$('#fade').cycle();Comazone
'Comazone' is to a hybrid of three different styles of game – adventure driven where the story unfolds, and arcade sequences which require a greater emphasis on quickfire user gaming via rhythm and shoot ‘em up driven gameplay. The player is involved in a deep adventure storyline and thrilling music driven sequences which whilst separate are to be interwoven in such a way that a satisfying encounter is had – the aim is to produce an enthralling experience that is both frenetic and thoughtful.. It is a vehicle for experimenting with musical arcade games that are molded around a piece of music, where the enemy dances/attacks and transforms in time. The top–down adventure sections act as a means of breaking up the hectic boss battles and for fleshing out the philosophical storyline.
Cognos awakens inside his own coma with only his 'Consciousness' (personified as a winged floating creature) as his guide to awakening. The story revolves around how 'real' emotions are in the face of science, whether or not the human condition needs them and how we may all just be computers. The story plays with the ideas of Plato’s cave allegory, consciousness and existentialism where the figments of Cognos’s mind actually believe they exist even though he knows they don’t. The involving story of ‘The Matrix’ (Wachowski’s 1999) is a good reference point.
It is aimed at the needs and desires of readers of comic books, people interested in graphic art in general, anyone with an interest in adventure games and those interested in playing frenetic rhythm based games with an otherwise absorbing storyline; generally at mid teenage in age. To accentuate the 'Alice in wonderland' style story the dialogue was written in rhyme and symbolism is used rife throughout.
There is a heavy emphasis on the use of music to create atmosphere throughout, and synchronised to the action of the Boss battles and the graphics were vector based for ease of downloading from the internet. To keep the player motivated to play throughout a 'memory gauge' is present throughout the adventure sections which fills as each item is succesfully given so an idea that the quest is being completed. The Bosses progressively get harder until the final destination at the outer reaches of Cognos' mind transports him to the edge of the coma, where the final showdown takes place on the 'Bleach Beach' against NIHIL the God of Nothing!
