Branching FPS Vision Statement
Many games today describe themselves as immersive, but we feel that something is missing from these experiences. What we propose to create with our new first-person shooter is the first game of the genre that will actually engage the player on an emotional level. By placing the player in situations in which he is forced to face difficult and morally ambiguous choices, the player will become more and more involved in the character that he plays. To further improve this sense of a real and dynamic world in which the player exists, the other characters around him will react in differing and expressive ways, based on the past decisions the player has made and each character’s individual and unique personality. By creating predispositions for each non-player character and using those to gauge their responses to the player’s choices at each critical point in the game, we will create a “mental fitness landscape” to determine the extent of influence the player has on that character.
The world in which we implement these design concepts will play a large role in the player’s involvement. Without a convincing setting and cast of characters, even the most serious of choices may not seem important or interesting, so we will develop an intriguing and dynamic science-fiction setting in which the player will assume the identity of a lieutenant commanding a small squad of soldiers during a futuristic war. By putting the player in charge of a group, he must take his responsibility to these men into consideration when he makes a decision (following or disobeying unjust or suicidal orders, for example). By combining the high level of agency offered by the choices throughout the game and this flexible character interaction system, our game will offer a more powerful sense of authorship than any FPS before. Since each choice the player makes affects the events and the characters around him, the player truly writes the story.