Author notes: This is the lead up Kara gameplay, as in this all happens before the player takes control. When we open the game with Kara, she’s in the classroom
Authors notes: People in a city, rockets flying around.
The sky turns to a natural white surrounding a projectile heading northeast across the main avenue. It’s part of the city that has sprung loose, jolted from some prior event that the population didn’t see or hear; something that went unnoticed. There was no explosion, just a dislodging or tearing of some natural fabric with enough force to disrupt the skyline. The city of Fourth swells with thinking. Its people don’t leave their homes, choosing instead to look out through kitchen windows, to peer upwards past the curtains keeping them separated from the outside world.
Open Up to The two main charter’s, position them in the city
“This will never do” says Father, Dan Lain says with a defeated shake of his head, looking into the sports page of the morning paper. Daughter, Kara sit poised in clothes conforming to local color mandates, swinging her feet playfully. This scene is typical of their location, a residential area of the city of Fourth, where nuclear families live. However this family is not nuclear, it’s just Father and Daughter, and for that reason it’s strange. The lack of symmetry is noticeable to the scene, a seating placement at the table is clearly left unattended. It is even more noticeable to their neighbors, to which expectations of family geometry is very important.
Look out the window, see something weird but hide the panic.
Dan, peers out the window, sees the clouds rushing by but remains stiffened in his chair. There is a natural calming taking place within him as his mind resolved the panic of this new “event”. Pockets of shadows stream across the house, like a helicopter cutting off moonlight, and yet nobody can see the actual object. Kara slows her feet that were previously kicking underneath her chair and takes brief glances at the man who sits at the head of the table. Dan remains composed, eyes arched but fixed on the center piece, breathing out worry. They are and have always been, who they have needed to be. He doesn’t know whats happening but he’s heard this sound before.
Kara is young and looks wide eyed at her father who remains unmoved. Her legs swing back and forth as she musters the courage to start talking to him. “Are we going to the park today?” She knew the answer. “No”, responds her father, hiding his smile behind a coffee mug and angled above his white shirt.
Kara: ”Daddy, it’s a beautiful day isn’t it”
Father: for the first time he looks at her, warms his tone and replies, “alright, let’s go”
Kara smiled to herself as her legs picked up for a moment.
Hand in hand they walked through the neighborhood where Kara avoids each crack in the sidewalk as if stepping on one would make her fall through in an abyss. Each home densely positioned on prime real estate; simply but warmly architect-ed to fit it’s proper row. Windows on the street opening into the kitchens and homes. One by one, homes emptied as the street started to fill with families. Kara tightened her grip as they stepped onto the avenue.
Everyone ignored what was obviously happening, looking at each other with forced smiles. Long streams of smoke, tips bursting with light. They streamed in parallel, miles above them making a hollow sound. The peaceful city was under attack but the people didn’t know it. It seemed that the rockets were going through buildings, missing their targets but that wasn’t right; they were in a holding pattern, acquiring their targets.
The city was layered and Kara’s family was half way up it. The avenue they looked into was on an the edge of a sector, just as levels became elevated. Fourth was filled with such places, vantage points where inhabitants became aware of the differences between their layer and the one above (or the one below). From a distance the city was circular with deserted surroundings and no roads leading outwards. From this position, the entire neighborhood was facing inwards towards the center of the circular city. Behind them was their neighborhood, it was strange that without knowing what was going on each family resolved to investigate in the same way; walking outside towards higher buildings. It was also strange that each family looked more or less the same, two parents, some multiple of children and nobody past 50. Kara, her family and the families that lived in that sector had now congregated on this street, peering past the building to the sky filled with smoke, in awe as if it were fireworks.
One person was not in awe; Kara’s Father hands gripped. For a split second his eyes lost composure and sank deeply into his sockets. Although Kara’s father was young, early forties at the oldest there was something aged if not wise about his reactions up until this point. Right now, he was loosing his shit. The memory that came to him in the kitchen this morning had now become clear, he knew what was flying through the air and he was scared.
Dan grabbed Kara’s hand and she knew at that very instant to do as directed. They ran into the city leaving the crowd behind them, still staring at the sky.
Chapter 1: Playable game
Authors notes: this portion is written as a script for the interaction
Positioned in the center of the city, in a large building on the 45th floor, in a room that looks like a classroom. The room is rectangular with the long side running east to west. The north wall is composed almost entirely of windows opening onto the city skyline. Through the windows shines light from the sun setting, creating shadows and yellow highlights along the south wall of the room and leaking into the hall through the door.
Towards the front of the room sits Kara in a desk that includes a pad and coloring pencils. There are 24 such station in the room but Kara’s is attached to the teachers desk, one row of seating away from the windows. She’s doodling on a piece a paper ripped from a pad located at the top left corner of the desk, doodling herself, holding her mothers hand, walking into the sunrise. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, tucked behind the 2nd leg of the chair.
Action and View:
The camera behind Kara, observing her drawing, focusing on her arm as she colors in her own character. Pan out to view the whole room, with Kara at the front of it (the viewers right). From the rightmost window, a rocket appears in the distance and travels across the viewable space (seen behind Kara, through the windows looking onto the city) and hitting the side of a buildings. Kara gets up from her chair and aproaches the window, trembling. The camera follows, getting closer to Kara as she approaches the windows. The building is still standing as flames start to blow out the sides and rubble tumble from the point of impact. A few moments pass and three more rockets hit different locations of the same building and it goes tumbling down, hitting other parts of the city as it collapses. And there is a moment of silence.
They are made for precision, destroying the structure of a building systematically and efficiently. A single rocket would be sufficient to the eliminate a car or perhaps room in a house, but certainly not an entire buildings. Instead, they travel in swarms, isolating targets in fly overs and converging in sequence to remove it’s supports.
A rocket enters the view space from the left most region and Kara trembles, backing up from the window slowly, heading from the door. The camera is at the window, looking upwards and see the sky filled with rockets circling the city in flying V formation. One breaks away from the grouping , targets and hits a building directly infront of Kara, sending flaming pieces of debris directly at the classroom window.
[[ THE PLAYER TAKES CONTROL, indicated to run for the hallways]
Kara runs into the hallway with the view of the glass windows breaking behind her. In the hallway, adjacent classrooms are being filled with debris, glass shattering and loud thumps. The hallways runs parallel to the classroom (east to west) and is long enough for 4-5 classrooms (30 feet each, 150 feet total: geometry is not critical).
The classroom door from which the player came is now closed. A large window in the door allows you see the into the classroom and outwards onto the city.Rockets are swirling around hitting different structures. The hallways shakes with a collision, the crumbles crumbles as pieces of gyp rock fall from the ceiling and cracks appear in the walls, the player is to understand that a rocket has hit one of the upper floors. There is an explosion at one end of the hallways and the player is to head to the other extreme, find a staircase and head downwards.
Chapter 2: Monuments and a Lifetime of Labor
Before Fourth, cities were cluster with Monuments (capital M) to commemorate a person or important event. Varying constructions but most often quality matterials, sculpted by artists and placed in areas best suited for reflection and appreciation. By function, Monuments indicated pinnacles of a cultures past. In the creation of Fourth, the concept of monuments was re-appropriated to represent symbols of the cultures new resolve. Instead of looking backwards on a cultures memories, monuments serve as indicators of the cultures dedication and to focus the population on looking forward. No longer are these structures simply visited, monuments are populated. For many citizens of Fourth, monuments are second homes.
The center of the city is filled with monument; imposing structures with very few windows that reached dizzying heights. They differ only slightly stylistically to be distinguishable to their inhabitants. From the time you are born you are placed in one of these buildings. They contain the school that educate the people, from childhood until they are ready to work. All entry level positions house offices within monuments, large pit like arrangements of cubicles were white collar work gets done. Once working in monument, there is very little reason to leave as the education delivered was tailord for work within the same building. Furthermore there is a sense of pride associated with each monument, children will inherit the same education and work from their parents.
The building itself are all organized like ladders climbed over time. The lower levels have social services like daycare, dentists, eateries. Above that are educational institutes, everything from primary school to college. One level up are pit like establishments; business that require many people to work at many desks with many managers. The top is reserved for decision making, board rooms with fewer desk, reserved for people who conceive and execute serious ideas. For all intended purposes, these higher levels were closed off; people who worked here rarely mingled with the rest of the population but instead focused on directing it. In this way, monuments, as an idea, are more like pyramids. Each dedicated to god who sits at the top, inspiring. Although, the leaders of Forth are rarely seen, their influence is felt. Politics is reserved to the upper levels and abstracted almost everyone else.
Looking at the skyline of Fourth there was a noticeable drop in heights between these buildings and the surrounding city, everything else seemed dwarfed. People lived in area’s close to the ground, veiled from viewing the cities overall structure. In looking upon monuments the citizens felt safe in their city but small as a part of it.
