Ames is a setting I created in Narratives for Games (IMGD 2450)

Places:

Ames is a Gaseous planet located in a solar system unlike ours. Having no surface, life on this planet is constantly flying or afloat in a habitable portion of the atmosphere. Being this system’s closest planet to its Sun, it spins quite slow and gets quite hot, creating a strong network of vertical convection currents within the planet’s many gases, zones of these currents are strong enough to keep islands and biomass afloat.
MVP: Level will take place on two floating islands, one with some foliage, rocks and surfers equipment. The other has a shack next to a market stand selling goods.
Reach: You can walk inside and see a small messy bedroom and kitchen area.
Stretch: A third island with training equipment, a seat, and a sleeping bag.

People:
The dominant creatures of Ames are referred to as Cloudsurfers. Cloudsurfers’ biological dimorphism results in the two non-speciated Bird-like Griffins and Lion-like Sphinxes. Griffins and Sphinxes are both winged, but in the modern day all lose their ability to fly early in life, as the wings’ flesh falls off their backs leaving only bone. Luckily, they have ways to get around, like surfing on the denser clouds below.

MVP: Aergi
A civilian shopkeep, this Sphinx keeps a stand selling common goods needed on Ames. Since this island is far from the cities of Ames, he doesn’t get much business, and mostly sits around smoking and listening to music. He’s kind of an airhead.

MVP: Rafael
This Sphinx is the Chairman of Ames, the metal crown on his head deptics an ouroboros with a sun disk in its stomach, symbolizing his rule. He is an addict of Nhil, an extremely dense gas that can be found in Ames’s core (Koma). Nhil is becoming harder to find, Rafael suspects Ames’s reserves are depleted. He has spun himself out “trying” to find new supplies to appease his addicted populace; he procrastinates a lot and has basically given up. Nhil doesn’t seem to be helping anymore either. Rafael will take the player character role.

Reach Goal: Houris
Rafael’s Brother, and retired general of Ames’s military, this griffin wears a bulletproof vest and carries a sword. He is training to coup Ames by fighting his beloved brother, who he sees as defeated and unfit to rule. Affiliated with a religion of Sun worshippers, founded due to the Sun’s importance to life on Ames, he dislikes Ames’s increasing secularity. Being sober, he is also very against Nhil usage.

Things:

• Trees and Roots
• Grass
• Vial of Nhil
• Beach Chairs
• Surfboards
• Flip flops
• Coolers
• Guitar
• Bongos
• Pizza Boxes
• Soda Bottles
• Boardshorts
• Rashgard
• Bong

Style:

Genre tropes
Fantasy, Speculative Fiction.

References to particular cultures and/or historical periods
Inspired by an blend of hippie and beach culture from Southern California, expressed in its references to drug use, surf wear and surf language.

The Lion-like Sphinxes, the cloud surfers proclivity for dread locs, and their love for reggae nod to Rastafrian culture from Jamaica, which has a heavy impact on southern Californian culture. Rastafarianism has a focus on pan-africanism and afrocentrism; while they give great prominence to Ethiopia, I am interested by the idea of influences from ancient Egyptian culture, which is part of where sphinxes come, some symbols like Rafael’s sun disk crown, and the cloudsurfers eyeliner.

Ames is also inspired by jupiter.

Realism/stylization
Semi Realistic. Mostly realistic body proportions with exaggerated musculature, and fastastical facial features.

Color
Dominantly Warmer colors mostly Yellow Orange and Brown, accented by green and blue.

Light/Shadow
Generally bright, strong contrasts.

Shapes and Lines
Blocky shapes but with angled lines instead of perfectly parallel ones.

Texture
Blended and handpainted

Perspective and player view
3rd person

Season, time of day
Morning, Summer.

Gameplay:
If it were a game with fleshed out mechanics it would be like a JRPG with some real time elements. I could also see a unique skating game.