Gameplay Ideas. Thread - Wake Up Call

Um, so no one has posted here yet . . . anyways, here are my ideas:

"Wake Up Call is a first person action thriller game set 250-300 years in the future." Now right there we can begin to form some basic ideas. With this game being set so far into the future, I expect to see this bled in some way. I want to see some ridiculously awesome stuff that seems reasonable to find in the game's setting, and something that isn't too cliché. Maybe there are grenades you toss that go off and interfere with intelligent minds, making humans go insane and killing their own? Maybe the player can interface with the electronics systems in the game to control the environment? Maybe there is a pill the player can take that renders everything but him to move in "bullet time"?

Now onto a more emotional level, I believe we are talking about our protagonist being someone who, through his augmentations, has been able to become the only surviving human. I believe this should affect gameplay in some way. For example, perhaps he is suffering internally--maybe mentally--and this should affect the experience. A flickering HUD, sudden and random bursts of pain, maybe even scary sounds heard off into the distance as a result of his paranoia (if he has any) could all add to the feeling of being this person. And we can only think of the loneliness someone like this would feel. Maybe he has an AI to talk to? Maybe when he finally awakens the other dudes, he has the ability to befriend an NPC through in-game conversations? Just some ideas. I just feel that the main themes here are loneliness and pain.

And lastly, we must remember a game has to be fun. In my mind, some things to do in this would be: chain explosions, knocking things down on enemies, blowing more stuff up, making friends with NPCs (totally optional in-game), being able to be such a good player that weaker NPCs surrender to you, driving cars, throwing bodies into enemies, being able to set up distractions and other means to scare your enemies, sneaking, and crafting things on the fly, such as a packing a car/cart full of explosives and pushing it into the enemy horde. Just some random ideas.

Interesting ideas.

I believe gameplay is going to be restricted to rifles and handguns simply because we have a small team and can't add a bunch of extra "Oh-cool" material into the game. But who knows, maybe you'll be able to remotely-control enemies when the game gets released. I'm not working on this team as a game designer so I'm somewhat outta' the loop xP

However, I am contributing with writing. I work with Fragfest to develop material and create richer narratives, but this only started recently, so there's a long ways to go. But I can assure you that the plot with have strong emotion in it, granted that the writing doesn't stray off its current course.
As it stands, there are other humans besides Kyle, but none from his time. However, Tori is the only other living human of importance, so there probably won't be any NPC befriending. Though there are various factions in the gameworld, so we'll have to see how things play out.

Kyle himself experiences memories throughout the course of the game, and these contribute to an internal battle (Not sure on any external stuff yet). Nothing's set in stone, but we should hopefully utilize both visual and auditory elements for experiencing memories DURING gameplay. So hearing the cries of a dying friend for example, or seeing the memory of a family member reaching out to Kyle, can all happen during active gameplay and give the player some narrative to digest while they go about their business.
However, I don't believe we'll by tying gameplay with plot on the level you're suggesting. From what I can tell, it looks like the two will just coincide or form together somewhat loosely.

Loneliness shouldn't be a problem, as Tori will be introduced as a character at the start of the game. But I don't think she'll be in combat...I know she provides intel, but...yeah I'm not too sure on that one for right now haha. Whatever she does to help out in gameplay, she'll also be helping out with the plot, as her story will be on Kyle's level, with memories of hope, heart-break, rage, isolation, and purpose. I'd love to spill the beans, really, but that'd ruin the plot! xD Anyways, yeah, Tori'll be an integral part of the game's story, unlike Cortana for instance, where her role in the plot comes in separate, fairly-unimportant chunks.

So, yeah...we've got the story stuff mostly covered...just need to develop and refine it more xD However, you brought up such an excellent point.

"...the main themes..."

From what I can tell, there aren't specific morals that tie into the plot. I know that the story would've covered morals in small bits, for things like forgiveness and regret, but nothing really big. I'll definitely have to get the story morals squared away when I return to the team (I'm currently away, doing some important work...so I really shouldn't be typing all of this...all well >_>)

Again, interesting ideas. But this is an Indie action game, not Bulletstorm (referring to the explosive cart concept). Our gameplay shouldn't be too complex, but should hopefully be tight and engaging. It's worth noting that there're plans for multiple styles of play...which cover direct assault and stealth as of now. But again, I'm not on this team as a game designer, so I'm not knowledgeable on the gameplay-side of the project.

Thank you for your response. It sounds like you are really helping to create a very interesting game. I am definitely looking forward to seeing it released.

Wow, didn't think that anyone had posted here yet. Anyways just to clear it up a bit on the gameplay side of things, the player can choose to confront basically any situation with stealth or brute force or something in between. You can use things like distractions, possibly environmental interactions, puzzle elements and such in completing objectives. There will be no real friending of NPC's mainly because it is a bit adventurous for us and also cause it is too RPG for Wake Up Call. Also, this seems to be a misconception: Wake Up Call is set in 2257, but society had essentially stopped at 2100 or so, so there was no real development for all those years. Of course, new societies formed eventually, but they really didn't focus on improving things that much, just mainly survival. Overall, these ideas are very cool and out-of-the-box, but they may not all work right in the game itself. Nevertheless, you gave me some stuff to chew on.