Written Proposal of Idea

I want to do this idea, because I think that futuristic cities are very cool looking due to the amount of ways that you can interpret how the future will be. Some media portray futuristic cities as very clean and sterile, while other pieces of media makes the future out to be a very gritty place. The fact that there can be such different interpretations of the future (A good comparison being the difference between Minority Report and Blade Runners cities) means that I could try to make a level that was both practical in the context of its universe as well as one that looks interesting).
I think my environment will stand out visually because of the flat, slender buildings being a nice contrast to the bright lights that will be used as textures. Technically, I feel like my environment can use a wide array of buildings, because there are a lot of very good examples of interesting looking buildings in popular cities in real life. Cities like Toronto and Shanghai use a wide range of buildings, but they still look very sleek.

The environment is set in the distant future, but it’s still on Earth. My environment is made with the idea being that there were cities. Then the cities got larger and wider. Eventually the cities sprawled so much, they fused into one another, and the surface of the planet became covered by this mega-city. But that still wasn't enough room, so the city grew vertically. As the city grew higher and higher, the lower levels fell into disarray. The end result looks like my environment.

The objective of my game consists of a level to level system, with 3-4 rooms consisting of a level. This would be one of the rooms that would be playable, with the player progressing to the next stage when he reaches the endpoint that each room would have. The connecting buildings would create an environmental challenge, as you’d have to traverse the buildings, while also avoiding falling.

A lot of the visual focus points will come from the lights in the city. The buildings that are closer will often be tall enough to have shadows that will darken the player’s surroundings, whereas the distance will have bright lights that should tell the player where the object is, without actually giving them directions.

The art style of my game would be quite dark, but also cartoony at the same time. I think a good reference for this is the Batman: The Animated Series TV show, where I think they were able to balance the style very well, which allowed them to set a consistent tone for the show throughout its run. The environment is supposed to be a very sleek, dark looking city with a lot of bridges and stairways that keep the city flowing from a gameplay design. The city has a hazardous aspect to the level, because the player will die if he falls from the runways that connect some of the buildings. One of the challenges that the environment would impose on the player would be the inclusion of snipers in the level. With all of the windows and the vertical nature of the map making it harder for the player to reach the objective.  My environment is a futuristic city that’s inspired by places like Toronto and Shanghai, where there are tall skyscrapers and bright lights. I feel like the environment would be suitable for as a shooter where the buildings could possibly be used as vantage points, with there being multiple floors to these buildings.

A big influence on my city is the Blade Runner and the Star Wars universes. I feel like the amount of description that’s been put into these worlds over the years since the original introductions to the universes from their original films is huge, and because of that there are a lot of things that weren’t planned to be part of their universes but are now added. With universes that aren’t as consistent or as believable within their own boundary, it would be almost impossible to take the story to new parts of that universe, which is why it’s so important to keep a set of rules. A universe can be unrealistic, but it still needs to be realistic within its own rules. The reason why my environment is structured in the way that it is regarding where things are placed is for a specific reason. Unlike real life, there needs to be things in games that are more black & white in where the player needs to go, or what the player needs to do. This made me build my environment in a specific way, with me having a start and end point in mind, so that the player knows that they can progress from room to room.

Photoshop will be used to create new ideas, as well as allowing me to clean up any sketches that I've drawn through importing them. I can use Photoshop to create the things that I want to make in Maya to get a better understanding of what I actually want, as I feel like seeing a visual piece of work instead of just a written idea can help spark the imagination as you may find something that you like just by experimenting. Maya and Mudbox will be used to create the final model.