YXM
LD
THE BARREN ERA 荒 芜 时 代
The world is barren, but lust grows.
The gutters of lust are filled with battles.
Conquer, or be conquered, what is survival in a barren world?
The right to choose is given to you, which door will your key open?
《荒芜时代》是一款3D动作冒险游戏，在一个未来末世充满基因改造生物的世界中，玩家需要通过基因改造技术将不同动物的各种身体部位组合起来，创造出自己的生物，与其他基因变种生物进行战斗，在荒芜的世界中生存下去。
游戏的核心机制是基因改造，玩家战胜其他变种生物后可以夺取它们的基因，通过收集和组合不同生物的基因，玩家可以通改造自己的生物。每个基因都有自己的能力，玩家需要策略性地灵活搭配不同身体部件，打造出拥有强大技能组合的生物，与其他生物对抗。玩家还可以收集资金用于自己的社区建设。
游戏主要机制
探索一个荒芜的、充满基因改造生物和残暴人类幸存者的世界
通过剥夺其他生物的身体部位转化为芯片来进化自己的生物
战斗、剥夺、进化、生存
构建你自己的社区！
玩法设计文档
游戏展示
背景故事
基因改造实验
人类一直在对动物进行转基因实验，从而使转基因技术迅速发展。
第三次世界大战
人类不断膨胀的欲望导致了第三次世界大战的爆发，地球在第三次世界大战中被核武器摧毁了。
技术的发展与突破
随着技术的不断进步，人类可以很容易地将动物的基因可视化在屏幕上，并通过操纵屏幕上的基因芯片来改造动物的基因。人类可以通过结合不同动物身体部位的基因来任意创造突变生物，为人类谋取利益。
被毁灭的地球
整个世界变成了一个破败、资源匮乏、荒芜贫瘠的土地。
争夺有限的资源
剩下的幸存者不得不利用变异生物为有限的资源而相互争斗。
幸存者之间的斗争
剥夺身体部位
为了生存，人类一直在不断地相互残杀，抢夺有限的资源，以及相互之间的强大基因。
夺取的身体部位可以被胜利者用于强化自己的生物，只有拥有最强大的转基因生物的人才能在这个荒芜贫瘠的世界上活下去。
INSPIRATION
Organ Transplantation
A friend of my father, suffering from Leukemia, has been the inspiration for ‘The Barren Era’ and was based upon his experience with a bone marrow transplant. Despite being told that he would be the next candidate, he has been waiting since long due to the non-availability of the donor marrow. His time was running fast because of the life-threatening nature of the disease. Moreover, he came to know that he was not getting his matching bone marrow due to corruption in the hospital. Finally, unable to wait any longer, he had to sell his house for 2 million RMB and become another resource predator, to arrange for his transplant.
This story makes me wonder about power and the power to deprive others of their rightful needs and conflicts between survival & mortality, interest & morality.
Colonialism
Since 1415, several European countries had invaded and colonized Africa. 95% the territory was invaded by the Western countries from the 19th to the 20th century. African natural resources including palm oil, ivory, rubber, gold, diamonds, metals, and cotton were drained out by the Europeans. The French treasury has been receiving about 500 billion dollars each year in foreign exchange reserves from the African countries according to the colonial debt that was forced onto them.
The phenomenon of colonialism, the power to deprive others, and overtaking of the resources make me wonder about the conflicts between economic/mainstream interest & morality in the cultural and political scale.
Neuralink Brain Chip
The Neuralink is the neural interface technology company by Elon Musk. It has been developing a device that could be embedded in the brain of a person, where it would record the brain activity and potentially stimulate it. In 2020, Neuralink showed off one of its chips embedded in a pig named Gertrude.
This event, to certain extent, reflected the exploitation of animals by humans. There has always been a conflict between interest and morality, such as humans depriving animals of their autonomous will to live for their own benefit, which reminds me of anthropocentrism, bioethics, and animal liberation.
MY THOUGHTS
In most games, killing seems to be a very natural and intuitive choice for players. Games seem to be a window for people to vent their unsatisfied emotions in reality through violence. Game often throws players into countless missions of killing "enemies", but isn't the killer itself also the "enemy". In those games, players neither think about the consequences of pulling the trigger nor the rightness or wrongness of this action.
In The Barren Era, there's a strong conflict between killing and ethics. It also reveals the evil of human nature exposed in the face of survival just like the bone marrow transplant story mentioned before. Everyone on barren world wants to survive. Scarcity of resources mean not everyone can survive. To ensure your own survival, whether you will deprive other's right to live? Continuous deprivation will give you endless power. Keep killing and upgrading, you may become the most powerful player in the world and the biggest demon of all.
Resource deprivation is ubiquitous in our life. At micro-level, it can be a competition for rankings, a fight for money. At macro-level, it can be countries with more power deprives resources from vulnerable countries. In human society, competition seems to be everywhere. However, energy is conserved. Resources are finite and do not increase out of nowhere. The more you deprive, the less others will get. The joy of a celebration is often accompanied by the tears of another side.
POSITION
Concept, Programmer, Game Designer, 3D Artist: Yuxuan Mao