this would be possible in Ren'Py, if at all)

[Obscura]

This looks really intriguing. You've grabbed my attention. I'll be keeping an eye on this! Any time there's somebody who breaks out of the traditional VN mold, it's a fabulous thing. (Says the person making a dating VN...*snicker*)

[lordshadowisle]

Excellent question, because that's something I forgot to address. I was hoping to have pretty much no saving in the entire game. My theory is that since the game will be sufficiently short, it shouldn't be too huge of a problem to force the player to complete each playthrough in one sitting. And hopefully this would increase the suspense when you're several rounds into it, and several opponents are aiming their guns at you, AND you haven't saved. However I would like to have a system where it saves after the game finishes, whether you die or succeed. That way your high scores and achievements and such are recorded.

It's probably better if the game was short, and more of a game than a visual novel. It wouldn't be very satisfying if you invested the whole afternoon plotting and strategizing, and end up losing simply because the final opponent (who has a vastly lower luck score) 'happens' to have the loaded gun!

In that sense, yeah, recording high scores (cash remaining, rounds survived, people killed personally ) seems to be a good idea. It makes achievement quantifiable, instead of being just win/lose.