P2: Autonomous Police Bots
Premise
In a not-too-distant future, you live in Circuit City, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the implementation of autonomous police robots capable of making arrest which has elevated the city to the status of being the safest city in the country. You serve as the Chief of Police, whose tough attitude has helped elevate you to the top of the city’s police line, working alongside these autonomous robots to keep the town safe. Other than work, the only thing in life you care about is your family—but when you find out your brother, who would never commit a crime, gets arrested by a police bot and goes missing, you find out a darker history behind Circuit City that affects all of its inhabitants, and you must eventually choose between the only two thing in life you’ve ever cared about: the safety of Circuit City, or that of your brother.
(The dystopic elements planned include the idea that the “autonomous robots” make targeted arrests of individuals without any known family members or loved ones, and ship them out of town to give the city the facade of being safe. In reality, the government has controlled the media and telecommunications channels of the city to believe they are safe.)
Map (Major Choices)
1. The game starts with the player waking up, preparing for work, and then doing regular police chief work (mostly paperwork), and making decisions that may or may not impact the rest of the game.
2. The player discovers their brother was arrested, and may control how they investigate.
3. Eventually, the government realize that you are on to them, and pit the city’s robots to arrest player.
4. The player explores the city to find allies and/or your brother.
5. Eventually, you may go down paths that find your brother, find evidence of government conspiracy, and/or ways to shut down the robots.
6. Depending on prior choices, you must choose to save the city, your brother, or yourself.
Project Plan
Wed 10/16: Complete Premise + Initial Map.
Sat 10/19: Finish text-based first draft.
Sun 20/20: Single Playtest for story elements. Revisions.
Tue 10/23: Revisions post-single playtest and in-class playtests.
Thu 10/74: Revisions post-Wednesday class; finalization of text-based elements/narrative/choices.
Sat 10/26: Transition to Unity for design improvements
Sun 10/27: Final playtesting rounds.
Wed 10/30: Final Revisions and playtesting rounds; begin writeup
Fri 11/1: Complete Writeup and Final Submission
The biggest challenges I foresee is the transition from text-based areas into Unity. I want to do more than just a Twine Game to have more fidelity (even if minimally) behind my narrative. While I have experience converting Ink Files into something useful within Unity, I think I will struggle the most with choosing and implementing compelling visual/auditory aesthetics that are feasible within this limited timeframe. The only other issues I think I’ll encounter is providing exposition without an exposition dump, but I’m ready to playtest to see what sticks or what feels like horrible writing!