We design the game! Part 4: The Setting

[Badpaladin]

Dark. Unforgiving. Enlightenment.

- Why dark? More like why not. I'm talking the whole works -- personal tragedies, political scheming and war.
- Unforgiving? I'm not talking about difficulty of the game. The world is not a comfortable place to be in unless you have power.
- Enlightenment? Enlightenment era, preferably France or England.

[Ridesdel]

post-apocalyptic, hard Sci-Fi, medieval

I'm talking 1000+ years after a major disaster, could be a nuclear war, could be global warming, could have been anything that decimated the human population, and cause them to regress to a medieval type social structure and technology, but with hard Sci-Fi elements thrown in, think Stargate-ish, as the game goes on, you, and the enemies you face, discover, and figure out how to use, more and more ancient technology(possible tie-in to RPG? different ways of setting up tech for different specs/abilities?). This type of "level up" would allow non-linear story by having the story progress by the items you find, and how you use/activate the items. For example, you discover a power source, but it could be used as an explosive device instead, so you have two, or more, choices in the items you find, different choices would lead you down different "paths" in the game, with enough choices turning you enemies to allies, allies to enemies, or even turning all against you.

[Markluzz]

Reality Time Rifts
Let me explain this in detail because it is fairly confusing. The setting is (possibly a tad futurist or tad past) present day Earth and the player is working in secret to keep Earth stable from time and plane rifts. There would be open rifts at different iconic world locations you could go to and the antagonist is a mafia (maybe even illuminati) trying to use the powers of the rifts to gain control of the world.

When you go through a rift it is like Doctor Who almost and it takes you to a different time (maybe even reality) surrounding that location. Such as a rift in the middle of the roman colosseum and once you go through you are in the middle of gladiators fighting to the death and you have to find a way to close the rift within that time frame and adapt your weapon arsenal to that time period. Each time period has a main quest line to close the rift with many optional quest lines in that time period. Btw there will be multiple rifts at one time for you to go through and there are even missions on normal earth aswell that are lead ups to traveling through the rift.

[Ridesdel]

Reality Time Rifts
Let me explain this in detail because it is fairly confusing. The setting is (possibly a tad futurist or tad past) present day Earth and the player is working in secret to keep Earth stable from time and plane rifts. There would be open rifts at different iconic world locations you could go to and the antagonist is a mafia (maybe even illuminati) trying to use the powers of the rifts to gain control of the world.

When you go through a rift it is like Doctor Who almost and it takes you to a different time (maybe even reality) surrounding that location. Such as a rift in the middle of the roman colosseum and once you go through you are in the middle of gladiators fighting to the death and you have to find a way to close the rift within that time frame and adapt your weapon arsenal to that time period. Each time period has a main quest line to close the rift with many optional quest lines in that time period. Btw there will be multiple rifts at one time for you to go through and there are even missions on normal earth aswell that are lead ups to traveling through the rift.

sounds a little like the Pendragon book series, mixed with doctor whoish

[Markluzz]

sounds a little like the Pendragon book series, mixed with doctor whoish

Never heard of the pendragon series.

[Ridesdel]

Never heard of the pendragon series.

http://djmachalebooks.com/books/pendragon/

good series, but it's a little for teens/Young adults

[Voidgazer]

Cthulhu Mythos, Technomagic, Alternate History

The World War 2 never happened, instead 3 super powers were growing freely until they came to a time when they could not expand any more, without invading territories of the other two. Thus the final war for global domination has begun. The superpwoers as you might have guessed are: USA, Soviet Union and The Third Reich.

Without economical, social and other crises, atheistic proletarian society of the Soviet Union began rapidly developing new technologies and made lots of scientific discoveries. Led by philosophy of humanity's limitless abilities for technological advancement and ultimate destiny of masters over nature, the Soviets have harnessed new sources of power and developed energy weaponry. The Red Army equipped with highly advanced power suits, manned giant mecha robots and unmanned battle drones.

Though Germany managed to avert the armed conflict, the idea of Aryan race superiority found a broad support from the German nation. Secret societies and organizations like Thule and Ahnenerbe came to power. But what's even more disturbing is that in ancient books and forgotten catacombs they actually managed to find what they sought for so long. Mgical tomes and artifacts found in Europe and all over the world, and in secret gathered in Germany, allowed them to learn magic. The Third Reich finally arose, but far more dangerous than it was in our world. The Reich army consists of powerful sorcerers in enchanted plate armor, capable of summoning spirits and demons. They are led by great undead generals of myths and legends.

Isolated and undisturbed society of USA was thriving. Rich and prosperous American people soon started to grew bored of their mundane lives as well as common entertainment. They started to seek new experience, often bizarre and forbidden. Strange and evil cults emerged from dark alleys, epidemic cases of madness stroke the country and corruption took root in the minds of people. Finally the eldritch forces revealed themselves as alien Outer Gods, and offered unimaginable power to the American government. In awe and terror they submitted allegiance to their dreadful masters and sealed the pact. And the next moment maddening alien energies transformed citizens of the United States into monstrous abominations. Frightened the government and politics saved their own, though twisted and evil consciousness, by sacrificing their nation, and turning them into mindless thralls. USA army consits of fleshy alien terrors of all kinds, led by colossal telepathic overlords, who spread terror and madness on the battlefield.

[Hitei]

Future. Technological. Power-struggle

The setting is a heavily populated colony world at the heart of the human galactic empire in the distant future. The world itself is known for it's robotic and automated-systems development and distribution, and is the primary exporter both advanced hardware used in everything from research space stations to the average household, and ships and robots. Advanced technology that isn't manufactured on this planet, was probably developed and prototyped here.

All materials and resources are imported from other worlds, and the majority of the planet's surface is covered in artificial structures. The factories and buildings over the world, entire cities, are built downwards instead of upwards, tunneling deep into the crust of the planet. the The planet is one of many orbiting a very distant, very hot O-type star, leaving the surface bathed in a blueish twilight during the day, and lit by brilliant starlight at night.

A great deal of the game takes place in the various facilities and buildings below the surface, a labyrinth of pristine white halls and massive industrial factory chambers, connected by various high-speed railways and ship tunnels linking hangars.

The people of this world are gruff and no-nonsense, used to working to fill quotas or meet deadlines. The world is locked in an endlessly old power-struggle between the government operated by the well-to-do citizen's of the planet, the corporations occupying most of the land (mainly run from off world headquarters on distant worlds or lavish massive space stations), and borderline-terrorist union organizations fighting guerrilla warfare in the name of the average corporate employee.


------------------------------------------
Below is a general idea of the game I thought of when imagining the setting--since I feel a huge part of the setting is the perspective from which it will be seen, which is greatly dependent on the story and game.


The game takes a spin on the popular robot-uprising idea, letting you play as the robot instead of a human.

You play as a newly activated combat android prototype, awakening in a deeply burrowed, laboratory of a corporation that develops military equipment. Struggling with your own identity, you fight your way out of the corporation's facilities against well equipped humans and less advanced previous robot models under the corporation's control. As you progress, you begin to better understand your own capabilities and features.

You are introduced, as you fight, to the AI in control of the corporation's virtual assets and information, as well as the infrastructure of the buildings you are in. Determining you to be far more capable mentally and physically than it's human controllers, the AI offers to help you eliminate the humans in control of the facility, and take control of operations yourself, thereby increasing productivity and furthering it's own power by proxy. You may choose to do this, or merely escape, but upon finishing your confrontation with your creators, you reach the surface and find your existence, and actions are more notable than you had first intended. With an entire world informed of your escape and on high alert, and various factions seeking your capture, submission, or destruction--You must decide if you will escape this wicked planet, find a worthy faction among the many vying for power, or burn the world that created you down with the very tools they gave you.

The sleek and elegant pinnacle of military technology, you are versatile and can transform to meet the situation at hand. You are able to shift into a high-movement, low-profile roller form (similar to a droidika or Samus ), a heavily shielded hard hitting veritable artillery battery, a partially cloaked stealth/scouting form, and an agile blade-wielding close combat form, among others. You are of course, also able to the human's own weapons against them, and subvert the programming of lesser robots, and to some extent, the technology of the environment itself in order to further your cause.

[Ynna]

Wow, so many interesting and creative suggestions. Voting is going to be very hard (and I hope we get a lot of people voting, since we've got so many suggestions).

Currently, their are 18 suggestions, and you can have 19 poll-options. This leaves only room for one more, so I'm going to start voting when we get there.

[GW2lacky]

Steampunk. Lovecraft. Star Wars.


(couldn't actually think of a third word)

[Deleted]

Steampunk setting with a totalitarian regime.

[Ynna]

• Medieval. Grim. Magical.
• Ancient. Dark. Realistic.
• Dark. Steampunk. Fantasy.
• Steampunk. Wartime. Victorian
• Egyptian. Feudal. Magical
• Steampunk. Dark. Adventerous
• Post apocalyptic future
• Realistic, Religious and Greek
• Magical Victorian Science-fiction
• Galactic Grim Technology
• Lesbian Space School
• Dark Unforgiving Enlightenment
• Post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi, medieval
• Reality Time Rifts
• Cthulhu Mythos, Technomagic, Alternate History
• Future Technological Power-struggle

This is the current list of possible choices. If you want to add more, or expand your entry you have between one and two hours before voting starts (and I hope we've got a lot of people voting, with so many options).

---------- Post added 2012-06-06 at 09:14 PM ----------

Voting is now life. I'm glad we've gotten many interesting suggestions and I'll personally have a hard time picking one. I'm also a little bit disappointed that some interesting suggestions didn't have more explanation to them, but I guess you can't have everything I hope we get a lot of voters.

Voting will end in approximately 12 hours.

[icedwarrior]

Bah, looks like I missed the suggestion period. Boo.

Also looks like I'm the first voter. Hmm.

Lesbian. Space. School.

While I realize this was suggested as a joke, I actually think this could be an interesting choice. Other than Persona 4, who dealt with a bi-sexual person, I can't think of any other game that handled any non-straight characters (at least tastefully). And I'm pretty sure dealing with lesbians would garner a lot of interest. The setting of space would mean that it's a futuristic setting, allowing for some interesting weapon choices, as well as technology. It could also mean that you'd have to visit multiple planets / solar systems... perhaps their planet is blown-up, and must find a suitable planet for them to live on. And school could be a viable place to explore their relationships with others, with themselves, with their enemies, etc. It could also function as a break from the combat, somewhere where they could gain experience by studying or something.

I believe that there's some potential here. Voted "Lesbian. Space. School." (and no, not just because it has lesbians.)

[Deleted]

I voted Lesbian space school because I am so intrigued by the idea and actually want to hear how this could pan out, I mean for one, it might be very original.

[Deleted]

Will link this one (new Extra Credits episode) http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/hard-boiled
it deals with maturity, grittyness, grimness and.. darkness? in games as of late. Very interesting and with the current topic it might be worth taking a look at.

On the poll, can't you allow say 3 votes per person? I don't know if it is even possible but with this many alternatives (and this few voters) the poll will probably be won by something with 3 votes. If we can vote on more stuff it should be the best that wins in the end. Also I feel that many options are quite similar, too, so it could make sense with more votes per voter.

[Ynna]

Will link this one (new Extra Credits episode) http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/hard-boiled
it deals with maturity, grittyness, grimness and.. darkness? in games as of late. Very interesting and with the current topic it might be worth taking a look at.

On the poll, can't you allow say 3 votes per person? I don't know if it is even possible but with this many alternatives (and this few voters) the poll will probably be won by something with 3 votes. If we can vote on more stuff it should be the best that wins in the end. Also I feel that many options are quite similar, too, so it could make sense with more votes per voter.

Yeah, I was amazed with so many people suggesting grim and gritty settings. And the Extra Credits episode is oddly fitting.

And yes, in hindsight, allowing multiple votes would have been a good idea. I'm afraid I can't change it now, which is a shame. (I really should have given that more thought...) I hope this round of voting garners enough interest to make it worth it.

@Lesbian Space School: It does have a surprising amount of possibilities, but I feel it would be hard to do it tastefully.

[Remilia]

Uchuu no Stellvia, lesbian style, do eeet.

[pickley]

I voted for Lesbian space school...because C'mon.....

[vep]

You expect anything serious with an option "lesbian space school"?

[Ms Andry]

Bah, looks like I missed the suggestion period. Boo.

Also looks like I'm the first voter. Hmm.



While I realize this was suggested as a joke, I actually think this could be an interesting choice. Other than Persona 4, who dealt with a bi-sexual person, I can't think of any other game that handled any non-straight characters (at least tastefully). And I'm pretty sure dealing with lesbians would garner a lot of interest. The setting of space would mean that it's a futuristic setting, allowing for some interesting weapon choices, as well as technology. It could also mean that you'd have to visit multiple planets / solar systems... perhaps their planet is blown-up, and must find a suitable planet for them to live on. And school could be a viable place to explore their relationships with others, with themselves, with their enemies, etc. It could also function as a break from the combat, somewhere where they could gain experience by studying or something.

I believe that there's some potential here. Voted "Lesbian. Space. School." (and no, not just because it has lesbians.)

I actually wasn't joking about it, I just didn't think it through that well. I'm not so sure about the school part exactly, but I've always liked space settings and always liked lesbians so you know.

I mean, sounds like a great game to me

---------- Post added 2012-06-06 at 01:32 PM ----------

@Lesbian Space School: It does have a surprising amount of possibilities, but I feel it would be hard to do it tastefully.

It could be plenty tasteful! Just because it's lesbians it's gotta be sex sex sex?

I mean, it could be and I wouldn't have a problem with that either, but still.