   Extreem Critique Requested- Storyline Intro
  Hello everyone here at Gamedev.net,As im new here and this is my first post- i urge you not to hold back on your critique ;)Ok. So below you will see posted the Intro to the game that is currently in development. Most of the storyline is finished however its much to big to be posted here in one go (i dont want to bore you all to death;)) Also if it seems like your reading a story that is pulled out of the centre of an even bigger story- then your correct in thinking this :) the story was too big and too complex to be kept to one game so a decition was made to split it up into three seperate games. heres an easy example to get my point across. imagine you have 'Halo 1' 'Halo 2' and 'Halo 3' you are reading the intro for the 2nd game in the 3. however the 2nd game is being developed first (much like starwars was produced backwards in storyline order) anyway without further rabmling on my part, here is the Intro. :)Intro – NightmareStatus - CompleteSeveral children, three boys and four girls all between the ages of nine to thirteen are playing in a small field, surrounded by forest. The sun shines bright overhead and clouds fill the sky, moving towards the sun itself. A few seconds pass, small bursts of laughter end all other sound. One of the girls, no more than ten, stops playing and looks up at the sky as a cloud covers the sun. A drop of water lands on her cheek, just under her eye. She quickly blinks in reaction as a second drop of water lands on her forehead. “Let’s go to my house, before it starts to rain.” Everyone stops playing and agrees, scampering off into the forest where smoke is rising.In only two minutes rain bears down on the children, they jump over bushes and run past trees trying to get to a house. “My dress is soaked; mommy is going to be mad.” One of the girls whines. Another turns to her, “it’s alright, mommy won’t be mad, the storm came very fast. Nothing we could do.” They both smile and catch up to the group. A small explosion echoes through the forest, the children stop to listen.The children look at each other talking in low voices. “What was that?” “I think it came from over here.” “We should go tell grownups.” “What if someone’s hurt? They might need help.” “Let’s go find them then.” Everyone nods and run towards where the explosion came. They run by twenty or so trees and suddenly stop. Branches lay on the forest floor, a hole in the canvas of leaves above them and broken bark just underneath.A few feet in front of the broken branches are a mud streak, as though something had slid across the forest floor. A small crater lies two feet next to the end of the mud streak on its right. “We should go…” Whispers one of the boys, a silence falls over them. A lightning bolt appears some distance away followed by a thunderous crash. One of the girls in the cluster of children points her finger at an object near one of the trees. “Look… What is that?”The children look towards their left seeing the object. One of the boys looks back at the mud streak, then back at the object. “Whatever it is, bounced up too that tree.” Everyone stops looking at the object then focus on the boy, the boy points at the mud streak. “See, where the mud slide ends… It bounced over to that tree from whatever made that hole.”The children looked around then at each other. “What should we do? We should get the grownups; they’ll know what to do.” “But, what is that thing?” “…*groans*everyone stops and turns towards the object. The object groans again and slowly draws out a hand, grabbing onto the tree. The objects hand loses grip and falls to the ground. Its legs rustle on the ground, attempting to grip the mud-caked forest floor.“It’s a person.” A boy exclaims, the children rush over to help the person, but are stunned momentarily. The person is in black/green armor, covering it from head to toe. A rifle and pistol are holstered on its back and leg. One of the girls kneels down and tries to help the person up. One by one the children help the person to its feet; discovering he is a man from his next groan.The man groans again and holds onto his back; beginning to slouch only to feel a vast amount of pain circulating throughout his body; the man silently screams behind his visor collapsing to the ground unconscious. The children look at one another then pick the man up by his shoulders and chest, careful not to hurt his back. They carry him away, his feet dragging in the mud.The man’s eyes slowly open as a candle light, irritate his eyes. Sounds of movement and voices can be heard in a distance and becoming louder by the second. “What should we do?” “I’m not sure, for now we can only nurse him back to health, perhaps…” The man closes his eyes and falls back asleep; without being noticed by those who are nursing him.The man awakens as an explosion rings his ears. He looks wildly in all accessible directions, finding himself in a harness among soldiers in black armor similar to his own. Another explosion rings his hears; closer this time, hull plating surrounds the soldiers and himself. Constant rumbling inside the hull excites the man as he waits patiently for a communication.Seconds feel like hours. Every muscle begins to tense. A third explosion ignites inside the transport, shards of metal pierce a soldier in front of the man. A communication link inside the man’s helmet activates. “Ethan’s down sir!” One of the men exclaim. “Chris, what’s our status?” Static fills the comm. “Cecil, prepare everyone to jump.” One of the soldier’s salutes, indicating he is Cecil, Cecil releases the straps on his harness ordering the others to do the same.“Activate your jump packs and set them on stand-by. Arson, open the hatch!” The soldier closest to the back of the transport pulls down a lever, the back of the transport begins to open; the transport shakes violently and jerks to the left. Arson and two others are caught off guard and thrown out the door; their suits flaring, bright orange and yellow; detonating moments later.“Cecil, report!” “Corporal Arson, Private Ferris, and Sgt. Miller are all KIA. What the hell happened?” “No time, jump on my signal.” “Understood”……“Jump” Cecil turns towards the soldiers “You heard him, Forest, you’re up.” Forest stands and sprints, leaping through the door and turning back to the rest of the squad, before the soldiers lose sight of him. The man is next, he sprints and leaps out of the transport, two more follow behind him.An aerial fighter screams towards the transport punching a hole in the cockpit of the transport with a laser, the transport explodes in a ferocious blaze of fire, two soldiers leap out the back of the transport; however, they are covered in fire, freefalling towards the planet, motionless. The transport tears itself to pieces and burn in the atmosphere; disappearing into the storm clouds below.The man turns his head to locate the others; no one is in his line of vision. Only shards of scrap metal in the distance. He turns back to the storm clouds below, waiting patiently for the right moment. The man draws closer to the storm. His mind races, muscles tightened to their peaks; forcing his right arm against the center of his chest; activating his jump pack, decelerating his decent.Every second as agonizing as the previous, ever slowing as he freefalls into the storm, lighting and thunder clash, blinding, even through his visor. The black clouds only visible through each bolt screaming towards the planet’s surface.His ears ring as lightning bolts clash against one after another, determination and exhilaration build inside the man, training prevents these emotions from clouding his judgment. His dissension accelerates; drips of water splash against his visor as his body screams to the ground. A bolt becomes attracted to the armor, striking the side of the man’s right leg, reflecting off; thundering as it collides with another bolt in the distance.Red lights begin to flare in the man’s armor; a holograph of the suit appears on the man’s visor revealing half or more of the suit has been damaged from the lightning bolt. Power spikes rip through the circuits, resulting in an emergency shutdown. The alarm and lights, all systems in the suit deactivate. His arms fly back behind him, descending at an alarming speed. The man panics, pulling his hands back down in front of him, the control panel on his arm is deactivated.He quickly presses onto the panel; the control panel lights up, systems reactivate; alarms as well, which he deactivates immediately. The holograph reappears, only life support and basic movement has been reactivated, consuming only 10% of 30% that has been reactivated. The man shudders as he attempts to bring more systems back online, noticing he has now descended out of the storm clouds.The jump pack activates, a one second burst rockets the man off course, spiraling out of control. He quickly sends commands to the jump pack, creating one-second and three-second bursts between the two exhausts, soon reaching a balance and descending back in a straight line towards the surface.Forty-five excruciating seconds pass by; the man scans the surrounding area below, forest canopies and patches of cleared areas, possibility man made. His muscles flex as he forces his body into a slouched standing position and activates his jump pack to its maximum given power. His body rapidly decreases in acceleration, taking the opportunity and standing straight for full efficiency.He descends to seven hundred feet without complications, his power nearly drained and body and mind, physically and mentally exhausted. A thunderous crash less than fifty feet, creates a shock wave, initializing isolated electricity from the previous bolt that had struck the man’s armor, generates a spike near his jump pack. The jump pack itself deactivates, minor dents, indicating minimal implosions on the jump packs exterior layer. The man drops towards the forest canopy below him, alarms and calculated drop flash on his visor, as he drops, he glances into the sky, the storm clouds above and parts of the transport, still smoldering from the fire, descend towards the surface. Larger sections of the transport however, were not visible, possible indication that the fighters that intercepted the transport; destroyed the larger sections, letting remnants incinerate and collide to the surface with minimal to no damage.The man discharges a last second burst from the jump pack, fifty-five feet above the canopy. Minimal deceleration is obtained and makes contact with the canopy just below, he falls through the leaves of the canopy, his feet snap three small branches and skids on a rather strong large branch and up the back of his ankles and legs, eventually snapping that branch as well, forcing him to fall towards the ground on his back. He breaks through another five branches before his jump pack smashes against a large branch, he bounces off the branch and grabs hold of it, quickly loosing grip and descending to the ground on his side.His body freefalls to the ground, snapping a few more branches, before slamming against the mud-caked floor, his jump pack reactivates; warnings flare of an overload. The jump pack drags the man several feet across the forest floor; the man emergency ejects the jump pack as it spirals three feet away behind him. The jump pack overloads and detonates; the explosions shock wave forces the man to barrel roll away in bounces, three times eventually colliding against a tree with his stomach, he coughs blood on impact and covering near all, his visor in crimson blood and rolls off the tree and onto his stomach, his eyes blur, fading from crimson to black as his eyes close, passing out.Note: To the character, he has just relived the catastrophic events in his nightmare, the last quarter of the chapter is his realization of what has transpired and coming to the decision of aiding the people in the town the children brought him to.Thank you for reading! I hope you have enjoyed this! And remember all content here is copyright to Visari Entertainment, no material may be reproduced in part or whole without proper written concent :)    
  Visari,That was quite an action-packed intro.  I definitely enjoyed it.  As a few notes, I wasn't fully aware they were jumping from a transport that was in outer space until you talked about items burning up in the atmosphere.  Also, would children of that age really know how to prevent hurting the man's back as they carry him away?  Also, I would imagine that children of that age might be quite scared by the sight of this 'mud creature' in the middle of a forest.I think there are muliple angles that this story could take from there.  It's almost setup in a way that you could potentially follow one of the children instead of Cecil.Good start!   ;  I would have preferred to know why the soldiers were jumping and what the soldiers KIA and blue lightning had to do with the apparently peaceful and bucolic planet below.  I was kind of confused why I was supposed to care, and which characters were going to become main characters and which weren't.   ;Quote:Original post by sunandshadowI would have preferred to know why the soldiers were jumping and what the soldiers KIA and blue lightning had to do with the apparently peaceful and bucolic planet below.  I was kind of confused why I was supposed to care, and which characters were going to become main characters and which weren't.It was my understanding their transport was shot down somehow and required them to jump.  Granted I agree, what shot them down?I assumed the main character was going to be the guy who jumped considering he noted Halo and the jumped character closely resembles Master Chief in my opinon.  Also I imagine since this is only the intro that we'd begin to care as the story progressed.A lot of that is based on my assumptions though.   ;  Programmermattc,thank you for taking the time to read through the intro =)im glad you enjoyed it!just to help clarify a few things as this is an intro it will be eventually made into a cinimatic so the visuals that wernt included in this introduction will be evident in the cinimatic which will help set the stage more accuratly. in reguards to the children not knowing how to care for him in the proper way- i find is a very valad point and thank you for pointing this out, some ammendments will need to happen to make this part more realistic. Also with the children being scared- they are i guess you could say ignorant to violence? they dont comprehend it because they havent encountered any such thing in the passed that would cause them to be afraid- very innocent if you will. this is a very dynamic storyline, i do have more that you could read if interested. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sunandshadow, thank you also for reading the intro =)if you are confused that means that you do not fully understand the stroy? which would mean i havent given the entire plot away in the intro which i think would be best kept this way, as its designed to draw you in wanting to know more, wanting to understand- also keep in mind part of this story is a dream the solder is having recalling what happened etc..If you would like to understand more about why hes being deployed and who shot them down i can give you a bit of background reading on the storyline  which is pretty much a history lesson for the storyline as such. since i have created a full story from the very beginning so there is alot of history (take Mass Effect as an example for this- they have created a history for the storyline that is very indepth and realistic- i also have done this)thank you for the critique! =)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Programmermattc,valad question- they were indeed shot down by a cloaked Genetic interceptor missile. they were indeed going to the planets surface on a secret recon mission. however things as you saw quickley changed from recon to survival. again if you want to know who the Genetics are- how they came to be and all that jazz- i can post a bit of history on them and why they are at war with the humans.The main charecter was the man who jumped indeed. if you would like to see a picture of him jumping i can shot you. i can also show u a finished drawing of him. i will post all links below.ok here is the main charecter falling: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sjLM7-YJcks/SU3h5vVw1_I/AAAAAAAAALQ/G-_nXOL29Kk/s1600-h/Visari_Env_01_Final.jpgkeep in mind his armor wasent drawn up at this stage so he looks different now.Main charecter drawn up: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sjLM7-YJcks/SZFaUyhJpaI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/VePrNApyVMY/s1600-h/Visari_Char_01_FRONT.jpgCrash site with the main charecter: http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1553/visarienv03f.jpgGenetic city they were sent to do recon on: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sjLM7-YJcks/SWEMjSCI3hI/AAAAAAAAALo/GvMCr_wXLQQ/s1600-h/Visari_Env_02.jpglet me know what you think :)~~~~~;  Your concept art is excellent! But didn't Cecil have a green and black suit. And would there really be country folk with a city as advanced as the one in the picture?   ;  hello there,good questions! as you may have noticed the main charecter picture doesent quite match up with the description- this is because the charecter was designed as an ammended version and the intro storyline hasent yet been changed to accomidate this :) sorry about the confusion ;)And as for the farmers- they are Genetics that are being opressed by Genetics into farming food for the city- even advanced cities need to get their food from someware; right? i mean i dont want to go all StarTrek on everyone and have food replicators etc.. that would be a bit...predictable?also as a result of these fellow genetics being opressed some have banned together to form the rebels im posting a link to a pic below of some rebels in development ;)oh and before you ask- they have gasmasks because they infultrate the city through a toxic waste/sewer systemhttp://visarientertainment.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=64&p=265#p265thanks for reading :)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   