Robots Don’t Like Borders

Robots Don’t Like Borders

‘Robots Don’t Like Borders’ is a game based around the main protagonist Washington. Washington is a robot who based inside a comic book called ‘Robot Force 5’, however he dislikes being part of a comic book and wants to escape his comic prison at whatever cost. To escape the comic book he has to ruin the series by altering the story and doing things that shouldn’t happen to annoy the readers. His adventure will eventually lead him to cross over into other comics to acquire items and help from other comic book characters.

Washington is part of a squad of Robots. He is the 5^th robot and each robot’s strength is resembled by their level (1 being the strongest and 5 being the weakest). The other 4 robots are called Hawaii, Tex, York and Cali. The other 4 robots are trying to stop Washington from ruining the comic as they are under the belief that if the comic is ruined then they will cease to exist. Washington will travel between his comic and 2 others, a Japanese themed comic and Dark style comic. Washington will travel between older and future issues of his comic to ensure he can find a way to progress in ruining the name of his comic. He will make friends with the 2 other protagonists in the other comics who will help him to ruin the name of his own. The 4 other robots as well as the antagonists of the other comics are the main bosses of the game who Washington has to defeat before progressing onwards. Each time he defeats one of his fellow he ruins his comic’s reputation even further. As Washington continues to ruin his storyline the better chance he has to travel between comics by “breaking the fourth wall”. Before the end of the game Washington will become Robot 0 and have to defeat the final robot 1 (Cali). Once the other 4 robots are defeated the story is completely ruined and he can finally escape the book itself.

The game is an over the shoulder, 3^rd person, action-adventure. Washington’s main mechanism comes from his continuity bar. As the player makes their way through a comic ruining the linearity, the “continuity” meter will decrease and once the meter is completely depleted, the player can exit the comic and jump into another one of their choice. The player can jump between a previous and subsequent comic to assist a past (NPC controlled) ‘Washington’ to pass blocked doors and impassable areas that the player would have met as they themselves played through the game. ‘Comic jumps’ allow a player to take something they have found in another comic of a subsequent area of the game and take it back to a previous inaccessible area, and the player will in-fact have to do this to progress through the game and ruin the continuity.

As well as being able to jump between comics in his own series, the player can use Washington’s ability to jump between other comic series. In these other comics he will make use of items, get to objectives, fight other bosses and even come across allies to help him tarnish his own comic. All throughout the game Washington will come across the other robots who try to stop him, and occasionally he will have to fight them, these are the boss battles set into the game. The game will try to be funny and make pop culture references for the audience to relate to and laugh at. Overall the game is set in 3 comic universes, a robotic cartoon-style future, feudal japan with an ancient Japanese water-colour style, and a modern day city which is dark and adds a stealth element to the game.

  

Key Features

·         Comic Jumping

·         Collision of Art Styles

·         Time Phasing

·         Over the Shoulder Ranged/ Melee Combat

·         NPC Allies and Past-Self

·         Team of Robots

The game’s genre is Action-Adventure with hints of puzzles and platforming involved. The genre will play an important role in the structure of the game itself and how the player should look at the game. In certain areas of the game you will have a stealth sequence incorporated into the game, especially around the ‘Dark City’ comic, where you will be accompanied by an ally who will help you understand this sudden genre change. In the Japanese themed world you will experience a change in genre again as the games incorporate Japanese stereotypes and pop-culture references, mainly linking to Japanese game shows and RTS style combat, these will only be around for short instances and will only be implemented as a small mini-game.

The target audience will be 16+ as the game itself isn’t directly offensive or graphic but will include strong language and adult themes to get the jokes across, especially with some of the theorised humour which will border 80s movies and classic movie jokes and themes that are splashed into the game at points.

The Art direction of the game will range depending on which comic the player is in. There are 3 comics, ‘Machine Force 5’, ‘Night Hero’ and ‘Oh, Japan’ (these names are all little jokes in themselves). The art style shall change as the player progresses through the difference comics and will be exposed to difference visual effects and themes.