campaign (joan of arc)

[rafaelcastrocouto]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

-img1: happy family with little daughter
-transition1 to darker context (night sky, under earth, etc)
-img2: war comming (bad guys)
-img3: simbolic way of showing the family death (blood on wall, shock face close up, empty swing, etc)
-transition2 to future (clouds, flipping book pages, hourglass, etc)
-img4: huge battlefield aerial
-transition3: zoom in on champion leader
-img5: champion defeating multiple enemies
-img6: battle over with leaders back while removing helmet
-img7: the fighter face reveal

in 1425, Domrémy was attacked and cattle were stolen.[42] This led to a sentiment among villagers that the English must be expelled from France to achieve peace. Joan had her first vision after this raid.[43]
Joan later testified that when she was thirteen, around 1425, a figure she identified as Saint Michael surrounded by angels appeared to her in the garden.[44] After this vision, she said she wept because she wanted them to take her with them.[45] Throughout her life, she had visions of St. Michael,[46]

the campaign can be easily sketched out by mapping every session of the campaign to one of the 17/12/8 steps of the Hero’s Journey:

1. Ordinary world
2. Call to adventure
3. Refusal of the call
4. Meeting with the mentor
5. Crossing the first threshold
6. Tests, allies, and enemies
7. Approach to the inmost cave
8. The ordeal
9. Reward
10. The road back
11. The resurrection
12. Return with the elixir

[rafaelcastrocouto]

The campaign will extend the Shotcaller base with content and features that do not exist in the minimal MOBA core. As demonstrated in games like StarCraft 2, the campaign can invent a whole new game of its own, behind the limitations of competitive play, so long as it adheres to the same fundamental gameplay mechanics.
We are mainly interested in non-verbal storytelling, and emotional impact through in-game decision making. We do indeed want to teach Shotcaller fundamentals through the campaign and as such it will be a campaign of ongoing warfare scenarios. But the characters we are playing with come prepared with rich depth to them that we can explore further at our leisure, from enlightened-or-schizophrenic maidens to man-child monarchs.

We will start by making 3 very light (2-3 minutes of gameplay) tutorial levels, as part of the Call to Adventure part of the story structure:

(Step 0: Ordinary World)
War has been raging for nearly a hundred years. The English (Burgundians) and the French (Armagnacs) are fighting for the throne of France in the Lancastrian War (1415–1453). Joan is a regular country girl, living together with her family in Domrémy village.

Call to adventure
[Defense/offense tutorials 1,2,3]
A young Joan (preadolescence 9-12yrs) is living in a small-town family-farm. Her village is occasionally raided, and she starts learning the ways of war thanks to her uncle who's the village protector.

Refusal of the call
[Defend key structures, minimize losses]
In 1425, Domrémy village is hit by a particularly brutal raid, stealing several of their resources. Joan feels defeated and discouraged.

Supernatural aid
[Defeat Raider Chieftain in counter-attack]
Angel visits. Joan acquires the ability of divine inspiration; morale auras.

Crossing first threshold
[Escort mission]
In May 1428, Joan asks her uncle to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs, where she petitions the garrison commander, Robert de Baudricourt, for an armed escort to the Armagnac court at Chinon. Baudricourt harshly refused and sent her home.
[Offense mission; free village]
In spite of the rejection, Joan gains the support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. Together they liberate a neighboring village from occupying raiders.

Belly of the whale
[Defend while villagers flee]
In 1428, Domrémy village is completely overhelmed by Burgundian forces, eventually forcing Joan to flee alongside everyone else.
Robert de Baudricourt is petitioned once more. First he refuses, but when Joan’s prediction of a big French loss comes true the day following her proclamation, Robert calls her back and grants her her small entourage of soldiers. Joan leaves her home for good, heading to the king and to war, now and forever more in men’s clothing.

[rafaelcastrocouto]

Map 1. Some sort of village defense. Really it’d be Joan’s uncle doing the very first of these on his own, because Joan is ~9 years old in the first attacks. Joan would join in map 2 or 3, when she has ‘grown up’ (as much as someone who only lived to be 19 can).
But we haven’t made uncle sprites yet, so we’ll use Joan for initial prototyping.
Now that we’re figuratively zooming in on a single leader to start with, I think an interesting decision to make is their army-composition.

E.g. the leader can have max 5 units in their command. They then need to decide how many will be infantry/archer and others.
This is similar to the aforementioned Tiny Guardians.

In Map 1 we have two big decisions to make:

• Go to location A or B (e.g. farm or blacksmith)
• Determine unit composition

player is ambushed or somehow encounter a weaker group and we let an inital fight happen before any kind of tutorial. just to let the player react (and hopefully gather some data to base his decision upon the pawn composition)

uncle defend against an inital weak invasion and while doing so, teach her about the basics
we could have an "in map" animation with him commanding a response along with the proper counter units to fight waves of single unit enemies
until he loses to an stronger enemy leader with stronger pawns. a quick animation of the castle being taken or something like that to interrupt the fight and allow her to take the leadership on the next mission

[rafaelcastrocouto]

here's an updated version considering the courrier idea:

the main story is still around joan, but the player unit is a custom char that acts as a courrier while joan is at battle.

we can also keep ther idea of a first map where her uncle is defeated and we gather some player feedback during his response.

the first map would introduce the player to the basic controls and the shop and mechanics of the blacksmith and camp extra unit. also introduces to leader skills and passive auras

joan asks the player to help save her uncle (Call to adventure), and that would be the first task: retreat an leader. after that the uncle would ask for a healing item and the player would retrieve it from the blacksmith.

choice 1: bottle, quick healing or slow healing

joan would ask for a second item, but this one would be stolen by the enemy while building.

choice 2: boots, weapon or armor

the player would run to the castle and then follow a group to conquer it back and deploy some kind of defense like leaving the uncle leader around (teaching basic shop stuff)

meanwhile the camp would be taken and that would allow us to teach the camp mechanics.
after the player chooses

choice 3: infantry, archer or mounted

then the objective becomes destroying the tower, after that an animation of a huge enemy force ariving and defeating her uncle. we have joan leading the next attempt but failing (Refusal of the call).

animation inside church where player convinces joan to fight (Supernatural aid) and she get's back to the map and the player has to conquer the neutrals again and she will be able to turn the tide with her skills, extra army and items.

[rafaelcastrocouto]

basic controls intro:

we could have a jrpg story arc start with the player coming out of bed in their room. it would also be nice to build this as an addition to crafy (same goes for char creation)

so in this 'player room' map the camera would be fixed and the player would only move the char ... after the first move check there could be an item to pick in the room hidden behind something to introduce the light system and the inventory. then the player would be allowed out of their room and into the 1st map.

in this bigger map scene (where joan uncle will be defeated) we would introduce camera movement (someone says "look over there" and the next check is to focus an area of interest. then a quick quest for a hidden treasure would introduce the minimap. the reward would give the player enough gold to receive the 1st blacksmith quest.

[rafaelcastrocouto]

Dialog ideas

Map 1

Camera shows enemy units attacking the first tower and young joan calls for help:
"We are under attack, somebody help!!!"
Arthur shows up saying:
"Don't worry milady, I shall defeat them all!"
He picks his sword Excalibur from the stone and rushes into battle.
He is quickly overwhelmed and killed by the enemy troops. * Comic pause *
Joan screams again for help and our protagonist (mail boy) that's walking by is chosen almost by accident.
"You, yes you... Please help,
You need to warn my uncle about this attack, plz go to the farm and bring reinforcements"

First mission: reach the farm while avoiding enemy troops.