00: Basic Plotting

I'm  building this project in public. Most of the story/planning will be posted here.

"Ideas are cheap. "

Act I: A sea of stars

Game opens in a John Carter-like fashion, main character is 'in medias res' or in the middle of things in a fight between two opposing armies. Charcter's army is losing and character is in the process of escaping for his life. Utah-like desert. Native 'american' style enemies, not necessarily technologically superior, but overwhelmingly fighting main character with basic skills. "Tutorial Level"

Character is led (through path of least resistance, and various canyons) to discover entrance to a cave, where as he learns, he will have entered a world between worlds. Ancient native markers decayed and incoherent point toward the entrance which is hidden under some rubble. (potentially markers are just rocks or objects that maintain "forms" of features now completely eroded and only upon entering the cave does the player find petroglyphs indicating its significance.

Player does not escape battle event unscarred. Must absorb and incur damage with some amount of intensity.

Upon entering the cave, discovers an ancient tablet, the journalings of some past explorer/adventurer describing what is to come. (Use of words important here. Want an instance of telling, of teasing, foreshadowing immediately prior to seeing)

"...there I wandered for five nights and a day or days. Was it only five? I could not tell for it was always night there. The passage of time had ceased. I stared out into the abyss – a sea of stars and staggered at the long stone road that stretched out before me. What builders in what ancient time had carved and placed these stones, hanging them on nothing? I am now going back. I have prepared to strike out and brought a porter with me with enough supplies to last a fortnight... these are the writings of [name here] explorer."

Interactive puzzle to open door.

Door opens. Player walks into the dark.

cutscene?

Level transition to dark. Barely ambient light illuminates things around the player, and things are visible, but not in a high contrast way.

Player stands at the end of a bridge. The portal through which he walked closes behind him. There is no way back. The rocks that comprised the gate crumble and the part of the bridge connecting it gives way. The bridge starts to fall into the abyss and the players is forced to go north, avoiding the falling portions of the bridge behind him.

to the north stretches out a long stone bridge. The stones are large and crumbel at the edges. Here and there a fungal growth disturbs the rock. No lichens nor plant life appear. beneath the bridge, below, stretches out a moonless night sky. Pinpricks of light appear, starlight.

Player objectives:

Find food.

Player is in need of sustenance. Health/Food meter. Perhaps fungus is edible. Make fungus objects appear with highlights so player can interact with them and collect. Animated growth of stamina/food meter to indicate player's increased stamina/food. Fungus is tasteless and provides little sustenance or health bonuses.

Find enemies.

After the opening battle, the player will want some time to rest. This is a new world. The player must learn it is dangerous, but they need not know the extent of that danger at this first point. Further the enemies the player fights are now a departure from the "reality" the player has experienced in the world outside the cave. Here is a place of magic. The rules are not known, the rules are as much to be discovered as they are to be strange, foreign to the player's initial experience. 

The first "enemies" the player may encounter are not enemies, so much as animals, small flocks of deer or similar that seem to have lost themselves on this long bridge and wandered to the edge of this world. Their eyes glow in the darkness, lighting up much around them. They cause little harm and only exhibit aggression if disturbed, but otherwise prefer to flee.

When slain they drop "meat," which "appears edible," and the player will prefer it as a food source as the game progresses, but it first "has to be cooked."

Find a way to cook.

The player does not begin with a fire or fire-starting apparatus. Before the player's fungus resources run out, he must encounter a camp along the bridge, There exist the remains, corpses of some who seem to have died, almost as though due to waiting out time itself in this curious corridor along the edge o the world between the worlds.

In the encampment the player finds a book, a journal, "...tonight we argued, as we always do, our voices now rasping with lack of sustenance. We are surrounded by nothing. An island in a a dark abyss. We can turn nowhere and would fall were we to take a step. This camp is all there is left of this world? A world between worlds? A world at all? Perhaps we are already dead. My hands already quiver from weakness. Tomorrow we may be dead for want of food..."

Player discovers flint and tinder, but needs something to burn. Occasionally, some driftwood appears along the edge and lines of the bridge that the player may collect.

Game requires an inventory system.

At this point, player has discovered benign hunting scenario, flint and tinder can start campfires, cook, bridge is still linear north, occasionally there are bites out of it. An antelope or two might jump off into the hole and fall and disappear (in-game cutscene) to highlight the danger of the edge. There is no edge. Echoes of screams from the poor blind beasts continue for some short time leaving the player with the sinking feeling.

Player finds torches and can begin to light the way with torches. Some things become visible in the torch light.

Here and there a rat or some other vermin creep along the walls of the bridge. Perhaps a broken statue or two dot the path, some obstacles, pillars or decaying arches impede the players progress north and basic puzzles interup the journey. The trip north should begin to feel a bit long, until the player encounters an adjoining bridge perpendicular to it. The way is short and leads to a small courtyard where some monument existed. Here appear to be camped some intelligent enemies with weapons. (Skeletons or some such thing) and the palyer is forced to do battle for the first time in this now long dungeon.

Occasional branches appear on the left and right as the player continues north with short trips off the side of the path. The player finds treasures in some, and enemies in others, sometimes awarded with treasures fighting enemies.

Some treasures are fragments of books. Writings on tablets. Knowledge, hints, teasers of what's to come. Some treasures are gold or the currency to be used in this dark realm. which otherwise appears abandoned, hopeless and lonely except for the dangers of the "native" wildlife that appears to inhabit it.

Suggestions of a plague appear here and there. The animals appear to be somewhat mutant themselves.

For the end of the first act, the player encounters a large mutant, the first boss. There is really no way back, so fighting is the only option.