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[Slender freak]

Noises (gamejack project)

[Ramenzombie]

Please, make this quality, and not a direct rip of MH, and you will have my respect. Hah.

[Slender freak]

[E.Y.E. Spy]

[Dray]

Here are some rhetorical questions for you that you don't have to answer here if you don't want, along with some chatter that will hopefully help you to formulate a solid game!


How long is your project going to be? Is it going to be a full on ARG where players can participate to solve puzzles and change the course of the game, or an MH-like movie with various questions that we can talk about but our discussion won't really have an impact on the ending?

If you're doing this for college then chances are that you won't have enough time to create a shifting storyline that we can change by yourself. Even in MH it seems as though there are a few guys working together and they're still doing a static story-line. If I were you, I would probably work on making this a standard storyline with one outcome for school. If you would like to take it further, you could make the 'ending' for school simply an ending for the first part, and make the rest an ARG... but that's really getting ahead of things. XD

Brainstorm your storyline. Take it to someone who doesn't mind having the plot ruined for them and ask them what needs re-tweaking. Spend a couple of weeks jotting down notes and fleshing things out.

How are you planning on presenting the Slendy mythos? What is his modus operandi with his stalking/killing/etc. of victims? Is he strictly supernatural in origin? Does he have an effect on the world around him (aside from making tapes poop out?)

What is the beginning, middle and end for your character(s)? What causes the rising action? At what point does your climax occur, who is involved, are there any plot twists or reveals that go with it? How long in real time does it take to go from start to end? (Pacing is very important -- as you know, taking a really long time can be a pain in the ass for players, but if you move things along too quickly, we can get lost in a bad way! The rule of 3's is important because by repeating something three times (perhaps in three different ways) you can reinforce the meaning of something for us.)

I would say that if you can get someone on board who is good with encryption, and riddles, and visual cues, grab them and use the hell outta them. Buy them a drink or lunch for their troubles! Also, research the heck out of what you plan on doing. Research your town's history, extrapolate from anything interesting that you see in the town's annals. _{(Heh heh, anal.)} Research how certain effects were achieved in movies or stories that really scared or unnerved you. What was the set-up? What provided the sting/moment that made you jump? What was it about the scene that stuck with you and made you jumpy for the next few hours?

Basically, plan in two to three weeks to really research and brainstorm things. Figure out what emotions you want us as an audience to experience -- should we feel sympathy for the protagonist, or should we be cheering them on towards death? Is this story going to be about making Slendy badass (which might be kind of lame -- I'm thinking of Jeepers Creepers as a good example of how to make people dislike the main characters.... XD) or are you going to try to reinforce a mysterious aura of dread around him?

...TL;DR: instead of giving you specific story ideas, Dray gives a lecture about how to set up a story. XD

[raelyn]

[Dray]

I'm just spewing out everything that my instructors have been trying to pound into my brains. XD They have some good advice that I think should be passed on without the ridiculous tuition price tag.

Oh man, Jeepers Creepers was one of the few horror movies that I actually went to theatres for. Usually I'm a wuss about horror, but by the end of that I was cheering for the bad guy. The actors were SO BAD.

Marble Hornets on a budget of goodness knows how little is doing better than Jeepers Creepers ever did. XD

[chaos]

also

just because it's slenderman mythos doesn't make it a gamejack..

especially if it's started after MH finished ¬_¬


and dray..

nice advice
i should really try it on some of the stuff i do
[i don't make args though{yet (got a few ideas though)}, but forethought would really make what i do easier]

[Dray]

Just so long as you're not spending ALL of your time doing the research and brainstorming. That's such a trap, hah hah!

I'd be interested in working on an ARG (when life isn't so horribly hectic) but I have a feeling that my pacing would be really wonky. It would be cool to apprentice to someone who's worked on them more and knows some of the pitfalls. I guess that's where researching ARG's that sucked vs. ones that went well is a really good idea, too!

[Aerokinetic]

[chaos]

hehe

one thing i already know[from the ennead]

if ye gonna make youtube videoes, make sure the principal actress isn't the member of a union that has banned members from online videoes ¬_¬

[raelyn]

[TheAtroxious]

Man, I wanna see this thing. I say, don't try to make it too much like MH, though I see nothing wrong with perhaps setting it in the same universe an using MH for inspiration, as long as you don't try to make people think it's an intended MH ripoff.

Honestly, from the sound of this project, it doesn't seem like it will be very ARG-ish, but hell, if he can come up with something fun and engaging, I'll not be complaining.

TVTropes is an awesome place to browse for inspirations where it comes to storytelling conventions. It might even help you come up with something that stands apart from your average Slender Story, which now all seem to be...painfully similar.

Also, what Dray said. And Chaos. A Slender Story is not necessarily a gamejack.

[Dray]

Hmm, old abandoned places to search, you could toss everything quite far into the past. Slendy has long since come, nommed, and gone, but with tourism and people moving to the mountain village/city there seems to be new opportunities that might draw him back?

...XD Am I completely cruel for thinking that casting a little brother or sister to go 'missing' in one video would be pretty intense? Not to literally go missing, but say that someone is out investigating something, and they hear 'BANG!' and look around, and nobody's there, and scurrying, and get frightened... and then discover that it's their damned kid sibling who's following them around again... only later to seem to go missing...

That would have me "OH SH--"ing pretty bad. XD

[Slender freak]

I would have loved to film in like a menonite village or someplace where they still farm. just to make it seem like Its in the olden days.