Episode 2 Discussion Thread

[Narolas]

This isn't because I feel forced to make it fit

This is because i'm still pretty vague in my story decisions, and I figured I might as well give people some cool ideas, and maybe help the main plot go along while i'm at it.

If nothing really sticks, i'll just do my own thing and figure out something that doesn't look completely nonsensical in relation to the plot.

[Voltgloss]

I have proposed an idea for the tutorial level:

have it be the CoNS. Episode 1 Sheath arrives to find someone or something has walled off the entrance to the CoNS, apparently to trap the rest of the heroes inside just before they've finished the prelude game. Sheath being Sheath, she stabs through the wall and plows through a sequence of the CoNS hallways - now populated with some tutorial-style hazards - to gather each member of the team and then escape the CoNS, perhaps by being picked up by Demo's spaceship from the roof.

Finally, how do people feel about:

Mishi returning? The current draft of the story bible has her ENTIRELY gone from the rest of the series since her Episode 1 self-erasing. I personally think she's got enough potential to be reused as an interesting character that her self-erasing should be limited to the version of reality that was Episode 1. (Of course, she could ultimately decide to self-erase in the other Episodes either. "And Mishi wasn't there, too.")

[Rixithechao]

I thought someone was going to go back and change it to Mishi quitting history?

EDIT :

after reading a bit about the uncles and stuff, it could be the house of one of those guys (I can change the portraits), or another interesting character of the cyclop race. I'm trying to make this level more challenging than my previous one, so ideally it would be later in the game once the uncles are revealed as bad guys. I quite like Uncle broadsword's design, or uncle rewind. those 2 would fit better the old haunted house theme maybe ? Dunno.

Perhaps you can just leave the original owner of the mansion a mystery and include portraits of all the uncles or various characters. The books could give some insight into Broadsword's motivation, or maybe even this mysterious new villain whom the uncles are working for.

[Oddwrath]

The uncles have already been defined, you can see their bios here. But the idea sounds nifty, it'd be pretty cool to see some of the Demo Fan Art thread OCs as ghosts in that level.

I might do that. Of course that depends on how people react to my spritework. See I tried to do Uncle Denmark and this is what I've got:

Or I could ask someone else to do the sprites and we could do a collab level, I guess.

[sedron]

Story spoiler stuff!

Mishi remaining unused would feel like an awful waste of a character, honestly. Plus you can get shenanigans going with certain characters remembering her and others not remembering her, depending on what timelines they're from and such.

Also am I the only one who wants to see

Uncle Broadsword as a good guy?

[Rixithechao]

The uncles have already been defined, you can see their bios here. But the idea sounds nifty, it'd be pretty cool to see some of the Demo Fan Art thread OCs as ghosts in that level.

I might do that. Of course that depends on how people react to my spritework. See I tried to do Uncle Denmark and this is what I've got:

Or I could ask someone else to do the sprites and we could do a collab level, I guess.

I did sprites of all of the uncles over in the graphics thread. Broadsword's the only one with a full sprite sheet so far.

[Willhart]

Finally, how do people feel about:

Mishi returning? The current draft of the story bible has her ENTIRELY gone from the rest of the series since her Episode 1 self-erasing. I personally think she's got enough potential to be reused as an interesting character that her self-erasing should be limited to the version of reality that was Episode 1. (Of course, she could ultimately decide to self-erase in the other Episodes either. "And Mishi wasn't there, too.")

One of the uncles might have also saved Mishi off screen.

I'd assume that she will be freed from her mind control upon the process and be slightly more nice (or just angry against the artist) which would be enough reason for her to help the team. Destroying the artist would also free other siblings from mind control.

Edit: What do the the Uncles think about Demo being mind controlled. Do they know about that? Would they try to save her and Iris?

[Narolas]

Perhaps you can just leave the original owner of the mansion a mystery and include portraits of all the uncles or various characters. The books could give some insight into Broadsword's motivation, or maybe even this mysterious new villain whom the uncles are working for.

Now that I like.
I can have fun drawing weird cyclops (ancestors, random old people from the cyclop race before

the Uncles

, have a few books with some backstory and spookyness to go with the level, and leave some of them for later so I can put

Uncle stuff in them (with uncle portraits in the back).

I'm saying "for later", because it would be silly to set everything in stone now, so later on once the story's been fleshed out I can give insight into

the uncles or their master, or some other stuff. For now I don't really have any details on these guys, so i'll wait.

[Voltgloss]

Also am I the only one who wants to see

Uncle Broadsword as a good guy?

I've proposed that:

Uncle Broadsword be more of a "third party/wild card" who genuinely cares about Demo but also genuinely wants to gather whatever McGuffins are at play in Episode 2, and so starts off appearing to help Demo & Co. but then fights against them later on. But unlike Pandamona and/or the other Uncles, he has his own personal goal - claiming the ultimate treasures of the Universe! And perhaps when the ramifications of working with the other antagonists becomes clear - at, say, the very end of the game - U.B. fulfills his wild card role and does something the other/remaining antagonists don't expect. (Sort of like how Science at the end of Ep 1 was revealed to have not been trying to destroy the Universe, and at the very end provides much-needed assistance to Sheath.)

On a related-but-separate topic, I've also proposed that we set up a dynamic where:

Demo is Uncle Broadsword's favorite... but Iris is Uncle Broadsword's unfavorite. For no very clear reason (at least in Episode 2 - I've proposed a possible reason but it wouldn't get revealed until Episode 3, I think). And as a result Iris feels the same antagonistic way towards Uncle Broadsword. I think this could set up an interesting conflict between the sisters and also an effective contrast between (I) a "friendly challenge" fight early in the game between Demo and U.B., and (ii) a deadly serious battle late in the game between Iris and U.B.

[Kil]

Is the whole broadsword betrayal thing still in? I really hated that idea and I don't think it matches him too well.

[Voltgloss]

Is the whole broadsword betrayal thing still in? I really hated that idea and I don't think it matches him too well.

What if

Broadsword is a third party wild card who is revealed midway through the game to be working with the antagonists for his own personal reasons (i.e., treasure hunting - he wants the challenge of finding the Universe's greatest treasures); but still doesn't want Demo to be hurt; and then late or end game concludes he was wrong to work with the other antagonists and supports/helps Demo at a crucial point?

[sedron]

Is the whole broadsword betrayal thing still in? I really hated that idea and I don't think it matches him too well.

What if

Broadsword is a third party wild card who is revealed midway through the game to be working with the antagonists for his own personal reasons (i.e., treasure hunting - he wants the challenge of finding the Universe's greatest treasures); but still doesn't want Demo to be hurt; and then late or end game concludes he was wrong to work with the other antagonists and supports/helps Demo at a crucial point?

This I think works really well. It should be clear from the get-go that U.B. isn't out for Demo's blood or anything, but that their opposition is an unfortunate coincidence. A battle with Iris would be neat, too. There are a lot of opportunities for interesting character interactions here.

[Slit08]

Thanks to docopoper I am able to play this game without any weird bugs or glitches.

Should I review the episode 2 levels once the game is ready for beta testing and all levels are included on new world maps (since testing levels with the editor leads to heavy lags)?

Secondly I hope we go with the same style as episode 1 meaning that we will have both world maps and themed worlds.

One new world for episode 2 could be a factory world as there are a lot of levels with factory and technology stuff.

[Oddwrath]

Edit: What do the the Uncles think about Demo being mind controlled. Do they know about that? Would they try to save her and Iris?

Uncle Broadsword is probably the only Uncle that actually cares about Demo & Iris(well, probably not Iris, because of the thing Voltgloss mentioned). Uncle Rewind is too busy worrying how to do everything perfectly, Uncle Denmark cares more about partying, Uncle @sbestos has his own family to worry about and Uncle Pumpernickle is Uncle Pumpernickle, so he isn't going anywhere.

Though I guess, other uncles do care about other siblings.

Rewind is probably most fond of Science & Garish, since all of them are control freaks. Pandamona & Pily are probably jealous as hell of Rewind, because Time Rewinding is the magical cure to all sorts of paranoia.
Denmark is probably the role model of Calleoca and Calleoca is probably Denmark's favorite sibling, since he likes to show off his swimming so much.
The rest I'm not so sure about.

[Willhart]

Edit: What do the the Uncles think about Demo being mind controlled. Do they know about that? Would they try to save her and Iris?

Uncle Broadsword is probably the only Uncle that actually cares about Demo & Iris(well, probably not Iris, because of the thing Voltgloss mentioned). Uncle Rewind is too busy worrying how to do everything perfectly, Uncle Denmark cares more about partying, Uncle @sbestos has his own family to worry about and Uncle Pumpernickle is Uncle Pumpernickle, so he isn't going anywhere.

Though I guess, other uncles do care about other siblings.

Rewind is probably most fond of Science & Garish, since all of them are control freaks. Pandamona & Pily are probably jealous as hell of Rewind, because Time Rewinding is the magical cure to all sorts of paranoia.
Denmark is probably the role model of Calleoca and Calleoca is probably Denmark's favorite sibling, since he likes to show off his swimming so much.
The rest I'm not so sure about.

I like those connections. It would be neat to have some short stories about them in the libraries. Books written by the uncles, that are optional to read. Each would have a small memory from the time they spent together with the siblings.

[Rixithechao]

I can get behind Broadsword betraying the group and I like the proposed dynamic between him and Iris, but I'm not so sure about him stabbing Kood in cold blood. It'd certainly be a shocking development, yes, but he seems like the type who wouldn't kill unless he had to, especially considering Kood is an acquaintance of his favorite niece that he just spent a good portion of the game with.

Maybe U.B. slashes at Kood to incapacitate him (it could hit his shell and simply knock him back or it could wound him, but not fatally), Kood drops the Turtle Dove and Broadsword picks it up. The whole "what the hell, you betrayed us" exchange happens, then when Broadsword begins to leave Kood gets back up and charges after him only for another uncle, perhaps Rewind or Pumpernickel, to jump in and finish Kood off.

[Insert alternate suggestion that was really messed up here. Seriously, past me, what the hell!?]

[Demolition]

I have a lot things i need to respond to, but for now i'm just going to clarify a couple things

If Mishi does appear again it won't be this episode, people are already saying that there are too many characters, the idea behind Mishi is that she is going to function as an anti-Sheath with jokes being made about the empty space that she left behind.

Sarac is the one destroying reality. The Idea is that Uncle Broadsword raised her and views her as his daughter. Sarac found Pandamona floating in the abyss at the end of episode one and they fell in love and got married. Sarac plans to destroy reality and recreate a new reality where the cyclops race is once again prominent. (We are still unsure whether Sarac is a cyclops or not).

Uncle Broadsword is going to function as a sort of sole Anti-Villain and does care for Demo and Iris. I like the idea that it's the other uncles who kill Kood, possibly against his orders.

Originally only Pily was going to appear this episode. Garish and Nevada were added when me and darkychao realized that they won't have much to do for the later episodes.

The uncles probably never met the other siblings. When Demo and Iris were larvae they were stolen from The Artist by The Master and Guy so they never grew up together. All of the siblings are jealous of Demo and Iris because they always heard talk of how great they were.

Demo was Uncle Broadsword's favorite and he never took Iris along on his adventures. Despite this he does care for Iris (Iris dislikes him though).

[Willhart]

I don't really know about the current ending. I was hoping for something more cheerful.

Can we have a happy ending for episode 4, where all of the siblings survive and are free from the mind control (even Demo and Iris)? Artist and master would be both defeated at the end.

Also reversing a joke does not really make it funny. It feels way too forced.

Edit: We can assume that the people have played the first episode before this one, so we don't really have to introduce some of the characters in order to use them. All of the siblings could appear or at least be mentioned somewhere in the game.

[Oddwrath]

Serac found Pandamona floating in the abyss at the end of episode one

So, there IS something left in the post-Episode-1-Apocalypse! I wonder if something

or someone

else could have survived.

The uncles probably never met the other siblings.

I don't buy it. Sure, Mishi is too lethargic and apathetic to care, Nevada is too shy to even bother, Pily and Pandamona are too paranoid...BUT, then we have Calleoca, who followed Demo & Team through the entire game AND can shift through dimensions to boot, we have Science, who's main character trait is his curiosity and we have Garish, who's pride would never let him accept, that he's not the favorite sibling of his Uncle, but his "inferior" sister is. All three have enough resources to find Demo & Iris. So, unless other siblings never even heard of Demo & Iris, I don't believe that at very least Calleoca wouldn't find them.

When Demo and Iris were larvae they were stolen from The Artist by The Master and Guy so they never grew up together. All of the siblings are jealous of Demo and Iris because they always heard talk of how great they were.

...Which you instantly disproved right here.

[Rixithechao]

Also reversing a joke does not really make it funny. It feels way too forced.

I wasn't trying to make it funnier... I'm not really sure what I was going for there. It's just plain twisted and disturbing. Removing it from existence now.

EDIT: Oh, wait, you were talking about Mishi, weren't you? ...Oh, well, my thing was still messed up, so it remains erased from history.

[Demolition]

I don't really know about the current ending. I was hoping for something more cheerful.

Can we have a happy ending for episode 4, where all of the siblings survive and are free from the mind control (even Demo and Iris)? Artist and master would be both defeated at the end.

Also reversing a joke does not really make it funny. It feels way too forced.

Edit: We can assume that the people have played the first episode before this one, so we don't really have to introduce some of the characters in order to use them. All of the siblings could appear or at least be mentioned somewhere in the game.

The ending for episode 4 isn't written in the bible yet. That short thing that darkychao wrote is not going to be the full ending. Demo and Iris aren't mind controlled Mishi just wanted an excuse to kill them.

Here is what I recall the plan was:

The artist gets defeated as well as most of the uncles. Kering (Villain of episode 3) escapes and vows revenge. Serac turns good and pulls a heroic sacrifice. Pandamona and Broadsword turn good as well. The cast all say good bye and part ways on good terms. Demo, Guy and The Master all leave together but Iris decides that she has had enough of The Master and leaves.

An Epilogue shows Demo get some letters from her siblings/friends that explains 'Where they are now'

-Garish tried to make peace with the ninjis and changed his name to Joseph mcStalin. Unfortunately new capitalism caught on while he was gone and a new war breaks out.

-Science and Calleoca started up a new research lab to research the science with help from feed and sheath.

-Pily and Kood got married (To different people)

-Nevada went home and did nothing of importance. Him and raocow became flat mates.

-Pandamona and Uncle Broadsword became adventurers and are now exploring the Muncher Plant Ruins

-Mishi decided to exist again, because existance is cool.

Lastly there is a big package that turns out to contain Iris who had shipped her self to Demo after having a change of heart. They are then ordered to collect some vegetables and are teleported down to the planets surface where ASMT takes place.

[sedron]

I'm not super up to date on the whole "episodic," thing, so could someone please explain to me why there are four whole episodes of this game planned?

I think I remember it being because there were a LOT of levels submitted to A2XT, and we couldn't fit them all. We're still taking submissions for the second episode though? And on top of that we have to assume a fair number of levels won't get in for quality reasons.

You guys all know that interest in these projects wanes over time and changes depending on what raocow plays, so we can't be certain there will be enough interest to finish things a few years down the line for A2XT episode 4. On top of that it stretches the story really thin over a large amount of content, and there are plans to add even more characters and plot points in the next installments? Why drag things out so much?

I personally think it would make a lot more sense to consolidate all of this into Episode 2 (and maybe 3.) A good number of people want to see a definitive, happy ending to the games, and there's a huge risk of that not happening if there are no plans to wrap things up in the near future. Plus, if we still have lots of interest we can go on to sequels and stuff. You know, pick up where ASMT left off. That would be a great place to introduce new villains and characters and plot points and all of that stuff.

If we did one episode per year, with a minimum of four episodes we'd be done with this series around the tail end of 2017.

If you guys in charge disagree with me then whatevs; it's just my opinion after all. I do think it's something worth considering though.

[Oddwrath]

I'm not super up to date on the whole "episodic," thing, so could someone please explain to me why there are four whole episodes of this game planned?

3 reasons:
1) Because people are tired of have some many versions of smbx on their computer.
2) Because it people have an orderly stable environment to submit and test their levels.
3) Because having a (semi-)consistent and (semi-)interconnected game is kinda cool.

Also, not related to what I'm quoting, but, imho, if the game just ended as it did on the episode 1, I would have been ok with it. Sure, it's dark and doesn't tie up all the loose ends, but so did Planescape: Torment and I like Planescape: Torment. I think more games should tell you less and let you figure stuff out/speculate your heart out on your own. Explaining everything, leaves there nothing to ponder about and makes your writing lesser as a result.

[Willhart]

Oh, so that is how it goes.

Did Iris and Demo not need to be brainwashed in order to survive? This was the reason why the cyclops revolution failed. Most of the revolutionalists had been brainwashed for entirety of their lives. Maybe Demo and Iris were never under the mind control at all.

Master growing them up without mind control could have helped them to live without it. That actually explains why Demo and Iris still follow the master in the future (asmt). The other siblings still probably assume that the master uses mind control the same way as the artist does and I kinda did assume that too.

After the artist is gone, the uncles may need to help some of the siblings to get back in the normal life. That would be pretty heart-warming.

[Voltgloss]

Where did the idea come from about

Uncle Broadsword, or the Uncles in general, killing Kood? I don't recall seeing that anywhere - did I miss it?

The episodic nature also allows for

one hero in each Episode to journey to the "post-production void" at the end - Sheath in Ep 1, raocow in Ep 2, and Kood in Ep 3. That character then travels to the "next" episode - Sheath to Ep 2, raocow to Ep 3, and Kood back to Ep 1 - to be part of the reason why the timelines in those Episodes play out differently from the other Episodes.

Episode 4 is the post-production void itself where the "travelers" - the Kood that went from Ep 3 to Ep 1 (and vanished at the end of Ep 1), the Sheath that went from Ep 1 to Ep 2, and the raocow that went from Ep 2 to Ep 3 - finally end up and figure out a way to (i) get Demo and Iris and (ii) finally stop the villains' plans for destroying all the different timelines.

Master growing them up without mind control could have helped them to live without it. That actually explains why Demo and Iris still follow the artist in the future (asmt).

I thought they are

following the Master in ASMT - not the Artist. Was there even mention of the Artist in ASMT? I haven't watched it in a while but I don't recall such - did I miss it?