Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26186871-20180228131717

Note:Haven’t read Levels and Grinding yet? Read it first. First, this would spoil just about everything, and second.. you probably won’t understand half the stuff I’m talking about if you didn’t read it. You can read Chapter 1 here. At the end of each chapter is a link to the next.

Section 1-Introduction

Now, before we can go over how the story was developed, we first need to understand what it IS. What, exactly, IS Levels and Grinding? What was it made for, what is it trying to accomplish? Development doesn’t truly begin until we know what we’re trying to do. In the case of Levels and Grinding, the story was made to deconstruct the mechanics of an RPG game.

Section 2-The Early Stages

Believe it or not, the story used to be COMPLETELY different than how it ended up being, with only the name of the hero being the same. It began as just a rundown of a typical RPG. It would involve a few jokes about how nothing makes sense, as they travel across the world, and eventually defeat the Dark Mage, save the world.. And that’d be about it. There as no “Dogma” at first. No minion that would overthrow the villain-That’s quite rare in RPGs, after all. There wasn’t even any of the “glitches”. The ending was also vastly different. In one draft, the hero let his fame and power get the better of him, and became the new villain-A tyrant ruler. You know what they say, power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely... And with the power to SAVE and LOAD, and holding the Infinite Gem in his possession, he had nearly absolute power.. It would end with a few new heroes rising, staring a journey to overthrow the previous one, continuing the cycle of adventure, heroism, and villainy. By the way about those “glitches”, “glitches” is where the next era of development begins...

Section 3-The Early Middle Stages

...Why, exactly, do game mechanics apply? Why are all fights forcibly turn-based? Why does everyone just stand there and take it? These were questions that I was trying to figure out the answer to, as I was deceloing how the plot would go down. There was going to be an explanation behind it. In one draft, it was just going to be that nobody even thought if dodging before, and the hero would be the first one to think of doing that, rushing through the game. In another, the VILLAIN would be the first to think of it.. But that wouldn’t fit in with the fact that the villain’s supposed to lose, and how the rest of his plans are generally not very good plans. So, I had to create someone else.. Someone new..

Enter Dogma, the so-called “advisor” to the villain. At first, he was just that. An advisor. One trying to tell the villain how stupid his plans were, but aLeah’s being ignored. But, perhaps maybe he could also serve as a better villain.. An example of villainy done right. It is then that he became the one who betrays the villain, rather than just an advisor trying to make the villain not be completely stupid with his plans. And so, came the first versions of his fight, which I’ll call the “Megalovania”, because come on, this is a lot like the Sans fight, and it was meant to be.

Section 4-Megalovania

This phase in development, alongside the next one, is what changed the most. Because, it once again required that we try to explain how the mechanics of the world work, and that would change a lot of the story before and after it, as well.

You see, this fight was intended to be the epic finale:A struggle between the hero, and someone else who actually knew what was going on. Someone willing to bend around the rules that have been established. At first, these rules weren’t physical constructs at all.. The villain was just the only one smart enough to realize “hey, I can move during a fight and dodge stuff, and I don’t have to wait for an opponent’s turn!” But, the result, while it may have been somewhat of a twist, and would explain the mechanical, it wouldn’t make a very good boss fight.

Besides, there was a better way to do this. And this only raised a question-Why did everybody believe in a turn- asked system in the first place, if it didn’t exist, and it was SO easy to prove wrong? It didn’t make sense. It was clear that turn-based systems WERE indeed actual, physical rules of this RPG world. Now, back to Megalovania.

If fights are turn-based, and you know the hero can travel back in time, to undo any mistakes.. Then what’s the one way to stop the hero? To just make them give up. And how do you do that? Just, don’t let them attack. Do nothing. If you do nothing, and don’t attack, it’s never the hero’s turn. Ever. I then combined this with the common trope of there being a time limit before the world ends, with weapons that takes a certain amount of time to charge, and told this as a tale of the villain stalling for time, to make the hero unable to do anything.. To guarantee a win.

But, that wasn’t it. The villain couldn’t just win the story! The hero would have to win eventually.. But the concept worked. So, I decided on something else. I’d have the advisor not wish to conquer the world or destroy it, but rather, corrupt it into chaos. I mean, it was already established he likes breaking the rules.. Snd the hero would have to learn these glitches as well, to use them against the villain, to finally overthrow the villain.

Section 5-The Metagame and Player

The final phase of development began with a question:If these mechanics are real, tangible things.. Then, what exactly ARE they? The only real answer we could come up with, is that they’re code. That the world they live in, is indeed, just a mere simulation. Levels and Grinding had shifted by a lot-ain’t went from just a normal parody of RPGs, to a story of one hero, who learned to free his mind from illusion, to take on a seemingly impossible foe. But, if this is a game.. Wouldn’t there have to be a player?

At first, I simply decided on having the hero and player be one and the same. It would be kind of like Undertale, in that regard. (Though at this time, it was closer to the Glitchtale interpretation) Though, then came the idea:If this is all a game.. What would it mean for it to end? Why not explore this? ..I was never able to. I WAS, however, able to come up with making the player an actual entity.. After much thought, I decided this would be the better option. So, I did. And there came the answer. The connection between the hero and the player.. The two are inseparable.. So, while the game world might be over, the hero lives on.. And the file is still there, so.. the world kind of still exists?

There were different paths that were considered, At one point, the end of the game meant the end of everything, the game world literally turning into nothing... Meaning the hero would just refuse to beat the final boss, because while it might seem to help the world, it wouldn’t be worth if if that ended the world..

But, I ended up choosing the one that, well.. showed up. It just seemed to fit the best.

Another way it could have ended is that the end of the game meant the world would live on, but without the player... At first, this might seem like a better ending, and a chance to bring in my “hero becomes the villain” thing, but then raises the question:What about if the game was reopened? It wouldn’t make sense. We don’t reopen the game post-completion to see that things have changed a lot while we were gone, we see it, just as it was before. The world is on pause.. Stuck at the last moment.. But in the case of the hero, he lives on.. Possibly to the next game in the series.. 