Behind the scenes: SLARPG story outline, first draft!

For my next behind-the-scenes post, here's something special (and big): the earliest story outline ever written for SLARPG. This was put together in late 2017, prior to the demo, at Bee's request. At the time I was still primarily working on Act I and the foundational work for the game as a whole as we geared up for the demo. We already knew much of the story at that point, especially given SLARPG is a reimagining of a previous project, but this was the first time I had ever actually sat down and written a relatively detailed summary.

Some very light editing aside, this is basically word for word what I sent Bee in 2017. You'll notice things that are the same, things that ended up changing, parts where I was still figuring out what I actually wanted to do, and some huge things that are completely missing! Enjoy.

(Also, obviously, this will spoil most of the game, even if many details changed. Fair warning! I don't advise reading this unless you've played the game to completion.)

...

PROLOGUE

Melody and Allison have taken up Claire on her offer to join her adventurer's guild. Allison has always wanted to be an adventurer, and Melody wants to be there for her as a healer. While probably not explicitly shown, it's mentioned that they had several attempts at joining Claire and Jodie on their little treasure hunting excursions and whatnot, and that this didn't go particularly well. Melody and Allison are not trained adventurers, after all. So Claire comes up with a new plan.

The game opens at night, as seen in the intro of the first trailer (although the scene will likely be a bit different in the actual game). Claire (with Jodie's help) has invited Melody and Allison out to the woods to perform a dangerous ritual from a spellbook said to once belong to Fortuna, the Goddess of Magic, which will grant Melody and Allison the magical powers they desire.

At this point, Melody chooses to become a paladin, which is a bit of a bold choice of healing profession that surprises her friends. Paladins get their strength from their faith (not strictly in a religious sense), and the player gets to choose Melody's faith here to determine what kind of paladin she will be. The choices are: a Woodland Paladin, strengthened by a faith in mother nature; an Amorous Paladin, strengthened by a faith in the power of love; and a Resolute Paladin, strengthened by a faith in oneself.

Claire finishes the ritual in an overly dramatic fashion (of course) and the prologue ends.

ACT I

Melody wakes up in her house one morning several weeks later. Claire gave her a bunch of books and stuff to help her study healing magic, and Melody's been determined to at least get a couple healing spells down before showing her face in town again. She's also put together a makeshift healer outfit. As before, you can walk around Melody's house inspecting things and learn a bit more about her.

(the demo, after a brief introduction and the option to choose Melody's faith, starts here)

Melody heads to Greenridge to see Allison and can talk to a bunch of folks along the way, mainly including Jodie, Faith, and Beverly (the pig, Claire's love interest). You can also visit the library (although not in the demo), the magic shop, the fortune telling shop, and the Guardian's Tower. Inside the tower, Holly is waiting to talk to you about paladin stuff.

Melody finds Allison in a vacant lot off of Main Street. She's either cutting down some trees (which is her day job), or she's doing something incredibly stupid out of boredom. Either way, Melody showing up surprises her, distracting her from her task and causing her to get hurt (not seriously, maybe a tree branch bonks her on the head or something). Melody uses this as an opportunity to try out one of her new healing spells for the first time, and Allison is very impressed.

Allison suggests they head somewhere else. You're free to roam around town with Allison now, but the main thing is you're supposed to drop by Higgledy Piggledy's. The restaurant is closed today and it's quiet inside, but Beverly lets the two of them have some leftover chocolate cake on the house. The two get to talking about things - like why Melody was cooped up in her house for a few weeks, and how they're feeling about the whole adventurer thing at the moment. Allison may also reveal here that she quit her job and plans to become a full-time adventurer.

Soon they head to the Basement Dungeon, framed as a training dungeon for Claire's two new recruits where she can have them practice their new abilities in a controlled environment. Allison is pissed that Claire built a dungeon under her house without permission, and wants to know where her stuff is (Claire says she put it in "hammerspace storage"), but she warms up to it over time because she has fun fighting monsters and whatnot. Melody may or may not be scared, depending on player dialogue choices. Their final test is the boss fight against the Big Dust Bunny. For defeating it, Claire awards Allison with her Zircon Sabre. She also likely gives Melody a key item that will allow the player to adjust the encounter rate if I have any areas with random encounters.

Claire says the two of them are ready for some real adventuring, and this claim is quickly put to the test - the exit to the Basement Dungeon has been sealed, and they have to find a new way out.

(the demo ends here)

The scene with the diary is being replaced with something else. They'll likely find something silly and slightly embarrassing from Allison's past that they can have a laugh about but that isn't like, a big secret or anything.

The gang finds the Glitched Basement and it plays out as expected. Javis shows up and chews them out for trespassing and mentions making preparations for his "master," but they can't really get many answers out of him before the dungeon's Scrambler goes critical and returns the caves below Greenridge back to normal. Returning to the surface, the gang realizes it's now early evening. Melody and Allison decide to get some rest, while Claire mutters to herself about Javis.

INTERLUDE

That night, Allison finds Melody sitting on the dock at the south end of town (one of her favorite spots) and brings her a coffee. Neither of them could really sleep that well. The two talk a bit about how things are going so far and how Melody's feeling after her first taste of real adventuring. Once again, player choices determine how confident Melody is feeling here, or at least how open she is about her feelings, although she'll likely be a bit anxious either way. Allison explains that whether or not Melody makes a good paladin won't affect how she feels about her. This comforts Melody a bit, although we'll later learn that it wasn't really what she wanted to hear. Still, Allison manages to lighten the mood. Melody changes the subject and talks a little about why she chose her name, which brings back some fond memories for both of them.

ACT II

The next morning, Melody and Allison find Claire in her makeshift guild headquarters, a messy meeting room in the library that Claire has filled with her junk and refused to vacate for several weeks. Claire explains to them that she spent all night looking for info on what they saw but couldn't find anything, and that she has a very, very bad feeling about all this. They decide to get Jodie and investigate. The party checks Claire and Jodie's house, only to realize that she's not there and that she seemingly never came home last night.

The gang decide to go ask Faith where her girlfriend is. The party finds a rather frazzled Faith in her office, waiting for Jodie to show up. They tell Faith what happened to them yesterday (although they kind of skim over the fact that Claire built a dungeon and summoned monsters under the town), and in return Faith reluctantly lets them in on some top secret info regarding the safety of the town. Yesterday, while the party was in the Basement Dungeon, the Paladin Brigade reported seeing monsters lurking in the shadows around town, seemingly watching them. When Faith and Jodie went to investigate, they couldn't find anything. Jodie decided to look for signs of abnormal monster activity a bit further out of town while Faith held down the fort. To make matters worse, it seems like some kind of electromagnetic disturbance is interfering with the town's electronics, meaning Faith can't contact Jodie or anyone else outside of town.

Faith lets the party go out to look for Jodie, as well as any clues regarding Javis and the seemingly related monster activity.

Before leaving town, the party can talk to Mona the librarian to read some bestiary entries. They can also visit the now open Higgledy Piggledy's, where Claire works, so that she can tell Beverly she can't come in to work. This is likely also where we'll get the first hints that Claire has a huge crush on Beverly.

They explore the Uncanny Valley but find no sign of Jodie. They do, however, find their first entrance to the Astral Plane, as well as Noel's sanctuary, where they and several friendly forest monsters reside. Noel is sort of blunt and reluctant to trust strangers, but can open up over time. They can give the party powerful pieces of equipment in exchange for the main collectible (whatever that is). The forest may also be where they find an eccentric adventuring trio consisting of hot shot news reporter Hugh Mann (a skeleton), his camera guy, and his producer.

The party continues onwards, briefly passing through a sort of rocky, mountainous region with a strange ornate gate on their way to the Wasteland. They explore the mechanical desert ruins and find a large robot (a new version of the Defaced Golem from the original game which now serves as a boss) that they can't defeat, only to be saved by Jodie. Jodie, as it turns out, kind of got sidetracked and ending up helping the people of a small town in the desert, who named her their honorary Sheriff. The trio is incredibly happy to see Jodie. They all get each other on the same page, and the party is now complete.

(this next bit is all extremely rough because it just exists in my head I'm sorry)

The robot boss reawakens, although he now appears to be friendly. He apologizes for his behavior and tells the party that he's the mayor of the desert town (the working name is Mumford, because mummies) and that he needs help getting home. I want there to be some kind of sequence where they're driving this big robot around, but I'm not sure. They get to Mumford, a town made pretty much entirely of junk and broken down vehicles of some sort, and the town is happy to see their mayor come home. Most of the inhabitants of the town are seemingly mummies and robots, including the Malcontent Mummy. It turns out this recurring enemy is just one girl who kept fighting the party over and over thinking they were working with Javis. Also, her name is Nef.

Somewhere in the desert the party will also be surprised to run into Allison's mother, a cool adventurous lady who hasn't seen her daughter in a while. She was hoping to stop by Greenridge, but got sidetracked by some sort of treasure allegedly found in the Wasteland.

The party has to tackle the dungeon before the exit to the desert opens back up, and once it's time, Nef leads them to the Neon Labyrinth. There are likely multiple points of entry this time, and puzzles involving raising and lowering the sand level throughout the dungeon, although of course the good ol' coloring book maze is still in there. The dungeon will also have several gags involving the art style of the sprites changing in different areas.

As in the original, the party will find Javis giving a presentation to his troops at the end of the dungeon, although the scene goes a little differently. Long story short, Javis's master has been here before, and Claire's magical shenanigans involving that spellbook she has got their attention. He's now trying to get everything ready for her big return. Javis warps away, and after an obligatory boss fight, everyone feels like they've failed. Claire has painted a big target on Greenridge. Claire feels bad but, as usual, is more concerned with fixing things than talking about how she screwed up. They return the Labyrinth back to its original state and decide to head out.

Before the exit to the desert can finally be unlocked, the party has to visit a dark, ominous chamber containing the lock controls. They're warned that the magical energy here is very strong and that it's dangerous, but must proceed anyway. The party splits up into four separate rooms, where they must each pull a lever at the same time to disable the lock. Melody pulls her lever, but the high concentration of magical energy seems to mess with her head. The room goes dark and is replaced with a heart-shaped room somewhat resembling the astral plane. Here Melody is confronted by a figure claiming to be a reflection of herself about her many fears hinted at throughout the game so far, at times calling back to earlier dialogue choices. She worries that they're all in over their heads. She feels inadequate compared to those around her. She worries that she's trying to be something she's not for the sake of other people. She worries that, in spite of what Allison keeps telling her, failing to be a half decent paladin may mean Allison will continue to be an adventurer without her, leading the two of them down separate paths in life and effectively ending their relationship. And worst of all, Melody fears that she has everything she needs to succeed in life, and that the only thing holding her back is herself. Melody eventually starts shouting to her friends for help.

Melody's friends rush into the chamber only to find nothing there. Claire suspects that Melody was hallucinating due to an overwhelming amount of mana in her system, as a side effect of the spell that gave Melody her powers at the beginning of the game. Melody calms down and says she'll be fine. Allison wonders if they're in too deep, but Melody insists that she can keep going.

The party, finally able to exit the desert, heads back to Greenridge to tell Faith what they've learned and warn her that the town is in grave danger.

ACT III

(sorry! this stuff is all rough)

The party returns to town, only to find that they're too late. Javis has already returned to Greenridge and set up another Scrambler, leaving it in an unrecognizable state. The town is swarming with monsters and they're unsure of the fate of their loved ones. The party are quickly surrounded by monsters, only to be rescued by the Paladin Brigade. The Paladins fend off the monsters and tell the party to help evacuate the remaining townsfolk.

The whole town is now, effectively, one large dungeon. The party are able to help everyone to safety, then set their sights on the Guardian's Tower, which has been scrambled into a a multi-floor dungeon. At the end the party find Faith and Javis. Javis uses the energy from tower, which is actually a giant magical conduit, to summon Queen Verena into this dimension. Here we learn that over the centuries many details regarding Verena had been lost to the sands of time, and she had become known to locals as Fortuna, the Goddess of Magic. I'm still figuring out her motivations here, but Verena was the one who taught the people of this universe how to use magic, and she may want her magic back. Faith likely challenges Verena to a duel, but it doesn't work out. Verena quickly grows bored of the party and, in an act of pity, she and Javis relocate to the final dungeon atop Mt. Gay. The town is safe for now, but the victory feels hollow. Faith places a protective force shield around the town for the time being.

At some point, either towards the end of the dungeon or in the aftermath, there's a scene where Melody vents her frustration with Allison seemingly not having enough faith in her, and Jodie temporarily becomes the party leader.

The party reconvenes with Faith to try and make a plan. Faith and Jodie are relieved to see each other again, although things are still rather dire. Faith had vague knowledge of Verena (but not Javis) just from her studies and from the information she has access to as Guardian, but this has all completely blindsided her. Claire admits that she may have stolen an ancient spellbook (which she now knows belonged to Verena) from the tower's library, and that she's been using its spells for a lot of things - for hammerspace storage, to summon the monsters in the Basement Dungeon, and, most importantly, to give Melody and Allison their new powers. Again, this is what got Javis's attention. Faith is, understandably, furious. Claire's irresponsibility has put the safety of the town, and possibly the world, in jeopardy. Claire apologizes a little but tries to argue that she needed a leg up like that if she was to make any headway as a witch, and that she didn't have the sorts of opportunities that people like Faith had. Faith can empathize with Claire, but she's still angry and is considering taking Claire into custody until this ordeal is over. Claire convinces everyone that she's going to take responsibility for this and fix her mistakes if she's given a chance

ACT IV

Faith decides to point the party in the direction of someone who helped train her in magic - a wise, immortal dragon who lives alone in the mountains, and who was one of the first people Verena taught magic to all those years ago. The party finds the dragon behind the mysterious ornate gate they'd passed by on the way to the desert using a key Faith gives them. The dragon is very friendly, offering them some help (perhaps teaching the party a new spell or two and giving them some words of wisdom) and telling them about Verena's first visit to this world, back when she was a benevolent witch simply visiting other dimensions out of curiosity. While magic existed in the world before Verena, no one knew how to harness it. Verena sharing rudimentary magic with the locals literally changed the world.

Side quest time!! The player gets a unique side quest from a different mentor based on which faith Melody chose at the beginning of the game. As a Woodland Paladin, the party gets some sort of side quest in the woods from Noel. As a Resolute Paladin, Holly and the Paladin Brigade will challenge the party to spar. And as an Amorous Paladin, we get a more lowkey dialogue-driven side quest from Beverly, exploring Melody and Allison's relationship some more with Beverly attempting to work through some of their issues.

Last but not least, there'll be some sort of small side story exploring Claire's feelings for Beverly. I'm also considering making some of the Amorous Paladin stuff with Beverly optional for the other two routes and sticking the stuff about her and Claire in there.

I also wanna have a little part where the party raids a seemingly evil witch's house in the woods, acting as a sort of mini-dungeon. The witch may end up being a friend of Noel's who isn't actually particularly evil.

ACT V

When the player feels ready, they're able to head for Mt. Gay at the north end of the Uncanny Valley.

At some point before Mt. Gay I want to have some sort of scene (which I've already written) where Melody and Claire are separated from the other two. Claire gets hurt and Melody has to heal her, giving the two some time to talk alone. Claire finally opens up. She thinks she rushed everyone into the guild thing and that it's just lead to people getting hurt. She feels like a horrible friend. Melody says she still considers Claire one of her best friends. Claire gets emotional. She opens up a little about how she didn't have a supportive family growing up, and how she only moved to Greenridge because her best friend from high school (Jodie) had moved there first. She wanted to make something of herself any way she could, which is why she can be reckless in her efforts to become a great witch. She also admits that, while she's bad at showing it, having a supportive trans friend like Melody has meant the world to her. The two agree that they should hang out more when all this is over. I may also like to do a one on one scene with Allison and Jodie that happens at the same time.

Like in the original, the party scales Mt. Gay, although I'm thinking the dungeon will have more of an ornate castle look as we get to the parts that have been transformed - less of a blank slate and more of a palace under construction. As in the original, Javis splits the party up, and we briefly follow Allison in her search for Melody. Allison apologizes for making Melody doubt herself, saying that she's always believed in her 100%. Allison was mainly afraid of what would happen if she let Melody get seriously hurt, and she worried she might be taking advantage of Melody's kind, giving nature by roping her into this adventure. Melody finally accepts that their relationship doesn't hinge on their success as adventurers. The two make amends and Melody returns to her position at the head of the party

The party heads to the top of Mt. Gay, getting sidetracked by Javis's dating game show before fighting him. After his defeat, the party faces Verena at her throne atop the mountain. They may try to reason with her a bit, but she doesn't give them any other option. After a difficult battle, Verena admits defeat. Verena has grown tired of this whole ordeal, but Javis is absolutely DESTROYED by the sight of Verena giving up. He won't stand for it. He thinks the party has broken his idol. He uses her power to either transform Verena or himself (or both?) (I haven't decided yet) into one giant, angelic final boss form.

The final boss unleashes a devastating attack that Jodie is just barely able to block with Faith's force shield spell, but everyone knows they aren't strong enough to deal with this. Allison says that they need to get out of there and that she's not going to let Melody die like this, no matter how much she may have faith in her. Melody refuses to back down. She gets an idea - she turns to Claire and asks if she still has Verena's spellbook, and the spell that gave her her powers. Claire says she does, but that casting it on Melody and Allison again could overload them with magical energy and kill them. Melody says to cast it anyway. In a flash of light, Melody and Allison transform - Melody taking on a beautiful white suit of paladin armor, and Allison probably getting a black suit of her own. The final battle commences.

After the final battle, Verena, impressed by Melody and Allison's power, takes the two elsewhere. They end up in a quaint little room in the pocket dimension where Verena normally lives - which is also the place where Claire's been sending a lot of her junk with that hammerspace spell of hers. Again, still figuring out what Verena actually WANTED (I don't want it to just be "she wants to take over the world, just because"), but I want to have a nice chat between her, Melody, and Allison. Melody and Allison help Verena see that she's basically been tricked by Javis into believing she's a villain, when she doesn't have to be.

Verena returns with the two of them to the scene of the final battle, where Claire and Jodie have trapped Javis in a force field. Verena basically tells Javis to fuck off, teleports him off to who knows where, and maybe either reunites with the dragon or goes off to do so. The guild briefly celebrates their big victory, and Claire and Jodie head back to town. Melody and Allison are left alone, to return home at their leisure. Melody's theme begins to play.

That night, as they're getting ready to sleep, Melody and Allison reflect on their adventure one last time. Allison says she was super impressed by Melody in the end there. Melody says she was actually terrified the whole time and that she maybe has one big heroic moment in her per year tops. But that maybe that's enough.

The two fall asleep together. Roll credits.

...

So that's it! As you can see, a ton of the important stuff was already there, but there are some big differences, such as:

• Paula is completely absent from the story! As I continued to develop the story in the wake of the demo, I decided there was a severe lack of furry antagonists. I also decided that Allison, as a character with some heavy shounen anime protagonist vibes, needed a rival character to act as her foil. An antagonist to help bring out what she really cares about fighting for as a hero. It's hard to imagine the game without her now!
• The boys are also absent. They weren't part of my initial plans, but were rather something Anthony pushed for. We'll talk about them more some other time.
• Many of the side quests are underdeveloped or absent. The vague concept of the Crypt was on my mind back then, but plans weren't solid enough for me to include it here. It was only later that I decided it needed to be there to wrap up the egregious dangling plot threads in the desert.
• Melody was supposed to remain at the back of the party from the end of Act III all the way up to her making up with Allison in the middle of the final dungeon. As Act IV grew in scale, I figured it would leave a bad taste in players' mouths for the lead couple to be on bad terms for half the game, so this was changed. It also would have presented huge writing problems for the Amorous Paladin side quest, which needed to explore their relationship at this point in the game but couldn't make the other two routes feel incomplete in comparison, or fundamentally alter the main story by having them make up early.
• And, of course, Zinnia is present, but is a much smaller part of the story with no name (and even her gender was undecided at the time). Zinnia deserves a behind-the-scenes post of her own, but here she exists primarily to be a friendly mentor character at a time when the party could really use one, as well as a way to get the exposition about Verena's backstory. I broadly knew the vibe I wanted out of all that stuff, but it took some more time to figure out the details that would really give Verena and Zinnia their heart and soul, as well as the true nature of their relationship.
• And yet somehow, despite all those crucial characters being absent... Hugh Mann is here.