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“Expedition” treatment.
(1½ pages)
Copyright, 2007. Justin Pappas
(See full design doc for greater detail)
Genre: Sci-fi, Shooter / RTS / RPG / Adventure game.
Gameplay: Expedition, a story driven adventure alternates between a strategy game and a shooter. The player explores the gameworld and engages in combat via a first person view, but can also bring up a “planning menu” that stops time and allows the player to “plan” for a coming attack. The planning menu consists of a map, and tool bars showing them their available team members, their items, a list of commands, and a timer to show them how much time each command will take to execute. Once exiting the planning menu the game returns to real-time and the pre-laid plan is executed by the AI’s serving as the player’s team members. (See full design doc for details concerning the planning menu.)
Main Character: The main character is Benmaar Tween, a cartographer of foreign planets. The character’s back-story is presented in a playable action sequence that also serves as a training ground. This is the character’s background, and introduction to his FLBW “fear of the unknown.” and “loss of confidence in himself.”
Cultural Backdrop: A planet, Comsets VII, owned by the Comsets corporation, number seven in a series of nine found all at once, moved on from too hastily to be named, was particularly known among survey-men and explorers for its amazing chemical sunsets, said to be surreal, sublime, and astonishingly beautiful. Despite strong and nearly militant protest from E.P.O.C.H. a universal environmental rights association, Comsets Corporation thought that Comsets VII would be the ideal spot for a new building project, the Plymouth landing resort and spa. The resort, boasting a lavish, nearly earth away from earth environment, also was host to three giant atmospheric processors designed to make the air breathable. Just as E.P.O.C.H. predicted, the land immediately surrounding the resort became very fertile for earth plants, while a 1500 mile radius donut of land around the fertile earth land became barren of all flora and fauna native to Comsets in the first place. The resort is a fertile bull’s-eye to a 1500 mile large, barren, one ring target, in the middle of an otherwise lush planet. E.P .O.C.H. is very dismayed by this and vows to bring Plymouth landing down.
Story: Benmaar Tween a cartographer of foreign planets is taking his first job after suffering considerable trauma a few years previous. As an easy intro back into the work of cartography Benmaar accepted a project from the Plymouth Landing resort and spa to explore a canyon to the north east of the spa. Benmaar puts a crew together and sets off into the wild. During his journey Benmaar notices crew members are missing and discovers the VREN, carnivorous predatory creatures. The Vren, driven to starvation by the devastating effects of the atmospheric processors on their habitat are forced to prey upon Benmaar’s crew in order to survive. The activities of the Vren cause Benmaar’s crew to doubt him and they mutiny. During this mutiny the VREN attack and leave no survivor but Benmaar, Benmaar must return to the resort. Unknown to Benmaar the VREN follow him back. Benmaar is suspected of murdering his crew, put in prison, but escapes when the VREN attack. As the VREN prey on the resort guests Benmaar and the security team must come up with a plan to contain the VREN. During the execution of this plan all off world communication is destroyed by an environmental terrorist organization and there is no way for the resort to get help. When the presence of the terrorist organization at the spa is discovered, it becomes Benmaar’s responsibility to help hostages while fending off the Vren. As Benmaar attempts to infiltrate the terrorist’s blockade he discovers their leader to be a former colleague of his. When tunnels to the Vren colony are discovered, Benmaar and his former colleague must come together to enter the Vren colony and either wipe out the Vren or herd them towards a more abundant food source.
Style: Photo-Realistic. Color plays a very important role in the creation of the overall tone for each level. Ex: the resort consists of all cool colors with low vibration, blue, white, and pastel green, so that when high vibration red and orange break into the scene depicting the fire and blood, they create a startling contrast. Deep and glowing blue color the opening scene, to portray the fragile peace and dream time of Benmaar’s memory.
Networking: There is no on-line option for “Expedition.”
Interface: First person view (except for the planning menu). The view and triggering is controlled by the mouse and all other actions are controlled by the keyboard. There is a small H.U.D. to show health, ammo and time of day, and a small pop up inventory window.