Indie Game Development - First Steps?

[Paingod]

I've been mulling over a story to help explain game mechanic decisions and provide some framework for a universe I may re-use somewhere down the road. Basically it explains why you're running an AI ship with no crew, how you respawn every time you die, and the purpose behind fighting through increasingly harder waves of enemies across multiple levels. It's no War and Peace, and I don't really have plans to tell a story after the tutorial (but could).

When I ran it by my wife, she said that (in her opinion) it was annoying when a game provided a detailed story but the gameplay amounted to Space Invaders. If a game like Crimsonland had a 5 minute story at the front-end that explained you being marooned on an alien world, would it diminish the experience of shooting aliens for the next 20 hours?

I'd be curious what others thought.

[Kasey Chang]

Just say it's a "training sim" to teach cadets about 2-D maneuvers against different kinds of targets. This is basically baby course. The advanced course would be in 3D.

[hitbyambulance]

most developers are not story-tellers. my opinion is to focus on strengths and keep amateur-hour efforts away so the focus can be on the gameplay.

(it's well documented on this site that i'm not a fan of story in the games i play in the first place)