Hannah Carver: sisters

Characters and Environments

more ideas

Sarah King- sketches

Main Kid and the Bro

value thumbnails

Gypsie Dudes

hobo elements talk

Gypsie Women

more level ideas

Brainstorming notes - Jan 24

Bindle stuff

• Tossing railroad spikes to slow down enemies
• Cloth is a parachute or a sail
• Smack people with it
• Dowser to lead you to stuff
• Smoke bomb for escape/distraction
• Put in a bunch of wooden planks and it’ll make a ladder, stairs, or escalator
• Brick – increases smacking power
• Glue – enemy sticks to the bindle and you can swing them around
•  If it’s food, make it honey?
• Matches – set stuff on fire or make explosions
• Ice
• Fire - explosion
• Magnet to disarm cops, trap bullets, find other tools
•  Car battery is an upgrade to the magnet
• Food is less damage on falls – specific food does specific things?
•  Bacon – befriend dogs
• Pepper to blind people
• TNT or dynamite for explosions
• Pigeons to carry you away (James and the Giant Peach)
• Poison ivy
• Lice (but sarah says no) – if an enemy touches another enemy, it spreads
• Soap – use the bubbles to slip and surf away
• Cheese – repels enemies (passively?) but attracts bigger and bigger mice/rats
• Gets smellier and smellier and rats start following you more and more
•  When you reach a certain level, the giant rats will attack
•  But if you get rid of it/throw it at someone, the rats will attack the one you threw it at
•  What if it gets so smelly that townspeople and even some hobos are repelled?
• Whoopee cushion – doesn’t really do anything just makes people embarrassed

If you put something in it, does it become something?

Examples: spade head to make a shovel

Every now and then the bindle gets a permanent upgrade?

Each item upgrades when you use it enough

-          Brick turns into a cinderblock or an anvil

-          Magnet turns into a car battery

Combine powers?

Put parts of something in the bindle, shake it up, makes something new

-          Dynamite + matches?

-          Make bombs?

-          Dynamite + ice = ice or smoke bomb

-          Pepper + dynamite = blind everyone within a certain radius

-          Fireflies + glass jar = flash grenade

-          Pigeon-guided missiles

-          Soap + sponge = defeat the dirty beard guy

Problems: player needs to predict what it’s gonna combine into

Can only keep a few items in your bindle

Two or three?

Unlock spaces in the bindle?

 In the beginning of the game – “you must learn to use this bindle!”

Is it a glowing object that you can pick up or can you pick up anything?

Can hold more stuff as time goes on – like a piano

What if the bindle is like its own character and has a personality – magic carpet

Have to plan what you want before you go into a fight

For a puzzle, there are items in the quest to help you with that particular puzzle so if you don’t have the tools in your bindle, you can still complete the puzzle

Winnable puzzles even if you don’t have the tools in your bindle, but way more difficult

What symbol is drawn on the outside can affect the contents?

But limit the symbols so you can control the game

Enemies

Giant invisible troll – gotta cover it with powder or paint so you can see it to defeat it

Hobo betrays the hobos and becomes a cop

Tramps – bad guys

Corrupted hobos?

Magic corrupting animals and stuff?

Evil hobo that controls his beard hair – Groot style

Hates beard oil

Have to defeat these legendary hobos in order for them to acknowledge and help you?

Defeat corrupted hobos and bring them back to normal so they become your friends

Style

Looked at psychonaut – crooked features and shapes (kind of Tim Burton-esque)

As you go through the game you gain psychic abilities – hobo powers in this case

Tie ours to relics so it’s tangible?

Is he special or is he special because of the bindle?

Big rock candy mountain is actually the Rockies but ours can be made of candy

Pitches

What if the little kid sets out on a journey to find his older brother because his older brother skipped town and now his mom is sick and this older brother could help cure her sickness because of some kind of hobo magic?  So the kid goes on a journey to try and find him.  Starts off at big rock candy mountain and has to take the Westbound cuz he finds out his brother died or something.  And it turns out his brother is the one corrupting everyone!!  Like Darth Vader

Hoboland being *corrupted?  Naturally being overrun?

*corrupted as in possessed by some supernatural power

Alice in Wonderland

Goes into Hobo-world, but can’t come back because the world is “wrong” or is very dangerous and threatening

Protag has to put things right in order to come back

Evil hobo wants to make everyone hobos

Protag has to stop the evil hobo before he destroys the homes and she won’t have a home to go home to

A threat to the hobo lifestyle?  The cops are called “bulls” so they’re kind of like minotaurs

The bulls are taking the hobo magic in order to rid the world of hobos

Something is turning hobos bad so the cops are trying to get rid of hobos but the hobos aren’t bad because they want to be – so the protag has to un-corrupt the hobos and save hobos everywhere

Have good and bad hobos like PotC?

Three factions:

Robos

Hobos

Popos

Other powers

Teleportation tarps - a tarp has a special symbol on it and you can use it to teleport (like the Mario pipes)

MC Girl Design

Alice in Hoboland

Alice in Wonderland/Hoboland

Alice lives in an orphanage and it’s not terrible but it’s boring and the embodiment of the color brown. She climbs out the window of the orphanage and goes exploring. She ends up climbing into a train car when it’s at the train yard and it takes off with her in it. She accidentally activates a hobo sign on the train and it takes her into the Hobo World.

            She goes exploring and along the way we find out that the hobo world has become unbalanced.  If Alice wants to go home she has to find several key hobos and help them set the world right.  The Hobo world used to be easily traversed using hobo sign and hobos would travel the rails all over and in-between these two worlds. Unfortunately, something has gone wrong and now you can only travel one way-into the hobo world. Also the hobo world has become more dangerous and unstable.

            Alice isn’t super interested in fixing this world but is excited to explore it. However she discovers that her older brother who disappeared a few years ago is here in the hobo world. This becomes her driving motivation, to find her brother in this world and make it back home. Now she is motivated to fix the Hobo world because it makes it easier to find her brother and also they can’t return home unless this world gets fixed.

Sarah King- more hobos

Watch Concept

Pass on main Character

Character Styles and props explorations

Sarah King

ideas for MC and her possible brother

Charles - Environment ideas

Discussion and story pitches from class

Story pitches

Homeless buddies-choice to join military or become hobos. Friend takes military route and you take hobo lifestyle.

Hobo's fight back but lose. Choice to end gentrification but must face friend. Freedom vs order

Alt past

Mom gets sick-search for cure might be with gypsies and his father was magical healer in this subculture. Goes to underworld to save dead mom and get her soul. Hop on westbound train. 

Javert/policeman learns to value freedom and disorder. Accepts that magic exists after starting believing only in scientific stuff. 

Child gets lost in dust storm and becomes hobo in order to get home. Work for money from town to town to get home. 

Journey back home. Two kids searching for family but don't know for sure where they are going.

Two kids. Fall into magical world completing series of tasks against rival because there is only one. 

Orphan girl goes searching for older brother. 

Family and belonging: look for father in hobo world. Makes friends with people and becomes family with these people. Father took the westbound. He finds this train down to the underworld. 

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Finds pocket watch that opens his eyes to hobo sign. Girl shows up as mentor. Help hobos defeat enemy gangs

customizable bundle and armor

pocket watch gives visions of hobo info

protect hobos avoid cops and wild dogs

fast trains help you avoid conflict

wants to save people from injustice and save the innocent. Obey the code

desires normal family and home. 

Start in huge city. Lower levels are broken and poor. Start with mayor talking during city council. He's attacked and people panic. People are being replaced by machines and the assassin shows the mc what's going on. Mc has hobo brand and assassin is hobo leader. Mc has secret powers and wants to save his love interest. RoboHobo!

3 laws of hobotics 

What appeals to us

Story: looking for father And making friends with hobos as they become new family

Mechanics: gather legendary hobos and gain special powers. 

A fighting element 

Missing person from family-interesting motivation/journey and return

Quest: increasing freedom-start somewhere boring/comfortable? (Life without the object of your desire) and increase weirdness as it goes. The world must be very appealing. It must escalate best for last. 

Journey and return: experience'Dorothy and the wiz or Alice in Wonderland-dive right in/fish out of water. a sense of weirdness/I just want to go home again. Story can ratchet up but coming home but be satisfying. ex: half life, Potc first one,  

Mix: quest for a cure and finds it quickly but it takes a long journey to get back to his mom

Player must feel the contrast between these worlds. 

What makes the hobo world appealing and what makes it weird and uncomfortable? Ideas' dirt, bugs, disease. Flea circus (A living flea circus). It must be funny or playful. a hobo bee keeper (his beard is bees) 

Story:

Orphanage/tiny cottage/???

Jump into semi extreme part of hobo world

Bring back craziness of hobo world into normal world. 

Experience: 

Going down rabbit hole of hobo mysticism 

Start out limited and slowly gain more options 

limitations shift with your choices

Normal things become interesting and fantastical. 

Interface: 

Joystick and buttons.  Extra: draw symbols, sense where your hands are, gesture. 

How would this IP translate into other mediums?

What makes this IP different?

Hobos

Deal with familiar problems in new ways

Theme: 

Taking the cast off dirty stuff and inventing interesting and fantastical things. 

Danger and adventure

Freedom and the responsibility to deal with the consequences

Survive by your wits-the underdog

Home is where your friends and family are.

Something wrong with the hobo world that you are going to fix before you go home. 

Hobo underworld-heaven and he'll got mashed together. 

Agency in this world:

I between: lots of exploration within a semi-limited space. 

You chose what order you do things in but these things must be done. Feel like you are making choices but still controlled. 

If you can go back to old areas some things like battle abilities must be uniform. 

Open world pro: players make their own stories

Closed world: very linear, controlled. 

Character designers:

First pass of main character

how do we make this char appealing to the avg person

Environments/props:

what are the essential characteristics of this hobo world?

Animator:

ranger of emotions

how does this char move?