Session 7 - 14/11/12 - More Ideas 2

In this session i thought focussed on my 'Courage' mechanic and tried to think of some kind of situations the player might face that might require them to be courageous, i listed a few ideas then made a list of all the enemies found in Half-Life 1 that coudl come into play during these 'events'.

Encounters:

·         Military encounter with alien grunts/other xenian species

o   Player must cross through a battlefield?

o   To save someone?

§  Cowardly outcome could lead to an alternative being discovered i.e. sewer cover leading under the battle

·        Witnessing an encounter between xenian and non xenian wildlife

·         Portal storms, causing teleportation of xen wildlife, as well as causing structural damage.

Enemies from half-life:

·         Headcrab

·         Headcrab Zombie

·         Barnacle

·         Houndeye

·         Bullsquid

·         Tentacle/Hydra

·         Gargantua

·         Ichthyosaur

·         Water Leeches

I then went spent some more time thinking about the actual plot for my story. I liked the idea of the main character being an average joe in a an average job having his uncourageous ways brought to light by the events of the Black Mesa incident. This meant the main character being a victim of the portal storms and the worldwide influx of Xenian wildlife that ravaged the earth soon after. To make the players cowardice come to light early, i had the idea of them allowing a family member to die or suffer due to their inability to step in and help. I also inadvertantly picked one of the 7 Narrative types that my story would fit into, 'Voyage and Return'.

Trivia suggests that after the black mesa incident portal storms began to spread around the planet, an interesting precedent could be a civilian witnessing the events happening through the news then encountering them themselves.

Combat system?

Is the character going to be adventuring alone?

Inciting incident: family member or close friend attacked by headcrab and player is unable to help due to fear, resulting in this persons death and their eventual return as a zombie. With the player now being stalked by a zombie, they could have a choice as to whether to fight, but a severely low courage level means that this option always leads to the player fleeing.

-          Escape a building?

Setup:

-          Player is sat at home, shortly after the black mesa incident, your power supply has gone down, but not before you saw a report on the internet of bizarre incidents occurring in America. Being a cynical person, the player does not believe the stories.

-          Normally the player is a cynical person but they cannot deny the earthquake that rocked the house an hour before and knocked out the power.

Narrative type - Voyage and return:

-          Player flees from headcrabbed friend/family

-          Hears rumour of a cure

-          Eventually discovers there is no cure

-          Returns, as a different person, to put their friend/family member out of their misery.

What happens in the interim to change the player?