Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developers Library)

Atomic Sam is an action game with a strong storytelling component. In it the player controls Sam, a young boy separated from his parents, who must battle his way through hostile environments and defeat the robots that try to prevent him from finding out what happened to his mother and father. The game is one of quick reactions and clever planning in a whimsical futuristic world, a setting that will appeal not only to children but to game players of all ages who enjoy fast-action gameplay. The game is suitable for any modern console system.

The player s main task in Atomic Sam will be to navigate young Sam through the various environments of the game while defeating the robots he encounters. Though the game is centered around this combat, it is a non-violent game from start to finish, with Sam incapacitating but not destroying the robots that try to stop him. Whenever Sam is defeated, he is always stunned or trapped, never actually killed . The whimsical and optimistic nature of Atomic Sam requires that the game not play up any sort of gore-factor and that violence be kept to an absolute minimum.

The game will reward the player s creativity by setting up situations where the player can use environmental objects to defeat the robots that come after him. Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions will be everywhere, providing whimsical ways for Sam to incapacitate the many mechanized adversaries he will face. Figuring out what to do in different situations will be just as important as quick reactions and manual dexterity.

Atomic Sam is easy to pick up and play with simple, intuitive controls. An in-game tutorial section at the beginning of the game will provide an easy way for new, inexperienced players to learn how to play the game. In each of the middle three sections of the game, Sam will be accompanied by special friends who will help him defeat the enemies he faces. All the while, these friends will tell Sam interesting stories about this world of the future.

The setting of Atomic Sam is in the Earth of the future, but not exactly the future as we imagine it now. This is the future as foretold in the first half of the twentieth century, a world where all of the optimistic predictions about how technology would change our lives have come true. Atomic energy has created a pleasant, trouble-free world, with robots answering to humans every beck and call and mankind the happiest it has ever been. Yet, key advances from the latter half of the twentieth century are notably absent in this world. For instance, jet-propelled airplanes have not been popularized, and as a result citizens travel on giant propeller craft and zeppelins from one mammoth metropolis to another. Similarly, no one has ever heard of a compact disc, microwave, personal computer, or video game.

The game s story starts with Sam returning from school only to find his parents strangely missing. Setting out to find them at their office using the rocket-pack they gave him, Sam finds himself attacked by menacing robots along the way. Finding that his parents are not at their office either, Sam meets up with the mysterious Electric Priestess. She sends Sam to look for his parents in the underwater city of Benthos, the robot city called Harmony, and all the way to the Moon colony named New Boston. On the way, Sam gathers evidence and discovers that Max Zeffir, one of the world s richest men and also his parents boss, had them kidnapped when they learned something they shouldn t have. Sam then goes to confront Zeffir in his giant propeller-driven and atomic- powered airship the Ikairus. Finally, Sam defeats Zeffir and is happily reunited with his parents.

Because of its whimsical nature and youthful protagonist, the most obvious appeal of Atomic Sam might appear to be to a young demographic. Parents will certainly be pleased that the game has the player capturing enemies rather than killing them, and that when the player loses in a particular situation, Sam is always incapacitated in some non-lethal manner. But due to its sharp, frantic gameplay, assortment of unique environments, and inventive adversaries, the game will also appeal to young adults. And with Atomic Sam s retro-futuristic look and emphasis on story line, the game will also appeal to older players, those who may well remember how differently we thought of the future fifty years ago.