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Storyline Difficulties

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Sun, 11/24/2013 - 20:47
Toa Lewa
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Hello everyone. I recently created a forum asking for suggestions on a name for my game. Now I am having the opposite problem. I have a name, but I cannot think of a good backstory that fits with the name.

The name of the game is "Skyward". It is a conquest style game that primarily focuses on space combat. Players build fleets of ships and try to take control of all the planets in the galaxy.

I love the name "Skyward", but I cannot think of any way to integrate the name with the game since combat takes place in space and not in the sky. In addition, players are not heading towards the sky. I have tried to resolve it by making Skyward the name of a military project or something along that line, but it didn't work very well.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Sun, 11/24/2013 - 20:59
#1
Ristora
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I'm not sure molding a game

I'm not sure molding a game based on the name is the best idea, but if you are intent on keeping Skyward, then you could do something like.....

Have it so that the planets being conquered are being conquered so that they can be terraformed. Explain that in order to terraform a planet or in order to make it habitable after terraforming (I don't know which of these makes the most sense) a special ship must enter the atmosphere of the planet and release an agent that converts the gases of the planet into breathable air or alternatively expels the gases in the planets atmosphere and replaces it with breathable air.

It could be said that the ship that does the air conversion is Skyward bound in its mission. Or maybe you could say that the commanders of such ships must sacrifice themselves along with their ships in the process of conversion and these pilots are know as Skywards:

From the Freedictionary.com:
ward (wôrd)
n.
1. A division of a city or town, especially an electoral district, for administrative and representative purposes.
2. A district of some English and Scottish counties corresponding roughly to the hundred or the wapentake.
3.
a. A room in a hospital usually holding six or more patients.
b. A division in a hospital for the care of a particular group of patients: a maternity ward.
4. One of the divisions of a penal institution, such as a prison.
5. An open court or area of a castle or fortification enclosed by walls.
6.
a. Law A minor or incompetent person placed under the care or protection of a guardian or court.
b. A person under the protection or care of another.
7. The state of being under guard; custody.

    8. The act of guarding or protecting; guardianship.

In this case guardians of the sky :)

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Sun, 11/24/2013 - 22:06
#2
questccg
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I didn't even have a backstory...

I was so focuses on the game itself, that I didn't even have a backstory. Ecarots responded to my request to help write out the rulebook for my game. At that time, I also had no rulebook. One of the things Ecarots did when trying to help me write my rulebook, was that he wrote a short paragraph "About the game"... And it was as you call it, a backstory to the game.

So I wasn't even thinking about a backstory... I was just going through the motions of designing the game, playtesting it so that the game was interesting (fun and strategy-wise) and then it became necessary to document the game and produce a rulebook.

Bottom line: I wouldn't worry about backstory until you have a good name for your game and you have designed all the mechanics and playtested your game.

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Mon, 11/25/2013 - 05:51
#3
TheKeyLosers
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'Skyward' would work if there

'Skyward' would work if there was a focus on earth developing spaceflight capabilities. Maybe they gradually improve as the game goes on?

With a title like that, it would work well with those clear gaming towers that were on Kickstarter a while ago, so there would be more vertical combat.

But I agree that backstory's much less important than mechanics and theme (such as making the "space" aspect more unique).

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Mon, 11/25/2013 - 10:16
#4
Kroz1776
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Joined: 10/09/2013
Skyward...Skyward Sword!

TheKeyLosers wrote:
But I agree that backstory's much less important than mechanics and theme (such as making the "space" aspect more unique).

I agree with this assessment unless the game is being built off of the story. Build your game, then fit the story to it. This is actually how they build Zelda games (which still have amazing storylines to them). They figure out all the different mechanics they want in the game, all the different items Link will find throughout his journey and even some of the puzzles he has to solve. They then take all these things and build a story around it. Even having the theme "pasted" on in a way for the Zelda games they make it work so well you'd think many times that they came up with the story first.

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Mon, 11/25/2013 - 18:40
#5
Toa Lewa
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Focus

I agree with you guys. I should focus on the mechanics rather than the name of the game at this point. Sometimes I just get carried away.

Quote:
But I agree that backstory's much less important than mechanics and theme (such as making the "space" aspect more unique).

I have been working on making the space aspect unique. Currently, I have a rough three dimensional space combat system. Basically, there are three possible levels/altitudes that a ship can be in (level 1 -3). To attack another ship, your ship must be within firing range and also have guns aimed at the target. Each ship has guns oriented in different positions. For example, fighters can shoot only forward, bombers can shoot forward and downward, frigates can shoot horizontally, and capital ships can shoot in every direction.

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Wed, 11/27/2013 - 20:44
#6
bbblackwell
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Chicken and Egg

First off, Ris is always a thoughtful contributor - much obliged for your passion and generosity.

I think the name Skyward simply elicits images of mankind boldly looking up in wonder and determination; whether it be to fly in the air, or venture into space. If the theme was early 20th century, it would lend itself to the former, but since you've obviously got a futuristic theme, I don't think the name Skyward suggests air travel at all.

"Sky" is being used metaphorically; we have to go Skyward to get into space so it's no problem in my opinion. Put a picture on the box of a guy looking up toward the sky with a hazy spaceship beyond the clouds and you're basically done. A little bit of theme about WHY mankind (or whatever land-based species) is venturing into space, and that cinches it. Mechanisms need not address the title in this particular case.

As per the general discussion that has developed, I personally find that theme helps guide the mechanisms, and mechanisms help guide the theme. I'm theme-driven, so most of the time I think "I want a character to be able to do XYZ; how can I build a mechanism to make it possible." But oftentimes you may just have an idea for a mechanism, and then it becomes "what does doing this thing equate to in real-life?" Then you can twist, warp, and embellish that idea until you've got a story brewing. Theme and mechanisms seem to be a chicken and egg scenario to me.

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Mon, 12/02/2013 - 01:54
#7
wazzajack
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Joined: 11/28/2013
Naming or Storyline?

I would normally think the storyline or theme would lead to the naming as you could be risking or compromising your concept just to suit the name.
Not that the naming your game Skyward is particularly bad or negative but when inventing a board game it’s really tempting to include things that we just really happen to like.
Believe me if there is anything that you feel is holding the game back you should let it go. More often this would be found in its mechanics and not the naming but if you have doubts don’t hang on to it and you’ll eventually come up with something better and be glad you did.
If there were ten commandments for board game designing “Learning to let go” I believe should be one of them as it will always lead to you games improvement.

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