Main Story Synopsis

Hey guys. Here it is. I hope you like it, and if not, just let me know below.


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Pahele: The floating region in the sky.  5 different shards, each with their own distinct environment. Ten thousand years ago, a flourishing society existed on Pahele, which was then just one large island in the sky. They weren’t too technologically advanced, more like renaissance-level tech. The cities were similar to renaissance-era Italy. They worshipped a god, Enphrale (placeholder name; hopefully someone can come up with something greater). The greater zealots of Enphrale, empowered by the visions and altered mind-states received by being in close proximity to its temple, acted out what they interpreted to be its will. Doing this, however, undid the metaphysical bindings that limited Enphrale’s true strength.

After a decade of struggle, many strains of heroes banded together and bound the god to a temple encased in the mountain in the center of the island. They split the island into 5 pieces to keep the god forever isolated. The weapons used to combat and bind the god had become tainted by it however, like oil in water and would move on to corrupt anything in its vicinity—animals, the landscape, people, even the laws of physics themselves. The heroes took these artifacts and divided them among the landscape, one in each temple on each island.

In the present day, the struggles of old have been forgotten. The binds on Enphrale are weakening and it’s waking up. The player character lives in a village of a few hundred people. Cozy.

After a mysterious illness infects a few inhabitants of the village (similar to leprosy; they become bestial and horrifying in both appearance and actions) and they become quarantined. The protagonist and his sister are sent by the village doctor to a temple at the edge of their island, where the blessed natural environment should produce some sort of plants that can be developed into a vaccine. The sister gathers all the plants she can carry and heads back. The protagonist, meanwhile, ventures further into the temple where he finds that the sickness is a symptom of a much larger issue. Enphrale is awakening, aww shit. He reads through tablets  and scrolls in the temple, essentially telling of the great terror of the past and how nothing will matter once it wakes up.  

The protagonist's world gets rocked a bit when he discovers there are more floating landmasses, as per the scrolls. He's in disbelief, but after the scroll mentions something similar to the disease in his village, he can't afford to be skeptical. He activates a nearby artifact and heads through, leaving behind his village.

*Quick note. The reason I had the sister tag along for the first part was to bring the medicine for the other villagers. I didn't want to be harsh enough for the PC to just ditch the villagers and go explore. There needed to be something to tie up this loose end

He arrives, disoriented in a new environment. His vision blurs a bit. Rising, he discovers, an entirely new ecosystem than his home. The temple is an exact mirror duplicate to the previous one and he determines the myth was real and he resolves to shut down the god. He sets off to find the other temple with the other artifact.  

*I'm drawing blanks on a basic concept story for this section. Angelique, this is your call. I do think that this section should have mild dangers, but nothing like what comes after. The peril of each area will increase progressively. We should probably explain here somehow the properties of the other minor artifacts. Like the reason they boost abilities is because of their ties with the God

In the new area, he's doing well. On top of his game. Getting confident that the god can be beaten. The main conflict of this region is that a civil war has erupted between the inhabitants of the island. I saw civil war but it's more like a zombie plague. The zombies are extreme cases of the sick people from his home village. So...humans vs zombies (I know we agreed on minimal figures--honestly just make them all look the same with two different colors). There is no combat in this game. Your objective in this level is to sneak/run/maneuver your way through the entire (substantially large) town and make it to the temple. I think this can be an interesting challenge.

In the fourth area, it's a desolate wasteland. Tranquil and quiet, the PC sees the ruins of a civilization. Physics are insignificantly out of whack. Water from a puddle can drip upward, floating rocks, etc. I want there  to be a sense of impending doom. The sky darkens everywhere you go and follows you. When you turn around and see where you've come from, the sky is pitch black. Halfway through the level, the darkness increases its pace. Once the PC is within reasonable distance to the final teleportation temple, there should be a time-imposed threat. You can choose to use a timer or not; up to you. The darkness crashes down on the island like a tsunami, hurtling toward you with malice. The PC arrives in the temple and the darkness fails to penetrate. It just sits outside, waiting. With no other choice, the PC goes through the last portal.  

The final area is just a mountain. A really big one. You start at the base and need to run up it. The exterior of it has more examples of wonky physics similar to the last level. Halfway up the mountain you find the entrance to the temple. Walking inside, you find that the architecture is fucking bizarre. You can enter a room with more than four corners. You can start walking down a hallway, then at the end of it, turn around and find yourself on the roof (relative to the hallways entrance, not to you). All through the temple, it rumbles periodically. This thing is waking up.

*Here is where I would have liked to link some examples, but the forum won't let me until I've been a member for a week.

Finally we reach the bedroom of the beast. Pitch black. Then an eye opens. Then another. Then ten more. Don't worry he isn't awake yet, he's got millions more eyes (implied, never shown). The eyes light up the room enough to faintly see altars all around the room. Run to them and stick the corresponding artifacts inside. A possible further challenge could be that the eyes can focus into spotlights at will which act as beams and if they hit the PC, he loses his minor artifacts/items (though they can be reclaimed).  

After you put in all the artifacts, the tint of the room changes and it becomes much more soothing in atmosphere. The beast falls into another deep slumber.  You, however, are fucked up, both from being in the vicinity of Enphrale and using the items repeatedly. You walk outside and collapse, hoping it worked and your family is safe.

Also, Angelique. What I'd like you to do (other than come up with a challenge for the second world), is come up with a backstory for the main character. In addition, you can handle the name of the island and the evil God because I'm not too set on them. Ideally, you should flesh out my skeleton of my story, adding in your own details. Thanks!

I really like it! There are just a few things

1) If this island has always been floating, then it sort of stands to reason that other floating landmasses that we will find throughout the game (not just the big islands, but the floating rocks you mention later, wouldn't actually be that strange, also from a level design standpoint, things like that are a really easy way to accomplish the platforming gameplay that we are looking for in a 3d setting. So I think I'd like us to not be limited to only having floating landmasses in the 3rd stage

2) I'm a little concerned about having a lot of people at once... In my limited experience any amount of AI is hard.. it could be easier in unity though, so we'll wait on the programmers to give us feedback

you guys, as writers, totally have the final say on things, so if you don't want to do this, don't. But I really liked the idea of you actually fully banishing the creature, and then the final scene being you, exhausted, mutated, and soul almost utterly corrupted, falling asleep in the chamber that once held the creature.. Which would then create some interesting re-play implications like "am I now fighting the character that I made in the first play through?" plus it's like... so... totally.... like.... deep... like.. you know man? lol

I really like what I see here. I can see really tangible gameplay moments.

As far as AI, in limited doses it shouldn't need to be complicated. I imagine most of the NPCs in the village will be static and just stand around or move between a few points.

And if you were worried about the AI in the zombie scene, that doesn't need to be really complex either. We can simplify that by making the sneaking part fairly linear so you only have to worry about individual groups or packs of mobs.

Hi Matt,

Just wanted to clarify some things with your synopsis.

The weapons that the heroes used to fight with become tainted artifacts. These artifacts are placed inside temples on separate islands. These artifacts taint the environment around them.

So what temple is this that the main character goes to that has purified holy ground on around it? Is this a different temple than the one housing the tainted one?

If yes then did he ever encounter the tainted artifact on his original island?

If not does that mean there is a good and bad temple on every island?

Is he collecting the original weapons of the old heroes or new artifacts that represent good? If hes collecting the tainted ones are there negative effect on our main character from holding onto them?

I'll go ahead and flush out so environmental concept stuff since that area of what make each island unique seems a little fuzzy at the moment.

so for clarity there are two kinds of artifacts in the game, the ones that the player can find that are buffs we can call something like splinters, and the artifacts that are part of our linear storyline can remain artifacts.

I think Matt and I considered the idea that the artifacts that you find in the temples are not so much weapons, but part of the binding mechanism that keeps enphrale in place. They have been corrupted and twisted by their extended contact with Enphrale, and what you are doing is not so much collecting these artifacts, but cleansing them. Unbeknownst to the player (at first) and the character, this process is accomplished by siphoning the taint off into the one using the artifacts, in this case, our character. And then they teleport you to the next area to repeat the process.

that explanation would solve answer some of the questions that you have. As far as a tainted artifact on his original island, it would stand to reason that there would be.

what do you mean by good and bad temple? I'm not seeing that in the synopsis (although I'm really bad at finding things like that so... could just be me)

Hi guys,

Sorry I haven't been doing much, I've been busy and my inspiration is slowly depleting and it's getting harder and harder for me to come up with ideas. I guess that isn't a valid enough excuse though.

Well, as for challenges for the second world, I think that depending on the environment of the island, it will result in a certain enemy. Last I remembered, we discusses having 5 different islands, a grassland/plains island, the jungle/forest island, desert island, ice island, and the final island (I hope I'm correct. Let me know if I'm wrong.) So if the second world is gonna be a jungle/forest, maybe include something simple as the enemy like animals or maybe big bugs. Since it's gonna get harder with progression, the enemies don't need to be intricate enough. (Just an idea, maybe one of the enemies in the final island could be the wisps or spirits of those who died sealing Enphrale?)

I also believe, that in order to promote/urge players to explore their environment, we should have a minor artifact along the path to finding a major artifact. That way we can introduce that minor artifacts are scattered about every island and that they'll make progression easier if the collect them. (We can also list the downsides to collecting them if there's any.) Also I believe we discussed about there being villages on each island with certain villagers. I think those villages would be a good source for our main character to gather information about the island, like tips on how to fight enemies, hidden places, artifacts, etc., and also find out more information about Enphrale.

As for character backstory, as cliche as it may sound, this is the only thing I could come up with. Sorry it's not the best, but I think that our hero and his sister should be orphans who lost their patents for some unknown reason (maybe their death is connected with the awakening of Enphrale?) and the sister being the youngest and our hero the oldest. That would also provoke reason for our hero to save his sister from the illness plaguing his home and go on this quest, because his sister's all he has left. I'm sure there's a better backstory lying around, but at the moment, this is all I could think of.

However, I can't think of any names for our god or island. I'm drawing up blanks and think the names we have are fine, but if you really want different names, I'll keep thinking.

This is all I got for now, if you have questions let me know, or if you want to add/change feel free to do so! Sorry for being so delayed and not being very active. It's a struggle but again no excuses right? If you need me to think of more ideas, let me know!