The gamer's experience in my console game will be a first person view of the wonderful, strange and sometimes unnerving dream environments surrounding you and the intricate and meaningful people you interact with. This head space allows you to see through the eyes of your character and immerse you in their mind and the dreams it has created. However, you will be aware of what your character looks like through cut scenes and perhaps some occasional mirrors throughout the game.

Although the game's character and NPCs have very real, dramatic and sometimes stark issues in real life, the game's atmosphere is nowhere near this serious and sober, but it will not be overly light either (although some missions may be lighter than others). These issues, themes and the protagonist's psyche will be illustrated by more universal and fantastical symbols, people, creatures and missions. This could take the form of archetypes, missions based on popular myths and sometimes humorous personified slices of the protagonist's mind (e.g., the protagonist's fear of his own death and unwillingness to accept the five years past death of his wife could take the shape of a mission like Orpheus and Euripides where he goes into the Underworld, battles the forces of death such as zombies, ghosts, etc., meets with some Hades figure, manipulates, negotiates and convinces him to release his dead wife, struggles to take her back to Earth while again fighting off the forces of death, although this time, he can't look back at her (even accidentally as the player fights). They will have an emotional impact and symbolism that is clearly reminiscent of the more specific events in this person's life, but illustrates them in a more universal and appealing way for the player. The world will be fantastical, imaginative and strange with a strong tone of adventure, wonder, suspense, urgency, bizarre transcendentalism and some darkness.

You defeat enemies, solve some mysteries and progress the game through a combination of weapons, puzzle solving, aversion and NPC interaction. The fighting style of the game is fairly similar to first person shooter, although you won't always use guns, blades or other standard weapons to kill your foes. Sometimes you use objects you've picked up or puzzles and/or triggers within your environment to defeat your enemies. Also, the weapons/objects you pick up tend to deteriorate through time and use. However, for the big bosses at the end of each mission (i.e., the culmination of your character's fear/dilemma and the theme of the level), the POV will still be the same, but the gameplay will be somewhat like the Shadow of the Colossus. The weapons you use are often objects/symbols you find in the room or earlier in the game. The bosses and the rooms they're in tend to be puzzles that you may figure out in order to defeat them. However, you don't have to follow a set strategy in order to defeat the creature. (refer to "personality/battle tactic choices")

The game is on rails, but it also many venues for player agency. There are rails in the sense that the player must complete missions to advance the game. The protagonist's backstory, which is driving the narrative and symbolism behind the missions and NPCs, is also set. However, what happens to this protagonist's mind in the end and how his inner turmoil is dealt with is up to the player once the game begins. On one extreme, they can get into the protagonist's head, act as he would and try their best to solve the missions and overarching mystery in a manner that would be most psychologically meaningful and helpful for the protagonist. On the other extreme, they can just crash through the game, command and conquer this strange world and its terrible creatures and forgo much interest in the NPC interactions and story development. Either way would be challenging and fun and both have repercussions and rewards for these strategies.

The game's interactions and points of player agency are divided three ways.

1) NPC Interaction/Dialogue Choices: Your dialogue choices and perceived personality will influence how an NPC interacts with you, how much they open up to you and, sometimes, whether they give you objects or weapons to help you on your odyssey's missions. You can use your skills of understanding people and speak to each unique person in a manner that will give you the most information and rewards (kind of like those "Negotiator" or dating lifestyle games). However, this will be limited by their already established perception of you, which is influenced by your other actions throughout the game.

2) Tactical Battle Choices: How you choose to complete your missions and, especially, your final adversaries at the end of each mission determines what strengths you are given, the reputation you will get and how NPCs treat you, which will ultimately decide how much you discover about yourself and solve the mystery of who is killing all your friends and family.

3) Order of Missions Choices: Each mission represents a symbolic struggle your character is having in real life. Your character will be more ready for certain missions based on what he has accomplished and dealt with already. For example, it would be much more difficult for him to deal with the death of his father (one mission) if he hasn't already completed another mission that forces him to deal in someway with the death of his pet dog (this is just an example I pulled out of my ass, no real intention of using these). The second mission may have given him some inner strength power or a weapon or useful object that would aid him in the father mission. If the player takes the father mission first, he's just making things difficult, but not impossible, for him/herself. So the player must choose wisely. They will have an idea of the mission they're about to undertake by speaking to the NPC that guards the door to each mission.

There are ultimately three personality/battle tactic categories that can be chosen.

A) Evasive: try to avoid having to kill creatures/people as much as possible. Usually maintains your health more, but costs you experience in the long run. Has both good and bad implications (depending when you do this) on your personal success (e.g., how you're perceived by others, what you find out about yourself, not dealing with issues, etc.)

B) Psycho: more of a brawn before brains maneuver where you usually don't use the puzzle pieces much and instead use whatever means possible to kill things even if they're a bit morally reprehensible (like gouging a guy's eyes out while he's down). You get more experience this way, which helps you to continue being a psycho, but it almost always negatively impacts the personal side of the game. The protagonist's "true personality" is a weird combination of Psycho and Evasive. He's aggressive and power hungry when the defeat seems easy, but evasive when things get risky or too challenging.

C) Clever Boy: The happy medium that uses their brain to defeat foes by figuring out the puzzles for each monster and within the missions. This likeable personality is usually very adept at getting the information they need out of NPCs. This is a happy medium for battle success and is sometimes, but not always, the best for personal implications. However, this way can also be more risky for your health and you sometimes won't be able to kill your foe, just cripple them. This is a more challenging gameplay style. This is the kind of person the protagonist wishes they could be more like.

Of course, it will be rare that a player will constantly use the same fighting style and personality throughout the game. How these choices affect the gaming experience is based on what you choose most and in what circumstances you choose it. I'm also considering certain mixtures of category choices to have implications (e.g., predominant Evasive/Clever Boy choices), but I still haven't fleshed that idea out quite enough.

Hopefully this gives you guys a clearer understanding of my game. Your feedback would be very muchly appreciated.

Also, my mentor for Radical Entertainment is none other than Ian Christy. This is very good news, as I was utterly pleased with his feedback and creative lecture during bootcamp. In the near future, I'll be including his feedback on my game content in some capacity on Z2H.