hikarinakano wrote:Touhou gets away with it, but that's because it's a series (it's a bullet hell game, if you aren't familiar with it).
In each game, there are usually 2 or 3 reused characters, and then the other 7 or 8 are new in every game. I think that Touhou has something like 129 characters now, or something ridiculous. And a significant amount of the cast is memorable, too. I think the reason for that is because every character has something very distinct about them, that makes them different in the mind. Usually it's a hat, though. I guess that's typical of a "small girls with hats" bullet hell game.
Yes, I've heard of Touhou. I learned about it from the "Bad Apple" video.
So making the characters different in both appearance and their mentality would probably help distinguish them. The character's appearance should be easy enough, but their mentality will take a bit of time. Not to mention that it all has to fit into the story.
Vegeluxia wrote:1. 40% of throw away cast is an awful lot. Yeah, it's sad if Character A's brother dies, but if the brother character is just plot fodder, that definitely takes the effect down a notch. Especially if it continues to happen and my connection to Character A isn't very strong.
Then the problem becomes trying to figuring out how to connect people to CharacterA's brother, like having him be important in routeB, and make CharacterA be plot fodder in that route. (This could work if I change which characters are important in different routes, excluding the main characters who should always be prominent to a greater or lesser extent.) Then maybe routeC would have both characters survive, but a different character dies instead. I guess it would be a case of mixing up the character roles for each route.
Vegeluxia wrote:2. That would be a good way of approaching it. If all the routes had every character, that would get repetitive and old real quick. A single long running route also probably wouldn't be much better.
As for which characters get routes, I guess the more important characters and maybe a bad guy should get routes. And to keep it interesting maybe a route could focus on a group (3 or 4 characters) of people instead of one staring character. Or maybe have a route focus on a concept? Maybe I could have routes focus on something else entirely? And then I would probably have a True End where a much smaller portion of the characters died. But then at that point, the players would probably have a favorite character and would get pissed if killed them in the True End.
Vegeluxia wrote:3. The Zero Escape games do this with a cast of only 9, and the plot branches off in like thirty directions. With 100, that sounds insane, and insanely hard to keep track of for both the creator and the player.
I haven't played the Zero Escape games. ...Just googled it, added it to my Christmas list. So maybe by adding a way to identify the characters would help players keep track of them? Perhaps I can use a method of categorizing the characters without making them generic. I'll have to see what I can do.
Parataxis wrote:I am still not getting the impression that you really understand what you're undertaking here. How long is this game? Story Arcs are fine, but by my math you have like 10 story arcs, minimum, for this game and not simple ones either if you're introducing 10 new characters in each one...
...Are you absolutely positive that these obscene numbers of characters are necessary? Fate/Stay Night, one of the longest and most involved Visual Novels of all time had 30-40 characters. What themes are you dealing with that could necessitate this size of a cast?
Responding to most of your post.
Yeah, that's roughly how I was wanting the story to work. I was planning the game to be very big. Big enough to support a 100 character cast. Granted, I didn't consider the math until now, but I guessed it'd take a few years to make depending on how I managed my time, which in turn would be affected by how many people I have helping me.
I like your ideas and how you manage your characters. As far as character introduction and development goes, I'll have to find methods to cut down the time but still be effective with the storytelling." A little bit of symbolism and a few CGs could help there.
I have played Fate/Stay Night. Loved it, and liked how they did the different routes.
The themes I would using would be like that of long running battle anime, survival games, mystery, and SRPGs. (This doesn't completely justify the use of 100 characters.) It would probably be the story/plot that would make the characters necessary and that's still a work in progress. But I would probably have multiple routes which would be different takes on the same story and I would be able to develop the characters more just like how Fate/Stay Night did in their routes. But then as a result I'd probably end up with characters like Rider who was a non-important character and didn't have much character development until the very last route. How did they make that work in Fate/Stay Night?
Yes I understand it would be a huge undertaking. It would be a very long and very big project. Aside from dealing with the story, art, audio, and code. I would have to manage everyone that would actually be willing to be apart of a project that size. But as I write the story, I could end up decreasing the size of the cast, or making multiple games, etc... Anyway, the first demo I put out won't be a complete game either way (maybe just chapter 1) and it won't by any possible means have that many characters. I'll probably just build up the story based on how well received it is.
truefaiterman wrote:You should be able to make it, but the story and atmosphere should be on a HUGE scale (I'm thinking about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Game of Thrones scale here).
So yeah, if you think you have the skills and resources to pull that off, considering that a lot of long visual novels with like... 6 or 7 main characters can have more than 100,000 words and huge budgets... you can try...
Thank you. Yes, the story is going to be extremely huge, while leaving enough room for spinoff games. AndI should have the most of the resources I would need. I can handle the character art and music. I would just need a BG artist(s), SFX composer, and a Proofreader.