Debitum Naturae Brainstorming

[IsaiahKey]

Hello! So you can obviously see that I'm a Very New User to this forum, but I was looking all over the place for where to get feedback and to learn how to write a VN script, and this was the place to go so -

My idea for a novel, be it visual or kinetic I'm uncertain, is called Debitum Naturae. This is Latin for Debt of Nature, which is also known as death. The idea derives from White Wolf's tabletop game Geist: The Sin-Eaters, though I've only really taken the base idea and went off from there.

In the tabletop, you play a character who dies and is offered a deal by a special type of ghost known as a geist. They bring you back to life (in actuality, they "prevent" your death, but it's easier to say the former). This grants you powers, and you can also interact with ghosts, while your special geist sort of permanently haunts you. If you die again, they may or may not offer to remmake the deal, but if you take it, then someone dies in your place.

From that, I have created my own world where these people "bound" to geists have many choices, and I've edited and streamlined a lot of the details so it doesn't seem like such an awesome deal to make after all. I have a character I frequently roleplay with, a wealthy young man named D Manchester who has been forced by his geist to make the deal over and over, even when he wanted to die and stay dead. He deals with the idea that he wants to be great and help people (partially so his name will not be forgotten) but ultimately forgets even himself as he becomes a new god of balance - the god of Debitum Naturae himself. But his story is a little much for a game, especially since it takes place over centuries. So in Debitum Naturae, we would focus on another character.

Their name would be up to the player (or so I hope this is possible with Ren'py. I've downloaded the software but have been working too much to read through any tutorials), but for now I've named them Rey White, a young college dropout with a slight obsession for nerdy things, especially comic books. Their favorite superhero is Spider-Man, and they've got strong feelings about the series, so step carefully! They're also a fan of Starfire (the animated TV series, not Teen Titans Go! or the comics for the most part), Game of Thrones, cartoon shows. Just imagine them as a 20-something year old nerd who might spend a lot of time making gifs of their favorite shows for tumblr.

Rey dies at the start of the story in a car accident in the snow, having wandered out after an argument with their roommates. They meet their geist who offers them a deal to come back. If the player refuses, the game ends, but if they don't -

The player wakes up in the hospital and is declared a miracle, having been declared dead and sent to the morgue. They have to decide what to do next. Will they listen to their hero Spider-Man's mantra "with great power comes great responsibility?" Will they live life to the fullest after that awful brush with death? Or will they try to keep their head down and live life the way they always had?

I want each particular choice to end with Rey and the player dying again, and they can choose to come back or to not with consequences. Because every time they come back, someone dies. It's random who. But every time they choose to come back, they learn that everything is with a price, and that by selfishly using other lives for themselves, they're disrupting the balance of life and death.

It would all come back to that ideal "with great power comes great responsibility" and ultimately there are two endings: one where Rey willingly gives up on life and passes on, or the one where they do not give up and find themselves hunted down by a being similar to them but all the more powerful.

There's also having to deal with the fact that you're dying and coming back at the dawn of the next day - so if the player dies at noon, they have no idea where they'll be when they "wake up". They have to deal with their geist and learn how to get along, or alienate and repress them, to their own detriment.

While I see many choices branching off, I eventually want the story to cleave together again, if the player goes on coming back long enough or keeps making what they think are the "right" choices. I also keep using the word "they" to refer to Rey. This isn't an accident or a way to include multiple identities into the character per say. I want to touch on a lot of topics in this story: what it means to be LGBTQ+, death and life and how they relate to each other, what is identity even, and even touch upon modern problems that people in the United States at least face (looking at you staggering college debt and a work force that refuses to retire and allow new blood in).

This is rather disjointed and all of it's pretty rough. I plan on writing more later, but I'm about to head off to work and need to pack a lunch. Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

[IsaiahKey]

After some thought, I figured a tl;dr was required for the rather uninspired wall of text above. Here's an attempt at such a thing, along with some clarification and more solid information on the story and ideas I'm stemming from.

The Idea

Many know of the classic ideology behind the yin yang symbol, a balance of negative and positive energy. One cannot exist without the other. As cliche as it may be, this may be applied wholesale to many aspects of life, including life itself. Without life, there could not be death, but without death there could not be life. Debitum Naturae (DN) takes this idea and asks but what if you could break the loop?

Enter Player Character (PC). They have recently died from an ill-advised suicide attempt and are faced with an unimaginable choice: an offer to come back to life and be given the chance to live out the rest of their days as originally planned. The catch? Well, the creature offering the Deal, a Geist named Seeper.

Do you take the Deal? And what will you do with this second chance? Live life to the fullest? Discover newfound powers and follow in the footsteps of your favorite heroes on the silver screen and in comics? Or keep your head down and do the same as you ever did?

DN is a story about life and death and it focuses on LGBTQ+ issues, as well as those modern young adults (particularly US ones) might face: crushing financial burdens, a stagnated job market, romantic and platonic relationships, and generally growing up with an uncertain future and chaos all around.

The Details

There is a lot of stuff I need to work on. I'm still in the research phase, which is why this brainstorming thread is important to help me keep focused. But this is a project I think, for now at least, I'm working on solo. Below is a list of things I'm in need of doing, in the general order I think I am going to do it in.

Scriptwriting: As a primarily prose writer, this will pose a unique challenge for me in attempting to write without the benefit of extraneous detail. And as this is a branching story, I will be using an extensive plot outline to help me keep track of the different outcomes. This is step one in creating DN, as I won't be able to decide on all the visuals until I have a plot and have begun storyboarding.

Artwork: I'm a graphic designer, so this has been on my mind a lot. How will the visuals play into this story? I like the idea of pushing myself creatively, so the artwork I've been looking at has been primarily Western animation. I'm thinking simpler character sprites on complex backgrounds will be the most interesting, a la Adventure Time, but I'm as of yet undecided how realistic I want to go. I just know this will take up a good chunk of time as I'll have to research and study a lot for what I want to draw.

Coding: I will be using Ren'py as my game engine, and I have absolutely no experience coding. Most likely, this will be the second most time consuming aspect, as through trial and error I figure out what I want to do. I know that I plan on creating a more unique appearing UI, so we're going in deep here.

Sound Design: The one part where I will have to reach out and either request aid, commission people, or buy the rights to use certain music. The sound design is most up in the air as I know this will help emotionally charge the work, and I want to keep my mind open on what music will fit best instead of deciding and refusing to change my mind.

My next update, if no one asks anything, will be to talk about the plot layout and how I'm going to attempt writing out the script. This is the nervewracking part, so if anyone has any tips on scriptwriting, shoot me a message or a reply? I'm going to be popping up elsewhere on the forums once I get a day off of work.

Editing to add like a 5 minute drawing of my current idea for the sprites.

[IsaiahKey]

I was working on a commission today and to give my hand a break I went on to doodle some of my initial designs and thoughts out for the roommates of Rey's.

I'm working slowly on the outline, of the choices yaaay.

[IsaiahKey]

Unfortunately, DN took a backseat to RL stuff that was going down, but I'm back at it again. I keep getting stuck on outlining, so I decided to follow some advice and just work on one route at a time.

Twine is awesome at helping me outline, and once I get the basics down I'm going to go in and work on dialogue and the actual words that go into the story.