"Youth Survival/Resistance" idea - Unnamed Story

[NekoLuca 31]

Hey guys, so I was thinking about all the stories me and my old friends made up when I was about 14/15 or so and once of them stuck in my head and we musta' wrote hundreds of pages on it but since I developed a stupid memory problem, I can't remember most of the story we had except the beginning part. I wrote an outline but it's in need to rewriting but I'll still post it. I'm mainly looking for feedback and help with ideas or even a team to help work on it, some of the gameplay options might be changed since I currently have it as once you've finished a particular character's job role storyline you can move to a different one but I'm debating whether to have it as just one character where you can change job roles as and when.

 

Basically:

 

 

Storyline:

After years of antisocial behaviour and violence/crime by teenagers, the newly formed “Agents of Crime Cleansing†have put forward a commandment to rid the world of any and all youths between the ages or eight to nineteen and allow kids who can still be “brainwashed†(or as they call it, cleansed of crime) into behaving and not causing crime. Since the idea was put forward, several extreme laws were put in place in an attempt to stamp out crime in general, which worked for a general amount of public adults aged over nineteen but sparked a revolution between the teenaged youths, who then formed various associations in an attempt to help out others of their ages. Despite this, eventually the law passed and kids everywhere rushed in a mad bid to escape from officials trying to capture and execute them. Thanks to one of the few remaining youth groups, (Name Pending = Arycia) managed to help guide youths to a base located in an abandoned underground storage facility that was kept secret and hidden by one of the members families sympathizers who works for the ACC. The resistance was formed by a varying amount of 17-20 year olds, despite the older being of age to not be wiped out, and was planned for approximately two years before the law was passed and is fairly detailed in order to preserve the lives of as many children as possible. What happens in the game starts from choosing a faction and beginning their journey as part of the resistance.

(Note: the resistance is not about kids who want to cause crime, but about the unfairness of media/etc against youths)

 

 

Gameplay:

The game story is played along through the stories of characters from different factions. Number of factions currently undecided. The game starts out with the same opening and after the intro scene, the player will choose their characters look and where they wish to start and will start off in generic “teenager†clothing in their room (which is on lockdown) and will play out the decision and escape (not yet decided). The game can end if they die here. Once they escape, an announcement by the leader of their current hideout will talk about the factions and allow the player to make a detailed choice of which faction they wish to join. The game starts in basic tutorial modes for each faction then the main story plays out. After a certain amount of missions, the story continues based on what happened during a mission (if other than death, if the player failed the mission, the resistance will be affected badly). Each faction has a specific storyline time, something such as “medic†wouldn’t require much storytelling and may only be a few missions long whereas something like “recon†would be more detailed.

 

 

I also did a little outline of some of the job/story paths you can embark on, the only one of these that I took from memory was the Messenger/Courier since that's what my character was in the story.

 

 

 

Factions:

Courier: A messenger to other factions in the field as well as others bases around the country. They must be fit and fast, able to manipulate vehicles and are fluent in various languages/codes. Their uniforms are generally lightweight and they carry very little items, only the bare necessities such as a few days food, contact devices and anything that needs delivered. Storyline is fairly large and includes deliverance of messages, collection of people and items to the base and intelligence sneaking.

Medic: Medics are the people who are trained in medical needs such as first aid, operational needs etc there’ll be various levels for medics. Lower ranking medics can perform simple first aid, higher can perform operations etc. Short Storyline, it mainly includes healing injured children and making quick decisions. They wear generic medical clothing with their symbol on the back.

Mechanic/Engineer: These people work on the water/electricity works to ensure the bases each have sufficient power and water. Trained in most areas of mechanical engineering, their jobs can include something such as fixing a child’s toy plane, to repairing connections for computers or even building weaponry or vehicles. Their storyline is short but includes many puzzle solving missions. They wear comfortable black clothing with their symbol on each arm.

Programmer: These guys are the brains behind the computers and technology used in the bases that range from tracking targets, communication and vehicles. They work closely with the Mechanics in order to produce high tech equipment that won’t be tracked by the ACC. Their storyline is very short but includes translation of codes from communicators and programming various devices. Their uniform consists of everyday clothing with a necktie of their symbol on it.

Fighter: Although the Couriers are trained in combat, their need to be small and lightweight outweighs the effectiveness of their combat and so for missions that require force as a must, the fighters get brought in. These are the ones most at risk during their missions and carry various weaponry at times. Their storyline is generally long and can consist of training, fighting various adults, recon missions etc.

 

Faction Missions:

Courier:

• Starting mission: Run two laps in the base in under a specific time while avoiding obstacles to get used to running long distances.
• Relay a message to a sister base that is located on the other side of town. Includes stealth and obstacle dodging.
• Deliver the message and find out that a child has wandered out of the base at night and all of their Couriers are otherwise engaged so they plead for you to find him.
  • If you choose yes: Success means the sister base will repay your efforts with food and you will gain an ally. You later find out the boy you find has a powerful father who can slip the base some food each day.
  • If you choose no: You return to the base with only a little more food for the base, later on it is revealed that the son was found deceased later and his origins/father will not help the bases.
• Choice of various missions that do not continue the story, racing other couriers in the base etc
• After continuing the story you are told you’ve been made Head-Courier.
  • If food supply is less than 300 then you will be told to embark on a recon mission with some Fighters to gain food for the base.

If food supply is over 300 you’ll be told that a recon mission to gather intelligence being fed to you by various sympathetic parties who work for both the governing body and the resistance

 

 

Obviously the missions are unfinished as I'm still writing, but any feedback, ideas?

 

I'm aware that the name "Agents of Crime Cleansing" sounds like something a child would make up because we technically were children at the time but I honestly can't think of another name >_>

 

If I do manage to gather a team for this project, that'd be even better and means I'd be more likely to finish the project and it would be so much better.

 

[+ morewordsfaster 28]

Wow, this is actually really similar to a story idea I had a while back! Mine had a little more of a religious theme to it I think, but very similar. I called the brainwashing "Redemption" and it was treated with all the reverence of a baptism and all the fervor of the renew ceremony in Logan's Run. I also had a God-King who had basically no political power and a cabinet of Cardinals who really ran everything. Happy to provide more details if you're interested; not sure how set-in-stone your story/world is.

 

As far as "Agents of Crime Cleansing," I don't really think it's childish but it is a little unrealistic. Cleansing in particular is a word that, at least in our world, has strong connotations of bigotry and genocide. I'd probably use something a little simpler and that could have been created by commitee (as such things usually are). A couple of ideas I had were the Office/Bureau/Ministry of Peace Assurance (the actual agents could be called Peace Keepers), Universal Propriety Department, Conformance Division, or Accordance Bureau. I had several others, but they were more religious themed.

 

Honestly, from a storycraft/worldbuilding standpoint, I'm really interested in the reason behind the adolescent violence and lawlessness getting so out of hand. It seems like there's a nugget there that could be the foundation of a really cool story. This is exactly the kind of story that appears to be one thing at first glance, but after peeling back several layers, turns out to be something entirely different. I love those kinds of worlds and think that they are very well suited for the sort of multiple play through game you have in mind. Have you given any thought to this at all, or is it really just as simple as you laid it out (if so, are you open to developing this more)?

 

From a gameplay perspective and expanding on the multiple play through style, I really think that there needs to be some sort of meta-game and/or persistence from one play through to another to encourage the player to stay engaged. I think that just relying on players wanting to play through over and over is a little naive. It would be better to treat the entire thing as a game and then create the multiple play through mechanic within that structure. One example would be if there was an overall base management game and then as missions come up, the player can play through them as the actual recruit/agent. However, that conflicts with the peel-back-the-layers storytelling technique because the base manager would most likely have a lot of that information. Alternately, you could do a New Game + sort of thing where there is something (level, items, bonuses, etc) that carries over from one play through to another. Maybe this could be used to unlock other classes/job types to play through. I have some other ideas for how this could be developed, but I don't want to ramble on here forever.

 

Back to story, there was one last thing I wanted to bring up just as a gaping hole in your idea. I find it a little hard to believe that any government would decide to get rid of all kids from 8 to 19. This would have serious long-term economic and societal ramifications that could be catastrophic to the entire nation if not the world. Also, even if one nation would do it, it's hard to believe that other nations would sit idly by and let it happen. Maybe you've taken this into account and have some more ideas for how to make that more believable, but if not you really should. This could be a breaking point for a lot of players' suspension of disbelief.

 

Anyway, cool idea overall and I look forward to seeing what happens. I'd definitely be interested in helping on it, depending on what sort of help you're looking for.

[NekoLuca 31]

As far as "Agents of Crime Cleansing," I don't really think it's childish but it is a little unrealistic. Cleansing in particular is a word that, at least in our world, has strong connotations of bigotry and genocide. I'd probably use something a little simpler and that could have been created by commitee (as such things usually are). A couple of ideas I had were the Office/Bureau/Ministry of Peace Assurance (the actual agents could be called Peace Keepers), Universal Propriety Department, Conformance Division, or Accordance Bureau. I had several others, but they were more religious themed.

 

That's true, I like the idea of the whole "Peace Assurance" thing, it seems much more socially acceptable than what I had.

 

Honestly, from a storycraft/worldbuilding standpoint, I'm really interested in the reason behind the adolescent violence and lawlessness getting so out of hand. It seems like there's a nugget there that could be the foundation of a really cool story. This is exactly the kind of story that appears to be one thing at first glance, but after peeling back several layers, turns out to be something entirely different. I love those kinds of worlds and think that they are very well suited for the sort of multiple play through game you have in mind. Have you given any thought to this at all, or is it really just as simple as you laid it out (if so, are you open to developing this more)?

Honestly, when me and my friend wrote this it was full of detail and little tidbits of everything to the smallest miniscule of exactness (we were really into it...) but I've long since lost the print version and my laptops long since died so all that detail and development will have to start again :/ If you're willing to help, I can show you the worl- I mean it'd really help with the development of the world. From what I can remember, it was the idea that not too far into the future, the general youth has gotten far more lax and uncaring for law and punishment (think Battle Royale I guess ) and have somewhat decided that the law doesn't matter to them, the prisons are full of antisocial youths and they are spilling over to the point where I guess the government thinks "get rid of them all" basically. So... the majority of do-badders outnumbers the minority of do-gooders, hence why all youths pay. But all of this still needs to be developed properly from just "maybe" into "of course!".

 

From a gameplay perspective and expanding on the multiple play through style, I really think that there needs to be some sort of meta-game and/or persistence from one play through to another to encourage the player to stay engaged. I think that just relying on players wanting to play through over and over is a little naive. It would be better to treat the entire thing as a game and then create the multiple play through mechanic within that structure. One example would be if there was an overall base management game and then as missions come up, the player can play through them as the actual recruit/agent. However, that conflicts with the peel-back-the-layers storytelling technique because the base manager would most likely have a lot of that information. Alternately, you could do a New Game + sort of thing where there is something (level, items, bonuses, etc) that carries over from one play through to another. Maybe this could be used to unlock other classes/job types to play through. I have some other ideas for how this could be developed, but I don't want to ramble on here forever.

Honestly I'd love the help for how this can be developed, these are all just simple ideas that came out in the first instance, it'd be nice to get some good solid ideas going. I like the idea of New Game + however, plus it enables the development of the base as it goes on you play as one "class" then start again to the new "class" it'd be you go through various job types as your same character but maybe specialise in one particularly? Seems kinda RPG-ish in that idea, I like it We can discuss more over pm or something if you'd like?

 

Back to story, there was one last thing I wanted to bring up just as a gaping hole in your idea. I find it a little hard to believe that any government would decide to get rid of all kids from 8 to 19. This would have serious long-term economic and societal ramifications that could be catastrophic to the entire nation if not the world. Also, even if one nation would do it, it's hard to believe that other nations would sit idly by and let it happen. Maybe you've taken this into account and have some more ideas for how to make that more believable, but if not you really should. This could be a breaking point for a lot of players' suspension of disbelief.

 

Anyway, cool idea overall and I look forward to seeing what happens. I'd definitely be interested in helping on it, depending on what sort of help you're looking for.

That's the bit we had the most trouble on if I recass, we never actually had an idea of why the rest of the world or even the people in general would agree with it, we had some people that would resist (with the idea of sympathetic parties helping the bases every so often) but they would either do so secretly or they would most likely be killed. I'm gonna have alot of trouble trying to make this even a little bit believeable >_< Thats the bit I'm mainly working on to be honest.

 

I'd love your help on it