PixelFade Future IP - Crystalline

Hello,

I bet the majority of you were waiting for this! :P

We are in the extremely early stages of planning, but would like to share some of our design choices, a bit of the synopsis, and a sketch or two.

Crystalline World - Fantasy setting with a unique element of crystals.

This world is powered by crystals that are mined from the earth. These mined crystals are the energy source that powers everything, from horseless carriages, to weapons, to machinery, ships and even power plants powering entire cities.

Different grades of crystals exist in this world. They are (listed from most powerful): Gold, Purple, Blue, Green.

Crystals decay over time as the energy stored is used up. They all turn Grey as they reach the end of its lifespan. Once the crystal is Grey, it is only able to output minor energy and continues to decay naturally until it turns into dust (whether being used or not). Grey crystals are used usually by poorer society to do stuff like power a oven for a few days (hours) or heat their home. Basically anyone who doesn't have easy access to a proper crystal source will resort to scavenging grey.

Only a finite amount of Gold crystals has ever been mined; it is the most rarest and powerful crystal that is said to store almost an infinite amount of energy. Though in theory, even a Gold crystal should turn Grey one day, but in reality, it would constant usage of powering an entire city for thousands of years of before it turns Grey!

The crystals deteriorate at different paces; Purple slower than Blue, which is slower than Green, until they all turn Grey.

The potency (power output) of each crystal is different. Gold having the highest, purple the next, and so on.

Weapons can be crafted with a device called a "Discharger". This is a tool lets you use crystal energy to add "magical" property to your weapon. Imagine like changing a regular sword to a energy based blade when activated, or something that resembles a gun that can shoot energy bolts.

To regulate this power output, all crystal powered devices have something called a "Discharge Limiter". This ensure that the device doesn't "fry". The crystal limiter indicates the maximum level crystal a device can safely operate under. A lower or higher grade crystal than the one indicated in the device would not work. Due either to insufficient power output,  or too much power output risking damage to the device and risk to the user.

Crystalline Story -

The Over-Arcing Plot

One of the researchers for a kingdom has found a way to infuse crystal energy with humans. Based on their calculations, this would only work with gold crystals as that is the only one that is able to provide a sustainable level of power. 

The experiment is a success and they were able to successfully infuse 4 gold crystals to create 4 super-warriors. After the success of this and the new fighters, the king wants to infuse more super soldiers but doesn't have access to more gold crystals. He says why not just use purple. The scientist refuses saying that it simply wont work because purple crystal is finite energy and it can cause disastrous effect.

The scientists partner goes behind her back and tells the king he can pull it off. It fails horribly (as predicted) and what happens is the humans decay and become monsters/demons. From this, there is a big argument and the 4 super-warriors end up splitting due to a conflict of interest. One of them believes they should kill all purple infused because they are dangerous, one of them thinks they are not monsters but the next form of evolution, one of them doesn't care and disappears to live a normal life, and the last one escapes to protect the lead scientist since her life would be in danger in either case.

This is the state of the world where MC begins. He is a mercenary and lately has been hearing rumors about monsters attacking (really just purple infused humans who are morphing). From here the story begins.

Crystalline Design -

Decisions and Interaction

Crystalline is going to take a bit of a different approach then ACE while still keeping the heart of what makes a PixelFade game.

1) Game is story-driven as much as it is interaction driven. ACE has a simple story that follows a formulaic approach. Much of what made ACE fun is the vast amount of choices and MC's ability to react or interact exactly as you see fit. Crystalline will have all the reaction and interaction goodness of ACE while actually providing a strong storyline in parallel.

2) We want the story to have a canonical feel with deeper interactions rather than a widespread of interactions without as much substance. ACE can be described as a horizontal approach where you have a wide umbrella of choices (including romanceable options) however they don't go as deep as we'd like to. With the new project, we are planning a single heroine to craft a genuine story. What we want to do is a combination of horizontal approach in terms of storyline but have a much greater depth in terms of relationship interactivity.

Of course everything we mentioned so far is subjected to change. This is just a really early and high level of our plans for Crystalline. We'd love to get your feedback and thoughts.

Attached is the first concept sketch of the heroine, Leanna Dawn (Leah Dawn, Lena Dawne, Lina Dawn, Lea Dawne, Leeannah Dawn... any other variation you can think of). ;)

Best Regards!!