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Budgets in the gaming industry are routinely millions of dollars. As a student modification of an existing game engine, Alterius is a small-scale project with a large scale agenda. Here are the key goals:

• The self-destruction inherent in societies organized around the escalation of military might. This becomes literally embodied in the world of our game and is a strong motivator in the player's choice of action at the climax.
• Historical misinformation plays a part in the unfolding of the tale. Hitroy is written by the winners, and players will come to learn that the victors are not necessarily truthful in portaying just how they emerged victorious.
• Energy and it role in shaping the environment. The society of Alterius is organized around bio-engineered construction as a reaction to the technologies of the past. This defines their environment in much the way that our combustible energy sources do our world.
• Time's influence on history. Players will see a commemoration of historical events and then experience the events firsthand. This perspective shift is an attempt to get players to analyze a situation by observing the aftermath before they take part in it.

Alterius, the name, is a modification of the Latin for "of the other." This highlights the nature of the game's conflict and plot revelations. Our protagonist is pushed to act against her will by the ghosts of the past. The society gains its power through the manipulation of biological creatures. This exploration of relationships between the self or the society and the outside influences thereupon inspired the title choice.

One of our primary influences is Deus Ex, an excellent example of blending a compelling storyline with first-person gameplay. That game, however, was somewhat held back by role-playing game elements that distracted from the main action. We are working to keep players immersed in gameplay with a smoother, simple approach to game progression.

Using the Unreal engine gives us a great deal of power for the creation of our game, but it does mean that our game will require the commercial Unreal Tournament game to play. While this handicap is unfortunate, we will work to make our game accessible to a diverse audience for presentation purposes.

As explained above, the full details of the story are growing and taking form alongside the gameplay. The following is the basic structure:

We are modifying a multiplayer fast-action combat game into a single player, story driven, exploration based game. As discussed extensively, this is meant to challenge expectations of this game genre and its potential. On a larger scale, the issues raised by our game present a commentary on the military ethos so often displayed in these games. Our goal is to get players thinking about the real implications of combat, real and virtual. The long term effect, ideally, would be for a greater depth of combat to appear in first-person games. The style of play has such rich visceral impact that could be applied to much more than violent power struggles. Our game seeks to broaden traditional notions of what a game like this can be.

Our game runs on the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine. Requirements:

Our interface will be presented with an onscreen heads-up display. This will represent to users their state of health and level of weaponry, as needed. These game elements will be as simple and unobtrusive as possible.

Our game will be controlled with the mouse and keyboard. While this interface may be tricky to some, it remains the optimal solution for PC first person gaming.

The artwork will give the sense that the story is taking place in a large vibrant organic city of the future for Level 1 and 3. It will also convey a long passage of time between the future city and the battle that occurs in Level 2. This will be done by showing how technology is very different in the past, how architecture is more box-like, and by organizing the level on a grid.

See 3-D maps at:

http://www.rpi.edu/~steadi/capstone/3d_models.htm

Act one is played out from Ophelia's perspective. The action takes place within a monument to the legendary war victory led by Claudius, as Ophelia must figure out how to steal Claudius' armor. Gameplay will be stealth and puzzle based. Ophelia will quickly perish from direct engagement in combat, so she must avoid guards and figure out what she must do as players acclimate themselves to the game environment.

Act two takes place about 50 years before. When Ophelia activates the armor, Laertes finally has a chance to tell his story, which he does the only way he can - by taking over Ophelia's consciousness and causing her to live through the events of his betrayal at the hands of Claudius. This is as jarring as it sounds, and the player should be startled by the quick jump to a fast-action combat situation. Laertes' selective memory will make this sequence have much less choice involved. The player will effectively be forced into making the same fateful decisions that he did all those years before, leading to his eventual death at the hands of Claudius.

The third and final act returns us to the present. Choice is returned to the player - what do they do with their two new acquisitions: the powerful battle suit and the knowledge of Claudius' treachery? As they take the suit out into the city at large, they must fend off attacks and eventually reach Claudius. But moral decisions never work out quite as monochromatically as one would like, and Claudius has his side of the story too. The end will rely on the player's judgment. Should you believe what Claudius says and risk escape from the suit, or avenge Laertes after what he has shown you and expose Claudius? It is up to you to decide who the true villain is and act accordingly.

We will be re-purposing sounds from the Unreal Tournament game for our characters as necessary. Also on an as-needed basis, organic sounds will be substituted for the mechanical noises of the existing game.

Unreal has powerful physics calculations that are generally used for such things as making corpses collapse quasi-realistically. In our game, this physics technology will be used to implement puzzles that rely on realistically behaving objects that react to gravity and movement. This has the additional benefit of more effectively conveying the biological makeup of our environment - a metal bridge might not respond to player movement, but one made of giant leaves surely would.

See Excel schedule online at:

http://www.rpi.edu/~steadi/capstone/schedule.htm

The notions of experimental game design fundamentals pioneered by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen in their book, Rules of Play, are major sources of inspiration for this project. Their discussions of things such as prototyping and evolving gameplay from story have been very useful in developing Alterius.

Plot:

Gameplay:

Art:

LAERTES - Murderer. Don't trust his lies-

CLAUDIUS - Young Lady! You're in a lot of trouble. I don't know what you've been told, but a friend of mine died in that suit a long time ago, and since then, he's been trying to get out. I regret keeping the true power source of the arcology a secret, but everyone knows now.

LAERTES - Ask him about the deaths. Ask him about the wars, ask him what he did to my mind so he could have power-

CLAUDIUS - I'm also afraid that you've been duped, good woman. We tracked your memory erasure and implantation to a terrorist cell from the Defector Arcology. You're not a spy, miss. You're just a simple farmer who's been taken advantage of in a terribly shameful fashion.

LAERTES - The war's a sham for his power games! He'll get you out of me and then you'll disappear. Your brain will be the cell culture for his next military upgrade. He knows what the suits do-

CLAUDIUS - He's lying to you. All the recent soldier deaths- they weren't terrorists. They were him: trying to get a new body. We shouldn't have depended on the first suit for so long, but we've found a way to purge it of mental residue, and make it just a tool again. Please - just walk back through that door, and we'll help you.

LAERTES - LIES! The suits have always consumed! That's why he had to keep the terrorists alive!