Here's a story I want to tell
I've had an idea for a story I want to tell banging around in my head for 7 or 8 years at this point. This isn't that story; it's just a description of it. The story needs an interactive medium, I first conceived of it as a video game though I suppose it could be a visual novel or a CYOA.
In it's original conception, it came out of me playing Mass Effect: Andromeda and speedrunning Risk of Rain in the same period of my life, this would've been around 2018. I didn't like the gameplay of Mass Effect, but I liked the characters. I wondered if there was a way to put the two together; to have the character-driven storytelling angle of an RPG with a more engaging gameplay loop than the boring cover-shooter of Mass Effect, something like the quick loop and iteration of a rogue-lite.
The idea I came up with was to have a rogue-lite with a companion system, where, due to the cosmic coin-clip of the universe, you end up with a different companion for each run through. Then, to have a system where you could complete the character side-quests for the characters you weren't travelling with (and technically, hadn't even met), by taking certain actions on the quests of the character you were travelling with, or in the main storyline.
The story this would serve would be one of acceptance and grief. It's a rogue-lite, so it's naturally powered by some kind of time loop. The story is preceded by some tragedy. When you fail a run, you get sent back in time, but not early enough to prevent the initial tragedy. When you succeed (complete the main objective) you have a chance to exit the loop. When you fully succeed, completing each character's quest in a single run-through, you are given the opportunity to go back and undo whatever the initial tragedy is, or simply to continue onwards, ending the game either way.
I want this to relate to a feeling I've had lately. I used to ruminate a lot about how I would change things if I could go back in time. But now, I don't think I would if I had the opportunity. I've met wonderful people, my life is good as it is, and the mistakes I've made turned me in to who I am; I don't want to lose it by going back and undoing it all. This goes for the people I love, too. I have friends who have accomplished great things, met the loves of their lives, who are happy; what if my mucking about changed things for them? What if I butterfly-effected their accomplishments and happiness out of existence?
I'd love to capture that feeling. Ideally by the end of a golden run, after having done enough runs to get to know each character, the player is more invested in the successes and tales of the characters than the player character's tragedy; the "good" choice to make is to accept the run, allow your character, and the world they've created, to persist, instead of going back to change everything, just to undo some tragedy that the player couldn't be particularly invested in, anyways.
This is just a description. Maybe I never find the time to actually make it into anything real. Maybe I never come up with a satisfying way to start the story up. What is the tragedy? what is the driver of story, absent that? idk yet. Or, maybe, this becomes the thing that I let kill me. I've come back to it repeatedly over the years.