Plan for Minako

Natural Selection, our FPS project is currently seeking additional people to join. It's being done as a final project for my game design degree here at Cogswell in Sunnyvale, CA. Our design is already settled on and we have a small staff, but are looking to expand. People with all skills are welcome (obviously, some skills are needed more than others.) We're doing our modeling and animation in Lightwave, and prefer to stay all in one package, but we'll be flexible as needed.

The game is set on Earth, some fifty years into the future. Cybernetics has been discovered and adapted en masse, to the point that it's redefined militaries in as signifigant a way as gunpowder did centuries ago. Infantry are no longer expendable troops, each now has easily the power to take on any modern tank. They've in a few short years gained power over nearly the entire world. Only a few humans oppose them. They feel the path for humanity to progress is not through insertion of technology into themselves, but through inner discovery. They've managed to discover their own internal energy and how to harness it in some limited ways. A select few have managed to even learn to transfer their soul energy to others, allowing themselves to possess others anywhere in the world to turn the tide of battle in their favor.

Basically, the gameplay is going to be humans with speed on their side versus cyborgs who love big weapons that have oodles of spalsh damage. Players will play 'generic' style soldiers and select two or three weapons at the start of the game and always will spawn with them. Players can change weapons in the game at weapons stations in their base if they're willing to 'buy' them. Points for a team are stored in a 'bank', players can't spand more than the ammount of points they've earned for their team. Any points spend are deducted from the team total. Also, at the start of the match ,teams can elect to spend points in advance (they'll start with a negative team total) to buy special characters. Special characters will appear as an item in the home base, touch it and you become that character (mesh and all that changes.) Special characters will have powers well above and beyond normal characters. They're meant to be the super hero types (not in look, in effect) that can turn the tide of battle for their side. Obviosuly, killing one is a lot more points that if you just shoot Johnny Soldier too. Gameplay is a combination of gameplay types that should create an objective based style of gameplay. Players will have to capture and hold two points to do something like open a door or extend a bridge to get at a target to destroy for points. Also, teams can score points by traditional capture the flag style gameplay (I love CTF, even if it is everywhere.) When a team scores enough points, a door in their base opens with a bomb. A player has to take the bomb into the enemy base, set it and it goes *boom*, winning the map for that team.

Natural Selection's gameplay is also designed to extend beyond just one map. When we play FPS games, we always have our map list that we play. Our favorite maps we know, we love to play all the time, and we think we're not alone in this behavior. Natural Selection will have what we call the War System. Wars will consist of a pre-packeaged set of maps with one team ultimatelly winning the entire War. After a map, the next one will be selected based on who won. As the war progressed, the maps will be increasingly unfair. Losing teams will have more and more advantages, as they are being pushed back to their home base. The maps will be set up in a tree like structure, obviously. To win a war, a team has to win the final map in one of the branches of the tree.

Now, the staff we're looking for...

First off, we need additional programing staff (our head programer's gone back to school just this term and it's really eating into his free time to work on the project.) The programing task list we have at this point is this:
Scripted events
Events for Capturing
Events for Bombing
Events for Destroying
Events for Dominating
Point System
Points for killing players
Points for killing special characters
Points for completing objectives
Flight / Jetpack
HUD (ammo counter, health and energy bars, etc)
Inventory (2-3 weapons at a time only)
Weapon selection before a map
Weapon selection during a map
Location based damage
War system
Special character possession
HUD Navigation Aid
Special character powers (fast dash, short range LOS teleport, telekinetic push)

We're also looking for modelers. The human side is ok in terms of model development, but the cyborg side is not. The cyborg description we've got as a guide to model from is this:
Cyborgs, despite ther high technology have a very rough look about them. At first glance one would think they were refugees from a Charles Dickens novel based on their apparent level of technology and grooming. The metals they are constructed out of are poorly maintained and even rusted and rather than advanced components like hydraulics instead there are gears and chains to move components and hold others together. The flesh of cyborgs is a necessary evil and treated as such. Scars, burns and areas of gangreen are the norm. In many cases the flesh barelly looks human anymore, so littered with scars, open sores and partially melted areas.Flight systems are seperated into several thrusters. Up to 8 per cyborg, one per shoulder, two hip, one per calf and one per piece of extended shoulder armor are used to move these massive amalgamations through the air.

Weapon design and modeling seems ok, but if anyone really wants to help with that, we can give them info on what weapons still need to be done.

We have a lead animator, but anyone willing to help is much appreciated there. Our animation lead is out of town for the next week and a half or so, but anyone interested can contact me and when the animation lead's back I'll pass things on to him.

We're also looking for level design people. We're looking to build San Fransisco 50 years in the future as our test level. Obviously, there's a lot to do there. Not just the terrain, but the main landmarks, and a bunch of buildings to put in, as well as little things to that are needed to make it look real, lightposts, some parked cars, little trees, etc. This will eat a lot of time, and we could defiantelly use some more people here.

That's the main things we need, primarily programming staff (this is by far our largest need), as well as modelers and texture artists. Anyone interested can just reply here or mail me at minako@asia.com We don't have a web site at the moment (to date all the staff know each other in real life, so there hasn't been a huge need), but we'll put one up soon. (really ^^;)