twilight of paradise: MLWM variant.. kinda.

[anonymouse]

Been listening to some instrumental, doomed-but-struggle-on music this evening. There're two other games I'd really rather be working on, but I can't seem to wrench myself out of this spiral. So I figured I'd just start working on this idea. I don't have MLWM (for shame!) but have played a little, and maybe my favourite thing about the game is the clearly defined Endgame "score". It's just.. neat. Fun. And rather than try and invent a new system, it occurred to me that this endgame-score is exactly what I wanted. Sooo...

'twilight of paradise' is a game where your world is ending. it's done. over. there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop this. but there's a chance you might make it out, might be able to bring others with you; this world is doomed, but there might be others..

'World' in this case could mean actual whole planet, a country, a city, or something more nebulous like your family; the key phrase is "your world" specifically. Whether it's ending with a bang or a whimper is what the players get to think up; instead of focusing on the Master, they're working on the World, and just what, exactly, is going on.

I guess the World would have types like Apocalypse (flash and bang), Sickness (but with a whimper), Dogs of War.. maybe some other types. I don't think going into the "why" is important in most cases. You are sooo far past the "why" stage; struggle on and try and deal with it, or curl up and die.

Characters would have Fate, Fear, and Faith. Fate's your Weariness, I think, your inability to struggle on anymore: everything is doomed. Fear prevents you from acting, a bit like Self-Loathing. Faith is Love, I think, and starts at 1.

I wanted to go with an F-theme for some reason. Go aliteration.

Fear/Reason would need to be turned into something else.. I'm not sure what yet. Different names, probably about the same function.

Instead of more than/less than, I think I'd go with.. dunno yet. Think think think. Same with Connections.

One thing I'd add - because this whole thing has generated from music - is that each player needs some theme music. Played at the appropriate times (as agreed on by others? 'dude, do not play Meteor Destruction Anthem when making out.')  you'd get some bonus.

Then you get juicy with the endgame score.

Thoughts? Off-the-cuff input? I'm going to try and work on this over the next week, maybe get an #indiegames playtest late-late November or early December.

[james_west]

Did you ever follow up on this?