02 - En Digitalis: Sylvia
WARNING! THIS IS THE DEVELOPER NOTES PAGE FOR A GAME THAT HASN'T BEEN
PUBLISHED YET. DON'T READ IT IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THE GAMEPLAY A
SURPRISE - YOU CAN AND WILL SPOIL THE PLAY/PLOT FOR YOURSELF IF YOU READ
IT!
I'm using: GCC, SDL, Gimp, tcl
En Digitalis: Sylvia will be a hybrid game (like Persona 3/4), combining a dating/relationship engine (again, P3/4) with a side-scrolling fighting game along the lines of Streets of Rage or Double Dragon.
OVERVIEW
"Don't fight your personal demons alone."
The hottest consumer electronics product of 2037 is the DreamSim, which allows its user to enjoy fully-immersive VR games and entertainment by directly stimulating the wearer's brain. There are many boundaries to this stimulation; the simulator can't rewrite memories and can't read places where the person's mind won't allow it in, so private thoughts can't be read, and memories can't be directly seen. These boundaries are enforced by a person's subconscious mind and sometimes the DreamSim will be "kicked out" if it impacts a barrier too much.
DreamSim also isn't compatible with everyone; some can't even use it (called 'darks', as a play on 'dorks' by hardcore DS players), most have no problems, and a very small group unknowingly experience "bleedthrough", where what happens in the simulation crosses boundaries accidentally, either rewriting memories or allowing memories to be read that normally wouldn't have been accessible.
The commercial, military, and medical uses of the DreamSim are only starting to be developed, using the money generated by gaming sales. DigiBio Corporation (DBC) is conducting R&D on a special drug (based on the bleedthrough effect) that can be used together with the DreamSim to treat severely traumatized people. By rewriting old, weakly-bound memories to lessen the impact of the trauma, it is hoped to break strong mental blocks held in place by those weak memories.
The player is hired by DBC to be a "trauma coach", a person sent into the simulated replayed past of a trauma victim with the goal of changing what happened and bringing that victim out of their personal hell. The assignment of a coach to a patient is double-blind and supposed to be anonymous.
Call it dumb luck, or call it fate, but the player is assigned to Sylvia, a girl that he knew of back in high school but never really spoke to much. He finds his own history to be deeply intertwined with hers despite their lack of direct interaction - and, unknowingly, is rewriting his own memories of that time as he helps her break her mental blocks.
CHARACTERS
MAIN CHARACTER (MC): The player gets to decide which of three MCs he/she wants to play as. The choices are between archetypes. There is a gun archetype (plot as ROTC/ex-mil), a melee archtype (plot as baseball player), and an unarmed archetype (plot as karateka). All types can use all weapons, but the affinity is always bonused (25%?)
SYLVIA: Female protagonist choice 1. Sylvia is the MCs target in therapy and always appears highlighted by an "angelic aura" during the simulated past. In the current day, Sylvia is a long-term patient in Oakview's Mental Wellness Center (a PC term for an insane asylum).
MELODY: Female protagonist choice 2. Melody is the MCs on-and-off girlfriend since high school, so she appears in both the current day and in the simulated past. She's currently in "off-again" state. Interacting with her in the past rewrites the MC's memory - but not hers! And can cause conflicts if the MC doesn't remember things the way they actually happened. This makes gaining affinity a bit harder than for Sylvia.
GAMEPLAY
The game is divided into two modes. During RS mode, the game plays like a relationship sim, with the player focusing on plot development and statistic building. Relationships strengthen the player's attack directly, through training with appropriate teachers, or by adding moves to their repertoire through training or duplication. One can also unlock secondary characters for use in SS mode as "super attacks". The plot path is also determined here, based on player choices affecting affinity scores across the female leads. Playing through RS eventually opens up battle areas which switch to SS mode.
Controls in RS mode are mouse, keyboard, and gamepad. Player can type numbers to choose from selections, or highlight and click/press X to decide. Mouse and arrows allow selection of locations to go on map screens, and each area can have several people to talk to.
SS mode is where the game plays like a side-scrolling fighting game. The player has access to all of the techniques he has acquired in RS mode, as well as the ability to select from up to 4 secondary character attacks (on the pad R1/L1/R2/L2 or keyboard) as "super" attacks. Player can have up to 3 supers per screen, depending on statistics, and the effectiveness of each is based on the affinity with the secondary character.
PLOT
I'm using: GCC, SDL, Gimp, tcl
En Digitalis: Sylvia will be a hybrid game (like Persona 3/4), combining a dating/relationship engine (again, P3/4) with a side-scrolling fighting game along the lines of Streets of Rage or Double Dragon.
OVERVIEW
"Don't fight your personal demons alone."
The hottest consumer electronics product of 2037 is the DreamSim, which allows its user to enjoy fully-immersive VR games and entertainment by directly stimulating the wearer's brain. There are many boundaries to this stimulation; the simulator can't rewrite memories and can't read places where the person's mind won't allow it in, so private thoughts can't be read, and memories can't be directly seen. These boundaries are enforced by a person's subconscious mind and sometimes the DreamSim will be "kicked out" if it impacts a barrier too much.
DreamSim also isn't compatible with everyone; some can't even use it (called 'darks', as a play on 'dorks' by hardcore DS players), most have no problems, and a very small group unknowingly experience "bleedthrough", where what happens in the simulation crosses boundaries accidentally, either rewriting memories or allowing memories to be read that normally wouldn't have been accessible.
The commercial, military, and medical uses of the DreamSim are only starting to be developed, using the money generated by gaming sales. DigiBio Corporation (DBC) is conducting R&D on a special drug (based on the bleedthrough effect) that can be used together with the DreamSim to treat severely traumatized people. By rewriting old, weakly-bound memories to lessen the impact of the trauma, it is hoped to break strong mental blocks held in place by those weak memories.
The player is hired by DBC to be a "trauma coach", a person sent into the simulated replayed past of a trauma victim with the goal of changing what happened and bringing that victim out of their personal hell. The assignment of a coach to a patient is double-blind and supposed to be anonymous.
Call it dumb luck, or call it fate, but the player is assigned to Sylvia, a girl that he knew of back in high school but never really spoke to much. He finds his own history to be deeply intertwined with hers despite their lack of direct interaction - and, unknowingly, is rewriting his own memories of that time as he helps her break her mental blocks.
CHARACTERS
MAIN CHARACTER (MC): The player gets to decide which of three MCs he/she wants to play as. The choices are between archetypes. There is a gun archetype (plot as ROTC/ex-mil), a melee archtype (plot as baseball player), and an unarmed archetype (plot as karateka). All types can use all weapons, but the affinity is always bonused (25%?)
SYLVIA: Female protagonist choice 1. Sylvia is the MCs target in therapy and always appears highlighted by an "angelic aura" during the simulated past. In the current day, Sylvia is a long-term patient in Oakview's Mental Wellness Center (a PC term for an insane asylum).
MELODY: Female protagonist choice 2. Melody is the MCs on-and-off girlfriend since high school, so she appears in both the current day and in the simulated past. She's currently in "off-again" state. Interacting with her in the past rewrites the MC's memory - but not hers! And can cause conflicts if the MC doesn't remember things the way they actually happened. This makes gaining affinity a bit harder than for Sylvia.
GAMEPLAY
The game is divided into two modes. During RS mode, the game plays like a relationship sim, with the player focusing on plot development and statistic building. Relationships strengthen the player's attack directly, through training with appropriate teachers, or by adding moves to their repertoire through training or duplication. One can also unlock secondary characters for use in SS mode as "super attacks". The plot path is also determined here, based on player choices affecting affinity scores across the female leads. Playing through RS eventually opens up battle areas which switch to SS mode.
Controls in RS mode are mouse, keyboard, and gamepad. Player can type numbers to choose from selections, or highlight and click/press X to decide. Mouse and arrows allow selection of locations to go on map screens, and each area can have several people to talk to.
SS mode is where the game plays like a side-scrolling fighting game. The player has access to all of the techniques he has acquired in RS mode, as well as the ability to select from up to 4 secondary character attacks (on the pad R1/L1/R2/L2 or keyboard) as "super" attacks. Player can have up to 3 supers per screen, depending on statistics, and the effectiveness of each is based on the affinity with the secondary character.
PLOT
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