Seek criticism for our game idea Thread

I'm part of a little italian indie team (me and other 2 guys) and we started thinking of a game idea 2 months ago. We have just completed our "first round" of the brainstorming and (I think) estabilished a base where our game will be built. I'd like to listen to some feedback from other people so I'm sure that our design has no significant and big flaws that we haven't found and/or thought of.
(Before going deep into the design specifics, I apologise for my poor english, I'll try by best).

The core concept of the game will be how we (gamers) are willing to give away our control freedom in order to pursue a goal. The game will set from the beginning a goal, and to pursue this goal the player has to make as less mistakes as possible: the more mistakes/time loss, the more the player will be punished both in the gameplay side, both in the narrative/story side (and so far, that's what every game does, but there is a twist in the design, described later, that will add more meaning to this).
To keep describing the game idea I have to introduce the main narrative theme: the player is immersed in a post-apocalyptic world (wow, a setting that no one used ): before the apocalypse the humanity were at a point where human AIs were invented, the technology had an even major presence than in today life. All over the globe you could see AIs, cyborgs, robots, etc... . After the apocalypse (not a nuclear one, the apocalypse that the player will live in is more like an anarchy one) the survivors have no limits on how much to use cyborg implants, hacking systems, lethal weapons, etc...

So, going back to the game core mechanics, the game offers the player the opportunity to implant electronic powerups to improve his/her performance in order to complete the game in less time and mistakes. But, obviously, there is a dark side of the coin in applying these powerups: the player loses freedom.
Some powerups will just improve the strength of our avatar, and have no effects on how we behave in the world. But there are other types of powerups that directly take action to reach their prefixed goal: for example, there could be a powerup that is in charge of shooting to any threat that we (our character) encounter. This powerup is very helpful because it takes automatic aim and shoot to the enemy target, so the player feel (and is) more safe from the threats of the dangerous world. But, on the other hand, this powerup could cause collateral damage, maybe killing a survivor, or damaging a structure. So the player has to balance between getting more and more efficient, but at the same time (if he/she cares) not giving away too much freedom, otherwise there will be heavy consequences.

So, you'll be questioning: why would I care to be as much efficient as possible in the game? how does the goal impose me to not make mistakes in order to not "lose" the game?
And here comes another gameplay side of the core idea, and the basic story plot. We, (players) at the beginning of the game, will be appointed to carry a "memory chip" to a mysterious place: the game is all about reach that place and deliver that chip.
Without talking too much about the whys and hows of the story plot, in the chip there are memories of a dead person that lived before the apocalypse, and that chip deteriorates more and more with the flow of time and the damage that we (players' avatar) take. Every time that the chip is damaged, it loses a chunk/fragment of memory. The player can access the chip and live the memories of that person: so we can explore the story of that person and (hopefully for us developers) empathize with him (we decided he is a boy).
That empathy (if estabilished) is the reason for the player to reach the target place as soon as possible and with less damages as possible, because we are also told that the chip is needed to create a robot that will have the personality and memories of the owner of the memories in the chip: it's like revive a person. So, the more the chip is intact, the more the reconstruction of that person will be accurate. Losing large portions of memories of that chip means change and damage irreparably the identity of the person.


So this is the core narrative element that fuel the (we hope high and significant) contrast that the player will face in the game: the game will not be that difficult, but the player will be so careful and paranoic about not making mistakes that he/she will be really tempted to implant powerups, and maybe even the ones that restrain his/her freedom.
So, for the core game idea I finished. I hope it is not too long for this section of the forum: I read the guidelines, rules and other similar threads, and maibe it could be that I have written too much(I hope not).

I'd really like to read feedback, especially I seek criticism to know if the idea has the potential to evoke in the player that sense of interior conflict, rush of time, and risk of "killing" a person with his/her actions, and what could be improved to enhance those elements.

EDIT
Ehm... I just realised I have totally forgotten to mention how we imagined the gameplay could be. So, here it is:
We're sure that the game will be 2D, we're still unsure what to choose between isometric or orthographic. The first is more visually detailed and realistic, the second would be more "clear" from a control/space-visualization perspective.
About the genre, it's a a kind of adventure (heavily narrative-based game), but I have no real classification of what we want it to be, we're not designing by asking us "what is the genre that the game will be based on?".
Talking about mechanics, the only sure mechanic is hacking: the player can upgrade and use his/her hacking tools that can get into the AI/robot minds/circuits. Obviously this mechanic will be touched by the concept explained before of the powerups. The more you upgrade to automatic and more efficient hacking systems, the more you risk to destroy some parts of the brain of the AI.
We're still thinking about the possibility to introduce other mechanics: we're unsure if introduce at max another one (we're evaluating shooting, parkour, stealth, ...), or just have the hacking and spend all the design and narrative resources around that.
I'd really like to have one mechanic and explore it deeply (maybe through the design description you already understood that we're heavily influenced by that masterpiece of Undertale ), but it could be not that rewarding for the player and it raises various narrative questions ("why can we only hack in a post-apocalyptic world where we can do everything we want?").

Edited by: Aerdna

That's a really a nice concept... for secondary aspect of the game. I'm missing the main aspect of the game: genre. I can see you mentioned adventure genre but AFAIK adventure genre doesn't need upgrades. It almost doesn't have any battles at all and thus getting attacked or making mistakes is less likely. Yet you mention couple things such as shooting, powerups and damage which are commonly found in action, platformer, RPG or shooter genre. So allow me to ask: what is the real genre of the game in your concept?

About the protect the chip part, I find it interesting especially with added concept that it holds memory of someone. Though it opens a big question: what is this someone? I'm not asking his/her name but I'm asking about his/her role in the past. Is he/she someone forgetable who never done anything great or someone very important which can save the world?. There's no reason to save the memory of the former but there are many reasons if he/she were the latter

but the player will be so careful and paranoic about not making mistakes that he/she will be really tempted to implant powerups...

I can see your point about paranoid but I rather be given choice to save the memory or save myself (playable character that is) i.e each choice has its own ending and cutscenes

Well, let's say that we have not started to think about the game from a gameplay standpoint, but we got an idea for the narrative and the themes that we wanted to have in the game, and only then we thought about the gameplay (as a mean to express the narrative we wanted). So yeah, we're in the design phase/brainstorming where we have to decide the gameplay mechanics. As I said, the only sure mechanic is hacking, which will be deeply developed.
In a certain way, the game will be RPG-ish, in the sense that those powerups are like the skill tree/ability tree/upgrades used in common RPGs, but they are not that similar to those either. We're not doing nothing innovative with our powerups, but they are different from the usual upgrades/skills found in other RPGs.
As soon as we'll have more clear ideas about the mechanics/verbs I'll write it.

About the protect the chip part, I find it interesting especially with added concept that it holds memory of someone. Though it opens a big question: what is this someone? I'm not asking his/her name but I'm asking about his/her role in the past. Is he/she someone forgetable who never done anything great or someone very important which can save the world?. There's no reason to save the memory of the former but there are many reasons if he/she were the latter

This someone, that from now I'll refer to with the name of K (that is the "name" we're using at the moment xD ), is not a special person, neither important to the plot itself (this is not so true, we're still working to the final part of the story and K could be relevant plot-wise in the journey of our avatar). The memory part of the game has "only" to tell an engaging story (that will touch both AI/tech related themes both personal/relationship themes) and has the purpose of letting the player see how the world was before the apocalypse. Like mentioned in the previous post, we will be crafting this story (of K) hoping that the player will empathize with him.
I think that is not necessary that K has to be necessarely an important character plot-wise, I want(/hope) that the player will think this when playing: "ok, K may be useless in the plot, but I'm so attached/in empathy with him that I don't want to damage his chip and reach that place, I want to give him a second chance. Heck, now how would I overcome this obstacle? Should I buy that powerup?".
But yeah, we have to think more about the story of K, especially in the question "why would I want to protect this chip?"

I can see your point about paranoid but I rather be given choice to save the memory or save myself (playable character that is) i.e each choice has its own ending and cutscenes

Well, I think I used paranoic improperly. If the player wants to pursue the initial goal that the game has given to him, surely he/she can pursue it. If the player thinks that the main objective will damage in the long run him/her/the chip, he/she could search for other ways to "complete" the game. I think there will be a side-final, where the player does not go to the place that the game imposes him/her, but he/she could go to another where the chip would receive a different treatment.
About the choice to save memory/save myself, the player will deal with this every time within the game. The game will make clear from the beginning that implanting too freedom-restrainer powerups will lead to consequences. Those consequences are not only local (local in the sense that are restrained to the gameplay/narrative side of a certain level/section of the game), but they will propagate until the ending, where there will be different ending scenes basing on the amount and type of powerups the player has implanted.


Thank you for the feedback, I'm really glad that you spent time on reading that wall post xD

Edited by: Aerdna