Hey everyone,

I made this game pitch sometime last year, but it was overturned for a different pitch. I re-thought and redesigned some of its original elements, as well as thought of the environment and setting of the game world. This is quite a long post so feel free to read it all or skim through it. It’s also pretty ambitious so I definitely don’t expect this to go all the way. Without further ado, here is my design proposal.

Story
The story of this game will take place in an alternative setting of our world. Far in the future of 2100, when the sun suddenly begins to shrink rapidly, the world is beginning to sink into an infinite wintery night. Civilizations were advanced enough to be able to adapt to the changing weather, but its never easy to live in a world with so little heat energy. You may have all the technology in the world, but you cannot sustain it without proper energy sources. With all the world’s energy sources nearly exhausted, nations are beginning to slowly collapse. 20 years later, a very rare crystallized mineral classified as “REIC”(Radiant Enhanced Induction Catalyst) began to form on the barren wasteland due to current environmental conditions. When combined with human blood, it not only gives them life-sustaining energy, but also super human-abilities (strength, speed, perception, healing). However, not all good things come without a cost, using REIC makes the user entirely dependent on it to survive. With no other choice, the last remaining remanence of human life must ultimately depend on these minerals to survive.

In 2125, with the world slowly dying to the cold, the main character is struggling to keep her family alive. While out on a hunt to find food, she is soon trapped in a blizzard and is forced to take shelter. With no reliable way to generate heat, she will die from hypothermia. Luckily for her, she find a single REIC node in which she uses out of desperation. Unknown to her did this start a chain of dreary events forcing her to become a slave to REIC.

Overview and Concept Sketch
This game will be an anime-style, exploratory rogue-like game. Traverse through the world, raid corrupt corporations, and ultimately find a way to cure your attachment to REIC. The intended audience is for anyone interested in an anime-style game, but also appealing to anyone who loves playing a hack-and-slash style of game (in addition to it being rouge like).
Combat will be fairly complex and allow a multitude of different combinations and abilities to try.

Gameplay Mechanics and Objectives
The gameplay mechanic will be a somewhat fast, hack-and-slash style of combat. Think of games like Dark Souls with its distinct slower style of combat, but add what a fast pace game like Final Fantasy. To complement it, there will be a three-weapon level of combinations (depending on difficulty of animating, I may relatively shorten attack combos -> Good example of why this can work is Genshin Impact’s fairly simplistic combat). The first two weapons are transformative style weapons altering between a katana/one-hand light attacks and transforming into a heavier weapon (2-Handed). The third is a unique, REIC generated “energy cube particles” ranged attack that floats around the playable character and shoots an “elemental attack”. As this is a combat game, it is best to put a 3rd Person perspective.

Objective of the game will be to find REIC (to keep your character alive), stay alive as long as you can, and try to reach the end.
Levels and world can be different each run with a special item system called “Triggers” which can give different abilities, as well a a multitude of different weapons and items to assist your character.

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Setting and Environment
As the story suggests, the game will take place in an apocalyptic, dystopian world. For this location, it will take place in Tokyo, Japan. The seasonal weather is what you expect from a frigid winter, and the overall mood/lighting is very dark. Colors will generally fall on the blue, greys, black, and even reds (for a cold red sun) to simulate either an eerie night time, or a very gloomy, washed out day time (practically night). With an anime style game, you can expect some saturation, but in general I want to have darker colors considering the world setting. Some representation of a futuristic/modern style city will be present (having neons, lights, etc.) but are very much spread thin or non-existent. The city can also be partially destroyed as well due to human desperation and rioting. You can picture the timeline of this game where civilization is like on the brink of death, but the newly discovered “REIC” crystal changes that.

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Stylistic Choices

As for any kind of anime styled game, we are focusing on a very stylized environment, character, and game models. There may be some realistic elements in the environment. Considering this is 2100, I would make some cooler futuristic looking cars, machinery, tools, weapons, etc. but I don’t want to do like mechs or suits or stuff like that.
Character models in general will follow your typical 3D anime style. There really isn’t much difference in how varied it can be, but there are examples below. For character design, it will be a different variation of my original character you guys saw before, but with an more appropriate winter attire. (Since this is a variation of her, I need a new name too)
For clothing, expect variations of modern, westernized winter clothing. (Though with all anime games, the clothing might not always be “correct” for the setting, but REIC gives abilities so this should be fine)
Arknights’ General Clothing Style also fits quite well to what I want too.
For special accessories and weapons, it will what you expect for some sci-fi elements (holograms, cool interfaces, shields). The weapons are also fueled by the character’s own blood(mixed with REIC), so expect some kind of very simplistic cybernetics (not cyborg level) and a tether line between character equipment and weaponry .

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Current Scope

Since this will not be a fully fledged game, the main focuses will be on the character and weapon models. I will also either make 1 generic low level mob (this can be easily reused for the sake of demonstration) and 1 boss type mob. Additionally, I will only create a few unique triggers and maybe some simplistic item models as well. For environment, because its going to be stylized, you can expect a decently made outdoor city (limited size) and also an indoor area. So I will require everything you may find in a city; buildings, architecture, cars, lights, futuristic techy things, etc. For interior parts of the game, it may be as simple as a corridor leading to multiple small rooms to loot and then a larger room for a boss. Combat, as I said before, will be relatively simplistic, but I want to at least try to add a few light attacks, 2 or 3 combo attacks, and some ranged attacks (I’m assuming how Unity changes game states is how it is like in Unreal).

Music

In the context of music/audio, it will have a fast paced element that you will see in a hack-and-slash type of game. Since its also in the future, and in a frozen city, some eerieness is expected too. I’m not a music person but also do not feel restricted about the anime style or its Japanese setting either.

If you want to contact me about this further, please email tdeng2@wpi.edu

That’s all for this post! See ya!