TimeDrifter

Enjoy our chopped game :'(
Original idea below:

Game Planning Sheet:

PREMISE:  Drift is a 2D side scrolling narrative atmospheric game set inside a black hole.

Protagonist: A faceless astronaut wearing a helmet. Near the climax, his visor reflects the silohuitte of his late girlfriend.

Visual Style: Features parallax background scrolling with outer screen edges fading to black. Colour palette constantly changes. At the beginning, the colour is gloomy and monochromatic (grey, dark purples, blacks), blooming into warmer, more vivid colours as the deeper memories and environments are reached, before fragmenting into a distorted reality at the singularity.

CORE GAMEPLAY & MECHANICS:

Control and Release Thrust:

Uses a minigolf style mechanic where holding the mouse charges a thrust, and releasing it defines the jump legnth/force.

Directions: Up, Down, Right, No Left.

Prompts: At the beginning, the player is prompted: “HOLD TO THRUST” and “RELEASE TO DRIFT” as a mini tutorial.

HUD & LEVEL STRUCTURE:

The game is a continuous single level delving slowly deeper into the blackhole rather than distinct stages. There are 6 environments, the beginning dark blackhold, the apartment, the park, beach, fragmented reality, and singularity. 

Progress is tracked by UI at the bottom of the screen (SINGULARITY DEPTH: 50%)

Thrust Strength is shown by half circle that charges up depending on the strength of your boost, similar look to genshin/botw stamina system.

DEBUFFS:

As the player moves deeper into the black hole, mechanics become increasingly difficult.

Spaghettification, the astronaut physically stretches the further he goes in, increasing the characters hitbox size.

Gravitational Drag, movement charges longer and feels more sluggish and heavy. Plays on the ludonarrative of grief getting heavier too.

DEATH SYSTEM:

Similar to VHS rewind, dying triggers a brief rewind effect with audio buzz, sending the player back 10 seconds rather then fully restarting.

HAZARDS AND OBSTACLES:

Asteroids: 3 distinct styles of asteroids that are randomly procedurally generated and fly right to left.

Hull Fragments: Also 3 designs, act identical to asteroids.

Gravitational Rifts:Spinning mini blackholes that pulls the player towards them.

Memory Objects Objects from the current memory such as hairbrushes, ice cream cones acting as a way to move the narrative forward, trigging dialogue.

STORY:

Main Menu: Displays photos of astronaut and their girlfriend introducing them before the game starts.

Opening Sequence: Cutscene shows ship in space, black hole in background. An asteroid strikes the vessel, screen goes black with red text saying “CRITICAL ALERT” before ship explodes and everything fades.

Sequence 1: Event Horizon (0-30%ish of game): Dark empty space, monochromatic colours. Dialogue appears: “The ship is gone… Im past the event horizon. All I can do is drift deeper.”

Brief tutorial teaches initial mechanics before debris.

Stage 2: Drifting through Memories: (30-60?)

Backgrounds slowly transition through locations from his psat: Apartment, Park, Beach

Colours transform into vivid, warm hues. Personal items float past along with regular debris. Music uplifts.

Stage 3: Reality Fracture (60-80):

Visual glitches break through vivid scenery revealing hospital room.

Underlying heart monitor echo beeps.

Spaghettification starts happening, debuffs start stacking, movement feels heavy, objects from ALL the eras come at once.

Stage 4: The singularity (80-100):

Background completely fragments into shards

Plays a single frame cutscene of the astronauts visor reflecting an image of the girlfriends silohuitte

A prompt appears on screen: “STOP HOLDING”

Player input is disabled, letting go of controls causes the astronaut to slowly drift towards the singularity as the lighting blooms into full colour and music swells, almost white.

The screen snaps to black, displaying the title card DRIFT.

Current game is tech demo.