>>
|
d6ef5d.jpg
Grey Shining Sea
d6ef5d
>poker game
It's pretty playable, as is. All is really needs is a few dialog fixes, and automatic image rotation, I would think.
...and an optional hard mode where you play as Pilon. No empathy advantage, Polo starts in full gear (greenie armor and bio armor) and Rokoa is willing to tear off body parts when she runs out of clothes.
>2d stealth game (Polo)
...I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I've actually thought out what I would do if I were designing a game like that.
I imagined something like a metroidvania based on intermission 1, with stealth elements. You would start in the upper zones of the spire caves fighting or avoiding the wildlife, predators, and zombie-neumono, make your way down into the salikai base and start dealing with arkots, mikliks, and tribal fuzzballs, and eventually have to work your way up to deal with the warhive and Salikai cryogenic monsters. (With the occasional Rokoa bossfight along the way, of course). The setting nicely lends it to several different opened ended areas to explore (caves, base, jungle, warhive), sneak in, and hide upgrades throughout (health, armor, weapons, the grapple, etc) and different sets of enemies for increasing difficulty.
Obviously neumono show up on empathy-radar. For once the mini-map in a stealth game giving away enemy positions makes perfect sense.
The health bar would be tied to Polo's appearance. As increase your maximum health you unlock the bioarmor and greenie armor, as you lose hp your appearance changes (greenie -> damaged greenie -> bioarmor -> damaged bioarmor -> unarmored -> bloodied -> dead). Logically, the appearance of the healing pickups would change depending on your current status (medpack, biohelm, greenie helmet).
You'd unlock and find more weapons as you progress, but what you could use would ideally be limited by what ammunition you find or that's dropped by enemies. On easy mode you could get away with Rokoa style shooting everything like crazy, but on hard mode limited ammunition should be a real constraints- forcing you to use stealth and pick your engagements carefully so you try not to make a net loss of ammunition. Early on when dealing with the spire wildlife you might find yourself hunting those porcupine things for quills to throw at enemies in lieu of bullets, or later trying to sneak up on and knife what arkots you can. And on the Rokoa warhive infiltration endbranch, you'd be avoiding killing any warhivers at all (although, ideally, there'd still be a way to carefully (or less than carefully) incapacitate so as to not completely remove combat from the endgame).
The best part though would be to try and work in something like a branching story line. In the later half of the game, especially, you should get to make choices that change the path you take and who and what you end up fighting. Something like-
Do you spare four stripes, and make sure three stripes survive? (Good for nothing except slightly changed endings and video came caring and/or cruelty potential ). Do you chose to attack Rokoa the second time or not? (Sets the duel in the forest or lava zone, have one be harder than the other). Do you spare Rokoa or kill her after the duel? If you kill her, you have the option to either try and escape or side with the Salikai against the warhive. If opt to escape, you fight/sneak your way out of the spire (only now there are more dangerous salikai forces in play, and the warhive invasion coming the other way), and then you choose to get out via the jungle (through the warhive ground forces, with Pilon as the final boss or something) or by air (sudden genre shift to a helicopter shmup with Rakae trying to get past the warhive airfoces. Final boss, flying sunglasses mecha QI). If you side with the salikai, you board the warhive with the salikai teleporter hack and you can either blow the shields (final boss- Pilon) and then run to an escape bod before the missiles hit, or go for the Queen (boss fight, duh). If you take the Queen and the control room, then you have to choose to let the nuclear bad end happen, or turn on the salikai forces for an extra final boss fight. If you spare Rokoa, you head down to the comm room (taking Korli's stealth route, or Rokoa's head on through the arkots route). Then you can choose to go back up, or to side with Rokoa and the warhive to destroy the spire facility (final boss fight- mecha salikai giant warbot?) If you and Rokoa opt to leave, you have the choice of the two escape routes again (ground or air) or going with Rokoa to the warship. Once there you can choose to abandon mission (jump overboard, escape via jungle). Or to screw it and blow the shields again. Or go for the Queen. And then chose whether to help the warhive with the final bridge assault to stop the salikai, or just jump overboard again and leave them to die and the nukes to fly. And to mix it up, if you take the early escape by land branches you're going through the warhive ground forces and Pilon, but if you take the latter ones you're going through salikai ground forces and a one on one with that giant veraunt. And while on Rokoa's mission, if you kill any of her hivemates, it's mission failed, and she comes running to kill you in an nearly impossible boss fight. Winning nets a non-standard game over where Rokoa accuses the player of cheating.
(...if you pay attention, the way I'm getting away with a branching endgame by reusing a lot of stuff. There's only a few maps / enemy sets / bosses that get shuffled around. The plot dialog would be the only stuff that would have to be unique).
Yeah... I won't deny most of this came from trying to brainstorm how the quest could have gone differently if we'd made different choices.
And then for fun, include a three stripes mode. Plays like going Orc Jesus in stone soup. All neumono enemies instantly become allies, hug new neumono into being brainwashed, and slaughter everything else for you, completely ignoring plot. :V
|