Is A Short Metaphor Moral Story Game Idea Alright?

News & General Discussion
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I am very good at writing stories with a deep meaning and metaphor. But, is it okay to sell my game that have a very deep metaphor moral game? My game story is pretty short like only one page long of writing, because I do not want my game story is being too long. My game story have a deep metaphor, mythology and symbolism like a Bible, but my story is not a religious, but I only have a very hard core superego story like how to stop a wicked city by using a book of knowledge about good and bad. I am a bit too afraid to make my game story idea, because most game company does not make a super moral game.

I think this game should be a 2d low budget short story game with some fighting mob actions, because I am not making costly 3d MMORPG. I am trying to make a short story game with at least have a good emotional feeling for at least a while, instead of adding a too long and much useless contents.

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First, in what language are you very good at writing? How this will be perceived may vary from culture to culture, so that’s an important factor to take into account.

Second, while it’s true that most games have little or no moral content, I don’t think it has to be that way. You’re smart to plan a low budget for this, especially if it’s a short game, but I would say go for it — if you can make it interesting and fun, players will forgive the moral lesson. :slight_smile:

I was having somewhat similar thoughts yesterday… I’ve been watching a lot of Japanese dramas lately, working on my language comprehension. I seem to be drawn to high school stories (like GTO and Back to School at 35) for some reason. The stories in these are pretty formulaic: our hero stumbles across some poor student with deep problems — bullying, self-injury, domestic abuse, caught up with the yakuza, fallen out with their best friend over some ironic misunderstanding, whatever. The victim is almost universally hiding the problem and unwilling to admit or face the real issue. And then, through unconventional and highly dramatic means, our hero forces them to confront the core issue, at which point all the troubles evaporate and they become well-adjusted, happy young people again.

It’s all very sappy and predictable, but it’s darn fun and I can’t seem to stop watching it. :slight_smile: My thesis on fun is that it’s fundamentally about accomplishment — and to me there is a much deeper, more satisfying sense of accomplishment from helping out somebody who’s in trouble than there is from, say, killing aliens by the hundreds. (Of course in a TV show this is a strictly vicarious sense of accomplishment, but it still works.)

So, I’ve been wondering whether/how you could make a video game around the same kinds of plots.

I don’t have a good answer for that yet… but it sounds like you may have some ideas along similar lines. I say give it a try, and see if you can find the fun! Give the player some real choices, and make them feel they’ve accomplished something important (even if only on a personal level), and you may have a winner.

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Sorry, that I did not really stated my extreme metaphor as clearly. I was not really thinking of a anti- bullying moral game. My moral game idea that I will need more feedback is more about the mythology believe morals like discovery a new science knowledge to serve god’s people by helping the poor and to fight against evil, meanwhile traveling around to find god’s help before the evil invasion. But, this story needs more feedback before I add in my metaphor that I did not really did explain it yet.

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Story-based games don’t have high replay value, so you’re making a good choice to keep it short. This will let you improve your gameplay framework and interactive storytelling techniques more quickly with each game. Speaking of gameplay frameworks, consider using an existing framework like a visual novel, choose-your-own-adventure, or adventure game framework so you can concentrate on the story. Also, some players might not want to interrupt the story with combat. Try to anticipate what your audience will want in gameplay.

I have to agree with Joe – the important thing is to offer the player choices that give them a sense of accomplishment by making a difference. Remember: your story is not important. The player’s story is important. Your metaphor isn’t as important as what the player decides to do based on their interpretation of the metaphor.

Please feel free to post more info about your story idea if you’d like to some feedback on it. I’m always eager to see what kind of story ideas people are contemplating.

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Thx, @TonyLi for your feedback that I should make a “Choose your own adventure” game.

I still need more feedback that is this story still too too deep mythology metaphor moral story idea? But, I am willing to add your “choose your own adventure” game content afterwards. My too too deep mythology metaphor moral story that I have written from before is…
– ““The human have eaten the cursed meat from a dead animal, because the animal have sins and wicked minds. The dead wicked animal have summoned back to life from a evil portal. The undead wicked animal turns into a ghost that acts like a human terrorist to revenge the normal humans. The human did not really stop eaten the dirty cursed meat before it is too late.”” I made up this idea kind of from the vegetarian buddhist where some buddhist is not allow to eat the dirty sinful animals as a god practice. And also the ancient Chinese people used to treat the prisoners before their death, so the prisoner will not revenge the police if the prisoner have risen back to a ghost life. Or my story idea sounds like a random bullshit idea? Please give me a feedback.

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Good stories have a strong perspective and theme, something to challenge the player’s expectations, so your story idea sounds like a good start. (No one wants a boring, generic story.) So now it’s up to you to do something with the story to make it a game. If you keep in mind that a story is about characters doing things, and a game is about the player doing things, you’ll be all set!

BTW, Twine is a good tool to quickly prototype your choose-your-own-adventure. Then you can port the content into Unity.

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Plenty of games try and pose the player with real moral dilemmas. The most common complaint about these games is that the moral dilemmas are not real, and become simply about min/maxing a particular stat.

Here are some ways to approach morals in games

  • Force the player to make choices in grey areas. Does he save the girl or the city? Does he kill the villain who is begging for mercy? Make these decisions real, and make the player live with the consequences.
  • Show the player the results of their actions.
  • Posit a world with a different moral system to ours. Allow the player to live in it. What does changing the moral system do to society?
  • Make your story a blatant analogy to historical or religious events.
  • Portray historical or religious events in a different light to how they are normally seen.

There are a ton of different ways to handle this. All of the methods above have been used in various types of media.

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The problem is that this bullet point list is about a trillion times easier to list out than it is to actually build a game around! Games that actually achieve even 3/5s of these are massive, massive projects.

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Thx, @Kiwasi for your feedback that I will need a more realistic moral story instead of having a too mystical fantasy story game. I think I should add your idea into “choose your own adventure” game. But, I think I should still try to mix with the real life reality moral story inside a fantasy story like the Journey to the West movie, where the greedy monkey king did a mistake by stealing and wearing the monk’s magical crown. Which the magical crown have a monk’s moral spell that the the crown will squeeze the monkey king’s head if the monkey king did something bad. The crown cannot be tooken off from the monkey king’s head unless the monk will allow the crown to be free only when the monkey king have learned his lesson by doing enough moral missions. Also the monk promotes a idea to be friendly with the animal demons by teaching the animal demons a moral lesson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West

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Nevermind, I do not really like my idea as much anymore, because my idea seems like a bit unnatural. I was only trying to be creative and testing out my new ideas, but I begin to think my idea seems like a bit too random.