Current Events > I just had an idea for an RPG that's reminiscent of Doki Doki Literature Club

(+) Yeah! (+)

You know when RPGs do that thing where a character joins your party super late in the game, and they kinda mess up the team dynamic you've already got and have little to no effect on the story because of how late they joined? Stuff like Haru from Persona 5.

Imagine a game where you get a character like that. They have decent enough battle stats, but they aren't written with the same depth as the other characters due to the sheer virtue of their relative screentime compared to everyone else. You go through an RPG plot, maybe shortened to about 5 hours, hit your story beats, and defeat the big bad. You like the main cast, the late arrival character was fine, but they weren't developed enough and it put a bit of a damper on your entire team's dynamic at the end because of that.

Then you get New Game Plus, and your party carries over. So you have all of the characters at your disposal from the start. It starts off innocently enough, the game starts without the same opening/tutorial part so you dive into the gameplay. But when you hit the first story event, it turns out that every character has new dialogue to address the wider party. Everything conspired slightly differently in the story to bring all of the characters together, so this new playthrough is like a weird sequel/alternative universe spinoff.

So you go through, reading all this new dialogue and getting a feel for the entire party. That late arrival from the first playthrough gets an opportunity to organically grown along with everyone else. This leads to a story beat with them coming earlier than usual - that one of the characters in the party is their child.

The bad guys get wind of this, and three quarters through the second playthrough, that character is kidnapped and killed. This sets off a chain of events that get two or three more party members killed as the whole plot goes FUBAR, and while you eventually win, it's not without heavy casualties.

After that, you get New Game Plus again - your team carries over from last playthrough. The late arrival character is still in your party, and their child is one of the first characters you meet in the story proper, meaning that the same outcome might happen if they spend too much time together. The third playthrough is about sequence-breaking the game and trying to cobble together a party that won't lead to personal revelations too early that make the endgame descend into chaos, and can survive multiple meat gates as you try and subvert the main order you meet your companions.

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Thanks for the million dollar idea... mout

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Bumping because I still think it's a neat idea

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Hows the late arrival characters ass?

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I'd honestly play that. I dig the concept of normal-looking games turning twisted in general.
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Who is going to play a game three times like that

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YoJoe posted...

Who is going to play a game three times like that

When it's different every time, they will. NieR Automata pulled it off.
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BakonBitz posted...

When it's different every time, they will. NieR Automata pulled it off.

I would also hope that by virtue of being a short RPG experience, there might be people willing to play it multiple times. I like RPG experiences that are built for the New Game Plus experience, whether it be something casual and light like Brave Dungeon or as massive as Persona 5. To an extent, Atelier games are built for this - you play it once or twice to get a feel for the game, and then you optimise the fuck out of your playthrough to get 100% completion.

I guess the finale of the first playthrough shouldn't be too final, insisting that the player missed something along the way and missed out on the Golden Ending. That could motivate them to play New Game Plus and discover the clusterfuck that's waiting for them.

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16-BITTER posted...

Unfortunately if you make this game you can't tell anyone because they'll already know the twist >_>

Which is why you make the playthrough short for an RPG, and emphasise the New Game Plus in hopes of getting people to play through again. Maybe make it feel like a lot of content in the first playthrough is unattainable.

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