Project P.A.G.E design document
1.1: Overview
Page is 3rd person point and click adventure game. The story centres around Elizabeth, a badly written antagonist from a chintzy victorian romance novel.
The world Elizabeth inhabits is but one of the novels written by a mediocre plagiaristic author. As per her defined role Elizabeth falls in love with the protagonist's husband to be and attempts to steal him from the Jane Eyre style protagonist, she then hangs herself after being rejected. During one of these 'cycles' the rope Elizabeth hangs herself with snaps, causing her to exist at a point in the story where she should not exist. While the secondary characters of the book (World) can talk to her every central character (the protagonist and her husband to be) simply respond to her with a confused stare, her presence at major scenes causes those scenes to crash as it were, with the characters simply standing around motionless.
Elizabeth is unaware of the nature of her existance, even when faced with the fact that the areas not described by the book simply do not exist (roads out of her small town simply end in a sheer drop into empty white space)
Elizabeth recieves sporadic messages from an unknown source via her journal. The journal warns her that the world she's in is about to collapse and she must move on or perish with it.
She comes across a device called the page tu(r)ner which, when combined with an object from another novel (left accidentally or deliberatley by the author) allows her to migrate into that novel.
Elizabeth then makes her way through several novels even as the book's author attempts to erase her existence both by changing the books themselves and inserting characters designed to stop her.
1.2: The character
Elizabeth 'Liz' Parker
Elizabeth has two facets to her character. On one hand she still remembers her given past (although it's fictional nature gives it a certain ammount of vagueness) she also has the personality and knowledge of a modern day woman. She is cynical and sarcastic, partly because of the facets of her character are designed to be so and partly because she wishes to avoid thinking about the nature of her existance.
She spends the majority of the game dressed in her signature black victorian dress. It becomes more and more ragged and modern looking as the game progresses.
Elizabeth stands at a slim 5'9, her skin is pale and her hair black and tied into a severe bun although several strands of hair have escaped giving her a somewhat harassed look.
2:1 Gameplay
The game will have a relatively simple point and click interface. Liz can look at, talk to, use and take objects and characters in the game world. Each interaction will have a seperate piece of dialogue regardless of whether the interaction is sucesful or not. Due care should be taken to give Liz pleanty to look at. Some items should have multiple lines of dialogue depending on how many times they have been clicked on.
Puzzles will be largely inventory based.
Liz also has access to her sidekick. A sentient soda can from a dystopian novel set in 3299.
Orange 1138 can give Liz clues as well as store her inventory and take part in character interaction.
However using Orange 1138's clue function uses up energy which affects a hidden stat which eventually determines which of the game ending the player recieves. The less clues used the better the ending.
Liz cannot die in game.
2:2 Shifting
Liz can, when equiped with the page tu(r)ner and an object from a given novel, shift to that novel. Earlier shifts are striclty linear but eventually the player gains access to several objects and thus several novels. There will be 5-10 'main' novels consisting of mutliple screens and several plot lines. There will also be over a dozen smaller novels (some based on short stories) consiting of but a few screens and usually only a few scenes. All the novels and stories in the game will be inspired by famous novels.
