Opening Cutscene

I came up with a great idea for something to start this game off with. Like Spore's start of the game, it's a video. Not like Spore's video, though.

Basically this is a extremely fast version of your whole world's history, before your species begins.

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First, you start off with a view of the solar system. It's just gasses at that point, but soon, as the camera moves in, you start to see an orbital motion, then a protostar. Soon planets start to form. Giant balls of molten rock are made, and the camera begins to zoom in on one. It's in the system's habitable zone, so it is likely to support life. The camera moves down to the surface, looking forward, just as the molten floor turns to solid rock, and features begin to form. Mountains are thrust up as plates collide, and depressions are filled with water.

Speeding across the planet through a mountain range, You see your first organisms. They are not very adapt and there will never be too many of them. Plants start spilling up from the world's oceans, and suddenly there is a hole-ey carpet of green stretching every way. (Plants only do this if you are not one of the first life-forms on your planet) Then the animals appear, small things flopping up on the beach, and eventually some small, land-adapted animals (Never too advanced). At one point there is a lake or ocean between the mountains, and the camera dives down and you see tiny marine organisms dotting your screen. Finally, you come to the end of the mountain range, and burst out to see either a beach (If you chose to start evolving in the water) or a large, open, grassland (If you chose to start evolving on land). If you see the beach, then the camera waits a few seconds in the air, looking across the ocean. Then it plunges downward into a tidal pool and you begin the game. If you get the grassland, then you look at the view of the flat grassland and the forest deep in the background, and then you plunge straight downward onto the soil, and start the game. Both ways, when you plunge downward, you are looking down.

All organisms will be most detailed as blurs on the screen, except at the end, when you burst out of the mountain range and get a real-time view of the world. Somehow somebody'll have to program that to show plants a little more simple than the ones which will dot your planet when you become an organism.

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Feel free to give out any of your ideas.

I have an idea:

*Black screen and Relaxed music*


*a Voice begins to talk*

" In The beginning...There were only elementary particles."

*a list of the elementary particles come up (
[img] [img][/img][/img]
)*

"After millions of years they made the Chemical element"

*red gases show up*

"the elements formed the stars and the Planets"

*new born stars show up*

"they formed the galaxies"

*a lot of galaxies*

"and the solar systems"

*solar systems*

"the plants"

*random new born plant*

"and the asteroids"

*an asteroid belt show up*

"but in one plant Something amazing happened"

*Focus on you'r planet*

*into the lifeless plant*

*you see an comet on the sky*

*it's Crashes on the plant*

"from now on it's all up to you"

*Thrive*

*game starts*

I do like both ideas - cinematic and voice over. Some tweaks might have to be done to the voice-over, but I think it takes us back further. Remember, we have the potential to be the very first life on the planet, so having the lovely green (or insert researched default plantcolor here) plants "spilling up" out of the oceans and rivers is graphically lovely, but may not have happened yet. Or you might be the plant.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

I do like both ideas - cinematic and voice over. Some tweaks might have to be done to the voice-over, but I think it takes us back further. Remember, we have the potential to be the very first life on the planet, so having the lovely green (or insert researched default plantcolor here) plants "spilling up" out of the oceans and rivers is graphically lovely, but may not have happened yet. Or you might be the plant.

Good point. But personally it'd be nicer not to be the first life on a planet...

What do you mean?

@Dudeman; your idea is cool, but it sounds to much like Earth (which isn't a bad thing), and plus if you start as an amebia (or what have you) with animals around; by the time you becaome a decent sized creture an intelegent species will have alrady taken over...

Personally I like both ideas, create an epic video with narration: If done right it can send chills (I speak from experience).

Gorbachof wrote:

@Dudeman; your idea is cool, but it sounds to much like Earth (which isn't a bad thing), and plus if you start as an amebia (or what have you) with animals around; by the time you becaome a decent sized creture an intelegent species will have alrady taken over...

Personally I like both ideas, create an epic video with narration: If done right it can send chills (I speak from experience).

Well most life will evolve like Earth.

That's not true. We started like that. Dinosaurs existed millions of years before any human or monkeys existed.

I want in the beginning
a Scientific background

I thought we had already decided, and it would focus on the formation of the universe, not life. The game is about life. The opening should be about the creation of the universe this life will inhabit.

And most life will not 'evolve like Earth'. We share lots of DNA with almost every living thing on the planet. These organisms will share only basic life functions (eg take needed stuff from environment to keep living). What are the chances of something light years away just happening to develop roots and leech from the ground? The ground which on other planets may be toxic to the life there? Then soaking up water for support? A clever system even we might not think of? By chance? Out of all the possibilities? I could go on, but I think I've made my point. No organisms in the intro. No offence to you, I just hate the assumption that a metaphorical zillion sided dice will roll the same twice, never mind most of the time. It's silly to have an intro that gives the appearance every planet you create has these same creatures inhabiting it.

I second the physics and chemistry based introductory video clip, not the fallacious biological subterfuge I clearly distain. I guesstimate I displayed myself as comprehensible.

Can we get Ron Perlman to narrate?

Uteen- When did we decide that?

I didn't mean life would evolve to look like Earth, I meant it would evolve in the order of Earth. First are tiny sea organisms, then plants on land, then terrestrial creatures, then birds, then mammals, etc.

I think that's right, if I can remember my Science stuff right...

Of course, all the animals would be just blurs on the screen, the camera would be moving much too fast to see actual shapes. Other than the scene before you plunge onto your creature, where you see current time, you would be able to see fully-detailed organisms. So something would have to happen there.


Gorbachof- Who?


Nobody in particular- I just got an idea to add to the cinematic; At some point the camera dives into the ocean and you see the marine life; the most-defined would be large swimming animals at the edges of your vision. You can see black specs fly across the screen (Silt, etc.) and the blue expanse only has definable details for a couple of meters around you. Bubbles speed out of the ground, and rocks lay scattered everywhere.

@ Everybody - Uteen, I remember the thread but I'm not certain it reached a conclusion. As for "you could be the plant" it's entirely possible in the OE.

If you start as a cell, chances are you're going to start near the beginning. We've been over this one, I know, and decided that the only way to start as anything larger is to go through the OE, and I'm not certain you can do that until you've unlocked some sort of god tool. It was a while back, so hazy memories are the best I've got here.

Gorb, if you think you can get Ron Perlman, then go ahead. (Whoever he is...)

@ Dudeman: No, the line goes (simplified) something like this.

Humans < Proto-humans (Australiopithicus et. al.) < the common ancestor we share with apes/monkeys < some sort of mammal related to other mammals < those really early mammals towards the end of the Cretacious. (The age of the dinosaurs.)

Point being, we're an extrordinarily long way from the amoeba and so were dinosaurs. And once life is on the planet and niches are being filled, amoebas tend to stay amoebas.

Ron Perlman narrated Fallout 3 (doesn't anyone have google?).

Okay, so not close to as many creatures? Got it.

Gorbachof wrote:

Ron Perlman narrated Fallout 3 (doesn't anyone have google?).

Well we are on a bugent of $0.00 so if you can get him to work on that, go for it.

Poisson wrote:

Gorbachof wrote:

Ron Perlman narrated Fallout 3 (doesn't anyone have google?).

Well we are on a bugent of $0.00 so if you can get him to work on that, go for it.

Well yeah, but thats not counting the $0.00 i'm investing.

Sorry, apocs/zombies/shooters are not my feild of expertise. And my Google is currently being managed by my lazy, so good luck with that.

Don't forget the two paperclips and a shoestring I threw into the piggy bank!

Whoa. The new background os awesome


That's a lot of donation money...

Dudeman wrote:

Whoa. The new background os awesome


That's a lot of donation money...

Certainly more than I make in a week.

So it is agreed that we will have the video be about the formation of the universe. Ugh, why does it seem like we go over the same crap at each forum?

We never agreed to that. Only you did.


Plus that's not as epic.

Not as epic? The formation of the universe? Of everything? Not as epic?

My opinion is firm. Opening movie = Formation of everything, which you cannot affect, for obvious reasons.
Game = Formation of everything living and godly, which you can affect (and if you didn't know that you can affect the game then where have you been forumming?).

So I agree to this proposal, and to this proposal I agree: Epic formation of everything, not sort of epic formation of nearly everything but not quite because it doesn't cover the everything bit but just some stuff later on which doesn't quite sound as epic to me.

Dudeman wrote:

We never agreed to that. Only you did.


Plus that's not as epic.

Actually on the old forums we for the most part agreed to it.

And it is actually fairly epic if doen well.

We need a history box or someplace to dump the agreements that were made way back when... Even if they're not pretty, someone might want to look at them.

Big giant universe = potential to be epic. possibly with background music.

Hey, I'm back (weekends). The new backround is pretty cool...
Anyway, the formation of the Universe as an open cut scene sounds good, so like a big bang with everthing spining around in fast forward until crap begins to form with some sort of epic Ron Perlman narration?

(P.S. is everyone just testing the reputaion button on me or what?)

There's a reputation button?

Again, universe supported, wouldn't know Ron Perlman from a hole in the wall... his voice, maybe, but I'm bad with famous names. Took me the longest time when my college roommate was yakking about the royal wedding to figure out that Fergie the singer and fergie as a nickname for the duchess of Ferguessen aren't the same person... I know I spelled that wrong. I'm bad with locations in England too.

Whoa. Everything has been switched around

I wasn't hare on the old forums, so sorry for that...
Alright, we'll do the formation of the universe. But we need some sort of script for what actually happens. Anybody want to do that? I'm not writing a new one. Like, for instance...

Quote :

At first you can see nothing... Only blackness. Then, as your camera moves forward–which you can't tell it's doing since there is nothing to base your movements on–and which must start quickly for the player to not think his game just died–a small, bright light begins to appear, in the center of your screen. Gradually, it enlarges, until you finally realize that it is all of the universe, crumpled into a tiny ball of light. Sparks are orbiting it at extreme speeds, and rays of light seem to light up the world around them. The bright source of light, seemingly so harmless, suddenly explodes in a light so bright that the screen turns white... And then blackens. Like going blind, your can't see a thing. Then, like gaining your vision back, you begin to see clouds of gasses... Just floating there...

At the very end...

Quote :

Suddenly your camera plunges into the newborn planet's atmosphere, straight toward the ground... Until the moment in which the camera looks like it'll hit. Then the screen suddenly turns black. The Thrive logo flickers to life, like an old light turning on, and a vertical beam of light passes along it. It fades into the blackness and you begin the game.

I'm not too keen on narrations. It feels to me that videos with only sound effects that show you what happened are epicer than ones where you are told what happens...

If we're doing anything like narrations, then I think should be text.