Anura

Theme: The Price of Freedom

Story

1: The Great Magitech War

Fifty years ago it destroyed most of the civilization as we knew it and rendered the surface of our planet uninhabitable. We now live under the ocean in confined space. The two factions Saphire and Achat live in two different cities and are in a constant cold war against each other.

2: Putting back the "punk" in "steampunk"

The citizens of Achat mastered the science of Catena vitae, which allows to change the way, animals and even humans bodies develop. In our society, it is frowned upon to have obvious modification, but it is also a thinly veiled secret, that most members of the high society enhanced their life-time, their intelligence and their looks. The Zar leads our nation unquestioned.

In Saphire, our mortal enemy, the magi-technical traditions are held high. We are not sure why, but many citizens are born with the Spark and can master technology to an incredible degree. Others develop magical abilities when becoming adults. The latter is the proof of noble birth, and thus a member of nobility must show great dexterity in this art. The elected king even more so, he must be able to best anyone who questions him -- even though this is seen as a barbaric custom and someone who loses such a duel is disgraced.

3: Retrospective Storytelling

As to allow in media res, questions about the past are determined by the reaction in the present (Bioware titles like KotOR2 use that).

Aesthetic

4: Steampunk Magitech

Saphire features leaky steam pipes, floating crystal platforms and gas lights. Achat is dominated by bio-technology and contains chitin structured buildings, huge transport wales and bio-luminecent lights.

5: 2D

3D is much easier to get wrong than 2D graphics. Neither of us can 3D model or do textures. We will use a 2D, freely explorable map.

6: Minimalism

We currently experiment with a simplistic vector graphic style. Since we're not artists, we need something simple, that still brings the atmosphere across.

Mechanic

7: Gestures

Actions and spells are controlled by gesture symbols - a sequence of right-click => drag => release that is simplified to left, right, up, and down movement. For example, a simple attack spell might be up-up, which shoots in the direction we're clicking.

8: Real time fights

The idea of freedom is much better conveyed by this smooth transition between fight, exploration and interaction.

9: WASD + mouse

We can't do both movement and gestures with the mouse. Shooters prove that people can adapt to such controls, but we might need to experiment with it.

10: Fights on a distance

Since the spells would be hard to aim, we should allow a certain area to be affected.

zombiecalypse / Game-Design-Project

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