The Blurb:
"Things used to be so much simpler..."
It is a cold night. Breath freezes in the air.
A city. A street. The worn-down road and pavement, black as hell but with bright yellow shining on. A woman leans on a lamppost, lighting a cigarette, with no real intention on leaving currently. She has a hat, a trenchcoat, and nonetheless worked-on long hair. The hat conceals half her face in dark shadow, but the side which lies in the light reveals bright red lips, clearly aided by make-up, along with bright blonde hair. She takes her cigarette, puts in to those red lips... and puff. The smoke obscures her face almost completely, but another shadow is in the dark.
It looks like smoke. It is barely a thing. And it leaps, and then neither of them exists. But someone else does. Someone you should be familiar with, though likely aren't. A confused thing, which by all means should be awaiting a lynching. But then:
At your birth, a man swerves his black car over to you, with all the dramaticism he can muster.
He lowers his sunglasses and looks you in the eye.
"Hop in."
Someone lost enters. But when politics, scandal, and the less than savoury get involved, the lost last a few seconds shorter than the innocent. The world's a confusing place. Why were you saved? Who is this group that rescued you?
What do they want?
Who are you?
What It Actually Is:
So, the concept of identity. What makes a human human, what makes me me, am I purely physical, is the mind the same as the brain, yadda yadda yadda. This is today's theme of the day. If you would like to know more about identity, take a class in Philosophy or something I dunno it's your life. You play, depending on your point of view, as a woman or a parasite who has just taken over a woman's body, in an alternate noirish world that is basically the 40s/50s with stuff tacked on.
Parasites, of course, are... stuff, like smoke, that steals minds. Until they find a mind, they're just sort of there. I'd say animalistic, but I've seen tricksy cats and dogs. They are, however, very instinctual. And when they do find a mind, they sort of... jump in. This has negative effects for the jumpee -- namely, their mind is erased. The parasite then becomes "human", moreorless, with general knowledge and basic instinct taken from their victim, but no real experience. Arguably it's a new form of life. Either way, it's you.
This game's all about self-definition, and all that jazz. Decoration! Hats are important. Choose your clothes, your hairstyle, your hair colour (through the great invention of hair dye -- how sci-fi!). Eye colour probably remains the same, alas (those coloured lenses are annoying). I debated with making the character's gender chooseable, but since it's all about being thrust suddenly into the world and all that, your starting state is kind of set in stone. On the bright side, this means way less work for me.
There's also the skill and behaviour options. Will you, over the course of the game, become agile, strong, witty, diplomatic, smart, brutish (no, you cannot be a superstrong agile witty diplomatic genius, that would break the game)? Who will you form friendships with, and who will you insist on being needlessy rude to? If I can write it well enough, I'll probably try to add in your own lovely LGBT or maybe even straight romance options, and an optional transexual plot, since I think they both fit well enough with the whole "identify yourself" thing. Granted, that's only if I can write it well enough. Although, as far as the romances go, is it really film noir if there isn't someone just (almost) sexing it up?
And while you're doing all that, you can also actually deal with the plot, which is probably going to end up really short because I can only do so much work. That's got some politics in it, holds the game together, is kind of important, and is something I'm not actually going to describe as some things should be fresh in-game.
Influences:
- Film noir in general, but none specifically really. Just general mood, cyncism, and stylised lighting. There tend to be some strict roles on women (and men -- and in all honesty this goes for almost all genres in all media), which I felt might have some mileage with identity.
- The Walking Dead is pretty great for its small-scale things. It has next-to-no big choices that actually effect the plotline (not in the long run, at least), but your growing relationship with Kenny, Lilly, and to some extent others is something worth noting. Shame Lilly went a bit coo-coo.
- The Philosopy subject. Descartes, I still think you look weird.
- The raise-your-kid genre. 'Course, in this case you are the kid. ...My daughter took over Hell, you know. Not to brag or anything, but I don't know about yours.
- No real heavy lifting has gone into making this yet. Still taking it pretty chill, while I go about doing my regularlifethings. Some of the character designs have been done, along with a small bit of the script and coding, but it remains in a state where, if I so chose, I could still go "blargh, over from the top" and redo it without any real problems. Which is a nice place to be in, really.
- If anyone knows some cool jazz in the public domain, that'd be great. If anyone just knows some cool jazz to listen to, that'd be fantastic.
- I don't think actual film noir were really that jazz-heavy, but I do like a bit of jazz so continue.
- I made up the term urban sci-fi on the spot, and it's probably like an actual unrelated term or something. I regret nothing.
