So, I made a feeble pitch the other day in class and now I need to put it all down in words.

First I thought I would just try to bullet out the main mechanics of the game as I *think* everybody was in agreement.

• Spaceships
• Subterranean linear course to fly through
• Player verses environment gameplay elements
• Full rotational freedom
• Necessity of speed based on time limits for completing each stage.
• Varied environments, with a single type of environment focus for the first stage
• Simple Weapons to shoot obstacles/enemies
• Enemies to be limited to basic “turret” style dumb AI

These are still somewhat vague, but I think breaking up the tasks into teams and then discussing decisions made at the team level will help to solidify the direction.

The Pitch was a really basic storyline, something I thought might work within the world of Beyond Good and Evil.

The Story:

You are an intergalactic space treasure hunter, or pirate if you must (think Indiana Jones meets firefly). You have your trusty small ship, which is equipped with an artificial intelligence companion who will help you along the way. Your current mission is to retrieve an artifact from a planet which is currently experiencing seismic anomalies.

When you get to the planet you find that the anomalies are tearing the planet in half. You decide to risk it and try to find a way down to the subterranean city where the artifact is held. Since the front way in is most likely guarded you decide to take the back door.

From here the game continues as you fly through different subterranean environments, constantly pushed to reach your goal within a time limit as your AI companion informs you of the impending collapse of the current section you are flying through. This “middle” section of the game can continue as long as wanted, with new environments being added between the beginning and ending. The ultimate goal will be to reach the underground city, which will be in the process of being evacuated, so you will need to quickly retrieve the artifact and escape before the entire planet falls apart.

This is just the foundation... for a full document it would need to be developed much more. For the time being I hope this can give us a starting point.

Goals for this semester:

• Focus on one environment, with the intent to block out more as time allows. The environment should be long enough to allow for the player to get an idea of what the gameplay is. The goal will be to have the first stage blocked out and the detailing process started.
• One to two functioning ships for the player to choose from. Ships should be modeled to the point where they can be tested in the engine, preferable rigged for animation, and a list of needed animations created.

I'm sure there will be more goals, more crap to think about and this is clearly not an industry standard design pitch... but again I hope it can give us something to work from. As time goes on and we start producing models this can be fleshed out more. I know that is somewhat backwards, but I think it will allow us all to focus on what we are most excited about doing.

Feedback would be great, or if you think I totally missed what everybody wants... I am not emotionally attached to this so please don't hold back. This isn't my project... if it was we would be doing a farming sim with cute little animals. :P