Wednesday, 19 October 2011

MYSTERY HOUSE REBOOT (part 2)

Part 3 : Developing the game (part 2)

Plot & Concepts 2:


*note*
The idea had been changed quite drastically, this is because I thought the previous idea was too stale and don't really have anything much to play around with, so i added a supernatural element which I think should make the concept a lot more exciting and interesting.

Genre: Supernatural Thriller Puzzle game-play

In game ideology

“The mind & soul produces certain chemical that lingers upon the body’s disposal, this last moments of consciousness can be tapped with the right method and apparatus, provided the body was never moved or tampered from the spot where the incident had occurred, the more extreme the moment of death is, the more memorable it became, thus leaving more distinct ‘stain’ and easier to be tapped into; eg soldiers died in battle/ the fear induced in death by torture.”

Prologue:
-       Julian arrived in a gothic looking mansion looking for his sister, Jewel, who went missing.
-       After exploring the mansion and discovering that he is able to ‘dive’ into a corpse’s last moments before they die, Julian freaked out and tried to escape
-       Only to find out that the bridge connecting from the mansion ground to the ‘outside world’ had been destroyed, someone is trying to keep him in.
-       Without any options left (dialing for help doesn’t work due to signal absence) Julian explores the Mansion to find traces of his sister through puzzles & corpses and finally stumbled upon a secret lab (The Abyss).
-        The plot thickens….

Full Plot:
-       At the beginning of the game, Julian discovered he is a ‘Diver’ and is able to tap into dead people’s last moments and uncover some information and memories from them (in forms of puzzles & action sequences), there are 7 (reference to original game) main boss fights (Dying Memories) throughout the story involving 7 people that died in peculiar ways (elemental) throughout the mansion.
-       It turns out that Jewel & Julian both are part of a project created by a conglomerate, Seth Haissem, who hired scientist and occultist to research upon this ability to tap into people’s Dying Memories (justified by his reasons of understanding how world war soldiers died/ spies/ historical figures and make the world a better place) The only difference is, Jewel volunteered for the project (although she got reluctant after knowing people are killed for this project) & Julian was entirely clueless.
-       At the end of the game, Jewel was accidentally killed by Seth in the secret lab, which triggered the full ability of Julian’s dive, he managed to tap into his sister’s memories (not just her last moments) and find out ways to stop Seth and kill him and also escapes from the place.
-       The ending shows how Julian manage to carry Jewel all the way out of the Canyon and collapsed out of exhaustion (died) on a field overlooking the mansion which is now in flames.
-       After credit roll, an unknown figure came towards the now deceased Jewel and Julian and tapped into his Dying Memories. (new game+)


Game-play mechanics:
-       Maneuvering around is divided into 2 sections E&E (Exploring & Examining.)
-       Exploring allows player to control Julian in Third-Person view and move around the page by page environment (mostly), usually in areas connecting from one place to another like hallways, path, etc.
-       Examining changes the view into first-person, usually when entering a room or examining object of interest.
-       There are occasional QTE (Quick Time Events) that occurs throughout the game (usually involving traps) success leads to progression of the game and failure means starting all over from previous checkpoint or simply retries on the same QTE (depending on how serious the event is).
-       Puzzles are abundant throughout and they are usually solved interactively; point & click, tap, drag, shake, etc.
-       Dying Memories comes in form of everything above ( E&E, QTE, Puzzles) and usually QTEs comes after tapping into Dying Memories. Also as Julian ‘dives’ into people’s memory, he will start and end the scene as that person, but gameplay will still be as Julian.
-       To die in Dying Memory (no matter how paradoxical it sounded) just meant that an attempt of diving into the memory failed, after a third failed attempt, it gets blurry (memory unstable), however it will be easier to pass through.
-       Cut-scenes are in a form of animation that occurs in certain parts of the plot.


Meanings & metaphors:

-       Jewel represents the treasure that everyone (Seth and Julian) is looking for, precious to Seth because he thought she’s the only ‘Diver’ he knows & precious to Julian because they’re siblings.

-       7 main ‘bosses’ that died in a certain way represents the 7 elements of the world that will play quite a big part in the storyline. Fire, Water, Void, Wind, Earth, Light & Dark, they will die according to their represented elements; for example water element ‘boss’ died by drowning in a tank and Earth element died impaled on a tree. 

-       ‘Dying Memory’ system is heavily influenced by Demon Souls & Dark Souls online experience, whereby players are able to touch other players ‘bloodstains’ and observe how they die and learn about nearby traps or ambush, etc.






example of bloodstains gameplay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daToWE2sgGo&feature=related

The idea of ‘Diving’ came form an old JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game) called Alundra, who is a ‘Dreamwalker’ and able to enter people’s dreams in forms of dungeons to liberate them from nightmares.


concept of dreamwalking




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