Final Post

Some reference material, mood boards and designs that I more recently created.

This is the final plot and world information as well as information on the character.

Title: Descension

Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3

The game is a science fiction, futuristic first person shooter set in the year 2360 and it takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth in Detroit. The game was originally intended to be a third person shooter but due to the HUD interactions with the game’s main villain FRI3ND I decided a first person perspective would be much more immersive.

The game’s very basic plot is that Vaylen must destroy the 7 remote servers that continue to sustain FRI3ND in the city’s systems and warn humanity that the Earth is not safe yet.

In the year 2360 The Earth has been long abandoned due to years of war, poverty and destructive environmental disasters. The remains of humanity is now stationed above the Earth in numerous massive Ark space stations where they have been for 140 years and they are eager to return to their planet to begin the re population of their home. There are roughly 57,000 humans left, all of which live in 4 Ark stations that orbit the earth. Every 20 years, a single child aboard the Ark colonies is chosen to be a Guardian. The Guardians are sent to Earth in order to evaluate the planet's condition and begin the first stages of the purging process to rid the planet of any harmful threats. Unfortunately 5 of the previous 6 Guardians that have been sent to the Earth have all been KIA for unknown reasons.

The Guardian experiment was a relatively last minute creation in humanities existence and very few preparations were made which is why the Guardians use relatively low tech equipment such as medium grade armour, projectile weaponry, and one way escape pods to make the journey to Earth, which prevents any possibility of returning to the Ark colony. Their Armour is grafted to their flesh by layers of complex bio-mechanical suits. The suit is fitted to the soldier at a young age during their childhood and as it is made from human DNA merged with Nano-bots it will grow and merge with the child. The suits construction resembles that of the human body and works as an additional, more powerful layer of muscle tissue which can also transfer data to and from any of the 50,000 sensors within the suit as well as the body’s nervous system. The suit contains several points around the body which allows the outer layer of alloy body armour to be attached to the soldier without any chance of it sliding around and creating discomfort for its user. The final, key piece of technology for the Guardian soldiers is their helmet. The helmet has many functions, the most vital of which is to protect the user’s head. The helmet provides a night vision overlay as well as a heads up display (HUD) which monitors the wearer’s vital signs such as health, shields, ammunition count and a rough map of the region acquired from the Ark satellite imagery. The map will become more accurate as the player explores the world and new data is recorded. The helmet is applied shortly before leaving and can only be removed once they are within range of the Ark colony.

 In the game, the player will take control of Vaylen, the latest of the Guardian soldiers and in the beginning of the game he will be shown gearing up for his decent to earth and being honoured by humanity's leaders. Once preparations are complete Vaylen is launched down to the earth to the city of Detroit in one of many of the station's escape pods. After some exploring the player is attacked by some of the infected humans that were left on the planet and is swiftly rescued by some sentry droids which were left behind by the humans as well as the Artificial Intelligence called FRI3ND. There were many AI experiments in the closing years of humanity’s reign on Earth in an attempt to store their history for any future inhabitants but they gave up after they created FRI3ND as it was their best and only attempt that they could afford due to the rapidly spreading plague. FRI3ND asks Vaylen to follow him back to the central tower so that he can be debriefed on situation. Upon arrival Vaylen is tricked into releasing FRI3ND into his suit’s systems and he begins to rapidly shut down Vaylen’s vital organs but before it is too late he is quarantined into the helmet systems which allow him to control his communications with the Ark colony. The planet is clearly not suitable for humanity yet but FRI3ND wants to use Vaylen to lure them back to the planet in order for them to be wiped out as they are the only ones who can disable him. As for the remaining infected that haven’t starved to death, they will continue to pursue Vaylen due to their sheer hunger.

FRI3ND is the game’s primary villain; he is an artificial intelligence that was the first real breakthrough of his kind. The 140 years without human maintenance have forced him to deteriorate and evolve into a much more intelligent and psychotic AI. He patiently waits for the next Guardian to emerge as they are his only chance to wipe out the colonies that orbit the earth’s surface. FRIEND can access almost any piece of electronic equipment that is in range of his 7 AI server cores which are hidden in multiple locations. Due to the extensive electrical systems of the Guardian’s suit they are able to access memories as well as create new ones which can interfere with the mental stability of its user, which is the case with Guardian number 6 Tressa. If FRI3ND does not kill his victims straight away for whatever reason, he will begin to manipulate them and truly torture them by showing them things that are not real via the control of the visor interface.

Vaylen encounters Tressa, one of the previous Guardians sent to Earth who is now 40 years of age, she wears some of her original armour and features severe facial scars from where she cut the helmet from the rest of the suit as it too was infected by FRI3ND and she began to lose her mind to him.

The enemies in the game are the various droid archetypes as well as the different variants of the infected.

This is my very final character drawing. I placed the character in a dark rainy apocalyptic city for two reasons, the first of which is because it is where the game is set but the second is because I wanted to convey the feeling of loneliness and that he is just wandering through the remains of the city. The environment was created in numerous parts, most of which was drawn but objects like the signs and the sky were taken images which I then edited.

This was my first full attempt at drawing what was close to being the final character design. I soon realised that this design was too plain and lacked any character and detail. Due to the squareness of this design I soon decided to build upon it and try to create a much more "Bad-ass" looking character. I liked the weapon design used in this image but I do not think that it really suits neither the character or the world.

 This was the result of my improvements to the previous character. Although the changes are only subtle I think that the added armour sections of the feet, legs and hands give it a much more realistic style. I made some slight adjustments to the helmet to give it a much more streamlined look. The slight overhang in the glass over the brow area that continues down towards the chin helps to give the audience a better indication of the face region underneath the visor, although this is nothing crucial I found it to help make the character less alien and more human. I also modified the design of incorporating a cloth scarf and instead made it into a cloth robe. In my opinion I find that the robe gives the character more of a ceremonial/military style which I really like as opposed to the scarf which I also liked but it hid most of the character's body and would likely be a hindrance to movement.

This is the culmination of all the previous work gone into the character design. This is the same design as the previous image, only much more defined and has more character. I decided to leave out the large orange rifle this time and swap it for the much more mobile pistol. I particularly like how the yellow armour highlights turned out as it helps to break up the character. Looking at this character I can see all of the previous ideas come together, such as the glass front helmet and the collar plating. I am going to edit the image slightly into a more suitable environment like that of my game idea.

Development and experimentation

This is some variations to an early enemy sketch to show age of the Titan droids.

The infected in the game are exactly that and less zombie. This drawing was inspired by the infected of The Last of Us.

Main character helmet design.

Coloured side view of helmet.

Some more sketches