Thursday, 8 December 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Game concept - Ideas from Literature
The
Diamond Age
LITERACY
– THE DIAMOND AGE ( NEAL STEPHENSON )
Seeking
an alchemist in paradise
BLURB
(Main source of inspiration)
High
above the diamondoid bedrock of 21st Century New Chusan, powerful
neo-Victorians rule over Atlantis/Shanghai, which is still subject to the
rigours of Confucian law.
John
Percival Hackworth is one top Neo-Vick. A brilliant nanotechnologist. The
fugitive creator of an illicit copy of A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.
Poor
little Neil is a thete orphan, sharing a bed in Enchantment with her ruffian
brother Harv. She might have stayed there forever, but for one glitch: the
theft of the Primer. An interactive device to enable women to think for
themselves. Heaven help the future if it should fall into the wrong hands…
MORE
DETAILED INFORMATION
An
inner plateau about a mile above sea level, where the air was cooler and
cleaner. Parts of it were marked off with a lovely wrought-iron fence, but the
real border was defended by something called the dog pod grid – a swarm of
quasi-independent aerostats.
Aerostat
meant anything that hung in the air.This was an easy trick to pull off
nowadays. Nanotech materials were stronger. Computers were infinitesimal. Power
supplies were much more potent. It was almost difficult not to build things
that were lighter than air.
ENVIRONMENTAL
CONCEPT
A
design similar to Fuller's Cloud Nine might permit habitation in the upper
atmosphere of Venus, where at ground level the temperature is too hot and the
atmospheric pressure too great. As proposed by Geoffrey A. Landis, the easiest
planet (other than Earth) to place floating cities at this point would appear
to be Venus.[3] Because the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is 50% denser than
air, breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense
Venusian atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on
Earth. In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself
and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. This means that any large
structure filled with air would float on the carbon dioxide, with the air's
natural buoyancy counteracting the weight of the structure itself.[4]
At
an altitude of 50 km above the Venusian surface, the environment is the
"most Earthlike in the solar system",[5] with a pressure of approximately
1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C-50°C range.[6] Because there is not a
significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the
breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at
normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damage. In
addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air
to breathe and a protection from the acidic rain.
Since
such colonies would be viable in current Venusian conditions, this allows a
dynamic approach to colonization instead of requiring extensive terraforming
measures in advance. The main challenge would be using a substance resistant to
sulfuric acid to serve as the structure's outer layer; ceramics or metal
sulfates could possibly serve in this role. (The sulfuric acid itself may prove
to be the main motivation for creating the structure in the first
place,[original research?] as the acid has proven to be extremely useful for
many different purposes.)
Monday, 7 November 2011
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Monday, 24 October 2011
Group Task - Initial Development
CHARACTER ABILITIES
Walk
Run
Jump
Lasso
Running Jump
Items Interaction
Health Regeneration
Walk
Character walks at 1 unit per second.
Run
Character runs at 2 units per second.
Jump
Jump takes 2 seconds from static, followed by a 2 second pause (to regain balance) before the player may move again.
Lasso
Ledge Grab
The character may grab on to an upper right edge, upper left edge or exposed edge of an object and can hold this position until ready to either climb on top or drop down.
Swing
The character can stick the lasso on to various objects within the environment and use a pendulum motion to swing across (or up to) inaccessible areas.
The character also has control of the length of his arm during this action, and can shorten or lengthen (up to 10 units) his arm to allow him to reach higher or lower places.
The lasso may get caught on an edge during the arc motion, which will thus increase the distance and speed the character is traveling. This would be useful for areas like below.
Abseil/Climb
Player can use the lengthening and shortening of the lasso to scale up and down the environment (restricted to 10 units up or down).
Grab
Player can simply hold their position whilst performing a climb or abseil action and could then continue to simply let go and drop on to an enemy from above.
Running Jump
Jump takes 3 seconds, followed by a 2 second pause (to regain balance) before the player may move again.
Items Interaction
Lasso could be used to activate levers or buttons further on in the level than their character could normally physically reach.
Pushing environmental objects would be dependant on the scale of the object vs. the player, and also the player would be required to be within 1 unit of the object to be able to physically move an object (as apposed to activating it/modifying it).
Health Regeneration
Players could regenerate health by eating enemies by grabbing them with their lasso tool, and pulling them in to their mouth. Other methods of regeneration would be through collecting specific items (such as test tubes) which would boost health.
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