Foster Floundering

 

Introduction: The character is a child and must gather evidence of the atrocities being committed against them by their legal to present to authorities. The people who are supposed to be in charge are oblivious and it is hard to convince them. This game is intended to expose how some, but not all, foster parents can be terrible and exploitative to children. It takes some inspiration from A Series of Unfortunate Events. The player will be able to explore the house they are in and try to avoid harm coming to them. It tires to put their destinies into their own hands. It will be in a retro-futuristic style.

Description: The game will show the players an experience as they move trough their lives. Afterwards they can explore the room they were in to find evidence of what is happening. The will come into a conversation with an authority figure and have to preset the right evidence to clear their name. There is an inventory system that can hold items of relevance, include. As a secondary feature there will be some small puzzles to advance beyond the room they are currently in.

Key features: The function of collecting evidence is fulfilled in the game by picking up objects and presenting them in conversations later. This is done through an inventory system that can be accessed through the HUD at the I icon. It can hold several items. After a character is spoken to, there will also be recordings that appear in the room it happened in and those can be picked up as well. The HUD also allows you to examine past Revelations through the R icon so you can be informed in the next decisions you make.

Like many other similar games, they will have a dialogue screen with the important character as a talksprite. At this point the player will be able to pull items and recordings from their inventories. If it is a conversation with an authority figure, they will be very stubborn and oblivious, as much of the characters tend to be. Besides just gathering evidence, they will have to do things to gain their favors, pandering to their interesting and acting favorable enough to them to be credible. The rest of the game will be a walkaround, where players can click on an collect items.

Some items will be collected for the purpose of creating inventions, which will be used later in puzzles to pass certain points. These Items will be stored in the inventory. The other items will be presented as evidence to authorities, so you can escape the care of your unfit guardians.

Story: There will be a few different story paths programmed into the game. One will be just surviving, but not really being happy.  In another mode you can leverage evidence to be more fortunate and get out of the abusive situation. If you are too much more unfortunate in your quest to escape abusive guardianships, you will be very hindered and the children can even die. Once they are all dead it is a game over.

Genre: the game will be an RPG which means you will take control of a character and play as them. You navigate through isometric designed rooms and have interactions with characters. There will be several items and records of incidents to collect. It is also an adventure game with a retro-futuristic aesthetic which is the future as viewed though the past. There will also be a puzzle game aspect to it.

Platform: The Platform will be for PC. It will be made available through services like steam or Battle.net depending on the developer.

Locations:

Clyde’s bunker: Clyde keeps his house in disrepair, as all he cares about his food. There are a lot of dangerous items left around for the children. There are a lot of hazardous chores that the children are made to do here. The kitchen is featured prominently in this location. The stove is very strange and worries the children.

Banesville: This town is in the middle of nowhere. It is isolated and it is hard to find anyone of importance should help be needed. There are small shops along the main street selling items as diverse as flight technology items to jelly beans. The weather is known to be unpredictable. The authorities are in the town connected to it by a long stretch of highway.

 Characters:

Blake Lockwood: Blake is a girl who is fifteen years old. Blake is very resourceful and has an interest in engineering. Her mechanical interest allows her to get out of some tough situations. Her experience with authority is to be suspicious. Whenever she tries to tell an adult something important, they never believe her. She has to do a lot of work to get them to trust her, and when they do, it is often too late

 

Chris Lockwood: Chris is a boy who is 13 years old. Chris is more gullible than his older sister. He is more willing to give authority the benefit of the doubt. This usually ends badly for him. He is very interested in researching various subjects. Once something gets his attention he develops a fixation for it. It has helped him out of tough situations. He is able to memorize many random factoids.

Foreman Clyde: He is put in charge of the Lockwood siblings. He is a man in his late 30s who has a government job. He is careless and likes to drink a lot. He takes pleasure at casual misfortune. He gets irrationally angry at loud chewing noises. This glutton will do anything to the children if it can get him more food and drink. Under his care they are constantly pulling dangerous stunts. He forces them into crazy schemes for him.

 

Game Outcomes:

In order to advance past the first part of the story the characters must prevent their house from exploding. They must identify the problems with the gas in the house. There is a critical conversation they must pick up from the foreman. They must alert the authorities and bring some evidence to them. If they aren’t convincing there is a game over. This is one example of gameplay.

 

 

Props:

There are many tools used by the Lockwood siblings. Some of them are:

Multitool – used for constructing inventions.

Periscope- useful when hiding is necessary.

Lighter

Lockpick

Mousetrap-used in inventions

These items can be used during the walkthrough, in puzzles to escape and such and during conversations as evidence.

 

 

 

Game Screens:

Game Background:

Inventory:

Dialogue Screen:

Town Outskirts: