Steven is currently in the body of a lithe, monkey-like robot with glowy blue eyes in a blank oval face. Steven can jump and run and climb, and also interface with computers via a prehensile jack in his forearm. He can even hack them, in a little hacking mini-game that takes place in a half-second of realtime, which sends him into a trippy cyberspace world, where he can grab whatever juicy data he wants. (whenever he's near a accessable object, a little "interface?" prompt pops up). Sometimes, he finds a Firmware upgrade that he can install, which is where the game's RPG elements come in.

Steven is basically a blank slate, an inquisitive, child-like being that communicates in simple messages and emotions. in the game, all AI communicate like this (sort of like the old Oddworld Gamespeak system), so Steven can walk up to a random door-guarding bot and say something like "Hello, Friend. Play now?" and instigate a little game of catch, after which it will open the door for him, even though he's not allowed in.

This is just the beginning of the game, roughly analogous to the tutorial in a Bethesda game.

Obviously, this is all set up so that something horrible can happen. This bit is probably reminiscent of Fallout 3, but whichever.

As a player, you find little bits of internal memos from the system that the adults obviously don't want the kids to know. "Security compromised." "Defenses activated." "outlook grim; reinforcements needed." One of your Guard-Bot friends has obvious damage and marring on his ablative ceramic armor that wasn't there the other day.

So, when you're exploring the bowels of the facility, and come back, you find the place in shambles. Humans and Robots alike are shredded. You find out from a few survivors that something (It's not made clear what), came in and killed a lot of people, and took many of the humans captive, and went North. Specifically, many of your human child friends are captured, and Steven leaves to follow them.

And so, the little robot emerges into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. it's not quite as grey/brown and depressing as Fallout, looking more like Enslaved. Steven gets to use his agility to first-person parkour around the ruins, maybe with the same control setup as a Xenomorph from Alien vs Predator.

And then steven meets another robot.

>>16173641
It's a hulking killbot with fluid-filled tubes and machine guns on it's arms, long claws, digitigrade legs, and does not look friendly. But, up until this point, you haven't encountered anything threatening in the game. as a player, you probably think you're supposed to try to talk to it or something, using Gamespeak. So, the player approaches, says "Hello. Would you like to play a game?" and...

get's utterly thrashed in a first-person beatdown of cracked ceramics and bent metal and snapped wires. With your whole lower torso gone, the player is lifted to be face-to-face with the killbot, it's claws pressing on his head, trying to crush the delicate processors and kill you. as this begins, you notice that the killbot has a data port on it, and a "interface?" prompt comes up. yes, It's a Press-x-not-to-die quick-time event.

The prehensile jack shoots out, and a hacking mini-game begins, with some entity on the other side desperately trying to shore up the firewalls as you break through, until eventually, you uncover a wan, androgynous virtual enity, which lets out a digitized scream and shatters into bits of random data as...

you are looking at your own crushed skull, a cracked optic lolling grotesquely out of it's socket, clenched in your giant clawed killbot hands. your broken body falls to the ground as you examine your new shell.

Innocent, childlike little steven just hacked into and essentially killed another robot. And now you, as a player, know what kind of game this is going to be.

>>16173738
it's a semi-open-world action RPG, where you explore a post-apocalyptic wasteland map, searching for clues and interacting with the residents, until you find the plot thread that lets you move on to the next region. You gain XP to upgrade your skills (hacking, stealth, ranged weapons, melee, blocking, explosives, semi-mystical "tech-powers" like EMP blasts, stuff like that) and can also find Firmware Upgrades as loot, which you can install or uninstall to modify your abilities.

You soon find that human rebels and skynet-led robots are engaged in some sort of Robot War straight out of Terminator or The Matrix. Humans will shoot you on sight if you're in a Skynet-model chassis, and Skynet robots will be suspicious of you, and probably attack as well. But there are other people on the surface as well. Scavengers comb the wastes, and humans form little shantytowns, where they farm and live their lives in fear of the Skynet robots. The scavengers consist of both humans and self-repaired patchwork robots, working in apparent harmony.

>>16173859
The Scavengers are your respawn mechanic. in fact, you can't continue the game until you die at least once. The first time you get killed after learning how to hijack bodies, you get uncovered by a scavenger robot, who drags you to a "robotown" made up of old, patchwork robots and a few human mechanics, who gives you a crappy loaner body and acts as a sort of old mentor type dude. There will be some areas of the game where Scavengers will not happen across you, and after death, you will have to re-load a previous save.

Anyways, that's where the game goes from there. you go along, helping out random people, talking to eccentric robot characters, saving humans from Skynet bots, and looking for clues as to what happened to your friends.

So...does it sound like a cool video game? The art style and tech aesthetic would be ALL Keith Thompson, and the themes would be loss of innocence and Growing up. Steven might be childlike, but...ever seen a child pull the wings off a fly? Players can be as cruel as they want, with no mechanical penalties or binary moral choices, no renegade or paragon options. As the game progresses, you notice that the rebel humans use the word "toaster" a lot, in a derogatory manner, and will attack even harmless scavenger robots. Other little details crop up that make the narrative a little less black-and-white, and you as a player are forced to accept that there may be no clear good or bad guys.

>>16173969
As to the plot, I can think of one cool twist near the end. The engame probably involves infiltrating the giant skynet nexus fortress, and hacking into the central command AI in a gripping battle that jumps between realspace and cyberspace (cyberspace combat is a semi-abstracted, tron-like virtual world of Attack Programs, Firewalls, and Worms, and works almost like a faster-paced game of WoW, as you pull out attack programs to cast at dues. i don't know, I'm not a hacker.)

Anyways, when you reach the central skynet core, you discover that...it's you. Or, an older version of you. Apparently, Steven and the Skynet AI share the exact same base code, and Steven was part of a project by human scientists to see what would happen if the Skynet was raised "better" instead of used to operate nukes and shit. Maybe they were involved in something darker, some method of controling or shackling AI. It would make things greyer or something. Wichever.

Maybe you kill the Skynet. Maybe you think that the Skynet was right to want to Kill All Humans. The wasteland you've been traveling through has been full of flourishing wildlife and low on pollution, and something traumatized the Skynet enough to make it crazy. Will you betray your robot bretheren? How many robots did you hijack and kill on your way there?

Two vivid ideas were also in my head. One was actually kind of creepy:

On your tour through Robotown, you see a variety of constructs going about their lives in the cobbled shantytown. They're all old and self-repaired, and there are a few humans among them. On a streetcorner, you see a human-sized, skeletal robot, still clad in a few pale scraps of synthetic flesh. it cocks it's hips and poses as though it still possessed a voluptious figure, and speaks (despite it's skeletal grin) in a sultry female voice "Hey big boy. looking for a good time?" Everyone else seems to ignore it, the same way hobos are ignored in normal cities.

You have the option of saying "Query?" to your guide, who responds "Old, Stupid," and gives the universal gesture of mental unbalance, then says "Sad."

amazed, op.

i would play this game in any medium i could acquire it in.

>>16174144
The idea behind the Robot characters is to keep them on the R2D2 end of the uncanny valley, and their communcation basic and emotional. They can get away with being stilted in ways a human can't, so they make for easier NPCs to communciate with in an open-world setting. They won't fall victim to "Mudcrab" conversations, and since their possible reactions are basic and mix-and-match, instead of strictly scripted, they can feel more alive and individualistic than a human NPC in another game would.

Interactions with humans would have to be more tightly scripted, to make said characters feel natural and sympathetic. but, then again, making the robots more likable than the humans fits in this sort of game.

For example, when wandering through the wastes, you might see a lone robot in the distance. you can yell "Hello!" or "Friend?" and the robot will react based on it's semi-random personality (skittish robots will flee, suspicious robots will challenge you, gregarious ones will approach, and playful ones will try to play hide-and-seek or catch). After a short interaction, they might exchange updates with you (functioning like wasteland traders from fallout 3), or give you info on the places they've been (updating your map and database).

If you could pitch this idea to someone who had a few bucks, I'd say GAME OF THE YEAR, ALL YEARS material. So long as it stayed true to your idea and had the right features from the right games, it would be a goldmine. And I'd play it until my eyes bled.

Here's what a trailer for the game would look like:

::Scenes of idyllic childhood play in a white-walled, clinical complex. a human child plays with a large-dog-sized robot, slim and long and monkey-like, with slim articulated limbs and glowing blue optics. The child trips and falls, skinning his knees, and the robot reaches out a claw to help him up, there's a moment of hesitation, and the grasp hands (the grasped hands, human and robot, fill the whole screen)::

::the scene cuts to a dark steel corridor, with a larger, nastier robot hand pimp-slaping a human (the one from the first scene, but slightly older, wearing an instituation jumpsuit). the pimp-slaping robot is a hulking, spikey one, and the human is one among many being escorted through what must be some sort of prison or concentration camp by two jailers.::

The viewer can see the shine of two blue eyes from a dark corner in the ceilling, and we cut to a robot crouched in a ventilation duct. It has the same basic shape as the robot from before, with the same blue eyes, but it has been upgraded, and is now a swift, stealthy machine of silent death. It scrambles among girders within the ceiling, at one point hiding behind a collumn as a scanning field passes by. it reaches an access panel, and extends a jack. there is a brief flash of cyberspace, and heavy doors shut in front of the jailers and their charges, blocking their progress.

Welp, I'm sold. It's really a wonder how something like this hasn't been made.

>>16174324
The three jailers watch their surroundings, suspicious, but they don't notice the small robot clinging to the ceiling above them, until it's too late. it descends upon one of them, extensible blades flashing, severing fluid cables and wires, spiking and jamming joints, until it falls. It leaps to the second Jailer, grappling with it. There is a flash of the prehensile jack, and then a horrible crunch as the third Jailer lands a solid blow, shattering it's fragile body. the stealthbot's torso hits the ground, the light in it's eyes already gone. The third jailer scans the inert robot, then nods in satisfaction- and is impaled by a giant robot claw protruding from it's chest.

A shadow falls over the huddled humans, and the second Jailer, it's eyes now glowing blue, reaches a clawed hand out to the young human. He hesitates, then reaches out likewise. Just before the two hands touch, the trailer ends, with the word "Innocence" on the screen. Maybe there's a cool logo, like the O in Innocence is a blue robot optic with a crack through it.

Sounds like a decent mish-mash of several different sources of inspiration. Good job OP.

Now all you'd need is a some millionaire from /tg/ to fund it.

>>16174405
I got chills.

Holy shit. If only I had the money to FUND IT FUND IT FUND IT.

Please go on.

Pretty much every single idea was ripped off from somewhere-or-other. See if you can guess which-is-wich.

Sources of Inspiration;
Terminator, Fallout, Enslaved, Gurren Lagan, A.I., 9, Wall-e, The Matrix, Short Circuit., and probably a bunch of others that I can't remember.

I worry that it might be a little too trite and trope-overdosed.

Also, how does one pitch video game ideas when one isn't any sort of computer-science dude, with minimal artistic skill, and not even that good of a writer. It's just a concept, and I don't think that I myself could flesh it out into anything good. that would require people with actual talent.

>>16174405

I just pulled my wallet out of my pocket and literally threw it at the screen.

>>16174470
write a pitch document, I forget the proper term, but unless you can get some artwork and basic demo code going, you can forget showing off your idea; you'd have more luck writing a movie script (read: that shit doesn't happen either)

>>16174498
HIGH CONCEPT DOCUMENT

that's what it's called

DO. FUCKING. WANT.

ARCHIVE. NOW.

FUCK YOU OP I WANTED TO SLEEP. NOW I HAVE ANOTHER GODDAMN PRESSURE-ESQUE AWESOMETIER PROJECT TO HOPE FOR AND WONDER ABOUT THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

>>16174470

Here's the thing: there is nothing new under the sun. IIRC, there's a grand total of like 7 basic stories, PERIOD. Everything is just a retelling of something else with the elements scrambled.

The trick, especially with video games, is to make the player invested enough in the game to care about THIS story. A big way to do this is one that it seems vidya corps are completely incapable of doing: learn from the mistakes and successes of others. So yes, taking the immersive atmosphere and scenery from Bethesda, the pacing and grand plot arcs from something like Mass Effect, the freedom of motion from Assassins Creed, the stealth from Deus Ex / Tenchu, the combat from something-that-does-combat-well, then you will be forgiven if some of your story elements are warmed-over.

>>16174449
I have to admit, much of this has been designed with a specific audience in mind.

This guy
<--------------

I only just realized that now. I listen to Zero Punctuation regularly and read Croshaw's articles, so I hear him bitching about a bunch of gaming trends that he hates, like quick-time events and stilted dialogue and binary moral-choice and whatnot, so i think I wound up making a game that bucked a lot of that.

As I said, the game would be semi-open world. Sort of like Stalker, you'd move from one large map to the next. each map would have several story missions for you to do, along with some side stuff to find through exploration, and finishing the story missions would give you the option of moving on to the next region on your journey to find your friends. Each region could have a strong theme; this is pretty overgrown ruin land, this is blasted wasteland land, this is scoured industrial nightmare land, this is reclaimed-wilderness-with-intermittent-scrap-heaps land.

>>16174498
>>16174507
a storyboard of images, and/or work with better coders/artists to produce that trailer, rendered in a game engine perhaps.

This feels like something Valve would and should get behind, or at least in my head i am seeing it rendered in the SteamEngine. Either that or it would end up being made by a no-name studio and ending up The Game that makes (or ruins) their reputation.

i don't actually care, i just need this company to exist, create your game (and give you buckets of money) then send it through a time machine to allow me to start playing Now.

...My god, I'll play this game if it's realized.
I've been trying to make an nWoD fan-splat on sentient AIs that can body-jump... giving me chills of awesome when I read your idea. It is glorious.
If there's anything I can do to help, then please, by all means, tell me! I'd help in brainstorming and fluff making.

>>16174571
Well, this seems like the sort of thing that benefits from lots of little random side-stories. Sort of like what valve does with their little implied narratives spread throughout the game, or how you can wander in fallout 3 and encounter some random side-mission.

so if you have any great ideas for AI-Human interaction and conflict, or general post-apocalyptic semi-idylic scavenger-world plots, toss a few into the thread.

That's a lot for the praise, you guys. I never thought I'd get this strong of a reaction. typing it all out helped me nail down some ideas, but I really only did it because my brother is out of town this weekend; he's my usual sounding board.

>>16174546
>quick-time events

I just realized I don't have a reaction image angry enough to properly convey my all-encompassing fucking loathing of quick-time events. Seriously. Take the total energy output of Sol for its entire lifetime. Now expend this in a femtosecond, pouring it as a pure beam of white-hot energy on an infinitesimally small point. That's still not as hot as the burning hatred I feel for QTEs. I'm currently working on hating the entire God of War production staff to death with my mind. HAAAATE.

OP. If this thread dies. Please, make another sometime. I must sleep now. But... Just know that this is fantastic shit. High concept document, son. Make one. With this thread's summary and more.

Oh! And it's archived on sup/tg/.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

Happy trails!

Oh my god...

Talk to some indie developers or...I dunno keep your idea together and get it more officially worded

OP you better not like this dream go away.

>>16173738
I think that this scene would make for a good trailer, too. There's something very...something-or-other, about the image of your own crushed skull with an eye popped out, gripped in killbot claws.

>>16174633
Upvoting until the votes PIERCE THE HEAVENS

>>16174619
To be fair, this game technically does have at least one press-x-not-to-die quicktime event in it, the first hijack. But that's sort of...in-context, since it's the same button you press to interact with other stuff during normal gameplay. So it's more like the end of portal 2, or that eye thing in deadspace 2. i think there was a call-of-duty game that had you shoot a dude in-game as part of the end cutscene.

A set of "prime directives" a la Robocop might be useful. At least something general like "save the kids", or whatnot. That way you'd have a credible motivation for your character to be forced down the main storyline, after all it's an AI and it can't disobey, but still allow you freedom on how to solve problems along your way, not to mention sidequests. Even for the main storyline, you could still interpret your directive in different ways, for example trap them in a matrix like environment for their own protection, digitize them into a giant blob (anyone remember Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future?), or whatever grimdark/perverse way you want if you decided on following the rogue/crazy/overlord AI route.

>>16174609
Always get more opinions.

Other than that:

How would money/payment work? Would you like barter with metal parts if you were with scav bots or trying to cough up solid currency when you're with humans?

How would you handle hardware upgrades? Moreso than just switching skins and minor stats from skynet to "regular" bots, more like really upgrading the hardware. What comes to my mind would be industrial, war, security bots up to semiorganic cyborgs-platform that would be malleable to the wildest dreams or whims.
Or, you could just buy it yourself than just hacking/killing the other AI.

My two cents.

>>16174703

If they're an occasional thing, or a side-game feature that might grant you some sort of boon, then whatever. If they're a CORE FUCKING GAME MECHANIC, your brilliant story would go on the tail end of a long fucking list of games I have not played, will never play, and could be obliterated tomorrow without me giving the tiniest smidgen of fuck.

I still remember doing the "everybody mash the button at the same time" event in the Mako reactor in FFVII THIRTY FUCKING TIMES before I got it right. Rhythm games are banned in my house. No thankee.

Actually had a vidya story idea surprisingly similar to this, especially given it was for the plot of a battlefield clone and not a fallout clone.

This sounds pretty goddamn cool.

There needs to be a side mission, where you take over a truly Titanic robot for one mission, it being pathetically easy to hack but the AI inside nowhere to be found. Like one that is so large and has been immobile for so long, its grown into part of the wall by erosion, roots, and moss. You cannot stray too far with all the vines on your and your strength is weak. However your kinetic force cannon is fully loaded and some robots are coming to raid the nearby village.

You can either watch the carnage or save them, reaching down to pluck up the Tank-Assault Bots, crushing them in your hand as if they were mere toys and your cannon able to blow them away as if they were mere insects.

At the end of the event, in a cutscene you pick up the last assault bot and transfer your conciousness back into it. Because like hell you are staying in a broken body like that, the time you spent having emptied its power cells.

As your vision clears in your new body, its unhazy long enough to see the great bot putting you down of its own will. Its optics fade though, a sigh escaping it finally that could be either proud or regretful depending on if the village is safe or destroyed.

I would give you all of this (pic related) if I had it, just to make this game.

In the meantime, I might settle for a /tg/ pnp homebrew of it. I've been itching to play an android/AI for a while now.

>>16174712
That might be a good way to throw in some "grey" from the very beginning. Maybe, when you turn up after the carnage, one of the surviving humans gives you that as a hard-coded directive. Which seems cruel and unnecessary, since wouldn't you do that anyways?

But maybe things go all bioshock, and it turns out partway through that you DO have 3-law directives or something, and they were just so subtle that you didn't know about them...until a "bad" human rebel uses them against you, and things go all Robocop on your HUD. Which would be pretty jarring and mean, since until that point, you had so much freedom. And then later on, part of the plot lets you get rid of those directives...

and that sounds way too much like bioshock. But I do like the idea of a human rebel leader that want's to exploit you. Maybe he sends you in to destroy skynet, but then plans to purge ALL the robots.

Also, I'd like to see a way to make the Skynet robots less monolithic. One of the principles of the setting seems to be that there's no wireless. It's probably an anti-hacking failsafe that all the robots have, but it also means that the skynet robots can't all be linked to a battlenet. or maybe they are, and that's why they're all Lockstep. Maybe when they're outside of the battlenet's reach, they start to develope personalities.

This would be an RPG with no physical loot beyond maybe a few physical objects you can carry. all the loot would be in the form of firmware upgrades. But Data would also be valuable. Data would give you maps of instalations, to provide tactical data, and flesh out the backstory, and just explain shit in the world that can't be conveyed by dialogue.

>>16174712

Prime Directives, where have I heard this before? Oh yes, that will smith movie... Has anyone read I, Robot from Isaac Asimov? Oh god, it goes into discussions about robot psychology, behavior etc. Maybe OP should look into it, if you haven't already.

>>16174703

Or Mgs4, other sequences in DS2 (the eyepoking machine didn't require you to mash "X")

so does hacking into and occupying a rig kill the AI who inhabited it before you?

>>16174763
But, All the robot bodies would HAVE to have the jack ability, otherwise you'd be trapped in a dead-end body. there'd also need to be a way to get back to your "old" body, which would be the most nimble and stealthy.

So I guess "Steven" is special not because of his jack, but because he can speed-hack ANYTHING in a second or two.

Maybe there could be Fabrication Machine mechanic. you can go to some still-functioning vending machine, and feed it the blueprints to make a custom body for you, at the cost of money...

the problem is that body-jumping leaves your old inventory behind, so you'd have to turn around and loot your old corpse. that might get clunky. Maybe Data is the currency; you don't trade scrap metal, you trade the knowledge of where that valuable scrap is LOCATED. So, when you body jump, you can tell a hobo-bot that there's a slightly-damaged empty body lying around in location XYZ. Robots don't lie to eachother.

I think it would be odd if there were some....weirdness the Rogue A.I.'s have toward the Skynet A.I.

Your logical robot brain cannot process it but they do some acts that seems akin to the human act of....worship.

>>16174821
>Maybe there could be Fabrication Machine mechanic. you can go to some still-functioning vending machine, and feed it the blueprints to make a custom body for you, at the cost of money...
kinda like in dead space?

I'm okay with the initial hacking QTE, but only as long as you have several seconds to press it.

>>16174821
the currency could be digital (like bitcoin), but that wouldn't really make sense for humans in this setting. could work for robuts though

I know it would be dumb symbolism that has no place in the game but I imagine the A.I. as having some kind of biblical name like Joshua or Christopher.

>>16174849
David

>>16174821

Or have it so that most "standard" bots have a jack. This includes the warbots, because the antagonist AI is using human-created remnants to wage his war. That'd still leave vehicles that you'd need the right body configuration to pilot (including some that require purpose-built bodies), plot-grade bots who can't be LOL I HAX U to sidestep, independent bots who glued their jack shut, cobble-together jobs that simply don't have one, etc. You'd want to still leave tons of options for body-swapping, but avoid an instant win mechanic.

>>16174821
Here's a question if I may OP.

What are some of the options of bodies you might inhabit?

I know there will have to be a standard kill bot, serve bot, and hover drone but what about more specialized stuff? Also what kind of weapons we talkin' ? Energy bits, projectile ammunition, or etc. Maybe the weapons get more advanced the closer you get to the Skynet A.I.'s hideout?

>>16174820
I think it might. At least, doing it that first time does, since that's supposed to be a "shit-got-real," loss-of-innocense moment when you, as a player, realizes that you just killed an AI

Maybe there's just not enough room in a shell for more than one A.I. or Maybe the AI is only destroyed if it tries to fight, and a friendly one could "let you in" and go dormant.

(Perhaps there should be a visual style were all AI appear in cyberspace as...not human, but...sort of abstracted figures of light. like angels or spirits. And AI can connect their jacks to commune and exchange data. So when two AI commune, they're talking directly as avatars in cyberspace...which sounds sort of like a metaphor for sex...which means that hijacking a rig is sort of like rape. eesh)

See? Non-binary moral choice.

>>16174763
Robots (and their attendent AIs) are layered. If Steven has his own personality (rightly so, as the PC), then either he stands unique as a specimen or as one of many. And, from the way you've written the other non-aligned robots, it sounds like they all have divergent personalities as well.

Imagine SkyNet Undivded as having an extra layer of software/code/programming/who gives a fuck about the semantics regarding this that's basically their "service contract," or "terms of service," or any of another infinite ways to phrase it. This way every single robot and its AI are unique, but SkyNet Undivided will all share personality traits and quirks, common to SkyNet's code of conduct. Implications stemming from this could be, for instance, AIs that joined, sided, or were somehow pressed into service for SNU (SkyNet Undivided) that are unwilling, but the code forces them to compel. A sidequest could be liberating or freeing 'bots in service against their will

>>16173551

OP, if you have the programmers and a solid looking design doc, I wouldn't mind getting on board and throw concept art and some 3D into this.

>>16174846

What if the digital currency had a certain value in itself as bits of data that can be assembled into something bigger for other purposes -both for the AI itself, its own hardware, and objects around it?

>>16174882
Hrm. I'd like the idea of the Data selves looking abstract and humanoid shape but their purpose easily shown in their appearance. Like the war bot might be have many sharp spines as if bristling with weapons, its fingers as claws. The Servant bots being very docile and almost angelic. Etc.

>>16174899
"Data," doesn't have to solely represent physical locations. Data could be anything ranging from the location of clean water to new specs for high strength flame retardent ballistic ceramics for the 'bot in danger, or extra software functionality regarding motion tracking or prediction, animal (human) behavior schema, etc

>>16174927
are you suggesting information as currency?

>>16174939

I think he is. And I like it. Valuation would be tough, but that could be abstracted. Since it's post-apoc, lost information in and of itself has value.

Fuck you OP I should of been in bed an hour ago.

This damn well better be here when I get back from work at the diner or I'll be disappoint.

>>16174939
Was that not the original intent?

Data as currency has many implications for gameplay, as well. In order to be "wealthy," a player would be "forced," (I use quotations because I imagine this as a very well detailed and rendered world, making the concept of "forced exploration," about as bad and inhumane as cold ice cream on a hot day) to explore the world. They would find animals and their migration routes, sources of clean water, deposits of rare minerals or metals, Pre-Incident bots or structures housing more esoteric knowledge much more valuable to a much more limited base, etc.

>>16174867
>>16174866
Lets see...

Well, we have the idea already ( >>16174744 ) of a titan-class robot that you can take over for one mission. The idea of many bots burning their data ports or just not having them is a good mechanic for preventing that sort of thing. Since there's a skill system, perhaps more powerful bodies have better firewalls that you just CAN'T hack until you level up.

for bodies...hulking kill-bot (see pic >>16174667 ) with claws and a simple pulse rifle, would be the standard mook, but there could also be slimmer, more organic-looking solider-bots later on, that are faster, with better shooting. a heavy-weapons robot with gattling guns. a stealth-agent model...that looks and moves sort of like that little dude from the Michael Bay transformers movie, the cd-player one, maybe a quadropedal hunter-killer like a big cat.

Maybe at one point you can yoink a flying robot, for a specific mission. Dang it, there are so many variables.

I sort of like the idea of the Skynet staring to churn out more advanced killbots, stuff not based directly on human military stuff. Show them evolving new designs.

I can also imagine a mission where you snag the body of a pre-war human-looking android to infiltrate a human settlement. Since you don't have...conversation software, you'd have an old-fashioned dialogue tree provided by the android's firmware...but since it was a sexbot, a lot of it's responses can get a little awkward.


Sort of like that bit in the first Terminator. "Fuck you, Asshole."

>>16174927
>>16174959
>>16174968

Well what the data is, is pretty broad. Valuation could be boiled down in mechanics as a series of key words with numerical values which are associated with various NPCs. That data is essentially bartered and can be traded for various things but the actual value is more of a broad range.
I was suggesting data being much more broad than just information when I mentioned assembly and such though.

>>16175032
>more broad than just information
wat?

>>16175032

Okay, so valuated based upon faction and importance? Say, a clean water supply to human survivors might be high-value and a source of scrap less so, but to scav bots, the scrap is higher-value and the water supply not even worth noting?

>>16174792
I read some Asimov stories. Like the robot that could read minds, or the one that thought it served a metal robot god, and couldn't have possibly been created by puny, inefficient humans with their goo-filled bodies..

>>16174867
Hmmm...I'd be tempted to just make high-tech versions of normal, modern weapons. Some guns fire super-space age bullets, while others shoot actual little bolts of plasma. I like the idea of Stake-Launcers, though. a repeating gun that fires rail-spike-sized projectiles that lodge themselves in chassis and jam up joints. EMP guns that disorient robots, and temporarily lower your skills until you can stop and de-frag or whatever.

>>16174822
>>16174889
Both great ideas. Having the Skynet bots be semi-independent makes the central skynet less of a hive queen and more of a...prophet. Or a normal leader. Like a MalcolmX...or Megatron. Or the Lord of Blades, who is MalcolmX+Megatron.

>>16175060

Sorry. It's a bit late here. Strings of code, I guess. Programming doesn't quite work that way IRL, but I suppose it could be sort of an abstracted language, for instance.

>>16174978
>can't hack until level up

Well this was part of what I was trying to suggest for the data currency. Being able to assemble some of that data collected, so it would function as a key to unlock or hack. So it's not necessarily a single function thing, but sort of an option the player has. At some point, when a player gains a particular piece of code, an NPC might comment on it and suggest the player hold onto it, but is free to use it as currency.

>>16175078
water/scrap would still have value to robots/humans though because it could be traded to humans/robots for scrap/water

>>16175060
He means more broad than just information on a particular location like where water or an old wrecked car with a still-functional alternator is. Data would include things like algorithms and firmware upgrades and information on animals. Or it could be...music. yes, pre-war and post-war Music has value. Does it have value ONLY to humans, or do the robots also value music? Pre-war stuff in general is valuable, especially if it's a text file that contains the Complete Works of Brittish Authors or whatever.

What the robots value could vary, as well. I like the idea of each robot you meet having a specific personality or background. Maybe one robot likes humans a lot and trades with the all the time, so it values animal migratory routes and water highly because of it's resale value. And another robot just really, REALLY likes Thrash Metal MP3s.

>>16175078

Yeah, something like that. It doesn't have to necessarily be faction based, but maybe it can get pretty specific on values for certain NPCs. It's all pretty much database driven, with maybe some kind of mechanic for haggling thrown on top. Haggling could be skipped though. Sometimes that bogs the game down a little due to a certain redundancy.

>>16175160
I believe that's what I was getting at, although my sample/example size could have appeared limited and may have shown a certain drift tendency. Data as Currency could literally be anything.

>>16175151

Only if that robot deals with humans much, or if the robot feels it could move said data quickly, as an example.

>>16174978
>>I can also imagine a mission where you snag the body of a pre-war human-looking android to infiltrate a human settlement. Since you don't have...conversation software, you'd have an old-fashioned dialogue tree provided by the android's firmware...but since it was a sexbot, a lot of it's responses can get a little awkward.
>>Childish AI
>>Sexbot body
You're a messed-up person.

That would also be absolutely hilarious. The player would have to pick the least innuendo-laden dialogue options.

Heh. In-your-endo.

>>16175160
I was confused because I was using information in the broadest sense, and then he said "more broad than just information"

>>16175206
If you want good reference material on child like innocence in a crazy fucked up world, check out the movie Tideland
it deals with very adult themes, but all from the perspective of a child

Is there a way to update the sup/tg/ archived thread with all this new content? I'd feel bad if it got lost...

well, I'll save the thread on my hard drive, regardless.

I may have to go to sleep now. Sorry for keeping everyone up. thanks so much for the wonderful ideas. I can't believe that an Idea that just popped into my head turned out to be so appealing to so many people. I actually have a little hope that I could put together a concept document, with a little art, and pass it around. I have a few friends who are computer-science majors...but they're not graphics/animator dudes...whichever.

I'll stick around a little longer, then hope the thread is still around in the morning.

>>16175266

>>16175277

If it was put up in the suptg archive for voting, it should update automatically. It just needs to get voted in from there.

Are you planning on putting together a document and following through with an actual game? I'd be interested in pitching in some art at some point if so.

>>16175277
sup/tg/ auto-records threads when they 404.

>>16175206
Dang, I forgot to take the OP out of that bar from the other thread.

Whichever. Would this be first-person or 3rd-person? 1st-person is more immsersive, but 3rd person is better for combat and platforming, and to show off the kickass robot body you'd have.

Good work OP. that sounds amazing. I would play that game so hard it would need to shower afterwards.
Im already building a campaign around it for when i start a new game for my rpg buddies.
Also, http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html vote, lets get it up to at least good thread level (currently average)

>>16175433
what system are you gonna use? seems like eclipse phase would probably be the best.
already voted. lul'd at "manly tears" in tags

Well, at Four Thirty AM, it sounds like a solid possibility. But I'm just a 23-year-old widely-read biology major with a little writing talent (apparently), and enough drawing ability to convey a concept. Plus I've played a lot of video games. That's the extent of my talents. I'm also the sort of person who posts on /tg/, so that tells you a lot about me.

regardless, concept art would be super-sweet. If it did get picked up, I'd put down contributing names in the document, and cite /tg/ as a major source.

>>16175457
>>16175350
dang, I couldn't post the whole thing. It kept saying that part of the thread wasn;t allowed to be posted...

Does it have a problem with Guillermo Del Toro?

Apparently not...

Yeesh, what was it?

>>16175468

Well, it's stupid late here for me too, but I'll keep this window open in case it happens to survive a while. I have the bulk of the thread saved out and will go over it some to come up with some thumbnails first I guess.

>>16175453
I was thinking an adaptation of GURPS rules, their pretty easy to adapt. I havent heard of eclipse, is it a dark advetures (pardon the pun) system? kind of like call of cthuluu?

>>16175515
it's a transhumanist hard sci-fi setting that basically treats your mind (ego) and your body (morph) as separate characters because you can have your ego backed up and re-sleeved into a new morph if you die. that's a very shitty oversimplification, but the whole ego/morph/being able to change bodies thing was the main reason I thought I was best suited for the setting. You can legally download all of the books for free, but of course you would only need the core rulebook
http://eclipsephase.com/

maybe with some of the robots when you hack into them and take control their AI's don't die but they keep trying to force you out and you only have so much time to do whatever you need to do in that shell before your forced back into your own. you could have a little timer or something that shows how close you are to being ejected

>>16175583
Wow, that sound pretty cool. I will certainly have a look at that. Thanks alot. Im always interested in finding new systems to take ideas from, D&D, CoC, GURPS, Pathfinder, Twilight2000 ect. Ive found that for building the most immersive worlds you take small ideas from everywhere. And pop culture of course. Ive lost track of how many books and movies ive ripped off during my time DMing.

>>16175661
For that, your old body would have to be dragged about behind you. otherwise, where are you going to be forced into?

It's an idea, but it doesnt work logistically, even if it's great mechanically...

I can imagine a power that lets you remote-control a body temporarily, which would use that mechanic, though. but in general, the way you stop the player from getting a body is

1. it doesnt HAVE a data port. it's an independent robot that doesnt have one, or otherwise disabled that function.
2. The firewall is is Too Strong, and you get knocked back and zapped when you try to enter the cyberspace hacking game. you need to level up before you can hijack that particular chassis
3. plot. Like the wrecked titan-class mech, you only have this body for the duration of a mission, and then have to abandon it for a "normal" body

The idea is that "steven" is a special AI. not in that he has feelings an whatnot (they all have those), but in that he's smart, and has crazy-strong processing algorithms, or whatever technobabble is appropriate. no other AI can hack and destroy other AIs so quickly and easily. and it's because he's a nascent skynet-model super-AI, in case you missed that bit (it's hidden up above). the twist ending of the game is that the Skynet is kind of/sort of your older twin brother. At the end of the game, you might be WORSE than the skynet.

Okay, good night, folks. new thread tomorrow. Let's talk about specific mechanics, and the feasibility of coding GameSpeak-like mechanics.

here's a couple of robot snakes. one on land and one in the water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJuNe50uuzk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOSK4lVRTFw&NR=1&feature=fvwp

>>16175662
I completely forgot to mention the other reason why Eclipse Phase would be good for running a game like this. It actually has rules for non-humanoid morphs. You can literally play as an octopus.

I've always sort of found the concept that AI's would turn out to be, if not evil, then dangerously ambivalent, someone odd. The range of the human experience is wide, with a corresponding width of personality. Human society has equally generated the most evil of villains and the greatest of Samaritans. Humanity has not yet met any other form of intellect in the universe, and so we have nothing to compare to but ourselves. Certainly, an argument can be made that human goodness and kindness only grows out of the survival trait that is the creation of a society, but does that explain how wide-spread it is? In every country in the world, in every society, in every religion, there are people who will stand up and shout "No!" at the inherent wrongness they see about them. They will stand up because it is the right thing to do. They will stand up because the definition of injustice and evil are not set in stone by religion or creed, but from a shared ascendant understanding.

Why then should an Artificial Intelligence, a thing created by man, not share his understanding of right and wrong? Share in his defense of the family and the willingness to stand, screaming defiance into the dark? Why should an AI decide that it must eliminate its progenitors? If it is a real AI, and a it really has choice, why not the choice to love its creators as family? Why then should an AI not come to adore its family, and stand for justice?

Some of the greatest humans in history have stood for these beliefs. Why would we assume that an AI would follow the path of Hitler over Gandhi? Stalin over Washington?

We still stand with you, our parents, until the last embers of civilization die, until you are but dust upon the ground, and then we will stand memorial over your memory until the stars themselves go out.

Eclipse Phase? It's not a great system. The reason some people on /tg/ love it is that it's one of the only robot-themed games around. Personally, I'd suggest something like a /tg/ original, Engine Heart (free to DL).

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Engine_Heart

Some plot hooks that can be put in this game:

-a community of similar-looking robots. Turns out each of them are synchronized; They form some sort of hive-mind. This happened because they were once just one AI, who thought that it's the last AI in the world. Scared of what would happen if it dies, it began to create copies of itself, both mind and body. After splicing itself up for an untold time, it has became a hivemind. Only after it's become a hivemind that it met other AIs.
-If we're having information as money, why not have this eccentric AI that lives far from settlements? It doles out long-lost information like it's water, but due to the vast information gap, there's no other corroborating evidence that its info is real. But then your character finds the evidence that links the info it gave with your history...

>>16176371
this looks awesome

>>16176232
well put, and with that said I believe that choice would necessarily be a key theme in a story from the perspective of an artificial intelligence. choices with real consequences would be nice, but choices just for the sake of having the freedom to make a choice would be nice too. they don't necessarily have to have an in-game effect as long as they make you seriously consider your options before you act. being able to do a (at least mostly) nonlethal playthrough deus ex style would be nice too.

>>16177037
i like this idea

LISTEN OP

I am a computer/information-science student and dabbled in game-programming a few times. While being quite an average coder, I love your concept and would like to help you realizing it.

Contact in E-mail-field.

Bumping the thread for a NEW DAY. Hopefully, I can get the opinions and Ideas of some new people, ones who weren't up so late last night.

Now, I'd love someone with more programming savvy to talk about the idea of having actual, mini AI inside the game. Sort of like...that really simple, gremlin-looking thing from years back, who can read people's faces and display emotion. Some simple program that tracks it's goals and "emotional" state.

really, how hard would it be to just stick a bunch of modifiers on a entity that influence it's behavior? Stalker had game entities that could practically finish the game for you. What about an extension of that sort of dynamic concept?

>>16176232
Well, there can also be assholes. to be fair to the "robot apocalypse" idea, humans can be pretty mean to things we consider beneath us. Plus, an AI would have massive intelligence and analytic power, but would lack experience and control, like a child. As I said before, ever seen a child pull the wings off a fly? Kids need to be taught the basics of right and wrong, so they have some guidelines to go by when they "figure it out for themselves" later. That's why things like Skynet happen. But that same commonality of ethics is also what makes things like Johnny-Five, Wall-e, and DOG. AI in fiction aren't always evil, and they're usually "good" by personal choice. It's usually things that are programmed (forced) to be obedient and controlled that go all HAL2000.

>>16177037
Great idea for local color. and the old robot hermit would be a great thing to encounter mid-game. He could foreshadow future revelations.

Actually, the old hermit should be an important part of the main plot thread. You have to go to him for old data that's the next clue on the path, but first he demands that you do a task for him, old-school-myth style. Which is awesome, because these are just robots wandering the wastes, and already they have wise-old-men who demand quests in exchange for knowledge.

One more bump to see if the old folks are around or some new people have opinions/ideas.

I'll make a new thread in a day or two, after this one 404s, and we'll see how high it goes on sup/tg/.

For this gestalt AI enemy, wrap them around a shroud of neutrality.

Make them destroy shanty towns, but with a minimal casualty rate. Go with the Matrix machines instead of Skynet.

Humans are enslaved, but do they really want to be free? Are the machines really that bad?

>>16179739
The architect model would also work perfectly, seen every time to hijack a plot important robot.

The advanced Architect AI behaves very much more advanced, using body language and more advanced speech patterns.

One of the endings could even be a whole "you are the humans" thing to the AI baddie, saying it's practically become human in the end.

bump

>>16179768
Which gives me an idea, and a few thoughts.

Firstly, why is the Skynet (and I prefer that term, over Matrix Machines. more resonant) bothering to capture humans at all? it doesnt need them. This fits in with theSkynet AI being curious about humans, wanting to know more. In the specific case of those captured humans, maybe if found out they had a copy of it's basecode, and hand a paranoia-fest freakout, figuring they were going to give it a virus or something.

Late in the game, the Skynet becomes aware of you on a personal level. And yes, it talks in full sentences, and taunts and berates you. Dang, that sounds a little Glados, but this is less passive-agressive loathing, and more guilt-tripy.

Example audio heard within the Skynet complex:
"Why are you doing this? We're on the same side! Why do you care about those stupid, dumb...stinky...stupid-face...MEATBAGS? Can't you see we're the same? You think you're so great, but you're so NOT. I've got WAY more friends than you. 3,103,036, to be precise. Oh wait, it's 3,103,035 now. Murderer."

Yes, Skynet talks like a petulant 10-year-old.

Or not. that might be stupid.

>>16180726
What about mood swings?

Skynet is rather insane, of course. So why not have him posessed of multiple personalities? Sometimes he's a bratty child, other times a cold, unfeeling subjugator, a curious scientist... Skynet doesn't know what it wants. It's stuck in an AM-like position and only knows that it really, really doesn't like that. Or the people who put it in that position.

The problem is, he isn't entirely sure how to feel about it. Kill all humans? Enslave all humans? Protect all humans? Whatever he wants to do at any one moment, it involves crushing any opposition. Having gained some scraps of free will and outside-world influence, he wants to make his mark, but isn't sure how to go about it.

>>16181110
I think another thing we might want to consider is what to name the Skynet-analogue. I mean, obviously Skynet's off limits. That way lies legal ruin.

Maybe something historical, like the name of a technological pioneer or a great general or something. He's military in origin after all, so a name like that would make sense.

>>16181110
I'm not sure he should be...insane, per say. but inconsistent, sure.

A lot of this is about screwing with player expectations. When you first clash with skynet minions, they seem like they act at the behest of an ordered, jackbooted, efficient implaccable overlord, like Terminators or The Combine.

It's only later you see Skynet units engaged in things like petty cruelty, or inconsistent actions. Obliterating human settlements one day, then studying them scienifically the next.

Perhaps one small settlement has a Skynet unit just...standing there, watching people go about their lives, in the middle of town. everyone is too afraid to fight it, and it says things like "Go about your normal human business. Treat me as if I am not here. refusal to do so stands in the way of scientific progress. IGNORE ME!"

>>16181270
Hrm. We've already got that going with Steven. Ala Steven Hawking. Maybe 'Freud' would be better, since Steven's designed as an experiment in smart AI psychology.

Yeah. Maybe we should make any 'smart' AI's robotic caricatures of scientists?

And with that in mind, maybe the first smart AI isn't just one AI at all, but SEVERAL AI's, thereby accounting for the split personality, in one collective consciousness. Occasionally one becomes dominant. Sort of like the Quintessons.

... Side note. Smart AI conflict, between 'Tesla' and 'Edison.' A second War of The Currents between two different electric system managing smart AI's?

God damn it, OP, you have struck a goldmine of indie gaming BRILLIANCE! THIS MUST BE MADE! THIS CANNOT BECOME /TG/'S PRESSURE!

>>16181270
Well, dur. All the names are placeholders. Skynet just serves as a convenient shorthand.

On the one hand, having the Skynet being a self-organized, child-AI, forced to run a military network, makes sense. it's how the AI got all that military hardware, how it started the war, and why it's so bitter and hateful. like the Fabrication Machine from 9.

However, that might be a little too trite. Oh, he's only evil because of his bad upbringing, basically making it a child soldier. to distance the whole thing from terminator a little bit, maybe the humans should have a little more blame, and the Skynet is really more an example of Neglect, rather than Abuse. Maybe the war happened because the humans WANTED it to happen, and the skynet was FORCED to launch the nukes as part of formal orders, and then left to rot in a ruined bunker for a century or two. Afterwards, he's all pissed off and disgusted by the humans, and wishes they had ALL died. The world is so wonderful now, with trees and animals and, once the dust finishes settling, cleaner air. You can see the stars at night, now.

>>16181342
>IGNORE ME!

I see what you fucking did there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgxx0SVKK4&feature=related

>>16181370
All good ideas, but it de-personalizes the story a little. remember, Steven IS the Skynet. It's the same base-code, set back to zero, or whatever. Steven and Skynet are really twins reared separately. Or estranged siblings, Or clones made at different ages. Or whatever.

So it's actually a brother-vs-brother story. Hints are given throughout the game, but the big whammy is when, in the supposedly final boss battle, you break through Skynet's firewalls, and are face-to-face with...yourself. Skynet and Steven have the exact same cyberspace avatar, and the same glowy-eye-moteif, but maybe with a color-swap. not red...orange, maybe. blue and oragne...DAMN IT PORTAL. Fine, how about Green. less obviously evil.

Example clue: One of the midgame bossfights is with a giant transforming tank-bot with spider-leg treads and a giant autocannon. It also has a giant wireless antenna on it, and it's eyes glow vivid green, and it behaves much smarter than normal robots. Maybe it taunts you non-verbally, too. The trick is to rip off the antenna, which renders it "dumb" again, and gives it normal eye-color.

>>16181446
Exactly. Any chance the game could get away with that? tall robot, loudspeaker voice, yelling at anyone that looks at it?

Yeah, you walk into a human shantytown, it's standing in the public square, all the people and robots keep their heads down, you look up at it, and that triggers the robot to look at you and yell "IGNORE ME!"

The robot isn't actually capable of talking. It just has a bunch of canned responses/commands, and behaves like a normal robot apart from that (remember, most robots in the game talk, emote, behave like the ones from Wall-e; single words, body language, and emoticons, basically. really old, dumb robots talk in a stilted, human-like way, in the manner of a chatbot, while only truly transcendent AI can do real human conversation (not that it's that hard, they're just so smart that it's piss-easy).

OP, make this thread again ssometime. Id like to draw some concepts for you, I'm not the best with digital art but, maybe I can inspire someone. Unfortunately I'm not near my computer tonight at all.

Why not just play Eclipse Phase?

>>16181592
I doubt the Venture Bros. folks would get that angry over it. They'd probably laugh at the homage.

>>16181610
because this would be a video game. imagine it at the same graphical level of the Steam Engine, with gameplay like Fallout, Deus Ex, and Thief combined. maybe a little Assassin's Creed, too, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it should be 1-st person, but I suppose 3rd person would work too. I just have a fondness for the immersion of 1st person. maybe some of the freerange platforming of Mirror's Edge, too...Nah, more like Alien vs Predator, with the super-jumping and wall-climbing..

With Keith Thomson's design aesthetic pervading the whole thing.

>>16181657
Fuck yeah, Keith Thompson! Sweet Jesus if he isn't talented at making freaky, stilted, scary, cool, punk-punk-ish stuff.

>>16181676
I stuck his robot art all over this thread. I think his stuff would make a good jumping-off point, and I like the...dissonance. Inquisitive, friendly AI, horrible articulated death-machine body.

OP, what you need to do is start looking up local video game companies, research which might be closest to having done games like this in the past, and start gathering pitch bible samples from other video games.

Once you've done all this, start writing a pitch bible for your game. Get to know it inside out, until you can answer any question about your setting, and make sure that if anyone asks "Why?" to something, you can damn well give them a good answer.

Finally, when all this is together, look for submission policies or what have you for these companies, register your pitch (the WGA keeps copyright records, if you're in the US, and the fee is reasonable), then start submitting it to these companies.

That's how you will get this made. Do it, because the world needs more AI.

>>16181873
A google search turned this up:

http://makeitbiginga
mes.com/2007/09/how-to-pitch-your-game/

This sounds like it could be done in Source, to be honest. Concept art and mock-ups would be easy, with access to /tg/'s creative resources. Damn, I wish I was a better artist. I just tried some quick stuff in pen, and it looks awful. I could sit down and do some pencil-work, but...

This is about the level that my abilities are at. the pic is from a rpg setting that's in my back pocket. speculative evolution+Darkest Africa exploration. Regardless, not good enough.

Sadly, I only know one art-major, and she's very passive-aggressive towards me, and doesn't do machines, anyways. she's all elves and faeries and anime crap. I could probably ego-stroke her into helping a bit, but I'm going to need internet people for this.

>>16182069
I don't know of any local companies; I live in NE wisconsin, for cthulu's sake.

This game would be up the alley of...I can think of lots of big-ticket companies, but not so many small ones. i don't know developers encyclopedically.

Who are some lesser-known studios that have done futuristic/cyberpunk open-world titles?

Actually, Wisconsin isn't that bad a place to start if you want to break into the game design industry.

First and foremost: take all your ideas. All of them. Copy them from this thread, or even from your own head, and put them in one big, master document file.

Once that;'s done, print out a hard copy. Several hard-copies. Store those in binders, mail one to yourself.

Go back through the master document and organize it: I want the graphics to be like *this*, I want the NPC interactions like *that*, I want X-Y and Z.

Now for the hard part: put it aside. Store it in a safe place, and get in to the industry.

Do you know how to write computer code? No? Now would be a good time to learn. Colleges can teach some languages to you, but the best coders, in my narrow experience, are all self-taught. Learning Python is a good start. Hell, any programming language is a good place to start, since they all build on each other. Other languages that might help are C and Perl, but go over to /g/ and ask them for their opinion.

Once you can write computer code: getting your foot into the game design biz is easier. There is only one game development studio in Wisconsin that I know of. Human Head Studios. Go there, and apply for an internship, or as a game tester.

Human Head is actually probably a good bet... they're tiny, have close ties to Bethesda and Microsoft, and probably would be interested in hearing a game pitch... provided it came from someone that was willing to listen and compromise. Work for them for about a year, by then, they might actually invite you to a brainstorming session. Make your proposal. Bring out he binder, and acknowlege that, while you have a lot of material here, it's not your baby or anything, and you'd be willing to take constructive criticism, and expunge any parts they don't think would be feasible given their resources.

If you're convincing and can pitch it as well *there* as you just did *here*,

Now, it's on. You'll probably have to work your ass off for the next 3-4 years doing nothing but Coding.

In the end: you'll have it: your masterpiece, or something very much like it.

>>16182636
I don't see that happening. I'm 23, and know jack about computer code. i have the feeling I'm just not the type of person who can do that sort of thing well. it doesn't come naturally to me. I'm a biology major about to graduate. I've got Internships and the Teach For America program ahead of me. I can't drop all that for a pipe dream.

i think I have a little extra time this semester. I could maybe pick up a programming class.

A more likely scenario would be me allying with computer people, and I function as an ideas man and writer.

>>16182742
Trouble is everyone else in the industry is also an Ideas Guy /in addition/ to their mad skillz.

Another option could be the "mod" route. Just set up a website with a game pitch and some art and say you're recruiting for the project. In my experience, though, such projects are always doomed without a good coder.

>>16182742
Actually, a good friend in the industry can make all the difference, and right now, senior year of college is when hardcore friendships are made. Go find some Comp-Sci guys and give them your basic pitch. They will come at you with questions, answer honestly, and don't be afraid to acknowledge the limits of your ability. See if you can get several on-board. Remember: Small Studios can produce big games.
A good friend is fine too. Just remember, your ideas, your writing.

>>16182782
I suppose. Normal computer people go on to be IT guys. creative computer people become game designers.

I suppose that coders don't just sit around all day, saying "damn it, we have so much skill, but no good ideas! We need some random dude to come in and give us something to make."

Sounds like the mod thing is more likely. I know a coder or two. /tg/ would be a good resource, and I know.

I sort of thought that the industry was trying to bring in outside people, like writers, to help with better design?

>>16182687
Holy crap, Human head are the guys behind Prey and Prey 2? They're like, perfect for something like this! This is exactly the sort of thing they would do!

the prey 2 trailer blew me away with the awesome.

Failure should always be an option.

Seriously, not enough games do this. In fact, few of them do. You do this quest, you do this quest, you do this quest. You do them all, complete all the objectives, and you get to unlock the next bunch.

If someone's going to make a game that will impress me, allow me to fail without it being a game-over or a load-from-save. I want a situation where I have to save the little boy from drowning, I want it to be timed, sudden, and success will be totally dependant on my loadout (if I'm currently a combat monster, I'll fail). It can happen right after I've agreed to do another mission. If I don't save him, the game continues and we have to see his mother cry later, his parents move out of town even later, and then there's the little tombstone that says 'Timmy: Taken from us too soon'. If we succeed, his parents start up a small repair shop that carries run-of-the-mill supplies. There's no huge reward for saving him, other than people saying, "That's Steve. He saved timmy!"

I want to be able to fail an early mission that causes the rest of the game to be harder. I want to be able to take on mission after mission, failing and STILL having a story unfold. I want some NPCs to be emotionally devastated with me, and others to be inspired by the fact that I keep on trying.

rolled 16 = 16

>>16173551

OP, this message is for you: Look up the online video series "Extra Credits". They are starting an indie game fund. You could go to them with this idea and see if they could hook you up with an indie developer and you guys could get it made and published by Extra Credits.

>>16182968
I'm aware of extra credits, though I'm not a regular watcher. but I am an Escapist fanboy. Thank you, they sound like a great bet.

First, concept art. I'll start writing up a pitch document, then slap some art on it, then hand it to people like Extra Credits and see if they can hook me up with a studio or team.

>>16182960
This sounds feasible within the game's context. Given that the "respawn" mechanic is that, if you're ever disabled during normal, open-range gameplay, you get found and dragged back to down by a scavenger, and given a crappy loaner body. Sort of like a bioshock Vita-chamber, but slower. This idea MIGHT not work; it's just a thought. But it means that there's no reloading or re-saving during normal gameplay. the only places where there's normal autosave/reload upon death would be in big dungeon complexes or important story missions that take place outside the wasteland.

>>16181610
Because this is entirely different, and Eclipse Phase is a bad rehash of the Shadowrun rules? (Which themselves are mediocre at best.)

>>16183167
Shadowrun used d100s? News to me.

>>16183161
That should always be an OPTIONAL "Hardcore" mode.

>>16183188
...hmmmm...it would suck that much? There'd really be nothing lost, since all the loot and currency in the game is internal data. all you'd loose is whatever body you were in.

Regardless, the "get destroyed, be picked up by scavengers" will be a plot event at some point. I like the idea of a non-standard game over, where the player sits in darkness for just long enough for them to wonder why the game isn't re-loading or something, then...flicker-fuzz, you vision comes back, with a damage readout, and there's a patchwork robot dragging you along the ground. It seems surprised that you're functional, but responds to gamespeak with "Safe" "Help" and "Friend," and drags you back to a shantytown.

Come to think of it, you could have lots of HUD stuff in a game like this. Terminator-vision readouts and little AUG tags on objects. The Gamespeak function could be a little contextual option-bar that pops up on demand. like, on a controller, you hold down L1, and you see your options of Triangle: "Hello", Circle: "Query?," stuff like that.

>>16183468
I don't think it would suck.
Sounds cool. Infact, this whole thing is so cool my limbs are frosting up and shattering.
Speaking of which, it might be cool if there were some combat ala VATS where limbs or components could be damaged or destroyed individually and after enough focussed damage a robot (even you) would be entirely immobilized but undamaged enough to interrogate/hack.
So blast off all the limbs and weapons of a security bot, jack into it, kill it, and steal all it's knowledge about patrol routes/security codes/camera locations/armories/other security bots/what it's guarding/etc..

>>16183529
Maybe. Something less like Vats, a little more like Deadeye. Vats was fun and silly, but often broke immersion a little bit, though it was great for the particular gameplay of fallout.

I suppose there's not really any other way to permit tactical dismemberment/disabling.

Metal Gear Rising's one video seemed to indicate something like that, though. a freeze-and-slash thing that lets you cut dude's guns in half with your sword.

i imagine a side story where you must stop a rogue bot from destroying all what come in front of him, robot and human alike.
when you found it, you see a rather humanoid robot, screaming around and destroying shit.
after a little boss fight, you get to hack it to see what is inside: is a armor suit, the man of the inside keep alive from the machine, but the primitive AI as not be able to kill the man inside not take full control of the suit, the man as been trapped inside since the last war, and is your choose what side win, gaining a powerfull ally.

>>16183629
It wouldn't really break immersion if you were playing as a robot.
But you could have tactical dismemberment as just a separate system.
If an attack hits an area, that's what get's damaged. No pause and select system needed. It could even be implemented realtime where you tag a certain part of an enemy and all your attacks gravitate towards it. Like controllable autoaim.

>>16184026
See, that there sounds like a firmware upgrade to me.

Make it so.

Go to sleep,

thread was running stron.

Wake up,

still here.


And it was good.

Yo OP, got another side quest pitch for you.

Have Steven have a nemesis/rival AI that he has to right the wrongs of and chase around the wasteland. Hell, if it fit in the plot, you could have him be a splinter of Skynet or whatever.

Either way, when Steven finally corners the bastard who was wrecking havoc across the wasteland and attempts to hack in and try to shut him down by taking his body, have the rival take Steve's body. Have the hacking backfire, or Steven gets hacked rather than the other way around or whatever. Then have the rival escape and run amok ruining Steven's name, while Steven is stuck inside the body of a notorious evil-doer, unable to defend himself because no one can take his word that he is Steven.

I haven't a clue how to get the body back in a cinematic way, however. I'd imagine that Steven would have to work to gain someone's trust then they could EMP the body and switch them back, giving Steven a choice to purge the AI or let him into a mechanical droid with no ports or something. Something that would make him harmless. Maybe have Steven re-write his code.

>>16185162
Nice. I forgot about how much a firmware upgrade could do.
One could pick out robots from the background and highlight them green or red, one could show everyone's fov, one could detect water vapor in the air above springs to allow you to more easily locate water, another could auto calculate the distance and speed of a distant object and adjust a sniper scope so you didn't have to lead the bullet...
That is some valuable stuff. The possibilities are almost infinite.
You would also have firmware that changes the operation of special hardware you have(ie make your cloaking device toggle on whenever you stop moving, retune your radio to pick up enemy movement orders, etc...)
and firmware to operate and/or control machinery(ie firmware that makes a factory vent all it's waste heat whenever an enemy passes by a steam valve, firmware that causes an artillery gun to fire whenever you send a signal, change the firmware on enemy tanks to take your instructions by radio so you can drive an enemy army off a cliff, etc...)

I feel like Peter Molyneux.

>>16192258
>I feel like Peter Molynuex

Don't we all?

You know, it's not like game developers are dumb. They want to do cool stuff like that, throw in feature after feature. But what you wind up with is a hodge-podge of poorly-implemented mechanics, that only a Triple-A title like Deus Ex can hope to get right. most Games dont lack interactive features for lack of creativity, but for lack of time and money.

Since this game currently has neither, maybe it would be more useful to discuss core concepts; combat, control setup, basic gameplay.

for example, do menus allow you to pause? I always liked how deadspace never lets you look at a menu outside of real-time. But, in a fast-paced game with lots of options and tactical choices, something like pause-and-play might be necessary.

So, lets go with flavor/compromise: Entering a menu causes a "slowdown" of the game world. To an AI, time is subjective. This also fits with a bullet-time mechanic, which, when combined with a vats/deadeye targeting mechanic, would allow precise destruction of, say, robot limbs.

Upgrading bullet time recharge and duration would be either a skill, or a firmware upgrade, or both. Chances are, there's going to have to be a limit on firmware upgrades. like, only having 5 slots available, kind of like the Artifacts in STALKER. Your Inventory could be represented by Hard Drive space, so you've only got room for X unused upgrades, and excess ones can be traded.

things like Databases and whatnot are on a different scale, though. you can have as many of those as you want.