On Geneforge remake and canisters and things

[rist]

So charname using canisters is canon in G1 (and kind of necessary to experience the game as intended). Should the remake stay completely true to this, or should there be a canister counter like in 2, 3 and 4, with canisters being less critical to experience the various spells and shaping skills? Should the canister counter have more references/story impacts throughout the games?

Is there a non-aligned ending that would work?

 

How do you think the story of the 'outsiders' will be handled in the remake such that it fits in with the later games of the series?

[googoogjoob]

I suspect there will be as few changes made to the plot and dialogue etc as possible. The RPG mechanics will probably be reworked, but the canisters are a big enough part of the game, not just as a way to learn skills absent trainers, but as a plot point and their frequent use as reward for exploration or quest-solving, that I imagine they'll probably play a basically unaltered role in the remake. It'd be a lot of work to rework it into something like the later games, where canisters are less common and less important. (Maybe the remake will make using at least one canister actually mandatory, and not just theoretically mandatory, like using the Geneforge in 4 is.) The protagonist suffering or not suffering from canister-based derangement would, I think, not really make much difference to the endings, anyway. The existing endings focused on the player character becoming power-mad and destructive all also feature them having used the Geneforge, which is more than enough to explain that sort of megalomania.

There already is sort of a nonaligned ending- where you just get on the boat and leave the island without resolving the Geneforge issue. This de facto means Trajkov winning, but also resenting you for not helping him win. The story is set up so that it's not really possible for no one to win per se- even destroying the Geneforge so no one can use it counts as a Shaper loyalist victory, because that's what the Shapers would want.

I don't know of any major inconsistencies between the depiction of the Sholai in 1 and plot elements in later games.

[TheKian]

There is a canister counter in the original Geneforge. It's fairly minor (off the top of my head, all I can think of is the infodump servile for each faction who shows you a mirror), and there are set places in the game where it tells you about how your body is shifting etc. from the canisters, although that part happens even if you don't use any canisters.