This is a piece of design work done for my Setting and World Design module. Initially we worked in groups in order to create an entire setting for a game – this setting, in my case a city called Alitheia, was then used in our own individual work as the basis for a video game. The synopsis of my game, Of Science and Shadows, is as follows: A boy of mysterious background, Hacker, begins having strange dreams that directly mirror his life, and the surrounding world. Abandoned at birth to live in a communal house with other forgotten souls in Alitheia’s Outer City, he discovers Objective SKOTO and from there the world he has come to know begins to shift and reveal its true self. Trying his best to do what is right while thrown into a secret plot involving both the government – The Scientist Party – and the elusive Shadow People, he learns of his own background and, more importantly, that he is the only being capable of altering this world’s course. Discovering that he is the hybrid child of a human and a Shadow Person, the choices he makes and whose side he takes are crucial and possibly deadly. In a city where there is no true good, but plenty of evil intent, the fate of everything humanity knows lies in his hands. What is this thing called ‘colour’ and why is its existence hidden? What are The Scientist Party’s true intentions? Is his birth mother’s claim she is fighting the good fight true? Only Hacker’s choices can reveal these answers. A third-person role-playing game of mystery, choices and action: Of Science and Shadows explores the dark underbelly of a seemingly perfect city. My work involved a breakdown of the core mechanics, the narrative structure, cutscenes and events, and then zoomed in on one of these sections to give a detailed explanation of the precise way the game’s chapter would unfold. Below is a flowchart I created of the base story beats: Text explaining two of the combat mechanics in-game: Hacker has several tools at hand to aid him on his journey. His inherent ability at hacking and programming enables him to alter his own Graphene Chip to avoid being tracked but, more importantly, when fighting against humans he can hack their weapons and Graphene Chips. ‘Weapons Hack’ is simple and quick to do, and is an area of effect attack: simply, it either stops the weapons in the chosen area from firing, or the next shot backfires and hurts the shooter (this will be random). This ability works similarly to Overwatch’s (Blizzard Entertainment, 2016) Sombra’s EMP ultimate. Most enemies with basic technical abilities will be able to override the hack shortly, but this momentary distraction might be all Hacker needs to make quick work of them. His second hacking option is tapping into an enemy’s Graphene Chip. Every citizen of Alitheia has one of these Chips installed, as per the Government’s request, so when fighting against humans this option is always available. ‘Chip Infiltration’ takes longer than Weapons Hack to implement, but the effects are much longer lasting and deadlier. Hacking a person’s Chip during a fight will overwrite all the information stored on it and will leave the human in great pain and confusion. This subsides when the programmers tasked with monitoring all the Graphene Chips of the city notice the error and re-code the enemy’s Chip, returning them to normal (the time it takes for this to happen varies). Chip Infiltration also has a use outside of combat, and can be used by Hacker while roaming through Alitheia to discover interesting titbits of information from the average citizen (similar to Watch_Dogs’ (Ubisoft, 2014) mechanic). An example of the branching dialogue I wrote from the chapter I zoomed in on (called The Assassin, the Shadow, and the Gun), written using the software Chat Mapper: And lastly, an example of a lore entry from the same chapter, written using the screenwriting software Celtx: Comments are closed.
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