The Chronicles of Evenhelm
Camera View
The camera view will be a third person, isometric viewport over a grand fantasy world.
Character
Each player will take the role of one of the two True Imperial Heirs, each of which will be customizable in their gender to (hopefully) match that of the player. The player will be able to establish names for their Imperial Heir, and the pair will work cooperatively throughout the game, exhibiting a close familial bond of mutual dependence that will extend to gameplay. As two of the three children of the once Empress of Aluria, you will battle your lost brother, Daven, the Biquoran prince, mentally, physically, and spiritually, throughout the game. Evenhelm follows the rise of the True Imperial Heirs, as they learn to master the Elemental Arts in order to heal their fractured Empire.
Environment
As previously mentioned, there will be four types of environments, Towns, Overland ares, Battlegrounds, and Sage Towers. Overland areas may include the vast desert Wastes, the forests of Yorn, the plains of Deltan, the frigid icelands of Igrestan, and the mountains of Detray, which players will need to navigate on their way to their ultimate goal, the demon ridden lands of Biquor. Battlegrounds will be present at each location as players seek to influence the outcome of full scale battles which will change the face of Evenhelm forever. Sage Towers will dot the landscape, and will include cavernous dungeons and towering ascents as the players seek to master the Elemental Arts.
Core Game Mechanic
Players will aquire Elemental Spell Tomes, which they will use to unleash the Elemental Powers to influence in game objects, allowing them an edge in combat and the ability to solve puzzles to cross otherwise impassible landscapes, such as lakes to be frozen for a crossing, bridges and seigeworks with massive machines that need to be powered by lightning, and baracades that must be burned away to reveal the passage forward. Enemies will have predominate Elemental strengths and weaknesses which must be learned and exploited to gain the upper hand over them and lay them low. All of this will take place within a hack-and-slash adventure that will change the face of Evenhelm for years to come.
Artifial Intelligence
One important piece of Artificial Intelligence work will be the estabishment of Elemental Interactions with in game objects. In essence, objects within an area will be noted as being of a certain type, which will have predefined interactions with the various Elemental Powers that the player can wield. Puddles and ponds will need to freeze, machines will need to whirl to life as players cast ligthning at them, and jars of oil or pitch will need to be set ablaze at the players' command. All of this must take place seamlessly within the world at large.
Enemies will need to have AI which allows them to attack and defend in a fitting fashion, as well as internally coded Elemental Resistances, which will establish what Elemental Powers work best to defeat them. These foes will need to slip and slide across frozen puddles, become eletrified as lightning strikes a pool through which they wade, or catch on fire as they are engulfed in burning pitch. Each of the Elemental Interactions will need to operate for each enemy for each type of in game object.
Physics
Physics plays a role in making a puddle freeze or a jar of pitch catch on fire, but there are tiny details which cannot be ignored. When a player slashes a jar of oil, it will need to shatter and spread its contents on the ground. In addition, arrows and other projectiles will need to exhibt flawless collision detection and response against a variety of objects, and some objects will need to allow some projectiles to pass through unharmed while others may trigger Elemental Interactions, and still others may need to be stopped completely. For example, a frozen waterfall cannot allow an arrow to pass through it, but when it is liquid, the arrow should fly through unaffected. Meanwhile, our waterfall will need to stop lightning, and become electrified when it is struck by these attacks. Fire, however, will be stopped completely by a waterfall.
Audio
Birds will chrip, blades will sing, and fires will roar from the hands of talented Sages as this saga unfolds. Meanwhile, a blend of Metal guitars and possibly classical strings will need to be woven to give the epic character and a life of its own. From a technical standpoint, playing audio is a simple thing, but picking the perfect royalty free sounds and music or creating grinding riffs and melodic interludes with a guitar is certainly not that simple, and will require a great deal of taste and discretion to create the right thundering cresendos and whispering trills to really force the player into the action.
Networking
No networking features are planned at this time, and so there is not much to consider with this area.
| AGDD at UNC Charlotte | Created by J. Bobby Soles | Maintaned by A. Chaffin | All rights reserved |