The Story

For the next part of my design process, I began thin king about the narrative, who would have this ability and why, was there others? Who was he/she up against? Mark Twain once said 'Write what you know'. So I made the main protagonist a male in his 30's. I also decided that I wanted to take as much a realistic/scientific approach as I could to the game's premise, difficult as it is to believe I didn't want to add aspects of magic supernatural. Rather to ground it in science so I decided that it would be nanotechnology that would enable this ability. I then fleshed the story out a little more and decided he would be an intelligence operative that is recruited to a programme that gave him the tech. I then began a few preliminary drawings of the character to create his look...

Then the protagonist, well each hero needs a villain so someone with the same ability would work. I then added the uni-shifters, small low level 'minions' who are given the tech by the main protagonist but it's imperfect and they can only shift into one animal form. These would serve as the most frequent opponent in the game in the same way that the inmates did in Rocksteady's 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'.

As I was keeping the premise grounded in science I decided to add a suit that the main character would wear which he could transform in so as he doesn't rip his clothes all the time and end up naked when he changes back to human. I designed a body-suit which in the game would be made of organic materials which he would absorb into himself and add mass when he changed. I added a diode on the chest which he would tap and voice activate the change by saying which animal.

For the texture of the suit I looked at various animal skins and rubber textures, I liked the look of the octagonal pattern but that had already been done with EA's 'Crysis' and Sony's 'Spider-man' suit. So I finally decided on the look of shark skin, it's made up of denticles; almost teeth like layers across the surface.

Already I began thinking that the concept had enough depth in it to allow for some transmedia application, perhaps in the form of graphic novels or animated episodes.

Now I had the basis of the story and the character's I began to think about the play itself, how the game which I had now called 'Wylde' after the protagonist Thomas Wylde, would work for the gamer.