Here are the finished narrative ideas from my Dev Team:
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Narrative Doc
Anthony
Princess Name: Joan
Gameplay Style: Mario (Homage to Mario)
Self Aware - Lots of references to classic games (Mario, Zelda) and princess stories
(Frozen, Shrek, Disney Princesses, King Arthur)
Commentary on Princess Stories and the role of Princesses in popular video games/film
Princess rescues herself from castle
After leaving the castle the princess works her way to her home of Ellendale
As the levels progress the environment gets colder
Princess gets to her home
Squire: “Princess Joan you’ve returned, but I’m afraid there has been a terrible tradedy! The Frost Queen Ella of the North has gone mad and frozen over all of Ellendale! She has even frozen your parents cold as icebergs. Come look for yourself.”
Princess sees her parents frozen (cough)
Squire: “Only Frost Queen Ella of the north can reverse the spell. If only there were some brave warrior who could confront Ella himself”
Princess: “I’ll do it!”
Princess travels North to Queen Ella’s castle
Princess gets to the castle
Marlin returns to greet Joan at the entrance
Marlin: “Here is Queen Ella’s castle. Be weary, enemies and traps you have never seen before lie in store. I’ll meet you in Queen Ella’s quarters.”
Joan works her way to Queen Ella’s quarters
Boss Fight against Queen Ella
Queen Ella as she lies defeated on the floor: “Oh Princess Joan, it has been so long! What… what has come of me? The cold, it must have frozen my heart over. Marlin was it you who taught Joan to cast those fireballs? You must stay with me and ensure that my heart never goes cold again. Here Joan take this potion and splash it over your frozen parents, that will break the spell.”
Joan returns to Ellendale to unfreeze her parents
King: “Joan, you’ve been rescued! Where is the mighty champion who has saved you from that dungeon? Is he feasting in the dining...”
Joan: “Father, it was I who saved myself”
King: “Absurd! You escaped from that castle yourself?!?!?!”
Joan: “Yes, I even travelled north to obtain the potion to unfreeze you.”
King: “You got through the guards? And the dragon, you took on a dragon?”
Joan: “Well, I actually...”
Enter Squire: “Your Highness, we’ve come under attack by the various creatures that guarded Joan’s castle. They must have escaped along with Joan.”
King: “Goodness! Whosoever will save us?”
Joan: “I can save us!”
King: “But Darling...”
Joan: “Father, I can do this”
Joan back tracks to the first castle to defeat the Dragon
After Joan defeats the dragon she returns to Ellendale. At Ellendale she is hailed as a hero and even her father has accepted her abilities as a warrior
Joan to the Squire: “Now that all that is handled, Squire do you know what has come of my dear friend ___Name TBD___”
Squire: “Ah yes, being of royal blood also __________ has been placed in a castle to the west of here. She waits for a hero to save her as we speak”
Joan travels west to save her friend
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Audrey
Castle
Knight - Dies by creature “protecting” princess
(Princess) Retrieve Item (perhaps item of mothers? Maybe it’s an amulet that gives the Princess her “magic” powers later on when she realizes how to use it?)
Escape Castle - fights castle creatures to escape and the “boss” of the castle is the previous monster - it attempts to stop her.
2. Castle Gardens
Princess has to travel through a maze of gardens to reach the wall of the palace grounds
The different levels are different plants attacking her/giving her items
Last level is the poisonous flowers/carnivores aka venus flytraps, pitcher plants, corpse flower (boss?), etc (just think poisonous like wolfsbane, etc.)
Fights flower boss to exit palace grounds - climbs over wall (in the background of each level we can have the wall getting bigger and bigger as if she’s getting closer)
(Pretend this is what the place looks like with the castle in the center and the rest of the town surrounding it, both being surrounded by walls or something.)
3. Town
Knowing she can’t stay in the town, the Princess must now escape through the bustling city streets.
Some levels can be her attempting escape from townspeople and she eventually decides to try to get out by maneuvering through the sewers where she encounters rats and snakes or something.
The final boss here can be a Rat King or something..
4. The Forest
Finally reaching the rural areas, she walks into the surrounding forest… little does she know it’s a dark forest
Here, she encounters giant beasts (demons, bears, giant spiders, idk)
She has a vague memory of a cabin in the woods, and this is her destination. She can’t recall why she ever was in a cabin out here, but she decides to trust her gut instincts.
5. The Cabin
Princess reaches the cabin (idk she smart and uses the stars or something oahsdgibasg (OR she also has a memory of someone making her memorize a map so she follows it in her mind)) and finds it being overrun by thieves.
She has to battle the thieves outside the house (and inside) while also having to fight what seems like magical spells making monsters appear (traps in the house to protect the hiding owner, she finds out later)
She reaches the door to the basement (or she’s in the basement, idk she reaches the door to the room the owner is inside of) and there is one last BIG spell where she fights, again, the boss of this level. She succeeds and goes inside.
6. The Wizard
Inside, she finds a muttering old man who demands her identity and how she got through. She’s very guarded but the man feels something “magical” in the air and knows she has an amulet on under her clothes.
Right when he sees it his eyes go wide and he addresses her with a name of affection (idk honey) and he tells her he is a very close friend to the Princess’s MOTHER (who is, idk, presumed to be dead ever since she was young)
This is where he teaches her how to use the power of her mother’s amulet, and then gives her a starting point of how to find her mother.
7. JOURNEY OF THINGS
So, she sets out on an adventure through mountains, swamps, idk other things, etc etc we can decide later and all that.
Cool puzzle-y things happen where she puts together her next location of where to go, all the while getting closer to her mother
Bosses everywhere yay
8. Mother
She eventually finds her mother where she basically tells the Princess (this is SUPER vague and we can make it more interesting/intelligent) that the King is a big butthead sexist man who oppresses women and that’s why she left.
She had to leave the Princess behind for *insert big powerful reason that makes sense* (basically to go create a rebel group and be in charge there I guess?)
Princess joins the cause to go and overthrow her father
9. MORE THINGS HAPPEN
We can fill things in here but she eventually...
10. Castle
… fights her way back through the castle and gets to the King and murders him yay
The Princess is now the Queen (maybe something tragic happens like her mom dies idk, not everything is happy man)
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Cody
Act I
Castle
Princess is in captivity of a dragon who has taken over the castle. A high level knight (you) is battling through the hordes of high level enemies. You finally reach the boss level, the dragon. You battle it out, but then you die. POV switches to the princess. Princess escapes the dragon somehow, and leaves the castle and ends up in a far away place.
Farmlands
Princess ends up in a village in a farm. Everyone recognizes her as the princess
OR no one recognizes her and she starts off as a nobody
AND/OR There is a virus spread over the village and all the villagers have become mutants because of a disease that has overtaken the village. (The disease may be a part of something bigger and may have to do with the dragon)
The princess fights through the hordes of mutant villagers (who may have family and kids so that there is some sort of moral aspect to this. (like how in HL2, in the headcrab zombie infested town, the zombies’ moans, when audio is reversed, actually scream “heellllp mee”).
Swamplands
Act (whatever the last act will be)
Castle
The princess finally reaches the castle
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FINN
Opening, Prince comes in and is killed, Princess gets sword and fights her way through castle right to left. At you exit the castle a new prince comes onto screen, noticeable more powerful than the previous prince (possibly in some sort of medieval steam punk mech suit). The prince reveals that the King of your land has placed a “bounty” on you, for which your mairrage is the prize. When you say that you’ve already managed to escape and don’t need his help, he gets angry and attempts to kidnap you. However, the boss from before who killed the previous Prince comes out and attacks the Prince, to prevent him taking you. They fight in the background and you are able to walk off screen. The stage is set for you to now begin the journey home fighting both the Evil monster’s Boss (whatever his name is)’s men aswell as boss knights who wat to kidnap you for the reward of your hand in mairrage (also power over the kingdom). These boss knights upon being defeated drop their special items, Megaman style.
World order could be reverse Super Mario U style, going
Castle-Clouds-Mine/Mountains-Jungle-Ice/snow-beach-Desert-Greenplains, though by world I mean what would likely serve to be more of a Sonic style act,, each world consisting of 2 or 3 levels ending in a boss fight.
This could then end with a return to the caslte where you fight exclusively knights as you attempt to return to your Throne, but as the town is the most aware of the bounty and thus you would be attacking more human and hard enemies (this also makes sense with the scaling difficulty despite going backwards). The Boss Monster and Boss Prince could equally come back as a form of returning boss or at least central villains, with the Boss Monster serving as a more satirical comedy relief villain playing on Bowser and Ganon, while the Boss Prince could be making fun of players, sort of “This is my adventure, my story, you were meant to let me save you” So on. The Boss monster could be fought at the end of the green plains, serving as sort of fake out ending as you slowly enter the gates of the town as the music swells, only to be swarmed and then have to face off against your kingdom.
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Skylar
This story begins with the hero who find themselves facing a call to adventure, tests, trials, and tribulations, dastardly enemies, and of course personal growth. Unlike most however, our hero dies soon after coming close to achieving his goal. In the same instant a new hero is born… or rather freed from her cell. Thea, The Princess of the land finally has a chance to escape the torment that is her cell, and her home…
Her future rest mere inches from the other side of her cell door. A sword made for a forgotten knight would be this chance of freedom. Using the gleaming sword she was able to break the lock free from her cell door. Once freed from her cell, she quickly made her way towards the front door. Her father, The Evil King, has kept her locked up in his home for so long she has forgotten much of what it looks like. It seems he has even had traps, dead ends, and explosives placed inside to keep out delinquent knights looking to free his daughter. The Princess came across one of these dead ends. The floor of a hall with high vaulted ceilings was knocked out she saw an opening up the wall but knew it would be hard to get up to. She stepped back a few steps and started running towards the wall next to the void in the floor. She lept once and hit the wall. She lept again and again until she finally made it. In another hall she finds the body of the knight who attempted to save her. His bones glimmered and a ghost of the man he once was began to speak. She heard a faint voice in her head that whispered something undecipherable, then ”...and beyond the dark forest, is your freedom” A feeling of power rushed through her body. As she approached the massive front doors of her prison, her father was waiting. A thunder came from above and The King suddenly landed in front of the door. He stood towering over her, but with only her sword, she could not yet overcome the power of her father. She spots a drain that is just wide enough for her to fit through. As she wiggles her way through the piping, The water level begins to rise and fill the crawl space. A wave of water is released on her and it seems her father has opened a door to the moat in hopes of drawing her back in. She is relentless, with her last breath she makes it to the end of the pipe and up to the surface of the moat. She leaps out of the frigid water on the side of a long dirt path.
The path leads into a dark forest, the same Dark Forest the knights ghost spoke of. A shadowy figure comes out of the forest. From the shadows a person in a white cloak asks for help with their raspy voice, that of a toad and a horse. They have lost several gems while traveling through the forest and it would help them immensely to collect them on her way through. The shadow figure then suddenly fled back into the forest. Thea thought nothing of it but if she were to come across some of the gems she thought she would help the mysterious stranger. She comes across a cave that seems to be the only way the path leads. There are spooky sounds from inside the cave. The faint noise of water droplets hitting the rock floor echos. She notices a shimmer deep down in the cave. Thea begins to slowly traverse through the darkness. She stumbles upon another skeleton which does not speak but imbues her with its soul. There is also a gem with the body. Bats begin to attack her. The cave system begins to rumble. Its entrance caves in and it is now very dark. Bats continue to fly around but do not attack her.
*from this point on its more of a summary*
~There is a torch that she uses to light up her path. As she gets deeper there is lava and water that block her path. When she finally makes it to what is seemingly the deepest part of the cave there is a man that is speaking to himself. He notices her and quickly vanishes in a cloud of smoke. In his place there is a bottle of sparkling “Hebjetar” on it, it reads, “Drink for magic” She does not drink it but takes it with her just incase. The cave continues on for what seems like a long time. There are more gems enemies ect... and when she finally makes it to the end, the wizard is standing at the exit. He is looking for his elixir but is very insane and begins to shoot fireballs at her. She defeats him by using the potion and punching back his fireballs with her sword. She exits the cave to find herself still very deep in the dark forest. She thinks she's lost as the cave was supposed to lead to the village and is very frustrated. The white cloaked person appears and collects what gems she has. The person “Uses” them on herself and they seem to make there voice sound more human. It sounds like an older woman. She vanishes again after asking to collect the rest of the gems and thanking her for the help. Thea finds another skeleton and she receives a soul from it… ---
*Super summary bc I’m too tired to finish this rn*
~you find out Thea is death and the souls she has been collecting are not gone when you loose health. There is a witch in this part of the forest after the cave, it works for the Evil King. there is an introduction then later a battle before Thea leaves the forest. Finally she reaches the town that was recently taken over by her father and is no longer a safe place for her to live. Pipe level! She must continue her journey. The king comes to the town in search of Thea they battle as she tries to leave the town. He threatens to kill everyone in the town if she does not come back with him. So she does. She escapes in another part of the Dark Forest. Her father and knights are all over looking for her. She attacks first this time and wins the battle but she is wounded. She goes back to the town and tells them her father is dead and she is the new ruler of the land. *secret* her father is still alive.
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After going through everyone's ideas we realize that we need to find a balance between the comical and serious parts of our game once we mash all of our thoughts together. To do this, we are adding a member to our team that has no idea what this game is, have him read the notes, and make an interesting and cohesive storyline (he's also apparently really good and putting ideas together so this works). Once we have the storyline, we can move forward with all the levels and art we need (and gameplay).
Here are the most recent sprites I made (Evil Wizard and Bat enemies):
