Game Premises Are Bullshit

There’s been a few times in the past month where I was asked what is the premise of my game. And my honest answer really is, I don’t know! I wanted to make a game where you’re exploring a bunch of cool looking places, and I haven’t thought much about the bigger narrative picture.

But playing Metroid Prime, Caravan SandWitch and Cassette Beasts made me realize something.

You really can just make shit up for why things are the way they are in a game. Or don’t. It’s your world and you can do whatever you want with it.

Some games just drop you into a place without telling you anything about it. Some games feel the need to give you a long exposition scene.

And it’s making me think differently about establishing a premise.

Metroid Prime

Samus Aran is hot (in a lesbian way) and alone on Tallon IV. She also lost some good parts of her suit that she needs to find again in a huge world where she can go anywhere. And defeat Ridley!

Caravan SandWitch

After living in a space city, you come back home because you got an SOS message from your long lost sister who you thought was dead. You have a van. Find your sister and help out your friends and family while you’re at it!

Cassette Beasts

You wake up on an island. New place. You’re trying to get home. Oh no, you can’t. Turns out everyone here appeared one day without a way out and decided to just try to make a living there. But guess what, with Cassettes you can transform into Beasts! Don’t ask us how it works, we don’t know either! This guy at the docks of the town you live in will tell you so!

Conclusion

So I think with that, it’s giving me more confidence to just, try to think of things that will work in whatever scope I’m working with.

And I hope this was useful to some of you.