Whitechapel Game Idea

Hi all

I have always enjoyed VTM computer games since I first bought VTMR what now seems many years ago, VTMR was good for its day but of course VTMB just blew me away since the day it came out, I have enjoyed playing more recently the mods that I have found on this website.

However in the past few months I have found myself inspired to try and create my own game combining two of my greatest gaming interests basically a Jack The Ripper game set in the WOD enviroment, now I know there are no copyright issues with JTR but I am trying to find out who I should contact in order to be allowed to create my game in the WOD enviroment. At the moment I am learning how to use blender 2.6 so I can create unique models to the game but I feel it would be a pity if I could not give the game the WOD edge that I feel my idea has been desparately been crying out for.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice those who read this post give

Likity

Well, first, you'd need to contact White Wolf publishing as they own the rights to World of Darkness (I think their address is in the rulebooks). You also need to license a game engine. You haven't said whether or not this is a commercial product or not, but you'll need licenses in either case (I don't know any game engines that are totally license free).

If you're just starting game design, my recommendation would be to either mod Bloodlines, or get a game with a good editor - Neverwinter Nights (the first one) has a great toolset, large community, and you can do a lot with it without a huge learning curve. Great for putting more of your time into quests and gameplay than worrying about getting your landscape mesh to come out right.

Other games with editiors: The Witcher, Morrorwind, Oblivion (not sure about Skyrim), Neverwinter Nights 2, Dragon Age 1 - this one lets you mod almost anything in the game, all the way to combat mechanics, but the learning curve is huge, Torchlight. Probably a couple other that I can't think of right now.

If you want to go the engine route, C4 is one that's always looked good to me. Unreal has opened up it's engine to indie licensing quite a bit as well. Ogre has been used for quite a few games (Torchlight uses it).

You could also go the MUD route and use Circle or DikuMUD. If you keep it text based the odds of white wolf coming after you drop considerably as well. And MUD's still have a faithful following of those who believe that graphics break the immersion of a good game.


Start with modding something existing or doing a basic one town/one dungeon layout from a toolset. Game design is much harder than you can imagine until you actually dig in and try it.

Good response Mouser!

*blinks blinks*

Wasn't jack the reaper somewhere already in the world of darkness to begin with ?
Anyway, yeah, creating a game is a pain. However you might want and try to make a flash free game over to kongregate, for the lulz

Wow thanks for all the great advice, I really want to create a game from scratch, its something that has been on my to do list for sometime now and I have some knowledge of creating some cheap and cheerful 2D looking computer games with Games Master which I have a full license for.

The idea of JTR being a vampire has always been on the back burner project until I could create graphics I was personally happy with hence relearning Blender 2.6 which at first glace appeared very different from the Blender 2.49 that I was use to.

Would love to know more about Garry's mod and where I can download it if I can create a full game using it so I'll be doing a google after I've posted this.

So yeah basic experience with heavy research into the Whitechapel murders added with a WoD feel (wonder if I could get away with slight changes to group names?) haven't had much luck finding out how to contact White Wolf hopefully all combined with decent graphics and I should be able to produce a pretty cool game under an independant lable, just wish I could find voice actors as easily for this big project, expect arrival several years from now

Again thanks for all the great advice I'll keep you informed of development

So far all I have decided is that Jack is either a member of the Juwes sect or possibly the Juwes sect itself (think Sabbat without the copyright headaches, plus could lead to the PC leaving the infamous graffiti as a clue, The Juwes are not men, they are not blamed for nothing, not one of the three official statements we know about but who knows what was orginally written?)

likitysplit wrote:

So far all I have decided is that Jack is either a member of the Juwes sect or possibly the Juwes sect itself (think Sabbat without the copyright headaches, plus could lead to the PC leaving the infamous graffiti as a clue, The Juwes are not men, they are not blamed for nothing, not one of the three official statements we know about but who knows what was orginally written?)

I would not use that name for a sect...

To be fair it will be pronounced dew-es as in the mysterious masonic order (not to be mistaken for Jews the people, which has been done since the appearance of the graffiti) that has featured in several other ripper theories see 'Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution', 'Murder by Decree', and 'From Hell', for examples.

Admitally this idea was not my own but has been floating around the ripperolist world for several decades now. All I'll be changing ist that this mysterious group would be a sect of vampires as opposed to a group of mortal freemasons......although perhaps this sect might have some control over the freemasons to help them cover their tracks? ooooh my minds are bubbling over with excitement and so many ideas are spewing forth from them.

Don't forget that the original graffiti was ordered to be scrubbed off before anybody could make an scratching of it, Victorians didn't have the forensic protocol we have today and thus we can perhaps assume that it was this kind of hurry to clean up a crime scene and return to a form of Victorian decency that enabled Jack to get away with his crimes.

So yes I agree careful stepping with the pronounciation but I see no reason why it should not be the name of a vamparic sect.

The final solution ?
You guys should go back to school. This all sounds very nazi to me and i know nazis :-D
If its written, remember we do not ear the words as we read it.
I told you, jack was already integrated in the world of darkness, you can't make a crossover if it's already inside.
Read "vampire the masquerade, Victorian era".

Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution was written by Stephen Knight some time back in the 1970s, again I didn't title the book he did and I only used it as the original example of a theory. As I mentioned in my first post on this subject I have only really had access to the computer games so I was unaware that Jack featured in any other aspect of WoD, however I am more than happy to work around these ideas and not fully make it a game placed in the WoD enviroment but give it the 'feel' of such a game creating my own characters and groups as needed.

It would also be worthy to note that the original graffiti was written in 1888 long before Adolf was even a dirty thought in his father's mind, I do not condon the actions of the nazis hence why I will go to great lengths to make sure the sound is heard rather than read just as others have done before me.

Author Stephen Knight suggested that "Juwes" referred not to "Jews," but to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the three killers of Hiram Abiff, a semi-legendary figure in Freemasonry, and furthermore, that the message was written by the killer (or killers) as part of a Masonic plot. There is, however, no evidence that anyone prior to Knight had ever referred to those three figures by the term "Juwes". Knight's suggestion was used in fictional treatments of the murders, such as the film Murder by Decree, and the graphic novel From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulston_Street_graffito )

Of course all this is a moot point at this stage especially since I have only started formulating ideas for the game and almost anything can be changed if deemed necessary, or inflamantory, the last thing I wish to do with my game is to drift away from it being a fun thing to play and make it a matter of contronversy, however the words of P T Barnum jump to my mind for some reason, you can please all the people some of the time, some people all of the time, but never all the people all of the time

Well, if you want historical examples for declaring the Jews as the "cause of all evil in the world", you don't have to stick to Adolf.
Go back to the crusador's era, the spanish reconqesta and inquisition, all of the european renaissance era, victorian England... whatever.

-

*sighs and starts scrubbing the blackboard* you know what guys, forget it, lets pretend I never bothered to even have an idea.

At no point did I make the declaration that Jews were evil, nor do I wish to be casted as saying such things. So I'll just forget I even had an idea of creating a computer game and go back to my life of doing nothing worthwhile.

Sorry for wasting all your time I personally am not anti-sematic I just thought that I could keep an historical clue in the game and give another idea as to what the meaning of the word could be. I was unaware that I would be portrayed as being a nazi or anti-sematic for having such ideas. Especially considering I was trying to pull the word Juwes AWAY from any possible inflamatory suggestions.

So I'll just consider the lesson learned and won't bother proceeding with anything that could cause such obvious major upset

Don't let the misunderstanding of others drag you down, likitysplit. Just do what you have in mind and be happy with it. Better to try and regret than to regret not trying, as somebody wiser than me had once said.
And you went only as far as general concepts, so you haven't tried yet. Keep yer head up.

It's just that for me, the choice of words are very nazi in their meanings (like "work will set you free", "the final solution"..)

The mere idea of "mixing the worlds" is okay, IF Jack the Ripper was not already part of the WoD. But he is !

Reference = it's enough
Remember, it's all about the ST and what you make out of the world...
After all, it's not in the 100+ books ever edited for Vampire that you will find everything and anything But still, the world of darkness "contains" already references to Jack. You do whatever you want with it.

Again I would like to remind all that should I ever manage to bring my ideas to life I do not need to heavily rely upon the WoD enviroment, I am sure the thoughts that haunt my minds would be enough to conjure up a fantastic story that would have a WoD 'feel' I could give several cases of stories that could fit well into the WoD world only because of the 'feel' that were written long before VTM was even thought of (for some strange reason the voices whisper the name Poe as an example). One thing I have always recieved high praise for is my ability to tell a story whether it be fictional or based on actual events this game will give me an opportunity to combine all I have learned in story telling with a great love of mine, I can envision it will attract both Ripperologists and Vampire fans alike, lets not forget that White Wolf does not have the entire copyrights on anything to do with vampires, if they did the Bram Stoker estate would be in a world of trouble I'll have to do some more research but I am sure neither White Wolf nor myself could lay claim to being the first to come up with the idea of Jack being a vampire either.

I'll strongly consider many issues, and may keep you informed of development, needless to say I will need voice actors and beta testers along the way

Now how do I go about painting my malkavian colours on this spiders web?

likity

Whether or not Jack the Ripper is mentioned or is part of the "official" World of Darkness universe (either the current one or the one already destroyed by Gehenna) is irrelevant. He is a historical figure so there are no copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property issues. You can use him in a "World filled with Darkness" setting no problem (you couldn't call your world "World Filled With Darkness" though).

I seem to have started the small firestorm. All I said was I would not use that term. I believe most players would look at that word and see "Jews" mispelled, and assume it is some sort of reference to the Jewish people. Remember, all most people know about Jack the Ripper is that he killed people. A few of them might know he did it in England. A lot would probably pick Boston or New York if you were to take a survey. Many would also probably choose "fictional character" if asked if he was real or came from some book or other.

If you are serious about making a game, you have to consider issues like these. Do you want to deal with all the negative heat you'll get (rightly or wrongly) for using the term? Are you willing to alienate potential players for it. Some things you may say yes, it's worth the cost, others... not so much. For myself, personally, I would put "Juwes" in the 'not so much' category.

If I ever manage to get to the Gmod I paid for working again (apparently some issue on the Valve side of things according to the Gmod website) I will most certainly consider a lot of these issues, at the end of the day I just want to create a game that is as enjoyable to play as Bloodlines has been for me. From what I saw of Gmod, I will have to tweak a lot of things to get the game into the victorian enviroment but it did seem a tool that would be easy enough to use. Not making any promises at this very early stage other than watch this space

likity

now available on twitter @likitysplit76

likitysplit wrote:

If I ever manage to get to the Gmod I paid for working again (apparently some issue on the Valve side of things according to the Gmod website) I will most certainly consider a lot of these issues, at the end of the day I just want to create a game that is as enjoyable to play as Bloodlines has been for me. From what I saw of Gmod, I will have to tweak a lot of things to get the game into the victorian enviroment but it did seem a tool that would be easy enough to use. Not making any promises at this very early stage other than watch this space

likity

now available on twitter @likitysplit76

And this is one of the many reasons I will never buy anything from Steam...

I know it's not exactly the environment or ruleset you're looking for, but I'm going to recommend Neverwinter Nights I again. You can get one of the compilations (game + 2 expansions) pretty cheap on Amazon now, install it on whatever computers you have, and work whenever you want without having to worry about anyone else causing you headaches.

If you download the CEP (Community Expansion Pack) and CTP (Community Tileset Pack) you'll have more than enough resources to flesh out a world, and can get down to creating your storyline and seeing how it plays out. Once you've got that and some quests going, migrate the game to a different platform: not nearly as much work as you might think, since you're not really doing everything over again - the hard part of creating a story, characters, timeline, lore, and quests would already be done for the most part. All you're doing at that point is setting that stuff up in a different engine.

Strangely enough mouser I bought the NVN package from GOG a while back, it was one of the many things I had always meant to get hold of to see what all the hype was about, turned out to be a okish DnD style game, not that I've ever been a big fan of DnD and you are right making my own module might be fun but I feel I would be limited by the type of characters I could use, *shrugs*, think I'll give it a shot, create something small as a basis and work my ideas from there, let you know what develops and I'll upload it via the usual NVN channels, Gmod seems to be up and running again and my blender skills improve daily (although I think pass knowledge helped there, I'm basically relearning all the new keystrokes to be honest) so lots of things on the pipeline, expect to hear from me again soon

likity