Code, Creations, and Circuits

I’ve had an idea for decades now bouncing around in my head. I loved everything put out on MS Paint Adventures, from Bard’s tale to Homestuck. I liked the idea of readers having an influence on what happens next in the story; that the author would have to adjust and adapt the story based on the user input. Kinda like a real-time democratic choose your own adventure book. I want to make something like that, but inside a video game. I’ve been throwing ideas at the wall, trying to see what would stick to make this dream a reality. Well, I think the idea has finally hatched.

I’m going to make a video game in episodes. It’s called MarsBound and it’s about a crew’s adventure from Earth to Mars. But with a twist! The storyline will be branched, but the players themselves get to make the choices! What job does each crewmate have? What are the crewmates’ names? What items does the crew buy at this store? How many? What stat boost does the character take at level up? Do we take a turn into the spooky space-forest or try to ford the asteroid belt directly? These decisions and more will be made by the players. How, you ask? Well, the game will be released at a specific time (I haven’t figured out the exact details yet) on Twitch. The controls will be a poll that says “Up”, “Down”, “Left”, “Right”, “A”, or “B”. Every couple minutes or after it reaches enough votes (details will be forthcoming as I playtest and see myself) the input will be sent to the game. Kinda like Twitch Plays Pokemon, but with my own new game. Whatever decisions Twitch makes will be recorded and saved as the actual canon of my game.

To speed up development, such as commisioning art and resources, as well as allowing my self more development time (and give fans something to buy), I’m going to start a Patreon for this. The Patreon will consist of tiers that add neat stuff to the game, such as a downloadable execuatble of the game (non-canon), and even a game-guide provided before the chapter release, so you can coordinate a trip to mars more effeciently!

Anyways, that’s my idea. Thanks for listening.