I’m thinking of making a game using Unreal Engine 4 that will be released whenever I finish it and I was wondering what you think of the start of it. Opinions on things to add to flesh out the story or things to change are appreciated. Okay, so here goes…
Story of my Game
Combat tutorial of the game: The Roman father sat in a prison cell in the dungeons of a Roman arena before he was sent to fight in the arena in a nearby Roman settlement. He battles other gladiators as well as Roman soldiers, people on chariots, archers with arrows tipped with fire as well as tigers before leaving the arena as the victor of that battle. He promises to himself that he will do whatever it takes to make things right.
Beginning
Sometime during the evening of the Ides of March, a festival in Rome where the sacrificing of a lamb is said to bring great wealth to the citizens of Rome, is held. The son of a well-known Roman Centurion, who is fighting in the continuous war against the Barbarians far away in the forests away from the walls of Rome, is tending to a young elephant after arriving at the festival by way of a winding path from his house to the main square. The elephant was considered a symbol of great wealth to the emperor of Rome, was one of Caesar’s most prized animals.
As the boy is tending to the animal, onlookers are gazing on the animal. A boy similar in looks comes over to the boy and stabs the elephant to death, remaining out of sight of the onlookers. The boy who was tending to the elephant was shocked by what happened. His small knife which he used to clean the elephant was stained and some of the onlookers realized what had happened and blamed the boy for the death of the elephant. As the boy was running away from the scene, Roman guards chased him through the marketplace but they lost sight of him sometime during the case. The boy ran as fast as he could, dodging through the large crowds that were confused by the commotion in the square and by the boy running right through them, all the way back to his house in the forest. He rushed inside, avoiding the gaze of his mother who was surprised at the early return of her son. Before the mother was able to find out what happened to his son, there were multiple knocks on the door and Roman guards rushed into the house with the intent to arrest the mother’s son. Scared and attempting to protect the life of her son, the mother grabs a nearby kitchen knife and stabs the chest of one of the Roman officer’s. The boy, realizing what happened, rushes out to try and protect his mother from harm swinging a short sword he picked up in his bedroom, but although the boy cut down one of the guards one of the other ones quickly and forcefully disarmed him. Brushing the mother aside, they dragged the boy screaming to his mother for help but the mother just sat and wept.
News of what had happened at the house reached the father by word of one of the Roman officers that interrupted him. The father was in the middle of planning to attack the Barbarians that had pinned themselves down a short ways into the forest. The messenger, carrying a rolled parchment telling of what had happened, was tired from the long journey. The father was furious by what had happened back in Rome but he was unable to leave immediately as there was a small attack by a group of Barbarians. After the Romans killed all of the Barbarians, he left immediately for Rome in search of his wife and son.
Meanwhile at one of the Roman squares, the area had been repurposed into a crematory and the mother and son were forced to their knees by other Roman guards in front of the crowd of onlookers. The corpse of the elephant burned in a great fire as the Roman senator decided what was to happen to the family. He expressed his deepest regrets of what had happened during the festival, and was especially shocked of who were responsible. The mother’s son was ordered to be locked up in the prison of Syracuse far away from Rome and he announced that the victor of the upcoming gladiatorial games was to be rewarded with the Rudis after the winner kills the boy for all the trouble that was caused during the festival.The mother was frightened of what might happen to her, but although she struggled to run away guards stopped her. Meanwhile a young girl in the middle of the crowd, hearing of what was to happen to the boy, quickly left the square.*
I haven’t thought of any names for any of the characters and don’t have an exact idea of what they might look like and stuff. My game is gonna be a sort of third-person sword fighting/stealth game between two different characters you control throughout the game.
I’m not worrying about the naming of the game or any of the characters at this present time. At the moment I am focusing on fleshing out my demo area, learning Unreal Engine 4 in the process, and then working on developing character models, movement animations, and then the combat in the game which will take a long time. In terms of the sort of gameplay I am taking notes from:
Infinity Blade (weapon animations)
The Last of Us (character movement)
Shadow of Rome (setting of the game - NOT the story)
Ryse: Son of Rome (what I am not going to do: faults in the combat, the awkward movement, QTE’s etc).
FEAR (The AI in that game is very smart and, although FEAR is an FPS, I will try and incorporate AI behaviour into my game)
Naughty Dog games in general: Learning from the best is the best way to go.
The Order: 1886 - Yes, this game. I will be trying to match the detail of the character models in this game. Everything else from this game are stuff that is of little relevance to the game I am making.
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This is my own personal project, and this is going to be a fully fledged out game once I’m done with it that will probably end up being equivalent to Shadow of Rome’s length once I’m done (30-40 hours). This is not a school project as a sort of assignment but this is going to be a project that will probably take many years to finish. As for what will happen in the story, they are just thoughts that I have and I have not really started working on the actual story. I am in the middle of learning Unreal Engine 4 and growing out my demo section as I go along. The demo section will very likely end up being an area in the actual game, probably one of the first arenas.
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If you are interested in seeing progress I have made on the game let me know.
By the way, if anyone would like to help me develop this game let me know. This will be more than just an average solo/indie project.