KHI makes a KH game! Discussion #1: Story, Narrative and Themes

[Silverslide]

I would like to plaster religious references everywhere in my draft.

 

[ss_silverwing]

I submit a hypothetical: say the "Xehanort Saga" has ended, and the Kingdom Hearts series begins totally anew; starting from scratch, if you will. The platform for this game has yet to be determined. Let's also say you've been put on the team as a director, writer, artist, level designer, or whatever you wish to build the new Kingdom Hearts game from the ground up. How would you take an already established concept like this series and start it again? What would you carry along into the new series or leave behind? What I'd like to do is start a series of discussions about what Kingdom Hearts Insider members would do if they had a chance to collaborate as if they were a development team making an entirely new "Kingdom Hearts" title. There are people here of many different talents that can write, draw, or just plain conceptualize things for a good videogame. We're interested in what you'd do!

What I'm going to do is break down the discussion into seven major points with a recap discussion at the end, with about a week or so in between which will give you guys some time to let your ideas stew and share them here. At the end of each week we need to come to a consensus for what we'd like to do for the game in each topic. However if there is still sharp disagreement, that's fine as well. We'll simply state why there was a division in opinons and state why. I think it's interesting in analyzing things like this! What I will do is give you a series of prompts to consider for each theme. During the discussion I will be asking you all questions about what you have come up with to further prod your ideas by giving you more hypotheticals and so on and hopefully that may trigger some deeper discussion about the mechanics of the game.

This week's theme is:
Story, Narrative, and Themes Design
Characters and Character Design
Art Direction and Interface Design
World and Level Design
Gameplay and Battle System Design
Character Growth Development and Encounter Design
Tertiary Gameplay Design (Mini-Games)
Analyzing the Total Experience

So here's the deal, we know everyone has ideas they'd like to pitch at different levels. You can take your time and write an entire essay if you wish, but if you feel like leaving a paragraph or two of your own ideas or sentiments, by all means! Also, those of you that are inclined towards art may feel free to drop concept sketches off when we get into the topics that require it. If you feel like starting now go ahead, but I'd just wait until the weeks where we discuss those topics so that we don't derail the current week's topic that much.

But how should you answer the prompts? Well, what I suggest is first by directly answering the prompt itself and then expanding into your own ideas. I will write a short example:

Q: What themes do you feel this new Kingdom Hearts game should explore that we haven't seen in the series before? (ex: good triumps over evil, the bonds of friendship)
A: I feel like a new Kingdom Hearts title should further explore the feeling of longing for a home they cannot return to. (And here I begin to elaborate.) I would expand this idea by writing a story where the character has been separated from his/hers/its hometown/place of birth/etc and thrust reluctantly into new responsibility. I would illustrate this by having the character unable to return to his home world because it is destroyed or he/she/it was banished or so on. I would use dialogue and emotions such as loneliness, displacement, and xenophobia to show that the characters are like fish out of water away from their worlds. I would counterbalance this story and evolve it over the course of the narrative by having the main character or cast understand that they have come into great responsibility and that there are worlds beyond their own that are relying on them. I would show this by having the character(s) form bonds with other they do not know through certain events over the course of the game.

So yeah, kinda like that. The prompts in the next week will maybe be less text-heavy and will allow you to submit your own sketches or artwork. You don't have to answer all the prompts in a week to contribute. What matters is that we get some ideas bouncing around. Also, if an idea for a prompt strikes me over the course of the week I will update the OP so that you guys can respond to it. I'm also open to suggestions for prompts you guys would like to see responded to and explored.

Well, let's take a crack at it!

Story, Narrative, and Themes Design:
+ What kind of a story do you want to tell? Do you prefer games that are cliche but written well at the expense of depth or games that are more convoluted and require more reading between the lines at the expense of confusion? If you want both, please elaborate.
+ What themes do you feel this new Kingdom Hearts game should explore that we haven't seen in the series before? (ex: good triumps over evil, the bonds of friendship)
+ How can the concepts established in the original Kingdom Hearts series work with your ideas? If not, why?
+ How balanced is the game's narrative? The Kingdom Hearts series traditionally has had it's narrative gravitated towards the bookends, but would you opt for a more balanced way of story-telling or do you think it is effective as is? Also, tell us how you would create a balanced (or imbalanced) narrative by expanding on how the story evolves over the course of the game.
+ At what point does the main theme of the game become apparent? Is your theme something that is present without, or does it surface over the course of the story? Good versus evil is a good example of the former and a love story is a good example of the latter.
+ How do you think people will generally respond to the themes you've created for your story? Do you want to make people laugh or cry? Do you want them to be intrigued or entertained?
+ How would you handle contrasting events and themes? If your story is about the bonds of friendship, how would you illustrate the feeling of seperation and how prevalent should it be?
+ Do you set up your story for a sequel(s)? How do you establish things in your original game's story that carry into the next story and help bridge them effectively?
+ Do you want to tell a story from one character's perspective or several? If it's one character, how would you let the player get into the character's head? Is the player character someone who is very reliable that the player can replace with their own persona or does the character have a defined personality that we eventually come to understand?


Looking forward to discussing these responses!

Well first then, I am a writer, I love to write stories and sequels, but I don’t know anything about game programmer, but I just know how to write stories and scripts. I love to play kingdom hearts the game series, in fact, I’m in the middle of writing a spin-off story or sequel about kingdom hearts and it takes place in the future.

As for the character designs and their history in the game, I would slowly tell how he or she is close to the main characters in the story and what their background information is.

In my stories between the characters, I love to write how good always triumph over evil, that’s my style of writing. I set my stories as sometimes sequels or spin offs from other shows that I like, but I make or create my own characters and the plot of these sequels.

 

[ChaoticHeart]

SWEET! I will definately be back soon with stuff, quick question though, how long will each topic be open for?

 

[Shamdeo]

SWEET! I will definately be back soon with stuff, quick question though, how long will each topic be open for?

Not sure yet, may be a week or so but I might keep them open longer if we have a lot of discussion going. Would like to wrap it up a few months from now though but it would be neat if the discussion continued even after.

 

[ChaoticHeart]

Cool, it's just I have exams coming up soon so I won't be on much until the end of june, but there are plenty of other topics to contribute to after this.

 

[Cyborg009]

you know i was working on a Kingdom Hearts fan project long before this. its more of a crossover, but here's the involves the foretelling of an ancient prophesy, the grand quest across the galaxy, clashing with great evils, a romantic subplot, and a number of climatic battles leading up to the final showdown with an ending like no other.

 

[stardustfire]

i have a good idea how bout it is about a teenager that lives in the suburbs and he has interesting dreams (like roxas) and his parents are divorced and all theses bad things start happening to him and then out of nowhere Xehanort from the past come to our earth and takes this kid to the keyblade war so that all the final fantasy characters have a huge keyblade war and this was xehanorts plan B on getting the x-blade ect? ;D

 

[.Oji]

Will be dabbling in some philosophical stuff whenever I can. Should be interesting.

Really looking forward to some good reads here.

 

[Narukami]

Oh goodness, time to read some good ideas... I was out mowing lawns one summer weekend and oddly enough an idea for the new generation of KH games being based around a more present day Earth setting, with actual teenagers... Like a Persona game, instead you travel to different worlds. I'm not gonna go too in depth.

 

[Neko]

I might add in a few of my ideas. I have a KH story Ive been working on for a few years. Its kind of a thing between my friend and me though. Its the first full story Ive really written a lot of. So yeah I can probably take a few things from it. I think it would be cool to add in earth. Thats where my story started.

 

[gelandporn]

+ What themes do you feel this new Kingdom Hearts game should explore that we haven't seen in the series before? (ex: good triumps over evil, the bonds of friendship)

I don't know if I'll participate much in the process, but I'll throw some ideas out there.
- The relationship between heart and mind. Some questions that might be asked include- Are memories truly the property of the mind or the heart and what role does each have in their creation? Is being irrational sometimes better than being rational? What do you do when there is a difference between what one thinks is right and what one feels is right? What happens to the sense of self that exists in the mind?

- Sort of tied into that first theme is the idea of apathy. I'm not talking about the Nobodies. Basically, are there situations where a heart can no longer produce feeling (either willingly suppressing them or through some accidental means)? What happens to a heart when it is not used to feel? Does it give way to atrophy? Does it become a cold, calculating machine, like a second mind?

- Converse to what has been presented so far, especially in BbS, I think we should explore free will. If there is an overarching destiny, are we free to do what we choose? Is there a way to escape destiny? Or does trying to escape actually tighten the shackles? One such idea I have always thought of to symbolize this is a heart born outside of Kingdom Hearts- a heart that was created either artificially or somehow naturally beyond the reach of Kingdom Hearts which has the ability to do as it pleases, right or wrong. While this has great potential, the adverse effect is that, upon dying, this heart would not return to Kingdom Hearts, since it did not originate there in the first place.

- It's been said and done before, but I think many of us are interested in the idea of light being used for evil. We've explored darkness being used for good, now let's see the opposite. How would a villain or new type of enemy be able to use the light for immoral purposes? Would they, for instance, ascribe to the absolutism that Master Eraqus believed in? Would it be a case where they believed that their intentions were righteous even if they weren't?

 

[Professor Ven]

Kingdom Hearts Eclipse RP all the way across the board. The storyline itself is tie-able, not to mention its good foundational setup.

 

[kingudamu]

//grins
this, i do like, shamdeo- this is your best idea yet ^^

i kinda like the idea of having new characters that are paralle of sora and co.- a group that wants balance through darkness. but, do you think it would be possible to have a setting that is pre-KBW? a kinda story that leads up to that moment? i'd like to see when and how it all happens, since nomura was fairly vauge on that concept.

hnn, sorry if this isnt helpful- im more artsy than authorly creative... cant wait for next week tho and i look forward to seeing how this goes :3

 

[rac7d]

is it a sprite game? or what exactly

 

[kingudamu]

i dont think their literally gonna make a game- it's just a little experiment on what actuall game developers have to go through in order to make a video game.
atleast i think...?

 

[Ordeith]

Kingdom Hearts Eclipse RP all the way across the board. The storyline itself is tie-able, not to mention its good foundational setup.

As someone who not only participates in this RP but knows all of the major plot twists, I completely agree.

is it a sprite game? or what exactly

This is just a hypothetical game, from what Shamdeo seems to be suggesting--but I'm sure that our community would be capable of making it a reality (after a year or two full of work).

 

[Luap]

I'm going to second the Light used for Evil notion. I still love the idea of that.

Also, now that we know Feelings/Emotions are a force in the series via. Unversed and Sentiments, how 'bout those are delved deeper into. Hatred. Guilt. Happiness. Paranoia. Fear. Love. And so on. What is the meaning behind these forces in the KHverse? How can they be weilded? Could creatures opposite of the Unversed, made from Positive Emotions, appear?

but, do you think it would be possible to have a setting that is pre-KBW? a kinda story that leads up to that moment? i'd like to see when and how it all happens, since nomura was fairly vauge on that concept

I have a fanfic on that in CW :3

 

[Silverslide]

Since we're starting from scratch, I'll post some ideas that have been floating in my head with what I would do if KH was my franchise.

First of all, I would like to see the series be focused less on which affinity is "good" or "evil" They are just labels neither being of good or bad karma. We've seen some examples of users of either affinity going against the norm and being good when they should be bad and vice versa. This of course goes along with what Grass basically said in his last bullet point. Building from this, I would love for the protagonist to be a keyblade weilder of darkness, who goes against the norm fighting for no affinity. I really think the focus on hearts in Kingdom Hearts(figures) was a little too excessive. I mean the power of hearts being used for Kingdom Hearts was shown early on, but they overcomplicated it with taking another heart into your own heart and hearts being the database of a body? I want more focus on the soul, usually the soul is where your emotions come from, but in KH it is the heart.

Just throwing these out there, not really much of a story writer but I'm always one for trying new things.

 

[Evello]

Obviously, as many have said before, a villain who is obsessed with light would be a fantastic addition to the series. Of course, the series has always been a little confused about whether darkness is evil or not, so I'm not sure how possible this is. In all of Riku's stories, the games claim that darkness isn't always evil, but then in instances like Eraqus' death, Eraqus tries to say that he was serving darkness, not light, even though it was obviously his pursuit of light that led him astray. So I'd like to end this debate once and for all. The protagonist, like Riku, should be forced to wield an arsenal of light or darkness in order to strike down a tyrant who is consumed with desire for light, which could easily be represented by order and legalism.

On a more original note, I'd like a story that truly focuses on the theme that there is always darkness within light. So far, even though bad things have been going on in the worlds, there has still been a lot of cheer and goodness everywhere. I'd like to see a a few worlds where there doesn't seem to be any goodness at first. Only when the hero really fights for his beliefs does he find the few good people left. The hero should be challenged to hold onto his optimistic views regarding light even when he's assaulted by darkness from all sides. Obviously this would result in darker stories, but I think that, given the fairly old age of KH's average player, that wouldn't be too much of a problem. To balance the dark story and grim atmosphere, it would be cool to add a few worlds that focus on the "blinded by the light" theme in order to keep things mixed up and make sure that the worlds don't lose their Disney color.

I would also like a decreased focus on the clone idea from the Xehanort saga. I'm not saying it is a bad concept - it has worked pretty well this saga - but drawn out any more the idea would become ridiculous. I would especially like to see the end of this since the battle of clones has largely been a contest between Xehanort and Sora, a contest that will end with KH3. The problem with ditching clones is that it would mean that the motif of "bonds" would be less prominent in the series' storyline. So to counterbalance this, the series would need to focus more on people affected by the protagonist in less direct ways. This would mean reverting to a story closer to KH1 (something I know many nostalgia junkies would love). Also to push the theme home, the game's ending could involve the hero receiving physical help from the friends he has made over the course of his adventure.

Also, on a similar note, I would recommend that the series step away from the isolated worlds idea. While the isolation works well when first experiencing the story of a new world, additional visits to the worlds, like the second trips in KH2, could be mixed up considerably by allowing characters from different worlds to mingle. The evil disney villain league is the obvious example of this, but imagine heroes like Tarzan and Mogley teaming up, or Jack Skelington discovering the "spooky" enchanted doll Pinocchio. The ideas are virtually limitless, and these occurrences could provide some of the bonding that the series needs to drive home its emphasis on connections between people. This would also make repeat worlds (like the infamous Agrabah and Olympus Coliseum) much more tolerable.

That's all I'll say for now. Those were just a couple ideas off the top of my head. I'll think about it more and maybe post some other stuff later.

 

[lasersquash]

I'd always figured that the "Light can be bad" theme can be used in form of religion, if not used in the new Hunchback of Notre dame world , centered on sora (if he survives and if he opens the door joins all the worlds as one) as "he who opened the door to the light" and be worshiped as Jesus world/s over by other settlements with keyblade weilders. And the rest can all be a cliche like FFX Yevon, but the fear and control will come from beings like xehanort and the dark realm. (if it still exists) And the possibilities if the worlds really do come together with so-o-o-o-o-o many royal figures that possibly want to take resources of new lands just filled with natural resources, which can cause wars which may be supported by this very religion. <3 the possibilities are endless if they go with the religion thing to show how dark the light is. (though this might not happen at all) Though with Sora in the middle of it he might be hated and go all emo like Riku or Roxas, and oh-h-h-h-h-h-h so many possibilities <3.