Parkour is the art of getting from one place to another in the most efficient way possible. One doesn't not walk around obsticles, one goes over them. Efficiency, and never going backwards.
Human Parkour is the result of three months worth of riding two buses daily. Seeing to bustle as people move to get to their unique locations. Viewing those who would rather sit around all day. It all began simmering. The general idea of jumping between person to person to get to a location that none of them planned on seemed like a plausible game. The only obsticles between your destination is the strangeness of a character (read: host) going to that destination. Human Parkour.
But then, the idea sprouted and combined with others. I wanted a stealth game built around impersonation like Prototype (though i've never played). Or built like TF2's "Your Eternal Reward" Dagger, created for the spy to kill and replace. But surely an open world stealth game isn't viable.
Until now, where I concidered my dislike for typical RPG's, but appreciation for tabletop RPG's. Grinding levels is so tedious where random dice rolls affect how two individuals battle wits is much more interesting. And so, the third aspect of the game surfaced. Skills and randomization.
Thus, a game where you create a character and determine RPG skills. You can min/max or allot what you feel is fair. There is a list of skills (both obviously important or not) that determine how well you can do things and how you can go about doing things. Your body type also plays a role. Things like default visibility (for lack of a better word) and influence in your basic (alien) form. So if your visibility is high, everyone notices you, and you can get killed. (A more advanced "Wanted" meter) Altogether, you select skills generally based on stealth, lethality, dexterity. That will determine how you can make it through the open world's challenges.
Gameplay Overview
Although I've never played a GTA, this will likely be similar to it. Mainly in the ways you can do missions, or generally screw around in the city. There will be degrees of difficulty in the missions and a variety of types for you to try.
However, rather than being locked into a protagonist, you can try your hand at being everyone. The character creation screen may indeed become your friend as you hop into people around the area, and customize them to your liking. This can play a role in general city life, as you can get skills to have people follow your lead and do what you want. Presumably, you can use this to switch up your disguise if the police (or whatever in this game) become suspicous and/or murderous.
Around the city are missions and tons of things to interact with. Manniquins, statues and the like are dynamic objects which can be commendeered for your purposes. Missions can include getting people to certain locations (traditional or parkour style), which may be influenced by your character's attributes.
Eventually, you will get two forms of xp. One is basic upgrades (minimizing weaknesses or upgrading strengths) and the other is abilities. Things like crowd (mind) control or invisibility are upgrade trees that you can use to help with other missions, or to be fun outside missions. You could potentially become strong enough to infect the city, and then mass give them uniforms and weapons and destroy the military. You can't do that in GTA.
The stealth/tabletop rpg aspects come into play during some missions. For example, you may have to impersonate a politician giving a speech. This would require sneaking into his house, copying him/possessing him, going to the event, using your RPG styled bluff skills to pass detection, and then give a speech based on a dialog tree. The game then judges if you were close to character enough to influence, or if the military recognizes your presense. Doing so can subtly affect other parts of the city and decisions people make. You can go about doing something like that using either your skills, or trying your luck with the random number gods. You may roll terrible for bluff, but use that to make the politician share something he didn't intend to.
The game is created to let you influence the virtual world with lasting effect. It employs pattern recognition algorithms to see if it can recognize what the user is trying to do. (e.g. There was this dragon sim flash game, where you can either be benevolent as an adult dragon or malevolent and it would create a story accordingly. I killed every person in the city, and then reanimated them as zombies. Doing so was sadly too unique for the game to pick up on. It will be different in Human Parkour.) If you want to animate zombies during the full moon to dance to Thriller, the game will pick up on it.
Especially awesome about this game is the dialog options. This isn't going to be Mass Effect where every little mistake makes you a Renagade. No, the game will pick up on you being a Paragade, and reward you for it. When you consistently stay in character for discussion, you will be rewarded. Some abilities speak to that, and reward you for convincingly talking in character as someone you are impersonating, yet talking about something out of character. (E.g. convincingly impersonating a mayor all about destroying old buildings, while talking about all the buildings you plan to preserve. The better the skill, the more you can copy tics and expressions while making them talk about something else.) Even better if you adopt a default persona (not quite your base form, but one you like to go out as) and act consistently. The GM rewards good roleplayers. And dialog options are fun. (Like when the youtube guy playing NHL 14 as General Zod (an enforcer), and is specific about what he mouths off about. The fans love him even when management doesn't.) This game plans on putting more enjoyment back into conversing when other games insist on taking it out (looking at you Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and all too many others).
Finally, Parkour is actually used in-game as legitimate transportation. (If your skill is high enough) You can run around the city jumping from pole to pole, jumping across roofs and surfing on cars if that's what makes you happy. While cars, skateboards, bikes and public transportation is available, parkour is what makes this game stand out among open-world sandbox games. Especially when you're using it to run across ceilings and in people's backpacks. For stealth purposes, of course. There aren't banks to rob, nor corporations to liquidate, nor cities to purchase. There aren't politicians to blackmail, celebrities to embarrass or everyman's to empower. It's not like the game is built to let you do everything. Who would want that? ;)
Gameplay
- Easy to use, very customizable character modification menu
- gender (superficially, anyways)
- height
- weight
- body shape
- skin color (full spectrum. Can't make Mystique or Martian Manhunter without it)
- Material (flesh, stone, marble, plaster, etc.)
- clothing
- Basic stats (stats are affected by character)
- Visibility (base level. Concidered a Flaw.)
- Running speed
- Jumping height
- Dexterity
- Shapeshifting
- Soul Connection
- Charisma
- Bluff (general)
- Abilities
- Visibility (camo, full invisibility, symbiotic shadow, etc.)
- Dramatic statement (forgiveness of out-of-character statements when disguised)
- Danger sense
- Awareness
- Xray vision
- Flight (dangerous to visibility)
- Recovery Bluff (saving throw)
- Assassination (knife, rifle, poison, etc. (one per upgrade))
- Radar
Story
You are an alien. It's hard to know what kind of alien because of how often it changes. It's also hard to know why you are here. But quickly, you grow a network of indivuals that you can help/can help you. With those people as guides, and your abilities, you can do anything in this city.