Bird's Eye is an idea for a psychological shooter with a unique camera experience. The goal of the game is to shoot enemies, collect loot, and gain upgrades for your guns to progress through levels.
Premise
A sketch of what the first level might look like,with the camera view looking down on the level
Initially the game will present itself as a fairly generic 3rd person shooter. Kill the bad guys, get the loot. The camera will start in bird’s eye view, so the player is looking down on the scene. You see tops of heads, long twisted, tendrils and limbs of enemies, outlines of obstacles, and collectible items that aid you in your quest for safety. You kill enemies and gather items to reach the safety at the end of the level. Though this form of game play is somewhat generic, it implements a well documented reward system common to many shooters. There is pleasure in success and a feeling of power as you shoot down numerous enemies on your own.
As you progress however, the camera will slowly shift closer to what would be a first person, or over the shoulder, revealing more features and landscape. The lighting in the scene changes, and the music soon becomes more creepier and ominous. The player starts to sense that something is off; things don’t quite add up. Finally, as the game resolves, the camera shows the true scene. The outline of what you thought were just boundaries or mazes, are actually houses, and the enemies you have been killing are actually innocent townsfolk. The harder enemies you faced in later levels were firefighters and policemen come to halt the destruction you were wreaking. You as the player have been killing the innocent, stealing from their corpses, and destroying their houses through the game. The player at this point should feel some amount of revulsion, as well as responsibility and guilt. This will be conflicted however as the player realizes they weren't given the choice by the game, and were manipulated. Though this might have the result of removing the player from the game, ideally it will also inspire anger. At this point the player is presented with a choice: they can then decide to continue forward to their sick end objective, to turn themselves in, or to take their own life.
As you progress however, the camera will slowly shift closer to what would be a first person, or over the shoulder, revealing more features and landscape. The lighting in the scene changes, and the music soon becomes more creepier and ominous. The player starts to sense that something is off; things don’t quite add up. Finally, as the game resolves, the camera shows the true scene. The outline of what you thought were just boundaries or mazes, are actually houses, and the enemies you have been killing are actually innocent townsfolk. The harder enemies you faced in later levels were firefighters and policemen come to halt the destruction you were wreaking. You as the player have been killing the innocent, stealing from their corpses, and destroying their houses through the game. The player at this point should feel some amount of revulsion, as well as responsibility and guilt. This will be conflicted however as the player realizes they weren't given the choice by the game, and were manipulated. Though this might have the result of removing the player from the game, ideally it will also inspire anger. At this point the player is presented with a choice: they can then decide to continue forward to their sick end objective, to turn themselves in, or to take their own life.
Mechanics
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The main dynamics apparent in the game will be of firearm combat and collection. Using arrow keys to move and space bar to shoot, you will navigate the levels; the items you collect are automatically used. At first, the enemies will not attack first. However, in order to proceed through the game, the player has to kill enemies in the way. After progressing through levels, the enemies start fighting back and thus a "survival" mechanism comes into play. The player will be faced with rooms and enemies, and will need to kill them and collect items from their corpses. The items may provide a health pack, more ammo, or a gun upgrade. The player won't know what item they get until they kill the enemy and pick it up, so there will be a "scavenger" mechanism that will drive the player to keep killing to see what they can collect. As the camera moves down to reveal more of the scene, you discover that the items you've been collecting is actually loot from dead, innocent bodies. On one hand, this will invoke a feeling of "betrayal" because the game tricked the player into slaughtering innocent people, but on the other hand this reflects the player's state of mind going from a ruthless killer to someone who regrets their actions or at least realizes them.
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