Project Volt
Volt tugged her canary yellow rain slicker closer and readjusted her little red umbrella; trying her best to keep from getting soaked yet again. It was raining, like usual. A cold and bitter rain that chilled her to her very core. She was used to it, though. It rained more days than it didn't, and the sky was always overcast and gloomy. "What you can still see of it, anyway," she mumbled to herself as she craned her neck to catch a faint glimpse of roiling clouds between the peaks of towering buildings.
The streets were mostly empty. A few weary and bedraggled souls limped their way past her while paying her no attention. Only the poorest, the most desolate, or those with no where else to go actually used the old streets anymore, anyway. Anyone she would encounter had enough of their own problems to deal with, and a little girl out alone at night surely wasn't one of them. Volt patted her right pocket gently, and the subtle shifting of glass and metal reassured her. "Almost there," she thought.
Volt stole a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching her, and then quietly slipped into the narrow alley. It was quiet and dark but for the bright reflections of the electric billboards from the vast city above in the pools of murky rainwater at her feet. The faint light allowed her to see the heaps of trash and junk piled in all corners of the shallow alley, and the tiny rustling movement beneath them.
She smiled. "There you are. It's alright, come on out. I have something for you," she whispered as she reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the luminescent canisters she had been protecting. She crouched and held out the tiny battery, her face illuminated by the glow within. A series of whirring clicks, beeps, and chirps issued from the trash as it moved aside and a tiny robot wheeled its way out from beneath. It peered at Volt with its curious eye, flitting back and forth between her gentle face and the outstretched hand holding the battery it so desperately desired. Nervously it stretched its claw-like pincer out and took the tiny object from her before it chirped happily and quickly sped back into the safety of the trash heap.
The sudden rustling of metal and trash surprised Volt, and she watched silently as another orphaned robot crawled its way from beneath the heaps in the alley. One after another they showed themselves, the dozens of lost and abandoned robots of the uncaring city above. She pulled the remaining batteries from her pocket, and counted them. "Three. Only three left," she sighed to herself. She handed out the batteries to the robots closest to her before standing and looking down upon her little wards. "I'll be back. I promise.", she stated with an uneasy nod before turning and heading back onto the empty street.
That picture is the sole inspiration for the game I'm beginning starting today. I was just wasting time on StumbleUpon one night and well, stumbled upon it. I was instantly taken by the scene, and just knew that I wanted to develop a game based on that world.
DescriptionThe basic premise so far is that you will take on the role of Volt, an orphaned girl who survives by any means necessary in a cold, dystopian, corporate-owned world of the future. Strong AI has become a reality, and with it sentient robots employed as workers, slaves, and toys. As we know though, technology moves fast, and with the fickle nature of the modern human new tech quickly becomes old junk. Such is the fate of the robots of this world, and the lower slum-like streets of this city are filled with the cast-away remnants of last year's advances. Here robots languish in desolation until their sole battery packs run cold and they cease to exist.
Volt has appointed herself as the sole guardian of these decaying robots, and spends each day seeking (beg, borrow, or steal) out spare batteries for her little wards. Each night she delivers what she has found, but there are always more that need her help...
GameplayI'm doing the game as an exploration platformer where the goal is two-fold: find and collect as many batteries as possible (this could happen in many ways.. scrounging, 'quests', trading, etc), and find as many hidden robots as possible to save with said batteries. The setting will be the dystopian city described above, and should cover quite a bit of space both horizontal and vertical. I haven't decided on violent vs non-violent in regards to enemies.
PlatformsI'll be coding the game in C#/XNA and from the start I'm planning on releasing this game for free on the PC with a sister-release on the Xbox 360 for $1. I don't see this changing.
Help NeededI'm a half-way competent coder, but sadly my art skills, on a scale of 1 to 10, hover somewhere squarely in the -5 range. So if you're interested in arting this up, PM me.
Anyway, I'll update this more once I get basic engine layout done and have something to show! I'll probably be doing video devlogs along with it as I progress... sadly without art they won't be much to look at.
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