Sounds like you just assembled a number of ideas you find interesting, but lack the glue to tie it all together.

Okay...hang on, this could get bumpy.

Note: I'm singleing in on two major and one minor ideas you had and trying to tie them together. A) the player is an angel sent by god. B) The plot involves some sort of alternative world...and C) the current real world seems to be in decline.

Got that? good.

So the major overall story arch is its the end of the world as promised in the Christian bible. And you as an angel were sent to INSURE the world comes to an end as god planned.

The major realworld story is that the earth is being ravaged by some sort of super deadly virus (Which is what you as an angel are sent to fullfill) Plants, animals, and humans are dieing by the thousands each and every day. Once infected the host dies within about 12 hours. No known cure exists, no known way to contain the virus either. But it is believed that a cure can be found if the source for the virus is found.

Which brings me to the alternative world. Which is a computer simulation, a virtual reality, of a particular 24 hour period in the past. Basicly it is one day played over and over again in a loop. It represents all known data the world over of the assumed day the virus outbreak started some 7 years in the realworlds past. During this day a large war was being waged across the major continets...call it the war for oil...world war three...

Anyway, realworld agents are hired by the government to get jacked into this alternative world and search out the cause of the virus outbreak. Catch is these agents are not to interact with the people, places, and things of the alternative virtual world. The agents are only to bear witness to the event causeing the virus outbreak. This is because the entire alternative virtual world is generated by all known data from that day, and the only way to be certain the simulation is correct is to ensure the starting data set for the day and the ending data set for the day always equal out. If something gets interacted with...causeing a change in the data stream, then the computers running the simulation crash and the whole day has to be re-ran from the start...There is a logical reason for this, namely the accuricy of the virus outbreak...For example if 1 + 2 = 3. Then the simulation should always get 3 at the end of the simulated day. But if something happens when I were to type that scentice. And the simulation finds that I typed 1 + 2 = 4 (or somthing else incorrect) then its fair to say that any point after I typed the wrong thing in the simulated world is incorrect...basicly the simulation has been messed with and any thing dealing with the virus outbreak after that point could contain incorrect information. So as a safety...anytime the simulated days computers sense such a invalidation, the whole day gets reset.

Whew...Okay on to the player.

They wake up in the realworld, but unlike anything we know. Its some distant year, about 7 years after the outbreak started. People live in bubbles, wear bubble hazmat clothes, trying to reduce human contact (even shareing the same airspace) because of the virus. Whole cities are gone, along with a few nations. Life is pretty bleak, much of the plant and wildlife is gone. The planet slowly becoming inhospitable. Player can earn some processed food and a place to sleep by entering the alternative world in search of the virus outbreak. Maybe a cure can be found then to stop the rest of the world from dieing.

Of course player is an angel sent to ensure that gods plan for the end of the world is fullfilled. Which means players want to constantly crash the simulated virtual world before the source of the virus can be found...

Opposeing the players (this be the main bad guy) are the scientists running the simulation.

And your foil, as well as human love intrest is a girl whom is also a demon sent from hell to stop gods plan (which will cause the devil and hell to be no more). To do this she needs to find the source of the virus outbreak and report it to the scientists so a cure can be made.

Yes, traditional good and evil roles are kinda reversed here. But that sort of moral twisting is what can make it so much more interesting. Yeah its kinda 12 Monkeys meets Groundhogs Day meets Spawn (I suppose). I wouldn't flat out say the player is an angel though, rather play up the moral ambiguities. And I would reduce the role of combat instead rely heavily on stealth mechanics. But maybe this could give you some direction or inspire some ideas.



Oh, and I'm retaining my right to pursue this story idea on my own. But use the above as you see fit. ;)

I found some things that didn't make sense to me, as well as that, I've got a few ideas for you (generated by staying up too late, so they might seem a bit off-the-wall). WARNING! VERY VERY VERY LONG POST! Well I had fun with it, so here goes:

Quote: You wake up in the real world, the year is around 2020, the future is not technological by any means, it almost appears to be apocalyptic. The world is in a great depression as several of the earth's natural resources are starting to run dry. Wars are breaking out between countries to vie for the last bit of resources left. (Question 1)

Why won't they just turn to solar power? Or biofuels? Or Wind? Or nuclear? I think it would be better if there was some other reason that caused the apocalyptic state of the world, such as diseases/plagues/viruses. To make war over the last bit of oil just doesn't make any sense - its just not profitable, no matter how you see it, to spend money, lives, (and even more oil) to make war over something that is simply going to be replaced by other energy sources.

Your setting sort of reminds me of the movie, The Children of Men, where there similarly was also an apocalyptic future, but was caused by a virus to which caused infertility for all women.

Quote: You are a middle-aged man around the age of 28. You are one of the many that is out of work, and you are merely just waiting for life to end. You visit a local bar where you spend most of your days. You begin talking to your bartender friend and he explains the new scientific research going on. A new technology has allowed scientists to open up a new world. Governments see the potential in this new world and are sending normal people to enter it and fight for them. (Basically, wars going on in normal and new world) They promise money if you return and care for your family while you are away.

But don't they have actual trained soldiers to do this sort of thing? It just doesn't make sense to send in civilians or to suddenly train civilians for top-level military operations, especially if it involves such powerful technologies as generating gates to new worlds.

The other thing that doesn't make any sense is how such a powerful technology can be leaked to civilians, and why the government would even make such a technology be publicly known in their hiring ads especially when world nations are at war.

I think it would be better if your main character was a soldier before (a veteran), or that he found out much later that he had training before as a special ops who does these things (such as when a government agent confronts him in the bar and wants to hire him for the job).

You're also going to have to explain how he has a family but has amnesia at the same time - does he remember his parents at all? Could he actually be a genome soldier (genetically engineered) who became brainwashed and was made to believe that he had an actual normal life - but the reality is, he never had parents, for he was raised in a lab and military institution?

There could be many like him, a whole army division created by the government secretly to fight the war, to which you might have to command a squad of them in the new world battles, and where each in your squad might have their own weird, unique, and memorable personalities. Some might have special powers or abilities.

However, you will also have to explain why the government would let-loose some of their genome soldiers on the street and amongst civilians with brainwashed memories of having normal lives.

* Meanwhile in the bar, you see an ad campaign/ news report about the next presidential candidates who are running for office.

Quote: While you have no family (explained later), you insist you have nothing better to do and might enjoy the chance to start a new life. You journey to the scientific facility and sign contracts, etc. You are "plugged in" (matrix term, I'm not sure how I want to represent journeying to the new world yet, suggestions welcome!)

You could make the new world be a parallel/alternate dimension of the real world, where things look much different there, as though you are in a dream state; and to get there, they probably use a stationary vessel to which allows dimensional travel (it doesn't really "move" however, only shifts to a dimension).

Have you heard of the Philadelphia experiment? It was an urban legend about the United States experimenting with cloaking technologies on a ship but it accidentally traveled through time and came back - the crew of the ship were all found dead in strange ways (such as one having his body becoming stuck in the floor), and some were even glowing.

You could make it so that this dimensional shifting technology is sort of a derivative of that.

Quote: You awake in the new world on your countries training base. You are introduced to the basics of fighting in the new world and how things are different here. After training, they send you off to a battle, somehow your troop gets routed, and you and a friend you've made make it to a nearby village.

So in the version that I'm describing, you, the special-op genome soldier, and your squad arrive in the alternate reality, but instead of arriving in the D-shifting vessel, you instead wake up in bed as though you have lived in the new alternate reality your entire life. Your squad is nowhere to be seen. Everyone treats you as if they know you, and there is a woman who claims that you are her lover, but you know nothing about her - people you never knew greet you. You become disoriented. During the traveling process insert some weird psychological scenes and flashes, or even some flashbacks of his "forgotten" childhood military/lab training/conditioning. You were told to report to this new land's "defense council" for military training (because in this land you are supposed to be some sort of soldier just like back in the real world).

You will be given training on how to handle the unique physics of the new world; the gravity might be different, there might be a haze to your vision, the wind resistance might be thicker and blurrier, there might be more pressure in the atmosphere, sound and light might travel differently, etc, etc. In the meanwhile, you will discover that you actually wield powers much later on in one of your campaigns, to which sometimes automatically "turn on" in certain circumstances to counter specific types of threats (trained & engineered as their instincts).

Quote: This village is complete new world people. All of them do not even know about the real world that you come from and do not believe you insisting that this is reality instead of what you know. These people are not from the old world, never plugged in or anything.

This alternate dimension / parallel reality could be one of the possible time lines of Earth that branched off from your "main real-world" time line long ago, before life began. There could be no moon, or two moons, the sun could be different. But everything else will look very familiar, such as the city architecture, and the people's physiology. The time era of this alternate dimension could be the same as the time era of the real world (near-future tech), but their technology could be different because it is based upon different materials and conditions.

Their cities could be just as large as the real world but with much simpler (and probably more spiritual for contrast) shapes and architecture; everything is extremely neat, clean, shiny, bright, almost too-perfect, and the air has a golden dreamy sheen/haze to it, in stark contrast to the gritty dark atmosphere, slums, crimes, gangs, and war-torn cities of the dystopian real world. This alternate dimension of Earth would be a Utopia, while the real world a Distopia - contrasts such as these could make huge impressions on the audience. The people in this alternate dimension are also different in personality and behavior, they are complete pacifists, but seem to be too obedient, well-mannered, and pleasant, as if something is unnatural and amiss here.

Their architecture might be more rounded (or use some other distinguishing contrasting shape-base from our real-world); they might use more cylinders and spheres, and the people could all be wearing extremely neat suits where not a fold or crinkle can be seen on it. Everything is perfect, even the clothes that the people wear. They might use lots and lots of gardens in their cities, to which every plant looks exactly like each other. In fact, every person almost looks like each other - their skin might also be too perfect, almost like plastic.

Have you read the novel Brave New World? This alternate reality could be just like that - a perceived utopia where happiness is an enforced law, but secretly there is something wrong with such a society, something very, very wrong. People's names might be assigned numbers or letters.

You might be fighting some strange dark beings in your military campaigns (given to you by the Utopia) that look like cloaked shadows with lightning guns or some other strange shooting devices. There might be a variety of such dark beings, from small scurriers to the large, towering, and imposing, all whom disappear as soon as you line your sights on them. You might be told that this utopian world is at war with these shadows, that, in fact, on the other side of the world, is complete darkness (could be explained by the planet's rotation being locked in phase with the sun so that only one side experiences light while the other permanent night time), and that it is over there on the dark side of Earth that lies Utopia's enemy, Lucifer (as called by these people), the ruler of the shades.

Quote: Filler, filler, filler, character development, new friends, and so on. You slowly begin to doubt that there ever was a previous reality before this one as you begin to be convinced by the new world people you are traveling with.

(I know this suddenly just showed up, but I just failed to mention it earlier, it'll be developed.) You explain to the people how you don't remember any of your childhood, your parents, anything. You simply remember being placed on the earth around the age of 23.

You make friends with your alternate reality squad and then you become seduced by this woman who claims that she is your lover but you never knew her (but she insists). Your trust for all of them, however, is reserved, for your "buddies" seem a bit too violent and eager to kill, treating the enemy (the shadows) as though they are less than human - but you are never able to find out if they are indeed human, for they won't let you.

Quote: You are slowly hinted at that you are not normal. Foreshadowing aside, you end up learning that you are an agent from God (an angel per say!?) sent to aid the new world.

Your genetically engineered powers become entirely revealed, and you are able to control them. When this happens you have a flashback remembering your training involving your genetically engineered powers. This might be triggered after killing a boss shade, or ordered to wipe out a shade village.

The Shade Village, however, seems awfully familiar - they look like real Earth buildings! Rectangular architecture, broken glass windows, street pavements, cars, it looks like the architecture from your real world, except that instead of people, you have shades, and these shades are hostile; they don't listen to reason (or listen or talk at all), and you have to kill them to defend yourself.

So you have a choice here - either to carry out that order to wipe out this already broken-down town, or to run away from Utopia / the Bright Side and figure out things on your own, because the last time you tried to find out any information in Utopia they forbid you from discovering (everything is locked up tight like a police state).

Quote: Enter rival/main bad guy. He is basically your opposite, an agent from the devil.

Who, in this suggestion, is the Lucifer guy on the dark side of alternate Earth.

Quote: All in all, he ends up killing your main girlfriend mid-story. End of the game, you defeat him (duh) and save the new world. You are then somehow ported to the old world

If you decide to go ahead with Utopia's order to wipe out the shade city, you will eventually reach Lucifer at the heart and center of the dark side of Earth. Through these travels, you will fight a couple of bosses, Shade army generals, each to whom are very familiar but you can't quite put your finger on it yet. You kill the first shade general without thinking much. Some levels (or a level) later, you kill the second general; he seems a bit more familiar however, his voice, his body shape. When you defeat the third and fourth, you finally figure it out - they resemble your real world squad mates to whom separated from you when you arrived to alternate Earth. The other shades you encountered also resembled other people in your real world.

This is when Lucifer appears and nothing is known about him. He doesn't really resemble anything you know of in the real world however, and he appears to be a towering dark cloaked shadow like the others, but much taller, much larger, as tall as a building, and much more ornate, and with very human facial features (and eyes brimming with black fire if you wish).

You finally defeat Lucifer, he explodes, and suddenly the alternate Earth reality begins to tremble and black out. You wake up in the real world the same day you first woke up. Intensely curious, you got out of your house and started down to the bar, when you noticed that no one was around. There were the same-old cars, buildings, and things as before, but no people. Until you noticed this huge monolithic rounded structure shimmering not too far in the distance. You decided to investigate. When you get closer, you realized the entire world was covered by round structures, the same kind of roundish architectures of Utopia. You enter the monolith and you are greeted by a figure you have seen before on TV, that political candidate who was trying to run for office; he thanks you for all that you have done to secure his "permanent presidential term" for him. He then sends you off for reconditioning. The End.

-

If you decide to betray Utopia and wander off in your own, you will later be confronted by Utopian troops who will hunt you down as they will mark you as a traitor. Then, they come over to you by gyrocopter/hovercraft with your supposed lover who tries to convince you to join them and stop your perceived "madness" via speakerphone. Here you will be presented with two choices - to accept her plea to give up, or to continue your path as the rebel. If you accept her plea to give up, they will land, take away your futuristic guns away, and send you off to the nearest correctional facility to which you will then forget everything. Game Over.

If you continue your path as the rebel, you will eventually have to fight against the same new alternate Earth squad that you fought as allies against your first shade campaigns - they will be minibosses, lead by a very tactical, strategic, and tricky new squad leader to whom is sent to destroy you (this new squad leader might be someone you met and recognize before when you were training in Utopia). They will aggressively set up clever traps, mines, and ambushes for you that you have to watch out for.

You will eventually be presented with another choice much later - to Join the Shades and destroy Utopia, or to continue being an Independent Rebel. If you join the shades, they will become your new allies and help fight against the Utopians, eventually reaching deep into their stronghold and forcing access to those restricted areas that you couldn't get into while you where first in Utopia; doing so you will discover their dirty dark secrets.

You will reach the Utopian leader, and just when you are about to end his life, your supposed lover comes up and blocks your line-of-fire (for she is on his side against her will, sort of mind-controlled). You are presented with a choice once again - to kill her in order to kill him, or give up (you could've also shot her down while she was in the helicopter, in which case she won't appear here). If you kill her, you will then be able to kill the Utopian leader, and then wake up to find that the real world is just how was before, that the military experiments about dimensional shifting never existed, and that you were never confronted by the government agent for the job in the bar. You also notice that there is another person in place of candidate you first noticed earlier in bar room TV. The End. If you don't kill her, she will embrace you but you will be put into the correctional facility for reconditioning. Game Over.

The third ending: Continue being independent. You will be hunted by both Utopian and Shade troops, to which will force you to go into the wilds or underground; there you will eventually discover (from obtained military plans) some way back to the real-world by tracking down a long-lost stranded dimensional-shifter vessel that has been hunted down by the Utopian army for ages, becoming its mythology (and will be mentioned much earlier while you first arrive to Utopia). You walk into the vessel (designs are antique, to which brings up even more questions) and make it shift. You suddenly wake up in the real world just like you did the first time, except this time, you have the option to turn down the government agent's offer for the military gig. Whether you do or don't, they will later come and attempt to kidnap you regardless, and throw you into a holding cell in the middle of a military stronghold to which is the center for genome soldier cloning and training (you are to be reconditioned) as well as other dimensional shifter vessels (these which potentially go to other alternate realities of Earth). You break out of that cell, and fight your way across the fortress to which eventually, as you make your way across hangers, labs, dimensional-shifting test chambers, you encounter the real-world counterpart of that woman who was your supposed lover in alternate-reality Earth - she is real and was forced to take the side of "Utopia" through these experiments, or the side engineered by that politician running for office you saw on TV in the bar, the same man who "programmed" this into the minds of the genome soldiers to perceive his enemies as your enemy (thus the hostile "Shades"). End game consists of you defeating the boss of the military fortress (to whom serves that politician) as well as defeating the agent who gave you the job in the first place (and his buddies). So that fictional politician who you suddenly discovered was your ultimate villain all this time escapes perhaps into another alternate dimension via shifter vessel, leaving you with a sequel, where he shapes another alternate Earth timeline and messes with the minds of people again. In this end game you get your girl and she is able to come with you on your next adventure as an ally.

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Ok that was ridiculously long (and probably a little too carried away), but it was fun, and I enjoyed reading your story and ideas to which inspired this wacky one as well. Obvious influences were Deux Ex (1&2), Half Life (1&2), and those books and movies I mentioned. I hope the criticism parts helped.

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Quote: 1. Do I make the world you start on like normal earth or with fake countries? Do you live in America in a real city? I wouldn't mind using the real world, I just fear when I say what countries we are fighting it ends up being a terrorism game or you fight freaking Russia and China in the New World which... eww. I don't mind saying youre fighting against real world countries in the real world, I'm just worried about after you're plugged in, who's armies are you fighting?

If you decide to go with real world nations, just mention that the entire world is at war, you don't have to go into the specifics. I would use real world Earth simply because it is familiar and important to your players.

Quote: 2. Why are governments sending people to the new world? What's the advantage?

In this suggestion it is to manipulate things on real-world Earth without actually physically manipulating them.

When dimensional-phasing technologies were first tested, they found new "worlds" to which they sent soldiers through. They discovered that what they do over there affects what exists over here, and what exists over here has a representation over there. The politician knew this (as evidenced by the antique ship if you decided to take the third option of the independent route), and "molded" that dimension-world so that his enemies become perceived "Shades". Now that the "interface" has been set up, he sends off his soldiers into the world, hopefully in doing so his enemies will become eliminated (will not exist), and thus, he will also conquer Earth.

Besides genome soldiers, D-phasing vessels might be the next trend in this fictional war, as well as the exploration of the new "frontiers" opened up by D-phasing.

Quote: 3a. What are you aiding the new world from? Why would God send you? Also, who reveals the final conclusion to you that you are an angel, and what are some good ways to foreshadow and lead up to the final revealing?

Though your mission was originally controlled by the politician (which was to manipulate the real world by doing things in the virtual world), you break out from it by taking the third decision of being the independent (independent from Utopia or the Shades), to which you then become neutral-minded. In doing so, you are able to warp back to your real world and thus save your real world from danger.

You are a genome soldier, one of many, who were created for war. As to how you ended up on the streets with amnesia I have no idea, perhaps for some ultimate plan?

Quote: 3b. What does hell want from the new world? Is it just the opposite that they want it in the hands of someone who'd make war?

The real enemy here (the politician) wants to take over Earth to add to his collection (to which is just beginning) by using his dimensional interfacing trick. Only other dimensions have an affect on Earth, this is why he did it this way (though there might be other dimensions that affect other dimensions as well).

Lucifer, leader of the Shades, on the other hand, remains elusive to as what he is.

Quote: 4. How do you get reawakened into the old world? You save the world, and just bam you're awake?

The dimensional shifting vessels are the ones who cause you to awaken into their targeted dimensions. I did it because, well, you did it; it could be the style of how one travels with d-shifting vessels.

Quote: 5. How does what you did in the new world affect the real world? How do I show that before the eventual conclusion of being reunited with you're new world boo?

The alternate reality of Earth, as "molded" by the politician, serves to be his interface of manipulating Earth to his own liking. Earth is affected by so many of its other dimensions just as how Earth affects those dimensions as well (Earth's representation of things in those dimensions).

Quote: 6. Does your new world girlfriend, thats now in the old world remember that she was in the new world? Also, how do I explain how she got there or do I even need to explain it? Is it better off just left that it's her and you run off into the sunset? (Note people don't look the same from old to new world)

The alternate Earth woman who was "brainwashed" to becoming your girl/lover is in fact a real Earth woman who was kept in the military fortress for experiments. She was designed to be that persuasive force for you to stay with the side of Utopia. Simply by keeping her on Earth and brainwashing her to serve them, this translates as her serving Utopia in alternate Earth. All things on Earth have their respective representation in alternate Earth so that they can then be manipulated without physically manipulating them - this is how the dimensional interfacing works.

[Edited by - Tangireon on June 7, 2008 9:34:35 AM]