hylander: IDEAS and new thinking from over the summer game idea

IDEAS and new thinking from over the summer game idea

matt hyland On Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Over the summer I had created an idea about this project.

I wanted to do another game enviroment deisgn like my transcription but this time, being a whole new idea.

I came up with this idea while playing Mass Effect two, while in the Krogan while the quote of the character saying "the plannet hates us and we hate it", but they bothe got allong and from this point the artistic style of teh place grabbed my attention.

Now onto the games concepts

This is the outline I had for the first and second game

Basically the world has been wiped out by nuclear war and everyone lives in bunkers. Between each of these Bunkers there's radio connection.

As years and time passes the bunkers start to get over filled as population starts to grow, so they start to dig under to other bunkers forming underground chambers and extra rooms.

Food and water start to grow thin, and so they develop underground farm chambers sourcing light from above, and tap into underground streams/making underground reservoirs.

As time moves on the underground networks of the links and farms, become larger and larger and finally underground cities. (Though actual tech is very limited as in cars and machinery and allot is salvaged from above ground, like glass and steel, through small salvage groups up on the ground in radiation suits)

(As metal and materials are scavenged, there are underground furnaces to create more and reproduce creating more resources/making more tech.)

Filtered air is pumped in from the surface and electric is done by solar panels.

Certain parts of areas of the underground land cant be mined due to the radiation being so deep with in the earth.

Across the country there are many of these cities that start linking up...

But old politics die hard.

--> Clean land starts getting harder to find.

--> Population starts getting larger and over crowding starts.

--> Ideas of repopulating the top soil start cropping up. (this cant be done due to the ozone layer is poor due to the war)

--> criminal communities with their own regimes and politics that newly connect to the cities start creating havoc/criminal gangs

--> money is hard to get

--> war starts to break out

How it starts

The game would start off with the story of the nuclear war wiping out the world, and the vid will start to go through the stages of what i explained with a voice over of what has happened from you being a child to were you are now.

you start off in an army training camp, when your base is suddenly attacked you have to defend the base along with your comrades (learning the basic player controls) after the mission after doing so well you get promoted you learn to command your troupes, using a mixture of 1'st person and 3rd person perspectives.

this was the first idea for this game, after talking with Tom Beg he gave me a few more directions and pointers like setting and art direction and structure.

After thinking through and re thinking about the setting I came up with a whole new idea evolved from the first idea

The first idea also struggles on an opposition (enamy to fight) and but aso strugles on allot of elements like art direction, all I had in my head was a picture of a giant underground city, and looking at Rock salt mines and really strugling on how I think I would light it.

This is the second idea

I think for once basing the game in England would be interesting... (a tad thing is is that i feel there's not many British WW2 styled games out there)

(This kind of has put a new spin on things, taking that the brits are used to the idea of We're a mining country and that and the attitude of the 2nd world war of surviving...)

This has now got me thinking of the time period... MAYBE... we all develop the nuclear weapon in the second world war and the world is then wiped out... and using the idea that Britain actually had secret tunnels during those times/are still around today...

Creating underground habitats becomes much easier now (habitats to then growing into towns and cities) all they would need to do to extent these habitats is too knock through and enlarge the tunnels or build new ones/building new tunnels and wider open spaces

*mixing in the channel tunnel element maybe* - - - - they develop tunnels to link to France/ becomes the games battle ground

This has now put a better spin onto the tech limitations and politicks and game structure/attitudes...

The main other thing it being based in the WW2 supplies and generating electricity would have to be vire coal base generators (so mining with have to commence to search for this resource, mining way around the country from north to south to get this vital fuel/this could also add an incentive as in capturing the enemies coal supplies and protecting them)

These developments would and will take up to around 50 years or more to stretch tunnels to the north and south of the country, and tech development will be quite slow and weapons will be quite hard to manufacture. so thinking that the time of this progress is slow, and politicks of survival (take out the development of the TV these are rough times, the 50's-60's thing may not of happened the attitudes will all be different each side still secretly wanting revenge to what happened in the first place eventually this happens)

possible world tech:

Air purification would be the biggest on the a gender and pumping it as well

Tube trains, the idea that we build a tube train style thing connecting to France/ what gets troops to the frontline)

I was thinking of the Nail gun idea and Sten Guns

adapted and advanced Tommy guns and rifles

(sten guns in WW2 were very quick cheap and easy to make)

Smelting metals and furnaces might be possible underground

(The nail gun was invented in the mid-1950s by a group of men who used their experience with machine guns during WWII to create a basis for the idea. The group created the first nail gun and travelled the country to find investors to back the idea Nail guns typically use electromagnetism, compressed air or a flammable gas such as propane or butane to project a nail quickly into a surface.) Read more: Facts About the Nail Gun
eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5052499_nail-gun.html#ixzz1TM5JoB00

(how will new troops get to the Uk? the air is toxic and there has been a nuclear winter in some areas and the ocean is not as deep as it was )

special troop subs from America will supply us, in a specialized underwater sub pen

Architecture:

shanty town style, Lots of scavenged materials, Lots of recycled elements...

http://www.leverton.org/tunnels/cslr/

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/m/mount_wise/index4.html

http://www.urbexforums.co.uk/showthread.php/9818-Langdon-Hole-Dover-Kent-8-9-2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doverpast/sets/72157600122419445/

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/dDjp0QP6MLM/BT+Put+WWII+Tunnels+Market/HYTV7VqgSrm

*NOW ON TO THE GAME Start*

OK now the game will now start off with the film of the story of what had happened and then going through the time line and history to what had happened, from the protagonist being a child.

After this intro the first scene would be you getting off the tube in France after crossing the channel, here you would be taken through the simple training character play in first person...

In the game you'll have the options of 1st person and 3rd person

From this I went through the idea of researching the WW2 tunnels underground and found some really good visual imagery and elements of art direction.

these photos have really openned my eyes to the direction of how I would like my game, but I dont want to be creating an enviroment of just some tunnels, it gives me an idea of how things may look and how people may live.
http://www.leverton.org/tunnels/cslr/