Otherworld
The idea for the game must be rooted in the world it happens in. Gameworld shapes and influences the plot, events and the player. It is the source of the storytelling, the lense through which we contextualise the experience lived in the game.
The Otherworld is Earth, just in the near, possible, unwanted future. It has all of the Earth problems, with its high constrast of wealth and poverty, privilige and discrimination. It is the world abandoned by the best, the brightest and the richest. It is the world collapsed, world that has ended. A world in which the story can take place because there is no other choice. It is an open world, but it is also empty of events. The journey of the player is the story that binds it, that collects the smaller stories of survivors and in which the player is the change – for the better or worse.
A long time ago the world was as we know it. It was warned that it can end, if certain steps happen, the world could be saved. But they did not happen. Instead the decline of the civilisation progressed, the money gap widened and when the world was struck with one disaster afte another, natural catastrophies after societal conflicts. It all has led to the departure to the orbit of the 1% and the death of the majority of the population. The rich have build launch pads, where gigantic rockets were build to lift them up to orbit, where an even bigger colony ship was being contructed. The technology and technicians were taken. All that is left are old pieces of tech, battery powered devices and cumbersome, ancient technological junk. Those who were left behind are now earthbound and desperate to try to survive.
The world has no greenery left. People survive on mushrooms and barely filtered, filthy water. They try to set up small farms or try to eat the new vegetation – with inconsistent results.
Narrative beginning
The game starts with the introduction of the Perrwinkle family, that is denied boarding to the rocket from the OffWorld Project that they have been helping being built. The player’s character was one of the main scientists on the project and they have been promised an unpaid entry. Due to the sudden reappearance of a presumed dead family members of one of the OffWorld projects managers, they Perrwinkle family has lost their seats. They are left behind on the LaunchPad with nothing to their name. They need to start gathering some scraps, make shelters and think about how to get some food.
Narrative Milestones
- The beginning of the camp – what is the most important for our camp, deciding the focuses of the first week, delegating family towards differnt goals and learning what action results in what type of event (Tutorial).
- What to do – what is our main goal here, how can we survive, how everyone will contribute to our sirvival. The debate between the family members on how to proceed after the shattering event of being left behind.
- First problem – the declining state of the abandoned launchpad and the vastness of it is making us decide if we should stay or move. The decision to move to a differnt location is more dangerous but can be profitable. The launchpad is not the
- Newcomers – we encounter first people who want to participate in our camp, survive together, will we be open for such people in the future?
- Reduce/Enlarge – should we focus on making our camp small and highly useful or should we expand and make room even for the ill and old
- Sustain – how can we sustain our decision (throw away people we do not need/find food sources and divide work for everyone)
- The goal – what is our ultimate goal, should we build a rocket of our own, should we try to make technology and science revitalise our surrounding or should we find a biological balance in the world and ourselves. The last moment to push through or to switch.
- Adversaries – our growth and success attracts bandits and people willing to just take someone else’s hard work. The big security risk, the last one that can make or break our growing camp.
- The defectors – our goals are not fit for everyone, some of the people abandon the camp threatening the balance of our work division and the idea of creating something differnt emerges in the family members who are not keen on the goal. The negotiation with them begins.
- The last stretch- converging dilemmas and problems grow more and more dire as we need to focus on achieving our goal and abandon other pursuits. Last moment to turn the family members to the goal. A lot of issues demand workforce and resources, do we have them?
- Finale – we have achieved our goal but was it worth it, was it what we expected it to be? Who we have ost, how much did we save? Is the world going to be okey?
OR - Finale? – we have failed and everything has ended. We have no resources left, peple leave us and the dream of surviving is dead.
The proposed chain of narrative events is just a rough draft of the tensions and the storyline that I have designed the game around. The placing of the launchpad or the alternative place should be chosen by the writers in regards to what the family represents. The default location of is suggested to be in Florida, around the location of the real world NASA Launch Pad on Merrit Island.
Three Goals
In the game, ther are three posibble end goals that the player needs to decide on before the 1/3 of the game passes. They can change their mind later on, but it is important to make sure some decision is made early in the game – for narrative structure sake.
Adaptation – the end goal of understanding the new ecology of the world, the internal workings of the new ecosystems and finding a place for humans in it. It also includes setting up a chain of refining and filtering food and water from flora for humans, as well as making sure to make humans insuceptible to new pathogens and microelements of the new ecosystem.
Purge – the end goal of finding the Vault with frozen samples of old flora and fauna and carving a pure, uncontaminated part of the Earth to start regrowing it, slowly expanding. It also includes setting up a chain of refining and filetring food and water from the newly created “old” ecosystem, to make sure humans can survive.
OffWorld – the end goal of fidning the right elements to recreate the Project OffWorld for private use and joining the colony fleet that departures from Earth’s orbit with self-built rocket ship with enough crew and enough specialists.
In here I am talking about how a game can make a captivating case for story and worldbuilding while not writing a ton of storylines and optional pathways to engage with:
In here I am talking about the themes that I have started with and how do they influence, or are influenced, by the world: