{"id":805,"date":"2012-09-30T07:00:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/?p=805"},"modified":"2022-07-01T16:34:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T20:34:46","slug":"gold-leader-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/2012\/09\/gold-leader-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Gold Leader: Narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is part of a series of notes on the development of\u00a0<\/em>Gold Leader<\/a>, currently being shopped around to game portals.<\/em><\/p>\n

Themes<\/h2>\n

As discussed previously<\/a>, one of the main inspirations for Gold Leader<\/em> is Ender’s Game<\/em>. \u00a0One of the things that really grabs me about that story is not actually explicitly present in the book much at all: The fleet. \u00a0Somewhere, way out in the black, there’s a whole host of ships and crew actually prosecuting the war, carrying out seemingly arbitrary orders from command, fighting and dying. \u00a0Lots of those people are undoubtedly very much necessarily just wrapped up in surviving their little part of it while all sorts of maelstrom swarms around them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gold Leader… ?!?!<\/p><\/div>\n

Another largely implicit aspect in the story is the notion of a grand slam strategy: You’re on the brink, about to lose everything, and your only chance is to fight through incredible odds and deliver a knockout blow from out of nowhere to completely reverse the momentum and crush the enemy at their strongest. \u00a0You bank everything on the hope of hitting a grand slam. \u00a0The ability to explore and embody this kind of attitude and situation is something that has always, always drawn me to gaming. \u00a0You can see it right up under our logo<\/a>\u00a0in the main motto of Rocketship Games:\u00a0Fortune favors the bold<\/em>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Those two themes are what I had kicking around my head motivating Gold Leader<\/em>. \u00a0Now, it’s a classical shooter, so story isn’t really a big part of the draw. \u00a0Further, I quite consciously worked to keep it strictly focused on the action: No cutscenes, no animations, no dialog, just action. \u00a0The closest thing to a cutscene is the tutorial component at the start, literally ten seconds long as you play with the controls. \u00a0There were many reasons for that design approach, including:<\/p>\n