Hey all. So my game, Skykick (skykickgame.com) has been going through many many rewrites. I'm still on the background-writing stage.
The initial write-up had the story taking place on a distant planet that had long ago been colonized by humans. Almost the rest of human civilization was destroyed in a huge war, leaving, to the player's knowledge, only this planet, which hid a secret; ages ago, it was home to massive floating foundries that were buried during the time of war to protect them. Once the war ended, the foundries were never re-activated, and were forgotten from memory. That is, until the time of the game, when they are activated once again and rise up, taking mountains, cities, even lakes, up with them in their anti-gravity fields.
From that point on, however, I was unable to come up with a proper storyline for the game.
The latest rewrite has the game taking place on a newly colonized planet, the first by a species that is remarkably similar to human; perhaps they were also colonized some ancient eons ago. The original planet was very overpopulated, so the powers that were agreed that, rather than fighting a war that would most likely decimate what little resources were left, would instead leave the planet for a neighboring one, which for the most part is hostile to their type of life. It's composition is similar to Venus, and thus, the first colonization efforts take place in floating stations, wafting about like driftwood in the mid to upper atmospheres, kept aloft by their own buoyancy in the much thicker air of the new planet, with the surface covered by intense pressure and a thick haze.
Upon arrival they began to terraform it, however an unspecified disaster on the home planet, leaves the settlers to fend for themselves. As their stay grows longer, the colonists run into another issue; until then they had been mining for resources by blasting out chunks of rock, attaching balloons, and floating them up to be mined and even colonized. However, they begin to find that more and more of the rocks they bring up are teeming with life; covered with coral-like structures. This poses an issue; to make it "safe for life" they have to destroy another type of life.* The planet's human population begins to fracture along the lines of what original colony ship they feel the most beholden to, and a competition between ideals and for resources makes for some interesting tales (character-wise, I was thinking everything from runaway kids to mercenaries to someone trying to commit insurance fraud by robbing the mailman mid transit and taking the package he insured).
*I wanted to explore the concept of "relative good" with this second storyline especially; showing how while we think the best sort of planet out there might be one with blue seas and green-covered land, the creatures that grow on this planet would see otherwise. I had the idea that in the future, humans might go out and begin terraforming willy-nilly, assuming that an Earth-type planet was the "best" for life (as evidenced by how we used to only search for planets with water as places for life to grow), and in the process come into conflict with other species who grew through a different tract.
I was also originally looking for something that talked about peace, which is why I've gone to so many pains to end up avoiding a war storyline (and as above had not had much success), though I think I may have just come up with something, thoughts?
InvertedVantage: ok, so i can see the different boats having their issues but theyre just trying to get past it
InvertedVantage: how about we make a nonviolent game, where it's about controllign drones to find the best way to map out air corridors and stuff
InvertedVantage: that way it's more like a puzzle game, actually
InvertedVantage: like you're controling planes to map terrain, fly through challenging obstacles, and more
InvertedVantage: like a big thing im thinking is that the atmosphere is really new, so they need aircraft to map maybe some of the more major flowpaths
Any C&C would be most helpful, thank you! I see a way where the two might be combined further still; where the first story idea becomes the story of the original planet, and the second one links in chronologically and becomes the story of the second planet. Still, looking for other's thoughts.
Also, please check out our modDB page (moddb.com/games/skykick), if you'd like, I just uploaded some reference photos I was gathering on a recent trip.
