Making Up A Franchise

[Falanca]

I've been thinking lately... Do any of you have a goal or intention of creating something that would spawn its own reality and loved by many individuals across the earth? A book, a comic, a cartoon, show, or a game. If so, any little bit of pictures or lines you can put here to adverties for your future work?


With that said, I'm planning something for years but I had no chance of actually visualizing it. I'm planning on making a game. Nothing much, a 2D Platformer/Adventure is what I have in mind. It's done before, I know, and lately the genre is not that active except for some very creative and entertaining indie games. I'm fiddling with Game Maker for years and I always tried to start with my project which always blew up on me in some place or another (usually I can't get the dialouge system right). For a month or two I was thinking more and more about it, the design of it and the appeal, you know. For some time I was trying to implement a Sonic styled character in a city full of human setting but now I think that it's too unoriginal. So I thought... I would redesign it. And then there comes the new anxieties. Is the new design of the character worthy and appeals? Is the "seemingly effed up" setting I'm planning to go for going to work? I would like to ask you guys here. I'm not going to show every aspect of my plans for obvious reasons, but I thought I could share a picture I recently drew (not finished however).

http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/butter-1.png

Would you play a game looking like this?

[1nky]

The design looks very 90s - appeals quite a bit in the nostalgic sense. (That could just be me, though - it just reminds me a lot of that era)

But everything looks amazing. The style itself, from the main character to the clouds, to the general landscape, is very very nice to look at, and you've got character design down pat.

But I am worried about how this would be taken universally. I personally like it, though I'd need to be convinced moreso through gameplay and a nice little blurb of the game. I would definitely pick up a copy of the game and look it over - buying would ultimately come down to what the concept of the game offers.

So, long story short - I would likely play a game with that visual style, but it would come down ultimately to plot and gameplay. I'm not sure about universal appeal, however.

But good luck! I'm keeping an eye on this!


As for me, I've always been between stories. Simply, I'd just like to get one of them off the ground. If it ever got successful, it would probably reach as far as 'good webcomic' status - I haven't much hopes for them taking off too far, although it would be bloody awesome if they did.

Concept 1 : S Y N A P S E : A free-runner in Sydney, Australia, gets mixed up in a war between a group of adolescent vigilantes and a high-tech corporation that has buried its roots into the city. (Very sci-fi, overlying concept is incredibly unoriginal, but I've been trying to fix that through characterisation)

Concept 2 : Triage : Three young girls from Earth become sucked into a dimension composed of fragments and people of thousands of other dimensions. They have a role to play - to become the ambassadors of the rulers of these chaotic lands - Flora, Water and Fire. (Made up when I was 13. Would need serious reworking if I went ahead with it)

Concept 3 : Mattjin : "Ever wonder what happens to a species when they completely die out? They get forgotten." A journalist travels far and wide to get any substance for a story - specifically about the grey-headed flying fox, which has only just become extinct. Along the way, he encounters a spirited old woman, and her best-kept secret - a batlike spiritual being named Sulah. (Actually managed to put this one in comic form, but was only allowed to shove the story into 20 pages, it being a school project. Would love to revise this one.)

Concept 4 : Azurro : An Italian man, who has returned to the shores of his home to look after his recently abandoned niece and nephew, notices a change in the 13-year-old boy's demeanor. Dismissing it at first as his newfound teenagedom, he is forced to reconsider when he witnesses the boy's physical transformation into an aquatic dragon, and the mysterious sea sprite who seems to be behind it... (Something that's never stayed the same, every time I think through it storywise. Has kind of of fallen to the back of my brain.)

Concept 5 : A mother of 39 years of age is drawn into a strange world when the creations of her son's old moleskine sketchbook begin communicating with her. (This one's my baby at the moment. Can't stop thinking about it, and would definitely love for it to see the light sometime soon.)

... apologies for stretching the page. o_o;

[Hayley the Hedgie]

@Falanca - may I just say, I absolutely ADORE the look of the protagonist and the graphics as a whole. This definitely would appeal to me if it were a game.

@1nky - some pretty neat concepts there, especially the last one, seeing all the posibillities that could have.

As for me, I hope to write a webcomic after my last year of school. It's called Space Officer Triggs and is about a robot dog and his human master fighting crime around the galaxy in the 31st Century.
(... there's... *ahem*... also a blog... for it... >.> http://space-officer-triggs.blogspot.com/)

There's still stories and character development I must still do though...

[JedExodus]

It's all about these six friends...

[Farlander]

Well, in short, I have this story that's been brewing up in my head for several years, constantly changing, but the core principle remains the same. Without giving out any details, it's about faith. Not religious faith (though I guess that one too), but about faith in yourself, your abilities. How it, along with confidence and hope, is very important in keeping your life going. How faith can be perverted, turned into lust of power, fanaticism, how it can totally ruin your life, turn into a wreck with nothing to hold on to. And how to get out of this wreck.

The setting, as the story, constantly changed too. From ancient-based to medieval to our time to future to some psycho-thing. Right now it's kind of science fantasy: a futuristic planet (with no space travel) based on different ancient mythologies united and developed to create a single realistic world with different cultures and rich history, but with a romantic flavor (i.e. more light-hearted Star Wars than gritty Too Human).

This concept is what helped me to get accepted in the VFS Game Design program, so I hope one day it will become my 'Inception', so to speak. I don't want to rush it, I want to do the story justice, I want to become experienced enough (and work with a team of experienced and talented people, I've always admired teamwork cause it's usually results in better stuff than, well, total solo control) and I want to create an interesting and more or less unique in some ways world that people would be willing to dream about, to live in, you know.

[Remolay]

I've told everyone about Ranger Newman and what he's been through, but I've never been entirely sure about the medium he'd be going through.

This all of course started before I gave up on learning flash again, when my plan was to make an adventure game called The Call of Calamari (In which I'm pretty sure Secret Fawful came up with the title). When the Flash thing didn't work out I was just thinking for a while, what could I do this in? Do I wait for a while before trying this again? Do I tell the story a different way?

Then came national novel writing month, at which point I decided to bring Ranger back into the world in a not yet titled form, but I decided against the Cthulhu theme and decided to bring in one aspect that I had from Call of Calamari: Ranger has a clone. Then things got even more interesting when I came up with Ranger IS a clone, but he doesn't know it. He's been dead for a year.
I then decide I want to make a little storyline out of this, but I still wanted to do The Call of Calamari. Ranger Newman turns into a series once more. Things continue to flesh out in my mind and I fail to write them down.

Cut to a few weeks ago. The whole story is almost planned out. The ending is planned and I know how to tell it. Mood gets more serious as it goes on (This one is a personal challenge in a way). I realised that The Call of Calamari does not fit the Clone theme for the story. Scrap it, working on a new part 2. I also realised that the 5 parts I have will never fit for 1 novel each, Solution: Combine the parts. Now I'm still wondering bit if I should do it as a novel, some sore of audio thing, or animation.

It can't be a webcomic, as I already have an ending planned out, and it is a whole huge story.
It shouldn't be animation as I have no animating experience what-so-ever.
I doubt any of my friends would be willing to do the audio thing
and I've been really slacking on the novel.

I've got to do this thing, though. Ranger Newman is my big thing. It's the first story that I've been actually stuck on, even with the slacking.

[GaryCXJk]

Already working on one, for about almost a decade. Technically just six years, but still.

The Legend of Ertar

After the three books, I'm hoping Telltale would make a deal to make an episodic game out of five of the Stories of Ertar series. After that, I'll probably be working on either a new series set in the same world as the (planned) GameDude comic series, which is supposed to be a comedy movie series.

After that, I *might* write Ertar 2.0, and I'll be searching for the internet for fanfics that could fit in canon to make them officially part of the canon. Not that I'll be rewriting their stories, I'll just keep a list of stories I'll consider canon.

But that's my long term plan. Short term plan is to actually get the friggen first part of the story done.

[Ribs]

Is it sad that I thought you meant how to turn the Disney-Pixar Animated Piece of Garbage "Up" into a franchise.

[Silverwolfpet]

Kauff?

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Remolay

The Call of Calamari (In which I'm pretty sure Secret Fawful came up with the title).

Far be it from me to not take the credit. I did come up with the title. I also remember a good one I did was Raw Fish, which I might use myself because I love the simplicity of it.

That said, I have so many damn stories and mythologies I've come up with that I want to tell that it has become overwhelming and ridiculous. Why haven't I told them? Laziness. Complete laziness. Also writers block, which I get a lot. I read just today something said by Stephen King that I might start doing though. Write 2000 words a day no matter what. Every day. Or you can never hope to be a writer.

I've got several ideas for adventure games; one of which I've done serious work on.

One is a old-school SCUMM style adventure game that could be called a cross between Friday the 13th and Monkey Island. It takes a terrifying 80s slasher scenario and puts an idiotic, inept boy scout in the lead role, with some very different twists on the genre. I've got the entire intro and one playable room finished, but after that my mind has gone blank and I don't know where the hell to go with it.

Another adventure game I want to make is a serious horror game set in the Cthulhu Mythos, centering on Nyarlathotep.

And yet another one is a more recent idea I've come up with about a girl at a young age named Dolphin who is an international spy and assassin in a world inspired by Cold War era spy films, Get Smart, Silent Hill, the Cthulhu Mythos, The Great God Pan, pop culture, the humor of Steve Purcell, the humor of Graham Annable, jRPGs, Indiana Jones, and many many other influences. Dolphin has a personality inspired by Dragnet, Harry Callahan, and Sam of Sam and Max. She also fits into the Above Good and Evil trope and the Used to Be A Sweet Kid, The Unfettered, and a degree of the Blue and Orange Morality tropes. I'm actually working on drawing this one as I speak.

I also have two ideas for manga stories, and a couple ideas for novels.

One manga story is basically what I consider the greatest work I've thought of, and blends elements of spaghetti westerns, traditional westerns, weird westerns, science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, horror, epics, roman mythology, religious mythology, Japanese history, Japanese mythology, American history, giants, anthros, monsters, treasure, mythological creatures, etc. And no it's nothing like the Dark Tower by Stephen King, outside of influences. It's about nine or ten story arcs long and I'll probably never see it finished.

Another manga story I've thought of is a shounen title that would combine the East and West in a massive spoof of martial arts and tropes in general. It would literally be a trope allegory and as over the top and insane as I could possibly make it. If I could, I would put the insanity in manga like One Piece to shame.

And finally, because I'm stopping here, one of the novels I want to write is called Around the Universe and it is a British style comedy novel in which a corrupt dentist ends up being mistaken for a Pinkerton in an alternate smaller universe, and gets assigned to a case where he must team up with a reformed criminal to stop a cult from attracting the attention of an eldritch creature beyond their universe to their universe to devour it in an ultra-apocalyptic end of universe sacrifice.

[Alcoremortis]

I've come up with quite a few stories--some of which actually have plots! The problem is once I've worked out how everything resolves in the end, I lose interest in the concept and move on to something else. Thus, I only have a collection of my favorite scenes from each story, which is all I can bring myself to write.

My latest idea, which I've barely thought about, is currently called "Save"(totally original). It's about a super hero type character who's only super power is to save a moment in time which can be returned to at the hero's convenience (a bit like...no, exactly like a save game). Of course, to complicate things only one moment can be saved at a time, sort of like a quick save button. No plot, no character, just a weird idea.

Yeah, I came up with this after missing my jury duty and wishing that I'd had the power to just load a save game of my life and redo that bit...

[Falanca]

Originally Posted by 1nky

Concept 1 : S Y N A P S E : A free-runner in Sydney, Australia, gets mixed up in a war between a group of adolescent vigilantes and a high-tech corporation that has buried its roots into the city. (Very sci-fi, overlying concept is incredibly unoriginal, but I've been trying to fix that through characterisation)

Concept 2 : Triage : Three young girls from Earth become sucked into a dimension composed of fragments and people of thousands of other dimensions. They have a role to play - to become the ambassadors of the rulers of these chaotic lands - Flora, Water and Fire. (Made up when I was 13. Would need serious reworking if I went ahead with it)

Concept 3 : Mattjin : "Ever wonder what happens to a species when they completely die out? They get forgotten." A journalist travels far and wide to get any substance for a story - specifically about the grey-headed flying fox, which has only just become extinct. Along the way, he encounters a spirited old woman, and her best-kept secret - a batlike spiritual being named Sulah. (Actually managed to put this one in comic form, but was only allowed to shove the story into 20 pages, it being a school project. Would love to revise this one.)

Concept 4 : Azurro : An Italian man, who has returned to the shores of his home to look after his recently abandoned niece and nephew, notices a change in the 13-year-old boy's demeanor. Dismissing it at first as his newfound teenagedom, he is forced to reconsider when he witnesses the boy's physical transformation into an aquatic dragon, and the mysterious sea sprite who seems to be behind it... (Something that's never stayed the same, every time I think through it storywise. Has kind of of fallen to the back of my brain.)

Concept 5 : A mother of 39 years of age is drawn into a strange world when the creations of her son's old moleskine sketchbook begin communicating with her. (This one's my baby at the moment. Can't stop thinking about it, and would definitely love for it to see the light sometime soon.)

... apologies for stretching the page. o_o;

You know what? You're so damn creative. All those concepts are both interesting and hold so many potential it's unbelievable. I can see you're holding onto your ideas and let them get bigger and bigger by theirselves, and you give importance to them too. I hope at least one of those can turn into something gigantic. I'd pay for tickets of your movies. Just sayin'. I love the fifth concept the best so far.

Also, thanks for the feedback! Born in 90's, I can't believe I nailed the wackyness of the 80's cartoons a little. I'm aiming something like that for my main character. It must be apparent that I borrowed some ideas from Freakazoid. I want to clash this idea with complete seriousness in this project of mine.

Originally Posted by Hayley the Hedgie

@Falanca - may I just say, I absolutely ADORE the look of the protagonist and the graphics as a whole. This definitely would appeal to me if it were a game.

@1nky - some pretty neat concepts there, especially the last one, seeing all the posibillities that could have.

As for me, I hope to write a webcomic after my last year of school. It's called Space Officer Triggs and is about a robot dog and his human master fighting crime around the galaxy in the 31st Century.
(... there's... *ahem*... also a blog... for it... >.> http://space-officer-triggs.blogspot.com/)

There's still stories and character development I must still do though...

Oh whoa, thank you! You know, feedbacks like those really tamper my enthusiasm on the project (I just bought a new drawing tablet yesterday because my old one does not work good, and I could wait to buy the new one but I have an urge to visualize everything I have in my mind right now), even if I didn't give out ANYTHING about it but an unfinished picture.

I know you get that response a lot, but those character designs are both lovable and interesting. I'm constantly checking around your dA gallery these days but I didn't even know you had an ongoing plot revolving around these characters. I'm interested in seeing your future project, so, pinch me HARD if I ever forget to read your comics when you start doing them @_@

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

My latest idea, which I've barely thought about, is currently called "Save"(totally original). It's about a super hero type character who's only super power is to save a moment in time which can be returned to at the hero's convenience (a bit like...no, exactly like a save game). Of course, to complicate things only one moment can be saved at a time, sort of like a quick save button. No plot, no character, just a weird idea.

You know, THAT would work as a splendid idea. Put some characters and a complicated plot to it and that can turn out to be great. Little alterations and details would make it REALLY interesting, such as what kind of a ritual he does in order to "save" and "load" his progress, how he's able to change the future in his second "playthrough", getting a save in the wrong time and a loss of the previous save that would maybe solve his problem better but he couldn't see it before. His powers may have mystical sources rather than technological, in that case he may not know if he can continue from his savepoint after he actually dies or not so he may have to gamble at the end... Okay, I shut up in order not to alter what YOU have in your mind. But I have to say, that's a great idea and you should try to visualize it. It just has TOO many possibilities and potential.

Main protagonist may be a "she" too, yeah :l

[VeronicanPlay]

I have for many years wanted to write books because my fantasy is bigger than my own brain. I have ideas running out of my ears, but when I put my thoughts down on paper and read it out loud I think it sounds terrible.
I put no depth into it or no prober descriptions so it all sounds blad and uninteresting. So the story is there, but I don’t have the writing skills.
But I do not mind sharing some of the ideas I have had in my head over the years.

1 - An orphan girl witness her parents death, and is sent to an orphanage out in the woods. She makes new friends, and tries to change her life and forget her horrible past.
But her life changes so drastic when she is woken up by a fight between to monsters, a werewolf and some kind of horse monster. She gets an amulet from a dying man who was the werewolf, told about the Orphanages horrible past, and now she has to take over his job to keep the place safe.
Lots of things happen, she looses the amulet, a friend and a lot of other things.

2 - A woman watched brutal murders of all her colleagues at work when some strange monster just spawns in the middle of an office party of sorts and starts slaughtering everyone, but when it gets to her it hesitates roar into the air and disappear. She is traumatized for the rest of her life and has a hard time to get her life together after it. No one wants to believe her when she says a monster killed them all, but at the same time they don't think she had it in her to rip them apart. (A little out there, but that is the bit I am still trying to sort out in my own head). She lives with a friend unemployed, but manages to find true love, but after a while learns his dark secret.

3 - A little boy gets cursed before he is even born, and looks half frog, half human. (Dark green frog arms and legs, light green skin, black eyes and hair). He can jump longer and higher than anyone and he can breath under water.
He lives at the edge of a swamp with his foster mother, but has to flee when strange men appear to find him and they kill his foster mother. He flees into the swamp he changes is name to Croaker and lives with the tiny frogs in the swamp.
The only thing he wants more in the world is to become human, so he can live in the human world and be normal like everyone else.
He ends up with a strange team with an over careing human woman (Adrenna), an obnoxious egocentric human man who is a Cleric (Leoric Silverheart), a huge Barbarian (Jantos), and a Wood Elf Woman (Elbeth).
They have to save the world from some sort of darkenss, and they are tested in many ways.
He experiences love, hate, guilt, pride and he has to take a very hard choice in the very end that will define the rest of his life.

That is the 3 main things, there have been other tidbits of things, but they where really never as thought out as these and have since then soon been forgotten.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by Falanca

You know, THAT would work as a splendid idea. Put some characters and a complicated plot to it and that can turn out to be great. Little alterations and details would make it REALLY interesting, such as what kind of a ritual he does in order to "save" and "load" his progress, how he's able to change the future in his second "playthrough", getting a save in the wrong time and a loss of the previous save that would maybe solve his problem better but he couldn't see it before. His powers may have mystical sources rather than technological, in that case he may not know if he can continue from his savepoint after he actually dies or not so he may have to gamble at the end... Okay, I shut up in order not to alter what YOU have in your mind. But I have to say, that's a great idea and you should try to visualize it. It just has TOO many possibilities and potential.

Main protagonist may be a "she" too, yeah :l

Thanks for the feedback. As I said, I have very little beyond the super power concept, so any and all ideas are welcome. Its a very different type of story than those I normally attempt, since usually I come up with the characters first and then work on their special abilities. I do have a feeling that the main character will be very cautious about using the save due to some mistake from the past.

[Falanca]

Apologizes for the necro, but I just did. Because of the concept behind the thread, and my belief of ideas taking different shapes time to time, I think it would be thoughtful of me to rise this thread instead of leaving it there, or worse, opening a new thread. If you still think I'm an asshole, I guess you can lock this thread, although what I'm trying to provide is the complete opposite of spamming and what I try to achieve is only starting a chain reaction of inspiration to those who need.

I'm working on my project as of now. The project I'm working on is, a game, and actually pretty irrelevant to the other project I introduced in my first post. I decided not to reveal too much about this new project -unlike how I did with the other one-. "Falanca" project is on hold at the moment as I realized I need more manpower to work on it, and to attract that many, I have to start small. So, I have another project in my hands and I'm working on its literal details with a really close friend of mine lately. When it starts getting its shape, I'll start sharing little infos about it and perhaps also get inspirated by the replies I get.

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

Thanks for the feedback. As I said, I have very little beyond the super power concept, so any and all ideas are welcome. Its a very different type of story than those I normally attempt, since usually I come up with the characters first and then work on their special abilities. I do have a feeling that the main character will be very cautious about using the save due to some mistake from the past.

I just remembered about that awesome concept of yours. I suggest you to plan its details out and start writing it down somewhere, really. It can be really enjoyable to construct, plus I know it's a concept I'd pay to watch.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by Falanca

I just remembered about that awesome concept of yours. I suggest you to plan its details out and start writing it down somewhere, really. It can be really enjoyable to construct, plus I know it's a concept I'd pay to watch.

I sort of already did a bit of planning...and then I got distracted by another story about a necromancer/paladin duo, which has been extremely fun to write. The two stories do relate to each other in the end, strange as it might sound, so it's not a total non sequitur.

[Darth Marsden]

I've got countless ideas bubbling around in my head. Whether any of them come to anything is another matter entirely.

The one that probably will is Daniel Jordan, Personal Investigator (Because with him, it's personal). His story starts when he's at University, doing an English degree out of lack of creativity and not knowing what to do with his life when two of his roommates are gruesomely murdered. This prompts him to start investigating and uncovering a whole mess of illegal stuff that he barely escapes from, leading him to become a PI.

The reason this may actually become a reality is because it's a book I'm trying to write. Progress is slow but it's steady. I also have a sequel partially written, but I got extreme writers block and figured I'd go back and write Daniel's first story, which is working out rather well.

I throw this in here because, in the back of my mind, I kinda hope it could become a series of episodes adventure games as well. The PI thing would lend itself well to an ongoing series of episodic games, similar to the Sam & Max ones, only each episode being completely stand-alone, no overarching story. Maybe one every two months?

-x-

Other ideas I have floating around:

- Bionic Man: A modern interpretation of The Six Million Dollar Man. If you've ever seen Jake 2.0 (and high-five if you have!) you'll know the sort of abilities he'd have now, but if you haven't, then it'd be nanotechnology in combination with artificial limbs and such.
The plot (such as I've worked out so far) is that Steven Austin (Can't call him Steve any more, not after 'Stone Cold') is a cop with a loving girlfriend and a pretty good life who, following the shooting of his partner during a raid, chases after the perp in his car, which gets clipped by a lorry and flips several times in a horrific crash. He awakens some time later in a locked room, and finds he's in a skyscraper, which he leaps through the window of, only to find himself crashing into another skyscraper half a mile away. He realizes he's been declared dead for almost 18 months, but he now has amazingly advanced abilities, like strength and speed, as well as being able to directly interact with technology. The series deals with his attempts to reintegrate himself back into the police force while trying to find out who 'resurrected' him and attempting to win back his girlfriend from her new fiancée.

- Gen X: Basically, the X-Men if it were in the real world. A group of mutants are hiding from the rest of the world while trying to come to grips with their abilities and trying to convince others that they're not terrorists. This isn't helped by The Brotherhood, another group of mutants who use violence to try and force people to accept them, and the Government's attempts to tag and control them. I like to think of this as a much more straightforward Heroes, only much less sucky.

I also have plans to write guides to several long-running franchises like James Bond or Indiana Jones and get them published as well, but that's not exactly likely. Finally, I'd also like to start doing reviews That Guy With The Glasses style, but I'd need a camera for that, and they're kinda expensive. Hey ho.