///NOV 14
CW: It addresses the reader more closely
Not much in the way of actual development or research, as I've been busy with college apps and school in general. After a lot of doubt and confusion on where to go on the project, I've decided to focus my game on two separate emotional experiences across 3 "Acts".
Well, first there will be a prologue, of which I have given the least amount of thought. But I guess I'll just try to show how life was as a free person. Give the player enough context to understand their freedom being taken away and giving them a family to try to come back to or something.
So, the first act will consist of the breaking of the will. Focusing primarily on tedious events reminiscent of the Fish Factory scene in What Remains of Edith Finch. You'll be completing tasks and going through the day. I will try to engineer the tasks so that there is no score or proficiency markers. Like, I want to focus on making sure the player doesn't "feel good" about these tasks. I would LOVE to be able to actually incorporate mechanics that facilitate a "good slave," "lazy slave," "violent slave" playthrough, but I just don't have the time (or skill, really) to actually get that going right now. I imagine the player moving through several jobs as the game progresses, working the farm, picking olives, and such.
Here's the main loop of Act I: The player will be forced to participate in some tasks, such as tilling the soil in a vegetable farm. The player will complete a set of simple rote motions. The play is uninspiring and tedious, but just engaging enough to get the player to think that by participating they might actually get somewhere with it all. If they decide not to work, well, they will be negatively reminded of their position as a slave. Perhaps this starts by getting scolded. After some time has passed, and the player feels they have made the task a simple computation of their limbs, the screen begins to recede. The playing screen slowly fades into a void, getting smaller and smaller (think Get Out's Sunken Place). Simultaneously, the play speeds up, and it becomes clear that the player has left the conscious body behind, and is disassociating to ease the pain and pass the time of such a menial task. I might include things about moving around the house, going to bed, eating, but I haven't much thought about that.
The Climax of Act I: After several tasks, the master of the house somehow catches word that you are well educated, and insists that you take up tutoring his son, who is now of age for that sort of thing. You have a general good time with your new job, as your work is diminished and you get to hang out with a nice kid, telling him about the studies you so much love. During a tutoring scene, you are asked to explain slavery, or perhaps exactly what a slave is. You're given the chance to condemn it, ignore it, promote it, and just in general discuss it with the child. However the conversation pans out (mostly for time reasons), the player character eventually cracks under some insult, and will condemn his enslavement in some way. The master of the house will over hear this, and brutally scold the player for trying to trick the child, and that he was definitely not a fit tutor, and is sent back into the fields.
Act II: The player is sent back to working in the fields. However, now, if the player stops working, they are no longer scolded. Instead, after a mere moment of "laziness," the screen flashes red, the sound of a flog meeting skin! Then back. The player becomes weaker and weaker with each flashback to their beatings. It is becoming too much to bear. I want to capture the feeling of transitioning from having outside forces coerce you to work, to inside forces coercing you to work. I want the player to feel like they can't rebel like they could in the first Act, because a voice in their head is stopping them. I hope to capture a lot of disenfranchisement and stress here. The void that the player recedes in is now noisy and upsetting. The movements of the character become unresponsive to controls (hopefully that doesn't come off as a bug) to show a loss of energy and focus, which makes it easier to have the flash.
Climax of Act II: This is where things get hazy and under developed. I want the game to give the player a moment where they are going to break. The character cannot handle the player's input, and it seems there will never be peace for the character or player. I'm trying to find a way to show that the player can force the character to not give up, and through the game becoming much more difficult and intense on the player, the character and overcome the stresses of being controlled, and begin to move towards finding an escape, which would be Act III, of which I have no idea what happens besides an escape connecting to the massive slave escapes during the Pelop War.
That's all I got today, thanks for the thoughts and feedback, everyone!
Criticism? Critique? Inspo? Please let me know!