Mechanised Rewrite

I figured out a way to make the Mechanised concept more focused on what I want it to be about, a lot humane, and probably more fun to make in the long run.

Now I just need to churn out enough materials for the presentation.

Synopsis

Mechanised is a puzzle game where the player designs machines to traverse the environment. The player is given complete freedom in how they solve the puzzles, within the physical constraints of the game. The puzzles are not structured as tetris-style challenges in quick thinking, but are more engineering endeavors, such as 'get to the other side of this chasm'.

The machines are built from a limited supply of parts that the player finds scattered around the world, so the player must be careful what they take and what they leave behind when they move on to the next challenge.

Treatment

The player's avatar in Mechanised is an explorer who's space ship has crash landed on alien planet. The ship, and it's cargo is scattered across the planet. The explorer lands on the surface in his escape pod.

The player must explore the planet. To do so they build and modify a machine to traverse the landscape, using the scattered part of their space ship. Eventually the player will find a way to escape the planet, and the game's focus will change from simple exploration to finding the specific parts that can be used to escape.

There are no real villains in the game world, only the planet's landscape and it's wildlife. Most of the wildlife is just background detail. Some of the wildlife will attack the player or their machine, though fighting these creatures is not the game's focus.

When the machine is being controlled, the players avatar must be inside the escape pod, which also serves as the machine's hub. Once the machine is ready to be controlled, clicking on a power source or a switch will activate it, and in turn the machine parts that are connected to the engine or switch. If the power source that is connected to a wheel is click, the wheel will start turning. If the power source is connected to a rocket engine, the rocket will fire. If the power source is connected to both a rocket and a wheel, they will both activate!

When not controlling the machine, the player's avatar can be moved by the player clicking where they want the avatar to move in the game world. When controlling the avatar, machine parts can be collected and brought back to the machine. Modifying the machine is also possible when the machine is not being used.

When modifying the machine, the rest of the game world will grey out, highlighting only the available machine parts. A circle will emanate from the escape pod/machine hub. This shows the maximum size the machine can be built to (about 2/3 the size of the screen). Machine parts can then simply be dragged around using the mouse. When a machine part is selected, it can also be rotated by click on a wheel surrounding it. Machine parts can be connected together to take power from part to part and perform special functions.

References (i'll flesh these out in the morning)

- world of goo
- tower of goo
- samurai movers
- armadillo run
- bridge builder
- commander keen
- crayon physics
- tri-achnid
- cortex command
- knytt stories