Mystery mind fuck of sorts (want to help?)

[neowired]

I'm going to do something unusual (for me) and perhaps crazy. I have an interesting (hopefully) idea here, which at present is unlikely to be finished or even started any soon if at all, unless I find some other people to make this with (after last project I made, I feel doing another one alone would be a bit to much, and a waste of potential). So instead of having this decay to the point of no return, I'm going to do something crazy and throw my design files/the whole plot idea at you.

If any of you find this interesting, I'd be happy to collab with you on it in any means necessary.
This may be somewhat troublesome to read, but I hope you can bare with it (raw design files here).
This isn't solid or set in stone, this is just a couple of general ideas which can potentially be changed in any way you deem would be good.

All above aside, I'm still interested in your opinions on this, disregarding if you would like to enter this project or not.




Someone is killing people in town
In the beginning of the game chose if you are a girl or a boy
The girl’s best friend dies
the girl decides to find out how it happened but in the end finds out it was her. Furthermore even this is subverted and in the end it’s not certain if it was really her or if something is trapping her in a vision
The ultimate ending is when she manages to break from the dark and depressing place and enters a sunny green clearing full of colors, or perhaps she killed everyone.
In the end it shouldn’t be clear if she is the killer or not, and weather no one was killed or everyone was killed.
The different endings should give completely different answers, no ending being final

(0 – killer path; convict killer, kill self) One path where the girl finds a killer and either manages to convict him to the police or kills him herself, the killer says he didn’t do it even though there is evidence. But he points out one inconsistent thing… something which clashes
This opens an alternative route early on, what if the killer didn’t do it?


(1 – paranoia ending; escape paranoia, enter madness) Once the girl starts looking towards this clue, everything starts being weird. Everyone starts to forget her friend ever existed. If she concentrates on trying to convince people of her friend’s vanishing, she fails to find clues, her paranoia grows, she ends in a house for mentally ill. If she manages to find a proof that her friend did exist, that she was real. But, she finds it too late, she is also forgetting for some reason and suddenly she asks who this belonged to… and seems to have forgotten completely. This opens the next route – clues)

(2 – monster path; 2a monster victim, 2b monster lover) Girl tries to search the sewers but lacks the clues to do it safely. She is killed by the monster or is taken as a lover but looses memory of other things.
Girl finds a monster, escapes from it and is either killed or ends up the monster’s lover, if she is killed it’s shown that she had an accident, and no one else saw the monster
This ending opens two new paths

(3 – dark side path; 3a kill self, 3b don’t kill self) 1.One path where the girl can’t find the killer/monster in the sewers. She starts seeing weird things, visions of herself in blood, and finally memories of herself killing her friend and some other people. (but when the killing continues she’s confronted with blood on her hands, meaning she is the killer), she either kills herself, or creates a nest in the monster’s den and we see her bringing new bodies to her den (depending on her earlier choices)
The bonus to this path implies the girl herself is the real killer

(4 – occult path; 4a escape – 4b no escape) 2.One path where the girl doesn’t find a monster but instead the town becomes weirder and more demonic as she solves the case, becoming nightmare fuel and she either manages to escape or enters a blood gate (hell?), we are shown people in the town talking as if she never existed
The bonus to this path implies another clue, that the girl isn’t herself anymore, something is influencing her

Paths 3 and 4 combined open path 5

(5 – alien symbiotic path; 5a kill the symbiotic, 5b ally with symbiotic) This opens another path where the girl earlier notices that she’s the killer and something is wrong, and then she manages to break the vision and confront the symbiotic creature and either kills it, and is later seen dragging a bloody body through the sewers (the symbiotic creature changed her), or manages to converse with it finding out that it’s actually an artificial alien life form and it didn’t want her to kill but it was a side effect of their symbiosis, (which ends with her being killed or managing to construct a transporter gate and leave the planet.)
Depending on the earlier choices she is given a choice if she will stay on the planet (dominate path), or leave the planet (escape path)

(bonus path 6 – dominion) Girl decides to dominate the human race
She builds a domination device or dies trying
If the choices are right she may find her friend (she has to chose to either take her friend, deformed body, and by force, or leave her friend)

(bonus path 7 – escape) Girl decides to escape the planet
She escapes or dies trying.
If the choices are right she may find her friend (she has to chose to either take her friend, deformed body, and by force, or leave her friend)
In the end we are shown her friends who were supposed to be dead walk straight a street talking. One friend is looking through her cell phone and sees the number and wanders who the number belonged to, she deletes it.

Worms and bugs

[cloudyssky]

This looks interesting, but how long a game are we talking here? Seems pretty extensive (that's not necessarily a bad thing).
I will say that even if it is long, I would trust you completely in jumping on board as a programmer or writer. You have an elaborate profile on your website and I'm very impressed.
I can say that this looks an interest for me as I am a lover of mind screws, horror, and mystery. I would enjoy collaborating with you on this. The entire story seems very well thought out.

[neowired]

This looks interesting, but how long a game are we talking here? Seems pretty extensive (that's not necessarily a bad thing).
I will say that even if it is long, I would trust you completely in jumping on board as a programmer or writer. You have an elaborate profile on your website and I'm very impressed.
I can say that this looks an interest for me as I am a lover of mind screws, horror, and mystery. I would enjoy collaborating with you on this. The entire story seems very well thought out.

Thanks for believing in me ^_^

As for estimated size. It's hard to say because, it is my belief that you need to base the size on available resources, not the other way round. A lot of people want to make epic size massive things, but but it rarely if ever gets finished that way.

I would propose 3000-5000 word per scenario, which should equal about 20-30 minutes of gameplay for each scenario, making about 2-4 hours of gameplay overall. This could be made shorter or longer depending on our time/people resources (if we had resources we could for example go for 10 000 word per scenario, but I find this very unlikely as the proposed project is already pretty large).

[cloudyssky]

Seems like a fair length for a game this long. Well, if you need me I'm on board as a writer or a programmer (though to be honest, my strength is in writing as I'm still learning the ropes of Python and such). I could help with character or background art, however that would have to wait until late December for I'll be getting a tablet then.
But for now as a writer, I'm happy to jump on board. You can email me at cloudyssky@gmail.com with any questions and all the details I need to know about this.
I look forward to this :]

[Nellie]

Hi,

I really love the sound of this. I am very interested in psychiatry and work of human mind - would love to help out if there is any way I could! Thanks


Regards,
Nellie

[tengokuribon]

wow, this sounds awesome. O : I would be honored to supply you with art if you need an artist. That's basically all I'm good for in the talent department, though I'm not amazing at it like some of the other artists I've come across on this forum. But, I must say all this mind fuck stuff is right up my alley. So, if you're interested please check out a few new and old drawings I've pasted up on my Photobucket account.

http://s736.photobucket.com/home/Dobuchu

[neowired]

Seeing there is a lot of response, I think we have a large chance to pull this off. It would be great if we can all get into some IM contact.
Please note me your IM info or post it as a comment, if possible. You can find my aim/msn/yahoo on my profile

What we will need:
A writer (I will be happy to help planning it out, or writing parts of it if needed, or editing, or proofreading... within my abilities. It would be great if we could all brainstorm the whole script for various ideas before we will start on it)
Graphic artist for: backgrounds, characters, game interface (again, I can do this, but the more you can do the more I can concentrate on doing just one, and the overall effect we will achieve should be better)
Audio artist: Music, sound effects (I could do this too, but I'm lacking proper equipment, and my knowledge of this is very limited. This will require a mix of bright, weird, dark, calm, chaotic, you know the drill)
Coding: If someone else feels up to it, it would be great, but I'm feeling up to it if needed (this will probably need to include multiple branching based on choices, persistent data for routs opening on multiple replays, menus, editing and combining all the graphic+text+sound into one fluid journey; if someone can code a bonus page for art gallery or music gallery that would be great)

This is all I can think of right now, if you have any other thoughts please share them.

PS: you are awesome ^^