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| Concept art by Julia Nett |
Next, I had to further detail the events that would transpire throughout the campaign of the game. We decided to break the story down into three acts, each containing several chapters. Since it's fairly long, I've decided to split the campaign into three posts, one for each act.
Though this is not the final iteration, I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and I'm pretty proud of what I ended up with. My goals were to create a believable story with meaningful interactions within a ridiculous world. As mentioned in the overview, I wanted the game's overall story to be emotional and meaningful with the comedy coming through mainly in the small moments within that story. Though much more detailed, this is still a summary, mainly outlining the course of the overarching story.
In this summary, only the introductory and most important story points will be detailed in order to set the context. Side stories and minor story elements will be left out for the sake of brevity, as the purpose of this summary is mainly to detail the course of gameplay.
Act One, after the break!
1. Act One -- Search and Hopefully Another Positive Verb
1.1 Chapter 0: A Scout’s Tale
This is the opening cutscene/credits. The player has no control during this time. It is from the viewpoint of a “wisp”. It has no voiceover.
We emerge from the breach to a blinding blue sky above us. The world fades into view, and we look around to see hundreds, even thousands more of our kind: Glowing, fuzzy, purple orbs hovering like flies, adjusting their single, lens-like eyes to the new world. We are the Wisps, the Watchers, the Scouts. The numbers around us begin to dwindle as each of us begins to shiver, then become translucent and then invisible as we dart off into the world in every direction. We fly straight up, then stop and turn to see a city in turmoil: smoke of all colors billows from the buildings and streets, huge vines climb buildings like snakes, sounds of violence echo. We dart forward, winding around the rooftops and the alleyways, occasionally pausing briefly to watch an interesting event. We pass through walls to office buildings and apartments filled with chaos: The dead are everywhere, and those that are alive are either hiding in fear or fighting. Some fight with familiar weapons, others with everyday items that now appear to possess magical powers. A group of heavily armed soldiers march toward a department store. Inside the store, a group of people with bandana-covered faces hold seemingly random appliances and items, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the soldiers.
We fly off and see various other scenes that demonstrate the current state of the city, only to eventually find an almost entirely destroyed apartment building. We stop, look down, and fly through the rubble to find an almost completely intact basement. We hear a voice and turn to see a young man sitting on a futon in the corner with a squirrel on his lap and a can of soup in his hand.
“We’re starting to run low, Nat.” He says, allowing the squirrel to eat from the can. As we get closer, the squirrell looks up towards us for a moment, then back down to the food. “Whatcha lookin’ at, Nat?” The man looks up, then back down at the squirrel. “You and I are the only ones here, don’t worry. At least we’re the only ones left to feed...” He looks toward a picture in a cracked frame, and we fly closer to see it. It’s a picture of the young man with the squirrel on his shoulder and an older man and woman standing behind him. The young man is grinning and holding up a new, inscribed collar to the squirrel on his shoulder, who is shying away from it. A banner above them reads “Happy Birthday Darren!”
“You didn’t like it at first, but I bet you were pretty thankful to have a tracking collar after running off and getting yourself lost all those times!” Darren half-chuckles as the squirrel continues to eat.
We fly right up to Darren’s face now, seeing his sad eyes watching the squirrel, Then fly right to his nose, turn around, and perch on it. We are now seeing from Darren’s perspective. Darren reaches up and scratches his nose, temporarily covering our view.
1.2 Chapter 1: It’s Dangerous to go Alone
The player can now control Darren’s view, but not his movement. If the player presses any button while looking down at Natalia, he will pet her. She is still eating from the can that Darren is holding in his left hand. If the player pets Natalia a few times, she will stretch out a paw and place it upon Darren’s thumb.
After a few moments, a beep and a small flashing red light will come from Darren’s phone, which is on the floor to his right, plugged into the wall. This will happen periodically until the players looks toward the phone. When he does, Darren will say “Oh, looks like it’s not charging anymore. Guess the power finally went out. I’m actually surprised it took this long.”
Soon after that, there will be a loud sound outside and Natalia will perk up. If the player follows her gaze, he will see a small, grated basement window to the street outside. Soon, two pairs of feet will rush by, followed by what sounds like a firework. After this, Natalia will dash off up the stairs and into the street. Darren will call after her, scramble to put down the soup and pick up his phone, then get up.
The player is now is now in control of Darren’s movement as well, and Darren will continue to call out for Natalia. The player will be prompted to “Find Natalia!”. Upon leaving the basement and entering the street, the player will be prompted to pull up the phone in Darren’s hand. Doing so will introduce the player to the phone interface and prompt them to get to the GPS feature. Music and shaking will keep the tension high as this goes on. The GPS will show that Natalia is around the corner to the right.
When the player rounds the corner, movement will be locked and he will see Natalia turn another corner and disappear. As the player starts to head towards the corner, a crazed, mumbling man appears from the street that Natalia went down. He is holding a large flashlight. He looks at Darren.
“You, o Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light,” the man mutters at Darren.
Darren, confused, lets his guard down and stops for a moment and turns toward the man. “...What?”
The man continues, beginning to hold up his flashlight. “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light...we see LIGHT!”
The flashlight, now pointed directly at Darren, begins to glow unnaturally bright, then shoots a giant, firey beam of light at Darren, who only has enough time to hold his hands up in front of his face (one of which is holding his phone). In this moment, the Wisp (our view) flies off and looks down at the both of them.
The split second before the beam hits Darren, the air distorts in a sphere around him, originating from his phone. The beam is reflected back into the crazed man, who immediately disintegrates, leaving nothing but his flashlight behind, which falls to the ground and breaks.
Darren, still crouching, sure that he is either dead or about to die, eventually opens his eyes. His phone beeps. The Wisp goes back to Darren’s view.
Confused, but less sure of his imminent death, Darren raises an eyebrow and lowers the phone into his view. The screen blinks on, reading “LOW BATTERY.” After a moment, the blinking text changes to “Also, you’re welcome.” Darren blacks out.
1.3. Chapter Two: There Goes the Neighborhood
In this chapter, Darren wakes up and is introduced to the phone as both a character and as the main UI. He wishes to immediately go after Natalia, but his phone insists that if he doesn’t find a place to charge the phone first, the battery will die and they will surely lose Natalia. He sets out to the nearest electronics boutique, which is in Polymer City - West (PCW), assuming that there will be a generator there.
This chapter will include the first introduction to combat, as Darren needs to make his way through PCW to get to the boutique. Enemies here will be mainly vagrants and strangers. Darren will be given a melee weapon early on and will not yet be introduced to any artifact weapons.
PCW will mainly be city streets and alleyways, occasionally cutting through stores and buildings. Crashed cars and toppled buildings block most of the way.
The chapter ends when Darren reaches the huge electronics boutique, which he will reach from the roof of another building, as the entire area in the front of the store is covered by debris.
1.4 Chapter Three: The Single Singularity
The electronics boutique is a huge, six story mega-store that has remained miraculously undamaged (from the outside, at least). The power in the store is still on. This chapter will consist of Darren attempting to make his way from the roof to the basement of the store, where he hopes he will find a generator. This chapter will introduce the first “boss”, a man who calls himself “The Singularity”. The Singularity seems to be in total control of the systems within the store, showing himself on screens and ordering around former employees that worship him like a god. He claims to be the “future of mankind”.
This chapter will introduce artifacts, as some of the items around the store will be empowered and useable. It will end with Darren reaching the basement and finding “The Singularity”, who turns out to be a nerdy teenage former employee with a bunch of Artifact gadgets giving him control of the electronics around him (bluetooth headsets, pedometers, etc.). The player will have to knock the electronics off of him to make him vulnerable.
He will offer to connect the player’s phone to the “NewNet” in exchange for sparing his life. The “NewNet” is the means through which Darren’s Phone gets new abilities (apps), and that system will be introduced at the end of this chapter, giving darren a choice of his first ability and giving him his first passive “circuit tree” upgrade, which is predetermined and allows his phone to charge and access the NewNet at any “places of power”, which will be the main checkpoints from now on.
The Singularity will then attempt to steal Darren’s phone and run off with it, opening up a secret exit to the street above. As he’s running away with the phone, it shocks and kills him, both demonstrating one of the phone’s first abilities and showing its allegiance to Darren.The player then heads out the now revealed hidden exit to try to find GPS signal.
1.5 Chapter 4: The Politics of the End of the World
This chapter consists of the player continuing on to find Natalia, who appears at the moment to be somewhere in Polymer City - Center (PCC). It will begin with the player backtracking a bit through PCW, finding new routes to take that have been opened up by new destruction or been found through the GPS.
This will mostly be a travel/exploration chapter focused on getting used to the new abilities of the phone and introducing new weapons to the player to try out (mainly guns).
It is in this chapter that the player will first begin to be introduced to the fighting factions, the Polymer Extended Militia, a heavily armored military group, and the New Age Ambassadors,a ragtag group of anarchistic mages who characteristically wear bandanas over their faces. There will be propaganda posters everywhere, and at one point he’ll have to avoid a fight between the two. Most of the enemies Darren encounters at this point will still be vagrants. This chapter also includes the first NewNet Assassin, a powerful enemy with abilities similar to Darren’s who will stalk him throughout the chapter and attempt to kill him.
This chapter ends upon reaching the point where the GPS says that Natalia is, a huge sports stadium.
1.6 Chapter 5: Childhood Ambitions
This chapter takes place entirely within a sports stadium. When Darren initially comes upon it, he sees the the giant sign outside that displays the name of the stadium has been vandalized and replaced with “Princess Emily’s Palace”.
The stadium has been taken over by a girl who calls herself “Princess Emily”. She has turned the entire stadium into medieval palace, complete with living quarters for her subjects, a courtyard (the field), and even a dungeon to hold prisoners. Princess Emily controls the stadium with her powerful set of artifacts, which just happen to be a child’s princess costume set, complete with plastic tiara and magic wand.
Darren is initially a guest in the palace until it is discovered that he wishes to take Emily’s Prized prince, Sir Squirrelton (who is actually Natalia), away from her. Darren is thrown into the dungeon and needs to both break out and then make his way to the VIP box seats, which Emily has turned into her courtroom, fighting her loyal subjects along the way.
When he finally reaches the courtroom, he discovers that Princess Emily is not a little girl, but a full-grown woman who has regressed to a childlike personality. And also she’s wearing a child’s halloween costume. She is, however, incredibly powerful, using her tiara to control those around her and using her wand to shoot deadly stars.
Darren has to fight the mind-influencing powers of her tiara and the destructive power of her wand in order to overtake her and break the tiara.
Once broken, the previously controlled subjects of Emily begin to close in on her, eager for revenge. Before they get to her, Emily mentions something to Darren about an enchanted forest, which he assumes is just crazy rambling.
Darren retrieves Natalia, and the remaining citizens of the Palace offer him a place to live within the stadium. Darren seems willing to take them up on their offer, but Natalia will have none of it, struggling and scratching at Darren. Darren’s phone suggests that he follow Natalia. Unwilling to let her go again, Darren begrudgingly declines the offer of stability, and instead follows Natalia off into the city. To be continued!
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