WDP - 2012 Concept and Jelly Concept

Once we had decided that basing a game around the Mayan theory of 2012 would be interesting, we started brainstorming possible approaches we could take to this and the type of worlds that could result:

• Base the game in the Mayan Era (Classic period c. 250AD to 900AD - the time period of the highest state of development by the Mayan race). The game would be based in their unspoiled, unpolluted world, full of their amazing buildings and the landscapes of South America. Perhaps the game could take place when the prophesy is made?
• Base the game in modern times - maybe the start of the year 2012 when the date of the prophesy is looming. Perhaps the game could be based around the world preparing for the end of the world.
• Base the game around the world being destroyed/ the apocalypse on the 21st of December, 2012.
• Base the game in the aftermath of 2012 when the world has been destroyed. Post-apocalyptic.
  
• Base the game around the popular theory of 2012 being the end of the world for us as we know it, and also the first time that aliens make contact with earth. Many people believe that on 2012 aliens will come to earth to take away humans who have reached a new level of evolution. This would be interesting - before the 21st of Dec, people would be stressing out, going crazy and could perhaps be taking drugs and other horrible things to try to reach that level of evolution.
• base the game around the year 2012 (perhaps from the beginning of the year, or a month/week beforehand) where people are stressing out and going crazy. Then, as December 21 hits, nothing happens and the world keeps on turning. Or maybe that is only the way it seems - changes to the world could be subtle and your character could start noticing these and realising that perhaps disaster has struck in a more subtle way.
• base the game on the aliens who are sent to earth to retrieve those who have reached trans humanism. Perhaps your character has to select the humans worthy of surviving the disaster who are to be taken up to your home planet where they have to form new lives.
• base the game on the Angel of Death - the typical Christian bringer of death and destruction who has to come to Earth on 2012 and bring on its destruction.
• base the game around a family pet (e.g. dog) who is the Angel of Death and has to unleash destruction - maybe he realises that he doesn't want to kill his adoptive family?
• base the game on time-travel. Perhaps you start off in Jan 2012 and you see people going crazy and trying to morph themselves so you decide to explore the theory further by going back to Mayan times and seeing the prophesy being made, then time hopping to other cases in history where Mayan prophesies have supposedly come true (maybe your objective is to stop them?) and then time hop back to 2012, arriving just before Dec 21. Then the world will be destroyed and the Aliens will come and take you away. This concept would allow us to create 3 or 4 different worlds, but maybe it's too complicated?
• base the game on aliens who have taken you and other superhumans to their home planet, and you trying to adapt to the new world and new lifestyle.
  

Taking this last idea further, I mentioned that the alien world could be made of jelly. The aliens could be Jelly Babies or variations of these, humans would have to wear jelly suits in order to breathe and stay alive, jelly fruits could be eaten for health, guns could be jelly beans (or maybe the bullets could be?) etc. Jelly snakes could be enemies whose poison disintegrates jelly - lethal for humans wearing jelly suits. Humans could perhaps have special powers (as they did evolve on earth, granting them access to the 'utopia' alien world. Guns could shoot ice - turning jelly into iceblocks, or acid - melting the jelly etc.

When discussing enemies, we started to struggle. What is the enemy or opposite of Jelly? Peanut butter? Celery (as was suggested)?

Natacha and I started talking about this idea in more detail on the train home. We both like it - it would be fun to make, it would be a simple concept (if you left out the 2012 theory), it would maybe be easier to animate (e.g. textures - we could create only a couple jelly textures and use these almost everywhere, but in varying colours)... however, we'll have to discuss it with Chitra and decide together what we should do.

Natacha and I decided that we'll start making sketches of both ideas and see how they are met in class next week.

Deciding on a concept...

We thought it might be a good idea to start this project by listing our favourite games (and in my case, anticipated upcoming games), and talking about what we liked about them and why. We also decided that we should try to put ourselves in the minds of the creators of these games in an effort to see how they maybe came up with the concept.

My list of favourite games would be too long, but here is a quick list of ones that come easily to mind:

• Bioshock (overall an incredible game)
• Fallout 3 (any game where you want to play for 50+ hours just to complete all the missions has to be awesome!)
• Oblivion (love the medieval feel to the game, massive open world, awesome game-play when it doesn't glitch!)
• Portal (such a simple concept, but so amazing! Messes with your mind. Very funny dialogue.)
• F.E.A.R. 1 & 2 (Scary game - probably scarier than most movies out there. Awesome atmospheres!)
• Fable 2 (love the choice of melee, magic and shooting. Nice graphics. A little short for my taste - I've finished this one about 4 times.)
• Viva Pinata (a simple concept of taking care of a garden and pets - but these pets happen to be pinatas. Very cute and addictive.)

List of upcoming games I can't wait to get my hands on:

• Dante's Inferno (the art is AMAZING! Being a fan of the poem, I can't wait to play through the circles of hell)
• Brutal Legend (again, the art and design - especially world design - is unbelievable. As a fan of heavy metal, this is obviously going to be a winner)
• Assassins Creed 2 (the first game wasn't very good for several reasons, but it seems as though the team has tried to fix these problems. A game set in the Renaissance where Da Vinci is your friend is quite appealing though!)

Looking through this list of games, the recurring theme seems to be darkness/evil etc. so we think that we might stick to something similar.

When we looked at these games (and the favourites of the other team members), we came up with these ideas:

• We could base our game on some part of history (Assassins Creed 1 - crusades & 2 - Renaissance).
• We could base it in a post-apocalyptic world where everything has been destroyed and creatures have been mutated (Fallout 3, Bioshock etc.) This would also be fun when character designing!
• We could base a game on people's fears/beliefs or prophesies/literacy etc. Something that many people are familiar with (Dante's Inferno).
• We could create a world around something we are passionate about, e.g. a hobby. (Brutal Legend). This could perhaps be art - a world made of art where trees are paintbrushes and the world is a canvas. We thought that maybe the character is running through the game drawing doors to go into and objects to use etc. After further thought, we think this particular idea might have been done before.
• A game based around a very simple concept (Viva Pinata, Portal), e.g. we thought that basing a game around a creature generally considered unimportant and insignificant might be interesting. For example, a game where you are a flea on a dog's back or a bedbug inside a pillow or mattress would not only be potentially comical, but also would create very unique looking worlds.
  

With all of this in mind we decided to consider some of these ideas on a deeper level, also considering world's we are interested in:

• The idea of using part of human literacy/theories/folklore etc inspired the idea of creating a game around the concept of "Pandora's Box." Perhaps the game could be about each of the seven deadly sins being released onto the world and the protagonist having to recover them. This idea seems very similar to "Dante's Inferno" though, and is probably not as original as we would like.
• Someone mentioned that creating an underwater world would be interesting, perhaps having the characters as mermaids.
  
• Another idea was using the Mayan prophesy of 2012 as the basis of an idea. We all really liked this idea and decided that we should take it further.