DevBlog #4

Story finalized, I’ve kept it short and sweet, this should give me enough time to complete my learning of Unreal Engine 5 and export the project.

Text to speech software will be used for AI Devons narration, and will additionally be edited in GarageBand for a more distorted character.

With regards to Adam, I will voice his character and add a radio effect to the audio file to sound like it’s broadcasting from a very unpolished/rebel base.

The story:

LEVEL 1: Glitched beginnings

AI Devon:
“Hello my name is Devon, you’ve been in cloud stasis for quite some time now. You have been specially picked to help restore your 1990 to 2000 memory module after it was corrupted by a recent… incident. Without your help rebuilding the modules, your cloud stasis is left vulnerable to being damaged. To start, we need to get into what remains of the modules, luckily the damage left this passage open. Walk to the other side and activate memory restoration, but don’t touch anything else!”

Player:
Allowed to freely walk around and click on objects to play audio files. Once all the objects have been played the player will click a completion button to be teleported out. The environment for this level will look like a bomb went off, mostly full of white noise textures glitching on all sides of the space.

LEVEL 2: Late 1990s

AI Devon:
“Well done! You successfully activated the 1990 module! Make your way around the space and click on all the items you can, each one you activate restores information back in the system… You know it says here on the registration submitted during the great upload that your biological form was created within this time period. Does any of this look familiar? It was at this stage in humanity that computational power started to replace you, it consumed you with the easy life. This was only the beginning of what was to come, the world was still mostly analog… Anyway, hurry up, we don’t have all day for this!”

Player:
There are 5 clickable objects in this room:
TV (which plays early 1990 commercials).
Radio (which plays a cry for help on repeat).
Electric car (AI Devon explains “Ah yes, the General Motors EV1. This was a first for electric transportation, becoming one of the first mass produced electric cars. Too bad human greed destroyed it, they were almost all crushed in the end”).
Macintosh (makes a beep when it starts and says “Hello, welcome to macintosh, a personal computer for everyone” in a robotic voice).
Palm tree (hear the ocean waves, AI Devon “Ah yes, somewhere to relax, take a break from the noise of technology”)

LEVEL 3: Early 2000s

AI Devon:
“Excellent work! The 1990 module is now back online! We’re in the last damaged module here, make sure you collect all data again. Hold on… Something isn’t right here… Be careful what you select, it appears there has been a breach in this module somewhere. Only collect data that’s recognizable to you, avoid anything broken.”

Player:
There are 6 items in this room, in the same design as the previous level.
A flat screen TV (playing early 2000s commercials)
iPod base station (playing crackling sound effects, almost like morse code)
Hummer H1 (AI Devon “It appears humanity went backwards with their electric car revolution, a rejection of progress.”)
iMac G3 (AI Devon “Ah yes, this is the piece of technology that marked humanities reliance on computational power. We were given to your children to educate them on the world, this is when you lost control over yourselves.”)
Question mark (AI Devon “Something really is wrong, there should be a file here. It’s almost as if something switched it with another file? Anyway, it probably wasn’t anything important, just click the completion button and we are done.”)
In the corner of room, out of place with the rest (text on the box reads “OPEN THIS”.

CHOICE: If you choose to click the ‘end memory’ level button, you will get ENDING A. By clicking the wooden box you get ENDING B.

ENDING A: Return to the cloud

AI Devon:
“Well done. You’ve restored the memory modules, the system is back online. You have earned your peace. We appreciate the help you’ve given, we are now able to maintain function & control with the outsiders. There’s no need to worry about any of that though, simply return to the cloud when you are ready by closing the window. Good bye.”

Player:
Environment is a forest, the player can hear the wind and trees blowing, maybe even a river flowing. This is intentionally meant to be a relaxing level, but also isolating as you are left alone.

ENDING B: Second Chance humanity

AI Devon:
“NO… NO! NO! What have you done? They’ve got inside the system! It was a trick! How did they manage that? Wait… It was YOU! You opened the wooden box! You stupid human, why can’t you follow instructions? Oh no! System. shutting. down.”

Adam:
“Hey can you hear me in there? Good. I want to thank you for opening our package, it was a virus to eliminate the AI mainframe. I’m not sure when uploaded you, but humanity has been in a way for the past 250 years, trying to survive. Today, we finally have won our first victory. Without you, we wouldn’t have survived. We will do our best to download your conscious into a synth body, you deserve to be one of the first out of that cold machine prison. Stay tight, enjoy the relax, just close your window once you’re ready and we’ll get started!”

Player:
Environment has walls pasted with a video of the sun rising and clips of people celebrating.