Reaper: Prototyping Challenge
This is a story about Lauren Stone and her battle to save her son at the risk of loosing her soul. It’s a horror/magic/fighting game and the tone of it should be pretty dark. It could even have a Slient Hill kind of atmosphere.
Lauren wakes up. She’s on the 3rd floor of a dilapidated hospital and as she gets up to explore she finds strange things: lots of greenery all over. It shifts and moves like it has a mind all of its own. The room is dark, lit only by candles that line the edges of the room on the floor. There’s a bassinet in the corner of the room with a baby inside. It’s sleeping but theres something really weird about it. She can’t pick it up but she notices that it looks odd, almost like it’s angry. When she tries to leave the room vines shoot across the door and block her escape.
* A little while later the vines around the door retract. A woman enters. Her name is June and she’s a witch.
* She talks to Lauren like she’s known her for a while now. Says she only has a week to find all the ingredients needed for her to become a Reaper. She gives her a list of items and tells her places where she needs to go. Gives her a map of NYC, and a simple spell book. The spellbook lets her unlock doors and cast temporary protection around her. June explains that since she’s human, and not a witch, that the spells may affect her adversely. Once she runs out of energy she won’t be able to cast anymore unlike a witch who has an unlimited supply to draw from.
* When June is done talking it goes back to Lauren in the room. In order to get out of the room she has to cast the door unlock spell.
* Outside of the room she can explore the dilapidated building. Inside she must pickup several important items:
Required:
– a kinfe (in the operating room)
– gun (found in the hospital security room)
– ammo
– an item backpack (in a store closet)
– an additional spell – spark, throws light energy at an opponent
Optional:
– energy drink (optional)
– first aid kit (optional)
* Before she can exit the building she must find a way to unblock the entrance. In order to do this she needs to find a way to restart the Hospital’s backup generator. Once she’s started the generator she can use the door opening spell to push open the electric doors.
* The generator is in the basement. In order to turn it on she needs these items. Once all of these are attached the generator will start up:
– Spare Transformer (found in an engine room off the main basement room).
– Pliers (found in a supply closet off of the security room on the 1st floor, to affix the fuse to the generator)
– Crowbar (found on the 3rd floor beside a knocked over gurney)
* Outside in New York City, Lauren has a big adventure awaiting her. She’ll have to battle daemons and vampires in order to make her way around the city to find all the ingredients she needs for the Reaper spell. You can kind of get the idea from here. Lauren will learn new spells as she goes, how to light up a room, how to blast enemies from afar, how to regain health, how to temporarily go invincible, start fires, move objects, etc.
*There are a number of different places Lauren could go to in order to find the ingrediants. It’s possible that June even gives her a map and marks the buildings she should search. Each of the buildings will have daemons or vampires for her to fight and she’ll have to solve some kind of puzzle or beat a major boss in order to get each of the ingredients.
*When Lauren has all the ingredients she’ll return to the Hospital to find June gone. As she goes to leave the hospital and go back into the city June will enter frantic, saying her daughter has gone to the Coven and was the one who caused Lauren’s son to become possessed by a daemon. Together they’ll go looking for her.
* In the coven Lauren and June will have to face off against other witches so Lauren will have to have honed her magic and fighting skills by now. As they travel further through the coven they unravel why June’s daughter went there — because she hates Lauren and things her mother likes Lauren more. She told the coven that June’s son is half-daemon and they sent the daemon to possess her. A human/daemon is a really strong being when possessed by a daemon because the human part of it can be controlled although it has the daemon powers. Lauren finds this out right about the time they go to rescue June’s daugther who is now being sentanced to death by the Coven because she regrets her decision telling the Coven about Lauren’s baby and getting him possessed.
*Lauren and June can’t save June’s daughter from being hanged. As they battle the other Coven witches they manage to get her down before she dies and escape with their lives.
*Back at the hospital June casts healing spells on her daughter then starts to explain to Lauren about becoming a Reaper. June will tattoo a rune on her back that will prevent a daemon from leaving once it’s possessed her. After the daemon is inside of her Lauren will have to cast it into an amulet filled with the blood of an angel (which June gives her saying its from a friend). When the daemon has been cast into the amulet its soul will be released and the daemon will be sent back to the Devil’s side.
*However there is a downside of becoming a reaper. Every time Lauren casts a daemon back to the Devil it will tear apart her soul. There is no way to measure her soul so if the daemon is too strong or she reaps daemons too often she’ll loose her soul and once she dies she’ll join the devil and all the daemons she sent there. A human without a soul cannot get into heaven. If she can’t cast the daemon out then June will leave her in her possessed state forever and both Lauren and her son will die.
*Lauren agrees, saying she has to do something to save her son. June tattoos the rune on her back and then casts a circle of protection around Lauren and her son. Lauren goes to kill her son and the daemon jumps to possess her. Once inside of her the daemon is trapped and they battle. Lauren gets a new gage on the battle screen, something that shows her soul level (but the player won’t be able to tell when its low, only that its decreasing the longer it takes them to defeat the daemon).
*Lauren defeats the daemon and casts it out. June tattoos a ward on Lauren’s son’s back that will prevent a daemon from being able to possess him again. Lauren is now a reaper and will be able to see greater daemons where other’s cannot as well as has a bunch of magic knowledge to aid her.
*This could lead into a whole other group of games. Lauren’s son getting older and becoming violatle to the point where she has to kill her own son. Lauren developing her skills as a reaper. Lauren uncovering a plan by the Coven to try and take over a majority of the city. Lots of possibilities.
