Failed plot 1

Discussion

The failed plot 1 incorporates Elite-like space trade, crime, politics and probably space piracy, too. It's big, difficult to make believable without changes to the setting and much more developed characters, with lots of content needed and different kinds of gameplay to implement. The biggest problem spotted in the original draft was a tendency to generate big game-changing turning points with many possible outcomes, none or just one of which are simultaneously believable, advantageous and leading to interesting gameplay.

Perhaps we could pull it off if the initial monsters were just animals, then warped animals, then robots and cyborg animals. By the time the first real aliens pop out, the heroes would slaughter so many beasts and break so many (unjust) laws and earn so much sweet money (and invest in shiny ship upgrades) that they wouldn't be in such a shock and wouldn't flee the ship nor alarm authorities just because they've killed an alien and were chased by another. A complementary wild idea to rescue the plot is that at some point the heroes fail to evade authorities, or even choose to lure them in, the aliens slaughter a couple of consecutive police and army raids and the heroes get the weapons, push aliens back, gain some alien weapons, limit their legal space trade and start space piracy. In time the aliens may even occasionally help, as if by chance. In time the player starts questioning the sincerity of the heroes' and aliens' commitment to kill each other. In time the heroes may try to take over the solar system, using the alien technology, after killing off the aliens, or not. In time it may turn out there is something funky with the medical bay and the alterations it does to the heroes bodies... Certainly lots of branching possible here and, this time, meaningful branching.

An idea to help introduce the animals: have a private zoo gone wrong on the double/triple height level with greenery. Escaped, aggressive animals (the non-aggressive were eaten by the aggressive by that time) all over the levels, including a few in hardly accessible portions of level 2 and more in the water recycling basin on level 1 and around. Make animals below level 2 more and more deformed and use animal as well as robot parts for some aliens.

The original text

First, a pleasant surprise, the upper decks look hastily and long ago abandoned, but contain some valuable and sometimes vaguely useful items. Then a nasty surprise, they also contain unnamed horrors. Weak, hidden, guarding some of the treasure, not coming out until approached, quite mindless, weaponless, assassin monsters. At this point it's not obvious if they are animals deformed beyond recognition or something entirely different. Even when attacked with makeshift weapons, the monsters occasionally manage to injure the heroes seriously, but fortunately the medical bay on deck 5 is of the most expensive kind and in perfect order, so not even scars remain, nor the old scars and imperfections the heroes had before.

Not long after the first monsters are killed, the heroes lose contact with the outside, the ship's main and navigational engines start and stop randomly a few times and then get silent. The wires from the communication and navigation panels are traced down to the deeper levels. The heroes pop the entrance to deck 6 open, kill the first thing that jumps at them and level 6 is never silent ever again and welding the entrances shut will never again hold the nasties below for long. These are nasty, intelligent, armed aliens, the deeper the nastier. The cables of the communication panel end up on deck 6 among completely smashed computer and radio racks. Somewhere on deck 7 the navigation cables emerge from inside the ships' structure and promptly go outside the hull. There, the cables and torn into pieces. The heroes patch them up and weld steel plates around them and amass rubble around them so that they are not damaged again, ever.

If the heroes survive battles with the monsters below, they get to the Uranus moon, buy a new communication kit, discover that the agent that sold them the ship vanished without trace and they have a few options to choose:

TODO: The options below are totally naive, boring, predictable and unconvincing. Better to have no choice at all that such choices. The game does not need elaborate plot at all. How to change the backstory to have only the last choice or at least to make it obviously the best one from the heroes' point of view? Perhaps let the heroes have a glimpse of unbelievable riches down below? Millionaire's abandoned treasure hoard or alien trinkets? But greed is not enough, it makes it less of a heroic adventure and it takes a very greedy person indeed to focus on money when taking part in the Contact. Does it, after fighting for life for months? Do heroes hate the aliens? Any personal revenge motive? Any attempt at communication with the aliens? Or perhaps picture the authorities in more sinister terms? Something about harsh penalties for bacterial contamination of space habitats? Or make the purchase of the ship more shady and a bit illegal? Perhaps somebody died the 8 years ago, when the ship was considered to be destroyed? Flesh out how the heroes expect to re-register their ship. Is the ship recognizable or has the millionaire modified it many times over?

1. Give the ship up to the authorities. The weakest victory. The last scene depicts content heroes in a secret detention camp, finally safe from the aliens, regrettably never to be released, because objective psychological profiling shows clearly they cannot be trusted to keep silent, whether turned loose or enrolled in secret service. it's too personal for them, after this long fight for survival.

2. Sell the cargo, try to sell the unregistered ship, get caught. Go to option 1.

3. Sell the cargo, buy an old shuttle, steer the ship towards the surface of Uranus. Weak victory. The aliens don't attack on the way to the surface. When close, the heroes escape in the shuttle. Soon, the ship swerves, changes course, escapes of the gravitational well. When it gets lost in in th distance, among the Uranus's rings, they sound S.O.S. and are rescued. They never manage to pay up their debt completely to the end of their lives.

4. Sell the cargo, buy cheap local goods, buy whatever a space gardening and space construction shops have to offer that remotely resembles weapons and set course wherever the wind is favourable, preferably somewhere with legally obtainable personal weapons.

In time the heroes get hold of enough treasure inside the ship to afford illegal army weapons. In time they recover and learn to use alien weapons. In time they get control of most of the ship and wrench out the dark alien secret (TODO) from the hands/mouths/tentacles of the last dying alien generals. The ship with all its wealth is theirs and they choose to act on the secret or not.