Death of Superman Story Idea

[applegirl]

Synopsis:
It was all supposed to be a fun masquerade ball. A group of friends gathered to say farewell before leaving their old lives behind forever.

Waking up in an abandoned mansion wasn’t supposed to happen. Secrets that were supposed to be buried in the past are coming back to the surface and there will a price to be paid in blood.

The game rules are simple:

The goal is to survive. Each participant is given a role to play in the game. The instructions are given in the wristband while a lethal device is attached to several collars around the participants’ necks. Some can snap off easily while a few are rigged with bombs that explode upon removal.

The Captain must protect the lives of the party members. He wins if the Killer is apprehended and the Traitor confesses his sins. Victory is signaled by taking the Killer’s collar and the Traitor’s wristband.

The Killer must murder all the other players. His collar is one that is rigged with a ticking time bomb.

The Traitor must conceal his identity while avoiding capture by the Killer or Captain. On his wristband is a secret sin that was thought long forgotten. Death would be better than it being known to the group members.

The Coward must betray a friend. A minimum of 2 collars is necessary for the Coward to survive.

The Innocent must not participate in this bloodshed. Unfortunately, the Innocent is most likely to die.

The game must be played. If a winner is not declared in 24 hours, all the collars rigged with bombs will go off. The rest of the survivors will be left to rot in the mansion. The only escape is to play the game.

Characters:
Alba: The main character and the role you will fill. A kind and strong willed girl who often relies on her wits to survive. Abandoned at an early age by her parents, Alba has lived a hard life getting by. Her friends mean everything to her and her only weakness is being too trusting.
Henry: Strong and reliable childhood friend of Alba. Has a bit of a complicated family background since he’s the son of a mistress, but is remarkably good natured despite all the family tensions. Has always cared for Alba, but has a tendency of misunderstanding things.
Charlie: Sarcastic shortie who is a bit sensitive about his height. Doesn’t get along with Alba, but is friends with Henry after Henry helped him out of a previous scuffle. A star soccer player who only came along because of his intense crush of Sara.
Adam: Quiet and mysterious boy who is well known for his musical ability. Adam has played in the famous concert halls before quitting suddenly and coming back to Point Pleasant. Rarely speaks, but seems to be honest. Little is known about him, but rumors have spread of his mother’s rather infamous reputation.
Sara: Soft-spoken beauty who goes along the crowd. She is quite popular with the boys, but seems a bit terrified of them due to a scandal in the past. The only person she gets along with is Charlie and Adam.

The idea is to have a game that plays out differently each time. The player is randomly assigned either role: the Captain, Traitor, Coward, and Innocent. The Killer is the most dangerous card that switches between the other four characters and the response of either four differs drastically. Romance is an option, but this scenario is based upon the theme of madness. Your sought after love interest can betray you cruelly or save your life. In a world where you can't trust anyone, can you survive?
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Do you think people would want to play such a game? Any suggestions or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[LVUER]

So is this some kind of RP, idea for VN/games, or what? Sound interesting, btw ^_^

[Neyma]

sound very interesting but what with superman?

[manga_otaku]

Superman cosplay for the ball? xD

[Taleweaver]

For a VN, that's very difficult to pull off, at least from a technical standpoint. The entire scenario is interesting alone because you don't know who has what role, which means you either have the main protagonost taking each role once (and essentially write 5 VNs in one), or you go for a classic adventure structure, assign roles randomly and make each playthrough unique (making this very hard to program). I'd say it's an interesting idea to try out. I wouldn't participate in a game like that, of course (no sane person would, especially if there's nothing to gain but survival), but it could all have been set up by some sadistic Jigsaw-type figure. (Who may or may not be one of the five participants...)

[applegirl]

Thanks for the replies

I was aiming for a RPG/VN hybrid. The meaning of the title will come to light in a few story paths, but nice idea about the superman cosplay I know this would probably be a difficult idea to pull off, but I wanted a game that would change drastically on each playthrough. I'm aiming for the first idea (having the main protagonist take a role only once) but the other characters will change their roles as well. So this may be 5+ VN in one Depending on how successful the Killer or Traitor is in either scenario, the length of each one would differ pretty significantly. There are certain characters that would have a much easier time knocking off the other participants after all.

Sanity is really relative in this kind of visual novel. I'm aiming for a battle of wits over gore, a game with a different "villain" in each scenario. Although, the madness triggered by such a game would make it difficult to claim that only one person would be the villain.

[Veniae]

This sounds so interesting. And incredibly hard to pull off, but that doesn't matter - I mean, if I had such a cool, original and plainly epic idea, I wouldn't let it go down the drain. Seriously, I would love to play it.

[applegirl]

Thanks! I figured out the overall story (and the many twists in each storyline) but my artist unfortunately disappeared. So unfortunately, this project is on hiatus unless I can find an artist.

[Greeny]

Considering it's rather ambitious technical-wise, you should probably have a bit of programming done before you get an artist.

One thing you could do for this is assign stats (role, sanity, trust, etc) to each character, not just the player, and then give the computer choices as well, only instead of a player choosing, the computer chooses based on the stats.

This'll mean a lot more choices and many branches, but any way you do this there will be many branches so I think it'll be easier to keep track of things if you imagine every point as a point where a character makes a decision. It'll also mean you won't have to write 5+ games, and you'd be writing a single game with many possibilities.

The player could make the exact same choices, but different things happen because the others have different roles.