Thinking Time

Upon receiving the brief I was almost immediately struck with the idea of having a 3rd person shooter game, which would be as much about killing and destruction as it would strategy and protection. With these foundations in place I was then sighted with this image (sketched out above) of a young tough and scruffy looking boy who was accompanied with this oddly styled robot. They would be having this heated discussion with each other, whilst behind them way back in the distance there would be a mass of huge fires and a pathway of destruction.

(the following was my rough idea)

You play as this robot who's sole purpose in life is the protection of this 12year old boy. Great, but why are you protecting him and how could I balance that out within a game design?

With that question in mind, I through around this idea. The boy's farther is the greatest mechanical/computer engineer on the planet. Only problem being, he lives on planet which is on the verge of being taken over by another race. Therefore a wipe out of the boys home town (and most of the planet) ensues. The boy luckily managers to escape near death. But he is at loss to prevent the taking of his farther, who's skills and secretive (to his son) involvement in the military's weapon's program have made him a prime captive target for this new alien power. The boy, battered and bruised is now left both parent less and homeless. A few days later the boy is gathering together a collection of food and tool's (his skills in mechanical/computer engineering are that of an experienced professional) when he accidently activates a secret doorway within his farther's workshop. It is here that he finds out about his farther's military work and with this revelation he then starts to realize that his father my still be alive!

No sooner has the boys mind turned to thoughts of rescue when his eyes are enticed by a reflective curve of light. He peers into the darkened corner of the room, there beneath the hazy shadows, stands an eight foot tall robot. He slowly drifts toward it, half in amazement and half in wonder. His intrigue is answered first when he notices the blue prints plastered around the surrounding walls. This is no ordinary service command robot, this looks to be a prototype of a fully fledged fighting machine.

Anyway, there you have it, the boy puts the finishing touches to his farther's work (all be it, with the creative changes that a boy of that age would) and the two go off through the now desolated world looking for his farther and in the mean time helping those that they can along the way.

What I liked about this type of idea was that the story would enable the player to watch the characters grow both as individuals and also as a team. Also having this juxtaposition of character types in bedded within a story line like this, would allow the use of strategy and team work to be added into what would normally be, just all out shooting! I mean, yes I'd want plenty of explosions, gun fire and general death! But I'd want to also try and add the real sense of emotions that come with being somebody's protector. Because at the start of this game it's simply a case that if the boy dies, you simply shut down. But, by the end of the game his death to you would be much worse than that.

With this story and the characters in place I really felt I had something that I wanted to work with. But, this project is based around group work. So I'd have to wait till the following week and see what ideas Adam had and then take it from there. I was a little apprehensive about this, as I've never really worked with anyone else before and I was quite happy about my own ideas. But this is something I have to quickly get used to if I want to work within a games company.