T w e n t y S i d e d

I know the last entry was really negative. If it helps, the worst is over. This story never becomes great, but we’re past the horrendous self-sabotage of the excruciatingly paced opening.

Actually, there’s one last nasty bit:

Once Walker is done with Prowley’s Purgatory of Exposition, Walker has to go outside and explain the situation to Lily. So we need to listen to Walker repeat parts of what we just heard. The only thing worse than overlong needless exposition is doing it twice, so this is a little annoying.

The repetition is actually pretty short – less than 30 seconds – and it’s done over the radio while Walker is walking from the HQ to the gates of the city. That takes the edge off, and maybe it’s worth reiterating the premise of the upcoming adventure to make sure it sticks with the player. Still, after such a long clumsy delivery of information, it feels like salt in the wound.

Obviously this wouldn’t really be a problem if the previous scene was more economical with the player’s time, but you could improve it even more by re-framing the conversation. You could avoid having this feel like a recap by simply having Lily present during the briefing. Then Lily could react to her mother’s briefing, thus doing some character-building stuff. We could get some emotional stuff done so the scene isn’t 100% expositionAnd if you don’t want to waste time on icky emotional stuff, then don’t make Lily the daughter of Prowley. We’re either doing pathos or we aren’t. Pick one.. Walker and Lily could discuss what they’re going to do next to make the player’s goals clear. Even if they’re repeating bits of the briefing, it won’t feel like an expositional re-run if we present it as part of what we’re going to do next. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Rage 2 Part 4: Marshall Your Allies”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

In the previous entry, I began making suggestions on how to fix some of the obvious problems with this script / story / game. I should make a few ground rules clear:

1. I’m only modifying scenes, not re-structuring the plot or writing a new story. This means my plot will inherit a lot of the structural problems of the original, but that’s fine. I want to do side-by-side comparisons as we step through the game, and we can’t do that if my story goes off in a totally different direction.
2. Even though the game was marketed as a comedy, the story itself is… not. In my suggestions, I’ve been keeping the self-serious tone of the shipped game. I’ll make comedic suggestions here and there, but for the most part I’m keeping the existing tone.
3. I’m trying to keep my suggestions moderately budget neutral. I might add a few lines of dialog or an NPC here or there, but I’m staying within the given scope.

Last time, I mentioned that the game begins with a two-minute expositional monologue from our villain General Cross as he addresses his troops. I skipped over that bit, but let’s back up and analyze it now.

During this monologue, Cross gives exposition for the following:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Rage 2 Part 3: As You Know, Bob”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.