How would you have done it?

[Haoie]

Using the otherworld as a pure game mechanic was a bad, bad move.

[Nillin]

I don't agree. It added more confusion to the mix and was somewhat original, and neither of those things are particularly bad.

[Zerosignal]

For SH 0rigins, i simply would have retitled it. It really didn't explain much about the "origin" of anything, at least nothing we didn't already know or couldn't infer from SH1.

For a SH origins game i would have set it way further back. Play the part of a Native American or a settler or something, from when it was called the place of silenced spirits or whatever they called it in that book of lost memories thing. there wouldn't be a otherworld, but maybe something similar to it where two realities exist at once, some kind of spirit world of something. I forget if the coal fire happened at all in the game timeline, but i'd probably do something with that. (not everything has to be documented anyway, perhaps they'd try to cover up something like that so that people would still want to come there)

I'd certainly do something with the Witch Trials or something similar, there could be a cult (perhaps show the origins of the cult itself) and you could play as a character married to a pagan (or something that "witch hunters" would automatically assume was evil) and you'd be, of course, cought in the crossfire trying to save them but finding out about the cult in the process.

Then i'd throw in the plot twist, the witch hunters would end up actually being the cult members themselves, hiding in plain sight since they have the respect of the whole town, no one would suspect them of being the cult itself.

I went further with that then i planned to, but yeah. That would rule. Pardon any plotline stuff or historical facts i may have gotten out of order, but hey, if the SH team can do it then so can i