Overgrowth Demo Ideas

[Chainsaw man]

I must admit, I always play a Demo first for games for two reasons, 1; Im Dirt Poor, 2; They give me a taste of what may be a good game, they make or break a game I think.

One thing that gets a little silly to me though is playing though a Demo, and knowing your way around like the back of your hand, theres no more shocks or wow, neat. Sure it may be a little thing to some, but, although I admire games as a creaton, I kinda go with the Oats and the Horse Philosphy.

I like the idea of what Starcraft did with its first game. They made a small 3 level campain that Introduced you to the Universe and offerd a beginers challange. It was good story wise as you were wanting to see what happend next in the story. I saved up my money and bought the game and began. It was an entirely new story continuing strait off of the demo. Rather than Facing the Xenomorphs in the Early signs of the Invason, 6 months had past and the situaton went from contained to dire, and the player was forced to become an outlaw to save his people.

Now... I like the Starcraft Demo idea as it kind of reminds me the lost coast and how it introduced me to Half life 2.

Ok... Discuss ideas and Share your Thoughts people.

I'll start on the OG Demo Story if its a liked idea.
If the player is Turner in all the games, the Story would need to glue OG and Lugaru together some how, although in a way that will already be done by the full game, but this opertunity would offer a bit more elaboraton on some things during the game, like why a Turner is being head hunted by a band of rabbits. This might Include the player getting captured by Felines who wish to use them as slaves/food (Bad example I know)

[Zhukov]

I fully agree. A self-contained demo campaign (tutorial and one or two levels) that acts as a precursor to the main storyline would be tremendously neat. Perhaps, for the demo, the player could be someone other then Turner, perhaps even a non-rabbit character. Who knows, they could get really wild and have the demo take the perspective of one of the villains, giving the player a better idea of his/her motivations.

However, something along those lines would also mean extra work for the developer team. Nice though it would be, a separate demo campaign may well not be worth the effort. I suppose it would depend on how much time and work is needed to construct levels once the engine is completed. Remember, Starcraft was produced by a company that is just a wee bit bigger then Wolfire.

[shadow717]

I think the demo should be like this:
You're a rabbit raider.
In the first level you're training in your raider camp learning how to jump, fight, blah blah blah... So basically a tutorial.
Second level: You get to massacre a village by your self. You sneak up a hill behind the village. You run behind a house. The village guard hears you and go's to check it out. You either sneak around the house and go inside and kill the family, or you fight kill the guard. Then you make your way to the armory, bust into it and take a weapon. You then break into the houses kill everyone then burn the village down.
Third level: You come back to raider HQ. Your leader tells you good job, and that your next mission is to hunt down this rabbit that killed an ally raider camp. You leave that night with two other Raiders.
Fourth level: you finally make it to a rocky cliff face. You have to climb it to get to the rabbit. You then do a jumping obstacle course thing to get to the top. When you get there the story board cut scene happens.
Fifth level: You have to fight turner, of course he cant die. When you and all your friends die the demo ends. That's when the real campaign takes off where you play as Turner.

[Ozymandias]

I paid 30 dollars for the game. Shouldn't I get everything, story included? I don't want to have to un-buy the game so I can play the demo and get the content it has to offer, then re-buy the game =/

[zamzx zik]

I paid 30 dollars for the game. Shouldn't I get everything, story included? I don't want to have to un-buy the game so I can play the demo and get the content it has to offer, then re-buy the game =/

o . o

[Zhukov]

I don't want to have to un-buy the game so I can play the demo and get the content it has to offer, then re-buy the game =/

...

Are you being funny?

[TheBigCheese]

I paid 30 dollars for the game. Shouldn't I get everything, story included? I don't want to have to un-buy the game so I can play the demo and get the content it has to offer, then re-buy the game =/

The demo could easily be included in the main game as a mini-prequel, or used as the tutorial.

[Ozymandias]

From the sounds of it you guys wanted the demo to be completely separate as opposed to a portion of the normal game.

[Endoperez]

From the sounds of it you guys wanted the demo to be completely separate as opposed to a portion of the normal game.

If the demo is completely separate, what's keeping you from installing and playing it completely separately?

[Ozymandias]

From the sounds of it you guys wanted the demo to be completely separate as opposed to a portion of the normal game.

If the demo is completely separate, what's keeping you from installing and playing it completely separately?

Why shouldn't its content come with the full version?

[Chainsaw man]

I paid 30 dollars for the game. Shouldn't I get everything, story included? I don't want to have to un-buy the game so I can play the demo and get the content it has to offer, then re-buy the game =/

I dont think thats much of an issue, I would asume it would be an entirely other smaller program. If you relly want to play it though the full engine I supose you could import the campain files. Basicly my idea is that the Demo acts as a Prolog that sets the stage for Overgrowth, advertises the idea with a cliff hanger concluson that one may think will be awnswerd in the Full game, getting you to buy it. Ofcourse the Demo wont have every asset or vairous 'lego peace' the full will have, and its Editor/Debug will likely be disabled.

I think the demo should be like this:
You're a rabbit raider.
In the first level you're training in your raider camp. So basically a tutorial.
Second level: You get to massacre a village by your self.
Third level: You come back to raider HQ. Your leader tells you good job, your next mission: hunt down this rabbit that killed an ally raider camp. You leave that night with two other Raiders.
Fourth level: you finally make it to a rocky cliff face. You have to climb it to get to the rabbit. You then do a jumping obstacle course thing to get to the top. When you get there the story board cut scene happens.
Fifth level: You have to fight turner, of course he cant die. When you and all your friends die the demo ends. That's when the real campaign takes off where you play as Turner.

Hmm... Interesting idea, but we dont know if that is the beginings, for all we know it might be the ending of the game and the pick up to L3.

The First Level being the training misson sounds like a good idea, we wont scrap that.

Second level how ever, A player getting introduced to the game may get the wrong message about the game if your running around butchering a village, maybe the player is trying to get some token, but he has the option to attack the locals. The objective once found may result in hostilitys that force the player to fight his way out.

Level 3: If we were to continue from the above idea I just put forth I got from your idea, the player must return the token to his leader who shows it to be a message of some kind, one he dose not get a chance to read cause its in some language thats not understood to the player should he manipulate the game. That adds some mystery, the message how ever leads to the player being orderd to find Turner and return him to the place.

Level 4: your idea of the Cliff was quite good should that pannel be used in the begining. It could offer a chance to find various things in the game, and see some land marks. there could also be an ocasonal physics puzzle that I hope is going to be implemented in Overgrowth. The result is you will find Turner, Then there would be the cinimatic of Turner meeting the suposive bounty hunters. I dont think the players and his allys should be killed off during the demo as this would bring forward a concluson.

Although I do think this story is too short for a Demo. A good demo must be fun, it IS the Advertisement, the Try it before you buy it for the Product. Give the player some fun to sink his teeth into. David would be the best to talk to in regards for the Inbetween story.

[nutcracker]

*cough* I has an Idea, it was used in fear...There was 1 map in the demo, the first map of the whole game, but its different from the real one, so it wont spoil it.

[Glabbit]

*cough* I has an Idea, it was used in fear...There was 1 map in the demo, the first map of the whole game, but its different from the real one, so it wont spoil it.

This technique has been used in many different games, and I do believe it to be the most effective, too.
Examples are Futurecop, Destination Treasure Island... etc.

[Chainsaw man]

Why do you say It works?

I supose I could see that work as it keeps things close to the story but offers a different expecrince so your not 'grinding though the parts you have already played in the demo' and can be a good means of throwing a nasty surpise at the player.

[Glabbit]

Indeed.
Also the fact that it'd be a program completely separate from the full version, making piracy and hacking severely less likely.