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Misc ideas (not yet integrated into the doc)

To add to menus:
for combat:
for story:

Themes:
    insanity, darkness, action, strategy <-- instead of having insanity as part of gameplay, we could substitute fear, and have insanity be a motif in the story -Brad

    does it make sense to have a portable game with such a serious story? something to pick up & play repeatedly
    what kind of gameplay can allow for a mix of Castlevania adventure progression yet FFTA2 longevity / replayablility?
        side quests to serve yourself?
    Keep the focus of the story on Hero, his sanity. (also vs Asterion). Asterion should represent the labyrinth

Areas of the Labyrinth:
The Gates
    (the opening area into which the adventure begins)
    Has a good amount of traps
The Overgrowing Forest
    The outside forest is breaking through the walls, and becoming a labyrinth in itself.
    Anti-emetic items are necessary for areas where toxins will kill you by making you throw up your stomach.
The Center ('Centrum'  - sound too much like a product?)
    The center of the labyrinth and home to Asterion. Its walls curve to make a large circular pattern.
Graveyard
    One of the survivors in Grey's company mentions how the labyrinth has its own nature. Creatures in the labyrinth, they have their graveyard.
Western Catacombs
    A strategic battle took place here against Asterion years ago, led by Kiron and his strategic genius in employing his knowledge of Greek fire. The battle was lost, and as a result the flames spread across the catacombs, still burning like lava as water trickles in to feed them.
    Upon first entering, this area serves as a means to acquire fire for smelting weapons, and later the item Kiron's Torch (so that you always have Greek fire).
(an area where you are walking atop the labyrinth walls)

Main Goals:
escape...?
preserve sanity - maybe periods of time passing in the game's story will allow more monologuing about sanity, as well as gameplay changes (item availability, new areas opening)
kill Asterion?- If so, this goal is at first uncertain to Hero, who recognizes that Grey and his company have survived even without killing Asterion. But, he later learns that Grey is making human sacrifices deliberately to appease Asterion*, and decides that Asterion being alive /  Grey being insane is a mutual, connected problem. This removes power from Asterion being the monster of the abyss, of insanity, but also allows a direct metaphor into humanity as the similar root

Characters:
Hero
Grey - An eagle-like shrewd older man who has survived the labyrinth for years and taken survivors into his company. We later learn he is descending into madness but also making human sacrifices to Asterion by capturing incoming labyrinth prisoners.
Lucius - 'Second in command' in Grey's company, he is a somewhat stupid, younger warrior. He ran from the battle of the W.C, causing its defeat. Grey praised him for his resourcefulness and intelligence to stay alive.
Kiron - An old professor and politician cast into the labyrinth by the succeeding young emperor for 'political indemnity'.
Agatone - An honorable man and ally to Kiron during the Western Catacombs fight, he was the only survivor aside from Lucius. Reuniting with Grey and Lucius afterward, he left to escape Grey's influence and mad attempt to capture him, to be sacrificed to Asterion. He has remained in the Forest in secret, combatting insanity with discipline. (When you first enter the forest you are stalked by a shadowy silhouette - it's Agatone).
Grey's company (7 total) - Each member of the company is kept by Grey for some reason; was sentenced for some reason
    Junus - a young man; theft from the Emperor's palace. Stealing a jug, caught by guard.
    (a blacksmith) - kept for strength; murder
    (an embroider - makes cloth) - kept for clothing / warmth; adultery
    (someone who knows how to cook) - even the simplest pleasures mean everything in the labyrinth; theft
    (an extremely depressed, borderline insane man) - he is desperately trying to remember everything, and does; he is constantly repeating things to himself. Talk to him to hear info about equipment he remembers seeing / hearing about somewhere in the labyrinth (Quests).

Lucius is a name originating from Latin, not Greek.  Also there should be a balance between having names that feel greek and names that are not so foreign sounding as to be not pronounceable.  Grey is not a name that reflects the epic greek vibe of the game, but an authentic ancient name might cause the Assassin's Creed 2 problem of having every character's name in a different language, thereby causing confusion in the player's mind about which character is which. -Brad

Misc

Each member of the company's reasons for sentence are said one after another, when sitting down together on the second day. When asked why Hero is in the labyrinth, he lies, "Murder." Grey: "..." (inferring he may know he's lying).

magenta flames, like blood

Asterion is huge, 15ft tall.

A cgi scene where the halls of the labyrinth zoom out to become the wrinkles in a brain. <-- See this link about the brain in The Creation of Adam -Brad

areas in the labyrinth are designed to torture a man's soul - tempting destinations are seperated by the walls, even if close [still works with reluctant architect...?] <-- I like this as a level design philosophy, sometimes using the carrot instead of the stick makes the labyrinth interesting -Brad

Key items / gear are found on the bodies of other warriors / people cast into the labyrinth. People were allowed to equip themselves however they liked when sentenced to face the certain doom which is the labyrinth.

*Hero learns that the traps he originally encountered by the Gates were not to fend off creatures, they were set up by Grey and his company to capture incoming prisoners to be sacrificed to Asterion, so that they would be safe. The reason Hero was not captured was because:
    a) Grey's company had just made a sacrifice 2 day earlier, Asterion is appeased & you are alive by blind fortune.**
    b) Your fighting skills were enough to evade the traps.
    c) Grey's company could make use of a soldier.

**In the very beginning CGI, the narrative describes another man having been sentenced to the labyrinth 2 days earlier. "He was already forgotten."

Halfway through the game you come across 2 new characters who are condemned into the maze, a murderer (Ioannes) and a nervous younger man (Apollo). This occurs when you [for some reason] must return to the Gates area. <-- There should not be a human named Apollo, this name conflicts with the god, Apollo -Brad

NPC:
"This place... the corridors are ten paces wide, the walls another ten. 30 feet high the walls are! How could such a place have been built? Did the Gods have a hand in it? I dare not think what lies in the deeper corridors if this place holds their ideas of torture..."

Ultimately Agatone is captured by Grey, and strapped to altar as a human sacrifice to Asterion. Grey is about to inflict a mortal wound on Agatone due to his
hatred toward him, but that's when you arrive to stop Grey. However, it is still too late as Asterion enters, killing Grey and Agatone. Asterion drinks Agatone's blood from his torn-off arm. (like Ninja Scroll) <-- For each major thing that can happen in the story, the player should have some means of influencing the outcome -Brad

(In the end, if Asterion is dead and the hero escaped(?), the labyrinth itself must retain its terror)

"...No man will ever find this passage. My chances were mere fate, the halls of this maze are too dark, too twisted. It matters not whether the monster lives, the labyrinth will continue to claim sanity, claim lives."





NAMES
-----------------------------------------
Aetos - "Eagle"

Leucos [ name is Glory of Heracles]

Agatone

Kiron - wise teacher

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different hand postures
fighting multiple enemies at once?
HUD during combat mode
    not turn based, but speed based? An enemy action bar which replenishes in time until the next ability. Maybe as the fight progresses, the enemy moves faster? Maybe just for some enemies
Do you know how much HP an enemy has? Cast a spell to see how much hp left? No spells in the game?

first-person perspective during points of interest; puzzles, key character convo's

collecting different types of gear from enemies:
    weapons
    armor
    items
        potions
        junk
attributes:
    size
    sharpness
    weight



riddles left behind by Daedalus in the labyrinth

keep corpses of enemies on ground, which decay over time (perhaps different levels of decay affect the environment? - creatures come to eat)
demonstrations of permanence

Things in the Environment / Adventure mode to do/ encounter
the player moving objects
dodging dangerous things
nonlinear progression - forking paths, mazes
enemy encounters
puzzles
examining objects
shrines

Enemies
(giant variations possible)
rats
snakes
insects; centipedes, spiders, scorpions
giant crabs
dogs
boars
bats
hyenas
vultures
bulls

harpies
cyclops'
centaur
griffin
scylla


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One possible way to handle a rock/paper/scissors mechanic:

Let's say one 'element' power is that a weapon blessed becomes more powerful as it experiences battle, but it dies more quickly. This doesn't really make sense in the scheme of a rock/paper/scissors mechanic, because 1 pro is negated by 1 con for a total of 2 attributes.

The total number of attributes associated between the elements needs to be a multiple of 3. It is a triangle after all... but the 3 elements don't actually need to have any kind of direct relationship with each other in and of themselves. If you had 3 attributes, all you'd need to do would be to give each element the chief benefit of 1 of the them. Thus 1 Pro and 2 Cons, or 2 Pros and 1 Con to be more generous. For more than 3 attributes (6, 9, 12...) you'd simply give each element the chief benefit of 1/3 of n attributes; 2 Pros and 4 Cons. <-- These 3 attributes (if we use the fear idea from above) could be damage resistance, potential to deal damage and intimidation.  These can be matched up to the 3 gods that bless gear.  The stats can have fancy names when you bless them like for example: Your item has been blessed with the Fortitude of Poseidon, the Strength of Zeus or the Terror of Hades (or whatever the coolest names we could think of). -Brad

There doesn’t need to be any gradient scales of power or influence between the weapons, each one simply has one of the 3 attributes as its primary trait.

What all this means in that balancing could be handled on the side of occurrence, perhaps a simple matter of establishing the quantity that each is made necessary. (ex: There could be 3 types of enemies in an area, each vulnerable to 1 of the traits). To retain the idea of balance, ultimately the attributes simply need to be equally valuable for combat. Probably sounds obvious, and it is really, but what it means by extension is that we could devise any 3 general attributes for combat we can imagine.

In a sense, all we'd be doing is making 3 completely separate, but equally necessary attributes, and by calling for them in different ways in the same scenario (combat) we'd keep them together in the player's mindset.


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