Let's proceed to the real business, then. In the "How to" thread, they said you should start by providing the community with some details regarding the project. I'll start by saying that this is my own project, I have no real team (my room-mate helps me write, but that's about it). All the graphics have been commissioned and most of the coding thus far have been imported from pre-made scripts.
The Setting: Footsteps of the Deceiver takes place in a high-fantasy world where technology has proceeded somewhat further than what might be considdered normal for the genre. There are steam-driven trains, a few cars fueled by magic crystals and the all-too familliar magically airborn ships and boats. There are also streetlamps in the bigger cities and a sort of magically supported network that imitates what we know as long-distance conversation (cellphone crystals, basically). The world is split into four diffrent dimentions; the normal world, the spirit world, heaven and hell. The normal world and the spirit world exist alongside one another, but are unable to interfere and interact with each other. Heaven is the place where the divine power used by clerics, priests, paladins and the like originate from. It's filled with light and harmonious music, inhabited by righteous angels and other servants of the gods as well as the gods themselves. Hell is the exact opposite, a world full of pain and suffering, where the screams of tortured souls ring out across the barren wastes and fire rains from shattered skies. Demons, devils and evil gods dwell there.
Theodore du vile Starblight is the main character, a 22 years old male human wanted for mass-murder, herecy and high treason. Crimes he did not commit, at least not according to his own beliefs. He is arrogant, childish, egoistic and sexistic, yet at the same time carries a twisted sense of justice and righteousness. Demonic blood flows through his veins, but at this very moment, even Theo remains unaware of this fact.
Emelie Dragonmount is an 18 years old female human who works as a maid in her parents Tavern & Inn. She is naive, inquisitive and innocent, spending most of her time either daydreaming of noble princes and gallant heroes or trying to converse with the small spirits that only she seems to know about. Her greatest wish is to explore the world, but ever since Boghub, a violent half-orc barbarian, made the town his home she's been to afraid to leave the establishment.
As if Boghub wasn't enough, Emelie's town has been plagued by another, more subtle evil for the last couple of years, a female human vampire by the name of Mirela Rotaru. Due to her rebelleous nature, Mirela was exiled from her clan some ten years ago, and has since settled down at her current haven. Her presense in the village has fractured many long-term relationships and is also the reason behind the resent wave of anemia that's struck the village.
Wizmah and Xa'thuna are a pair of intelligent gloves that Theo is rewarded after helping an old necromancer punish a thieving apprentice. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that they are actually real souls that have been trapped in the gloves, and a quest to retake their true bodies begins.
Cazuriel the Crimson Flame is an elven high paladin in the service of Relim, the god of Light. She leads a small group of elite crusaders and stands at the top of the structure that oversees the hunt for heretics and evil-doers. Ever since a tragic event 5 years ago, where an entire temple-village was brutally slaughtered, her mind has been set on one thing only; find and destroy the source behind it, the child of evil - Theodore du vile Starblight.
The Plot: The first game is simply an introduction. It gives a simple background, explaining how a peaceful world was introduced to religion and torn apart because of different beliefs. It also explains how a monstrous child slew the monastery that took him in after a personal tragedy and also how he killed everyone in the town where the temple was located. Once the backstory is done, we get to follow this child, now an adult, as he tries to survive in a world where religion makes justice and the non-believers are branded as heretics to be purged. I'm not sure how much of the plot I should actually reveal, seing as it would spoil the story, but for the first game, there's really nothing more than an introduction to the main characters and some exploration of the world.
The final part of the "How to" thread mentions that I should be the one to start up the discussion, so I will do my best to do that.
As I am sure you have all noticed by now, this game is called Footsteps of the Deceiver - Prologue. This, naturally means that there are more games to come. When it comes to actual playtime, I assume that my game will be fairly short. It's just the opening act for an advancing story, after all. Even so, I have been trying to get this game going for many years now, slowly but surely saving up money to afford the art that I'm going to need for this game. That's the main reason I decided to split it like this - I simply don't imagine myself being able to finance it if I were to put everything into one game. Now here's my question; Is this a bad thing? The fact that I plan to cut the story into smaller pieces and release them as separate games that tell the story only if you play all of them? If so, does anyone know if it's possible to find a sponsor or something on the net? I heard something about some site where people can market their ideas and generous people who find the idea interesting could then donate to the project, but I have no idea what it is or how it works...
Also, originally, this game was intended to be adult in nature, with quite a lot of erotic scenes in it, but not a single one of them is actually nessecary for the story of the game to progress. As such, I decided to remove them. The problem is that I have already commissioned quite alot of the art needed for those scenes, and it feels like a big waste if I just throw it away without using it. Thus, I was thinking that maybe I could release two versions of the game, one with and one without the erotic material. Or maybe give the game an option to turn the scenes on/off or skip them. What are your opinions on this? Should I do something with the images I have bought? If so, which version would you suggest me to go for?
Thanks for your time and I hope to see some good, constructive feedback from the community.