Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis ....................
Odysseystarted with a story. I actually inherited this project at a point where a signifi-
cant part of the 2D technology and RPG game mechanics were in place. Some story
existed but it was by no means complete, and I was not terribly excited by it. As my first
game project that was actually likely to be published, I immediately set to work rewrit-
ing the story into something in which I was personally invested. For years I had been
wanting to get into game development in order to tell interactive, non-linear stories,
and so I immediately set to writing just such a story, wherein the player would be pre-
sented with moral choices beyond just “to kill or not to kill.” I wanted to create a game
in which the choices the players made would actually change the outcome of the story
in a meaningful way. So I charged blindly forward, with the story as my only concern.
Fortunately, the technology and game mechanics that were in place by and large
supported this story I wanted to tell. Where they did not, I changed the game mechan-
ics as necessary. When NPC AI had to function in a certain way to support the story, I
made the AI work that way. When forced conversations became required, where an
NPC could walk up to the player and initiate a conversation with her instead of the
other way around, I implemented the appropriate game mechanic. The levels were
designed with no other goal than to support the story. Since I was primarily interested
in the story, the game’s levels were not designed with exciting battles in mind and com-
bat situations in the game were not as compelling as they could have been. The
constant conflict with strange, marauding creatures was something people expected in
an RPG and so it remained in, but I made combat such that it was very much secondary
to exploring the story. This ended up turning the game into almost more of an adven-
ture than an RPG, but that was fine with me, since it was what supported the story best.
Looking at it today, I can see thatOdysseyhas many flaws. But I do not think that
these problems arose because it was a game whose development started with a story.
This may be a rare way to begin game development, but it can still be a viable starting
point. If I had possessed a better sense of game design at the time, I could have taken
48 Chapter 3: Brainstorming a Game Idea
Levels inOdyssey: The
Legend of Nemesiswere
designed around the
game’s story.