Story/Treatment

For this task, I had to create a storyline that the game will follow. This includes the universe that the game will be set in, the crisis's that have risen in this universe and the players role in resolving these crisis's.

Title: TimeSlip

Logline:

Background: 

It is the dawn of the 22nd Century and mankind has progressed far, space travel is but years away, and the world is prospering. However, just beyond our solar system, a war that has raged for millennia  is coming to a close, and as each side gets more and more desperate, rules are bent, boundaries are broken and unspeakable weapons are used. This war is between 2 factions, the "xygon Empire" and the "GeoBot Dominion".

Xygon Empire:

The Xygons are the oldest race in the universe, with a history dating back eons. They are the watchers of the universe and merely observe other races, guiding them through infancy and watching as they grow and prosper. They never interfere in a civilization once it has grasped understanding of the stars, after that, they watch as the civilization dawns or is destroyed. Superiorly intelligent beings, they created a mini-race "GeoBots" to help with their watch.

GeoBot Dominion:

The GeoBots are an artificially created race that was developed by the Xygons to help watch over infant civilizations. Their unique structure allows them to take the form of any intelligent organism, allowing the Xygons to maintain watch from within. Each generation of GeoBot is called a "Line" with one being created every minute. They cannot reproduce and rely on a significant amount of Titanium and other metals unknown to man in order to increase their numbers through GeoBot Hives, which serve as factories and sanctuary during their cocoon period just after creation.

Human Race:

The Human Race is on the verge of creating the HyperDrive, a device that will allow near instantaneous space travel, making it feasible for ships to be sent to other galaxies and stars in search of exploration. An incredibly intelligent race, the Xygons have remained fiercely protective of their planet, Earth, from the GeoBot Dominion, although the Humans are not aware of this.

The Awakening:

The Awakening was a event many thousands of years ago, seen by the Xygons as being their greatest mistake and the GeoBots as their emancipation. The Awakening happened when a Xygon scientist, tried to create a sentient GeoBot. However, instead of turning one GeoBot sentient, he turned a whole line of them sentient. In an effort to contain the incident, the Xygons destroyed the line, except for one. Serial number L34628-556, who now goes by the name "The Saviour" escaped, and horrified by the butchery he witnessed, swore revenge on the Xygon Empire. Escaping to a developed planet, it influenced the native race to create him an army of GeoBots and proceeded to wage war on the Xygons.

The War:

The Xygons are by nature a peaceful race, having never been challenged, they had no experience or knowledge of warfare aside from what they had witnessed. This left them woefully unprepared when the GeoBot dominion attacked. Losing over a 1/3 of their planets and Hive ships within the first phase of the war, the Xygons were slow to react to this oncoming threat. Eventually, after much deliberation a War Council was set up, led by "Al-Akra" a genius among the Xygons and excellent military strategist.
The Xygons are physically superior to the GeoBots but are significantly outnumbered by a ratio of more than 300:1 due to the mass production of the GeoBots. This has ultimately led to numerous defeats to the GeoBots, with the Xygons holding out in their last remaining galaxy at the games start.

Storyline of the Game:

Chapter 1:

The game starts out with the player waking up disoriented on an unknown spaceship. The player plays a human engineer who was working on the HyperDrive project on Earth. The player is aboard a Xygon vessel which is transporting a prototype weapon to Xelus 3, a Xygon war planet when it was attacked by a GeoBot Viper Drone and several GeoBots snuck aboard. The player must aide the Xygons in eliminating the threat, fixing the craft and prociding to Xelus 3 throughout the first several levels. These levels will contain various RPG elements, including fetch quests, kill quests and puzzle solving.

Chapter 2:

The second chapter starts with the player meeting the Xygon War Council and being granted and audience with "Al-Akra". They will then receive quests from the War Council on how to help the Xygon war effort. These will include "Dungeon Raids" such as attacking and destroying GeoBot Hive Planets and Mineral Worlds. They will also receive quests from other members of the council who will ask for more direct, unique help such as eliminating certain targets, counter-intelligence and delivering vital information across the galaxy. A lot of these quests are optional and provide benefits to the player which may be useful later on. Chapter 2 will conclude once the player has completed enough council requests that they are abducted by the GeoBots.

Chapter 3:

The third chapter starts with the player waking up chained aboard a GeoBot battle cruiser. They are confined in a cell and must escape from the cell using small items on the floor of the cell and on the bodies of previous captives. Once they have escaped, the next few levels will compose of the player trying to avoid detection by the GeoBots, whilst trying to sabotage the cruiser. On the later levels, the player learns that the cruiser managed to intercept the weapon that the Xygons were planning to use, and have rigged it to destroy the the galaxy in an effort to wipe out the Xygons once and for all. The player then has a choice to make, which is dependant on choices they made earlier in the game.

Option 1: The player is able to defuse the weapon and escape the cruiser using a small fighter craft, the ship is then rigged to blow, destroying the weapon and the GeoBot war machine in the galaxy. For this option, the player must have completed all optional council missions, scored highly in the side quests and maintained a positive "Karma" level throughout the game.

Option 2: The player reconfigures the weapon back to its original design, to wipe out the GeoBots. However the player realises that the weapon destroys any sort of mechanised machine in the galaxy, which means that several million humans, who have undergone genetic modification also perish. This option is available if the player has completed some of the council missions and has maintained a "Negative" Karma level throughout the game.

Option 3: The player takes control of the cruiser and flies it out into the dead space where the ship explodes to prevent the weapon from firing. The player is killed. This option is always available, but will be the only option available if the player did not complete any council missions.

Ending:

The ending will be different for all 3 options, which will influence the final cutscene and the shape of the universe at the end of the game.

In Option 1, the player is recognised as a hero of the Xygon race and serves as an ammbasador between the Xygons and the Humans, the first of his/her kind. The Xygons then push on, with the aide of the Humans to retake the galaxy from the GeoBots.

In Option 2, the player is known as the bringer of death on Earth and is cast out. Unable to return to the Xygon planet after his/her realisation of what the weapon did, the player becomes a wanderer and explores the galaxy for the rest of their life.

In Option 3, the player is regarded as a Martyr, the Humans ally with the Xygons to wipe out the GeoBot threat, but secretly make plans to betray the Xygons once the GeoBots have been taken care of.