For the past few months, I've had a bit of an idea buzzing around in my head for a disco-based story video series of some description. I came to this idea when I was working on the Santa Verna precursor video, with the concept of having the two characters talk via some very basic text and graphical input to display some dialogue and exposition for what was going on in the background.
What I had in mind was a two-character chat-based system that's common in so many Japanease-made games. See examples below. When I was doing Santa Verna, I thought such a system could easily be applied to something like a story-thread for Disco, only much more in-depth and involving some actual story, rather than the flavor text you see in Santa Verna.
What I had in mind, was something like what you see in a game such as Zone of the Enders (a game I played on-and-off again when I was younger)
There are other examples obviously, but this is just what I could think of off the top of my head--
Basically the chat-and-map system you see in the background, only think with Disco context, characters and story. I'm more than certain there's a name for this two-character chat system given how prevalent it is in modern gaming but I sure as hell don't know what it's called so, feel free to let me know... Either way, something like that with a group-RP scripted sequence over a number of episodes for a major RP post. Editing-wise, it wouldn't be too-far out my skillset with Vegas, as it's just basic image placement, image fades, and on-screen text, but I am still rather new to video editing so... don't expect studio-quality.
I like the idea, and want to do it, but there's some Cons to consider:
Such a thing would take an enormous amount of time away from my already low amount of free-time I have for Disco so there would be some suffering on that part. Cross leadership has basically always just been me myself and I from the get-go, and while I've now got some more dedicated members that're willing to step up and handle things for me, there are still things I really feel I need to do myself... also I can't resist the urge to bust out the Snark-Queen Espinosa herself on a regular basis...
Theres also the additional problem of the art assets: I've no issue using game soundtracks, as for the most part they'd just be low ambience; but there's the character images to consider. Everyone I've ever seen in disco uses separate source images (mostly), and having a drawn-character image, speaking to a RL-model character would be too-jarring an effect for me. If I were to do this, everything would have to be near-similar in art-style and/or source. I've got few issues starting with some similar images, but honestly if this turns out to be a long-term project, such an inconsistency would bother the ever-loving hell out of me until I changed it. I'd be really cool to have a dedicated art-team to draw up some basic expressions for me to use, as well as possibly a few voice clips on occasion but that's miles down the road, if ever.
What I'm here asking is: Given all the things I've said here, all the problems I've laid out and the issues presented;
Is this something I should do?
I'm more than willing to listen to input on this, especially as this wouldn't be just me doing it-- as RPing with myself in videos would be okay for a little while but would tend to become tedious and boring over time. If I'm doing this, I'd rather have a team for it.
So yeah, whaddya think?
try to keep it constructive, kind and blah blah blah blah
[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/
A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.
Not going to be quite as expansive as a movie obviously.
So, seeing as some people have been telling me over skype and Teamspeak that they're not 100% sure what I mean, I figured I'd stop trying to bother to explain it, and rather show you what I mean. Soooooooooo, I went ahead and made a quick little mockup for an example of what I'm intending:
Disregard the roughness of it all, as well as the content. This was simply thrown together in about an hour as a proof-of-concept piece.
What I'm asking is: should I do a series of videos like these?
Should I try to find a way to incorporate in-game footage in some way rather than relying entirely on what I'm capable of in Vegas?
What should I focus it on?
and how could I make it interesting for more people to watch who aren't just there for the narrative?
[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/
A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.
Very nice. Agree with Rheinland Patriot about the text being too fast sometimes. Sure that was just a result of you throwing this together so quickly though. Looking forward to more updates.
love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe
Out of my pure curiosity, I'd love to see that. Or Freelancer made like a Fire Emblem series.
@Scourgeclaw All is good except the box and text with it. I'd look into some python-made VN and check how text is dealt in there. It also misses the names, in which it is clearly stated who speaks.
This could be a nice change from forum and ingame only role play. Plus it will allow you to play with the visuals more. Though you are right that making all the characters will be a pain.
But apart of that - yes, you should do this.
Personally, I wanted to make a Disco theme video/short film, but decided not to because of too many limitations. But the idea you have is doable.
Man, as I'm writing this, I'm getting more and more interested. I don't want to derail the thread with my personal BS, but I was thinking of writing the RP story for one of my OC chars, but I couldn't do it. I'm not a good writer. But this! This will work! My point being, this has potential. I say totally do it.
![[Image: Major.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Major.gif)
![[Image: 0RSV22Y.png]](https://i.imgur.com/0RSV22Y.png)