Motivation

Success: A Steam release of this game with at least 2 hours of playable content.

Failure: Burnout before releasing or a bug-ridden release.

Accountability: Monthly devlog and showing progress to my family.

Core Concept

Description: Investigate cybernetics crime in a futuristic dystopian city, while hacking, slashing, or shooting your way through the criminal underground.

Core Game Loop:

Obtain bounty
Fight cybernetic criminals
Unlock cybernetic mods that affect stats or unlock skills

Hook: The player gets caught up in a corporate conspiracy that changes aspects of the game:

  1. When the player dies, a corporate hospital performs a morally-ambiguous “life-saving” procedure to install/upgrade a random cybernetic implant in the player. While the player becomes more powerful, they take on debt if they are unable to pay, at a rate of 10x retail price of that implant.
  2. If the player is in debt they begin encountering other repo-hunters with increasing frequency as their debt grows.
  3. On higher difficulties, once you have reached a certain amount of debt the corporate-hospital will cut its losses and let you permanent die.

Genre: Action Side-Scroller

Theme: Cyberpunk

Audience

Target Platforms: PC via Steam

Controls: Mouse and Keyboard, maybe controller

Maturity: Teen+

Monetization: Free demo, $10 for base game

Outreach: Blog/Website, Discord, Steam Page

Design

Emotions: intrigued, visceral, fear, suspense, anxiety, desperation

Protagonist: A cybernetic repo hunter who becomes embroiled in a viscous corporate conspiracy after narrowly escaping death.

Plot: You are a repo hunter carrying out bounties on cybernetics criminals. Be careful not to get caught up on the wrong side of a corporate conspiracy to force millions of people into lifetimes of debt.

Mechanics: Side-scrolling action combat

Systems: Currency/Pickups, Basics Stats, Melee/Ranged Combat, Dialogue, Inventory/Skills

Atmosphere: Dystopian futuristic neon-lit city

Visual Style: Low Poly 3D assets with a 2D Orthographic Camera and parallax environments to achieve depth.

Music: Synthwave