Larian Studios and the Mature Steampunk Vampire RPG That Never Was
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(Victorian Vampire is a new mature-audience steam-punk RPG set in 1861 in which you take on the role of a young brilliant archaeologist who becomes a vampire against his/her will, and travel the world of the American civil war, Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin and Louis Pasteur in a mad race against somebody who should not have been woken.)
I ran around pitching this to the usual suspects, and remarkably, my agents were right and there indeed was some interest for an original vampire RPG. So heading back to the office, I made my notes here's what I found back in my archive, dated August 12th 2010, just after Gamescom:
Ok what can you do ?
Vampire idea seems to be working. You need to work it out now, but you might actually make a smaller game out of it, the idea being that you generate quicker revenu out of it, the risk being lower. They'll only fund if risk is gone, if at all.
Alternative: Self-publish an item-fever focussed action RPG baded on Div 2? Boring, so abandon that thought train. What about going back to the roots ? Top-down, everything that made Divinity 1 cool + all the things you wanted to do but didn't ? Think about that.
Whatever it is, you'll need to do this on console too, or it's not going to work. If on console, you need to put multiplay/coop in. High risk.
Art deco, art nouveaux is cool though.
And you need to put the dilemma system in. That works.
Don't do linear, even if you're tempted to cut costs.
Maybe Go top-down, go ga-ga on the amounts of enemies you are dealing with , massive damage, including environmental options and make the killing visceral enough (as in explosive rather than ragdolls). Put dopamine releasing X minute reward moments in it on the item fever part. Power is felt by the amount of enemies you can destroy in one go victorian setting will really shine here.
Do the guy with the hat and the gun/stick (so he has ranged and melee at the same time, allow him to upgrade those and do cool moves with it) give him charles babbage/inventor technology for the specials (molotov cocktails, tesla electrical effect.)
Develop it as an IP that can go downloadable but can be extended if publishers show interest. I.e. you develop the base, the stuff that goes on in there, and you come up with a backstory that works for the limited case. On failure to sell, at least you can put it out as DLC.
Detective story ?
So think, can you do a cinemaware style DLC ? Use the victorian vampire setting ? Put that in multiplay, mix in the new choice system ?
Get team to make a victorian street (jack the ripper, foggy street) in which our character (with the hat) deals death and destruction to hordes of foes together with lady other player. Put in new interactive dialogue system, take one very cool situation. Should be sexy. If anything, it'll look good on collective portfolios ;)
Talk to designers, see what victorian gives, have a look at what we could do top-down. Need new engine though.
