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'Ello all, I've been working on a little game since about early January, started out as a project for my Game Design class and now that the quarter is over I'm continuing to work on it ^^.

Here is teh design document.

Conscious.EXE

Backstory: A genius lab-employee becomes disgruntled for a yet undetermined reason. In order to exact revenge on the hated laboratory, he writes a computer virus to destroy it, which he dubs "Conscious". This is a new breed of virus which can learn and adapt to new situations, hence the name.

In the game, you play as the virus, and the goal is to eventually destroy the laboratory. I'm not exactly sure of the genre, but I think it's starting to fall somewhere between a puzzle/action game.
Think Zelda-ish. Using the virus, you can control various electronic devices within the laboratory, such as little floating robots, some palm-copters, and some wheeled devices. Eventually you will also be able to transfer yourself into different computers, in order to 'backup' or save the game. When you transfer yourself to another entity, you must first hack past it's security, which is represented by a two dimensional on screen puzzle. The example puzzle that i have currently implemented (It will eventually choose from a random selection), is a bunch of moving dots, each of which you must click on.

Combat takes place between you and the anti-virus software, which also inhabit various robots. So far in my demo game, the 3rd and last room contains a bunch of anti virus robots which shoot at you with electric shocks. These shocks disrupt the integrity of the RAM in your host, and if the RAM integrity drops below 1%, the virus will not have any space to inhabit, and will therefore be destroyed.

So! Here is what I have so far.
My demo version of the game, which includes 3 different levels, plus a tutorial room at the beginning. Four different robots to control, all with different abilities. WIP Music and Sound, and basic AI for the enemy anti virus. The 3 rooms are not complete, I still have to add some extra challenges to them before a demo is released.

Here are some juicy screen shots xD.
Main Menu:


Part of the first room:


Transferring to another robot:


The Box Pusher!


The room in which you push boxes!


Final Battle! Yes I died a tragic death from electricity...the little dots slowly fill up the screen when you die.


In the future! I plan to have at least 10-15 different rooms, with one or two more robots to control. Each room will have a more or less unique puzzle to solve, along with some sort of enemy or other challenge to make it a bit less puzzle-y.
I also plan to have a 'skirmish' mode, in which you and a team of virus programs fight for conquest over lab computers against anti-virus, much like the battlefield series. You will have to 'hack' each computer to turn it to your side, and you can fight enemies with a variety of weapons, based on the robot you are currently inhabiting.

The current team:
Me - Game Design, Programming, Sounds, Music, Modeling/Texturing/Animating

My two other team members from college: Trista & Chris - Level Design, Prop modeling, UI, and other design type things(Like ideas for puzzles, which I am not excellent at coming up with). There aren't really any props implemented at the moment because I'm lazy, but I've got a nice CreateProp function and the models are all gathered in a nice folder for when I need them. ^^

And for those interested, here are the tools being used:
Dark Basic Professional - Programming
Newton Physics Wrapper by Walaber - Physics xD
Audacity - Sound
FL Studio - Music
Blender3d - Modeling/Texturing/Animation
Maya - My teammates like to use this for modeling even though I don't like it. ><

Tell me what you guys think!

it looks great! i like the Acme Box Pusher lol.
But i think you should change the mac on the main menu, to a PC. Macs Can't Get Viruses!

I like the game idea, sounds absolutely cool! The game also looks quite good. I think the hacking problems should be more puzzle oriented then simply clicking on dots.

One idea would be to make this into an adventure game where it's not split up into levels but you are more free to explore, think Zelda (or System Shock 2 if you have played that). You can allow the player to upgrade robots in addition to finding new ones. For example a robot may need an upgrade to hack specific locks.

The virus idea is great. It means that although you'll have a hard time spreading, you'll quickly grow stronger, and you only need physical action to destroy things and stuff.

BTW, you must add a fork lift so the player can lift and drive around stuff that's on pallets. The player could push a crate on to a pallet with that box pusher and use the fork lift to get it somewhere else.

Thanks for the feedback guys! xD.



Thank you, and yes I definitely agree :p The mac there is actually not one of the computers you hack, it's sort of your 'mentor' in the tutorial room, although that hasn't been made clear in the demo yet. The first room is the disgruntled employee's office, so the mac is his own computer.





Thanks! Aye the dot clicking one is just one of the examples, I've thought of a few other ideas as well that could be more puzzle oriented.



Actually, this is exactly how the game works :p You can't tell from the screen shots, but the entire game is one giant level, the lab. At the moment there are only a few different rooms, but there will be more in the full version. It'll basically be a bunch of hallways, and each 'level' is another room. But instead of getting a level complete screen and automatically moving to the next one, the player is free to explore the lab on his own. You do however, still have to do the rooms in order, because usually solving the first room opens or unlocks the door to the second room.

I like the upgrading idea, maybe at one point there could be two open rooms, but one has something inside that you need an upgrade to hack, and the other has a puzzle in it which will allow you to upgrade if you solve the puzzle.



Aye, another part of the game is that you will actually be able to lose your saved backups, because the anti-virus software will eventually attack the computers you've hacked. I plan to have some sort of radar/map in the HUD so that you can see what areas belong to you and what areas belong to the anti-virus. This means the player will have to be strategic in placing his backups, by only putting them in computers that he knows are mostly safe from anti-virus. I'm not sure if it's within the scope of my project, but I think it'd be cool if you could create defenses around your servers, like the lasers in one of the above screens, or stationary turrets/patrolling AI.



That sounds like a good idea, I'll have to come up with a puzzle that could utilize such a thing.


Expect a demo somewhere in the next few days, I just want to make sure all of the rooms are actually fun, at the moment some of them feel kind of like a chore. ><.

I love the Acme Box Pusher And it looks great on every view! Cant wait to play it cuz it sure looks fun!

Looks cool. The lighting makes the graphics seem solid and pretty.

Wow, this looks great! I can't wait to play it. I have to agree with Mr. Tank, the lighting really adds a lot to the overall look. If I may ask, what are you using for the lighting? Keep up the good work!
-H4ck1d

Looks like prerendered shadows to me.

Aye the lighting is baked into the textures. Actually lighting is pretty much the only texture for the background lol. Haven't decided yet if I want to keep it that way.

Thanks for the comments all ^^.

no it's possible just not alot of people make them just think of it this way you write a virus code in one of the mac programs execute it if the virus doesn't work then you prove me wrong if not then macs can get viruses

what i should have said was, macs don't get viruses. i know it's possible, if someone can write malicious code for a PC then it's possible for a mac, it's just there are in comparison not many mac user compared to PC users and as macs use .app not .exe, not many people bother writing viruses for it.

My windows PC doesn't really get virus's either You guys are all just n00bs.

Small update, has been vereh busy but just wanted to show that I'm making some progress.

I decided there wasn't enough to do in this first room, so I added these little pads and cubes. You have to use the magnetic coil on your robot to grab the cubes and drop em on the corresponding pads.



The demo seems to be somewhat delayed as I haven't had huge amounts of time to work on it ><

Looking cool

I love how you baked the lighting into the textures, really brings it out.

Nice idea!
Good luck with it.

Hey dudes, been gone forever, and haven't done a whole lot of work on Conscious. ><

However, I'm gonna go ahead and release a demo of what I have, just to show that I've really done something ^^.

I'm not gonna bother hiding stuff, so don't steal mah medias please xD.

The tutorial is as yet unfinished, but hopefully you'll enjoy flying about anyway :p