Storyline Struggles

As a larger group of 5 people coming up with an idea that everybody agrees on is particularly difficult. Everyone has so many very different ideas on what they want this game to be makes the whole thing very difficult.A number of ideas that get put forward either one or more people generally poses a strong dislike for the idea or want something different. One idea like this is the idea of making a horror game based on a story that is made to frighten and scare the player, an idea that I am really not keen on. I basically see the horror genre as too much of an easy way out in terms of story not only in games, but films especially. Not to mention recently they are being over done with games like Amnesia: The dark descent and Slender captivating a huge number of people. Unfortunately for me a number of the group want to pursue the idea so I may have to bite the bullet in order for us to make a solid decision.

The main problem we are finding though is that no one is making any solid decisions, I have suggested compromises to the horror story by incorporating horror elements into any new ideas I put forward, but people seem rather hell bent on keeping the game based solely on scaring the player, of course with a bit of story underneath. I am just worried that with a horror based game we will become to focused on scaring the player and not put in enough effort into actually exploring the project which is narrative and storytelling through games. Never the less the group seems to be stuck in this stage of deciding on a story and nothing is really getting done, its starting to get frustrating and with my trip to china quickly approaching I would really like to have a solid story sorted out so that we can just get on with making the game itself.

Meeting's with tutor's at this point really don't seem to be helping all that much, as because we don't have a solid idea about what we are doing, the new suggestions and advice they give whilst being both conflicting and very different tend to just send us back into indecision and trying to please not only everyone in the group but the tutors that will be assessing us as well. The whole situation gets a little stressful at times and I just hope things will sort themselves out before too long.