The Insidious Manipulation of Mr. Jones [BxG, scifi, NaNo13]

[Carassaurat]

No promises! Last year's NaNoRenO was a disaster for me that ended after 700 words of writer's block. So with that in mind...

The Insidious Manipulation of Mr. Jones

Eve may appear to be a normal young woman, but be warned — she is, in fact, a robot. Where she came from or who made her, we cannot tell. All we know is that she is far too lifelike to be legal and constitutes a potential danger so human society. We have tried to disable her, but she has successfully resisted our apprehension team, to its demise. Her whereabouts during the night are unknown — we suspect it's her weakness.

You are Jones, and you are our last hope of saving humanity. You're the most quick witted, charming, handsome man we have.

It will be your job to seduce Eve and disable her when she least expects it.

Don't worry. She may cry, but those tears come from reservoirs behind her optic units. She may be attached to you, but that's a protocol. She may confess her love, but that's a rule-based interaction. She has no heart to break, Jones.

Characters:

Jones
~ This is you. You're a perfect specimen, every woman's dream and every man's envy. If anyone can get the job done, it's you. We have full confidence in you.

Eve
~ A mysterious robot that appeared out of nowhere. Most people can't tell she's a gynoid, but we assure you, she is. It'll be your job to pretend you like her by analysing her patterns and protocols.

Chief
~ The Chief will be your link with the organisation. The Chief's cynical and disrespectful outlook may put you off at first, but he knows what he's doing and he's quick to appreciate a job well done.

Doctor
~ The Doctor will be your psychological aid during the operation. His approach may be unorthodox, but he holds a degree in something, so it's worth listening to his advice.

Secret character
~ Ooh, who could this be? Someone familiar, perhaps?

A Ghost
~ Scary!

Progress so far:
Have a concept sketch of Eve:



P.S.1. The title of this thing is so long I couldn't fully write out my tags for this thread.

P.S.2. Yes, I know it's yet again more robots, buuuuuuut I think this will be something special in the end.

[Sapphi]

I'm just going to sit over here with some tea and my fist.
Tea, for your comfort while you bring this good premise to life.
My fist, for when you need a motivational punch to the face, Kamina-style.

YOU CAN DO IT!

[Carassaurat]

Thank you, Sapphi; I think this will be quite something (special even if not good), if I manage to even finish it, but I can't say why because of twists and spoilers.

Being the second-to-last topic on the page and unwilling to be pushed to the second one, I'm keeping you up-to-date in several bullet points:

* Someone apparently already wrote a book about the big twist. I'm half sad I'm not the first and I'm half happy for it; I suppose I'll have to work really hard on the bad jokes to stand out. It also means I have a book to read during all of this.

* This thing is like menuception, menus within menus within menus. 12 menus in 3000 words. Most have four options. My brain hurts.

* I've written almost a 1000 words for the pick up line section. Of which you'll see about ten lines every time. Oh dear, this is going to be a long March.

* I've got a label called “echopants”.

* The project I was working on before (and will be after) is all serious, all drama, all the time. It's refreshing to write lines such as "Godspeed, Jones. America needs your handsomeness."

* Here's a mockup. It's... not quite there. I want to create a futuristic atmosphere based around the new style of Windows 8 and the new MS Outlook that I was forced to upgrade to. I'm going to have a play with things, more white maybe. Another thing that bothers me is that the text box is getting in the way, but transparancy would ruin the aesthetic.

[Flowers from Nowhere]

Is that how you'll be doing the backgrounds? It's really cool how it blends in with the textbox.

[saguaro]

I like where the look is headed. Very nice.

And there are never too many robot stories.

[Carassaurat]

This is a bit of a crummy update since it doesn't technically show more than that other mockup, but I re-examined the way in which I coloured my sprites and had quite a lot of trouble finding a balance between correct perspective and getting in some background detail. On top of that, I didn't think the old text box worked (sorry, Flowers) because it obscured too much, so I've been tinkering with that too. I'm at roughly 6000 words; 10000 seems to be a reasonable guess for the end result, though it so full of menus that you'll only encounter two thirds in one playthrough.



So it's over half March already and I've got one sprite and one not-even-finished background (the people in it are naked). Oh dear.

*back to work*

[saguaro]

That is awesome. I tried something kinda similar with BGs, but yours look way better.

[arachni42]

So it's over half March already and I've got one sprite and one not-even-finished background (the people in it are naked). Oh dear.

Well, I like how it's looking so far.

[Carassaurat]

@saguaro: That means a lot from someone who made something as stylish as Locked-In! Now that I think of it, I think Locked-In's character portraits were in the back of my mind when I decided to go for silhouette background people (and more obviously in a concept of Jones himself that I made, but which probably won't make it in). Hmm, I fired it up again and it looks like I had a bad case of cryptomnesia, subconsciously taking more from you than I'm eager to admit.

The Metro/Bauhaus aesthetic is a happy case of serendipity. I chose Microsoft Metro as a theme because I thought it actually looked futuristic (at least in 2013), instead of referencing sci-fi. I went to do some research into the philosophy behind Metro and it's quite fascinating. Apple has been dominating the design market, so to speak, for the last few years, and Microsoft tried to keep up with Vista and such, but with Metro, they're going for the bold move; no more catching up, but setting the trend, so that everything Apple will have made will look outdated. Metro is clean, simple, no nonsense. Gone are the sparkly and shiny bits that Apple products are so famed for. Apple design looks tangible, the UI receives and reflects light, casts shadows, moves, and so on. Its calendar, iCal, has a leather UI to evoke feelings of a real notebook. Its bookshelf looks like an actual wooden bookshelf. Metro, instead, opts for the Bauhaus mentality: functionality and honesty. Apple tries to make UIs look like the real world, Microsoft admits that they're computers and bases its design on looking like computers. This is the aesthetic I decided to use for this game.

Now read my game synopsis again. It's exactly the same theme. Funny, eh?

@arachni42: Thank you! But I'm very afraid this isn't likely to be finished by the end of March.

-

The following is hardly the most necessary asset of the game (more like a bonus or after credits thing), but I started it and had too much fun, so...

[Carassaurat]

Still working on this! It's at about 8500 words. While this is not going to be finished within March, I'm hoping to finish the writing of it this month at least.

And just so that it's not a completely empty post, have a look at the menu I made:



The upper text scrolls.

[Carassaurat]

As anyone could see coming, this wasn't to be finished by the end of March. But the script is finished at about 9,500 words, and I'm working hard on making the images. I'm experimenting with combinable assets for Eve, so she'll have 3 or maybe 4 head poses and 2 body poses that can be combined.



In the mean time, congratulations to all those who did manage to finish something during NaNoRenO. You're all heroes.

[SusanTheCat]

Looking forward to this!

Susan

[Donmai]

Looking very cool, Carassaurat! Bravo!

[Carassaurat]

I'm sure most have noticed, but I actually finished it! Though not all promises made in this thread were kept.

The link is here.

I would write "COMPLETE" in the thread title, but unfortunately, the title of the game is so long that it's already at its character limit.