Caramel Centre: The Acid Test

Game Changes
Lots of developments. Have been putting the story into a more direct context, and have simplified some gameplay elements.

Story
After a rethink, the opening setting for The Acid Test (TAcT) is a school hall full of KeyStage 2 children taking their science exam. As before, the player can choose who the player character is going to be from a selection of the schoolchildren in the hall.

The selected child (called Sam) begins to clock watch and doodle on the edge of the exam paper, drawing a little character and a series of islands, obviously finding the exam difficult. As Sam daydreams s/he slips into the doodled world s/he has created. Sam is now on a small island which is connected to an archipelego of larger islands that stretch far into the distance by a series of bridges. As the doodle character tells Sam how happy they are to have Sam visit, things go awry - the ground shakes, the bridges break as the islands begin to seperate and move away from each other. Even worse, objects on the island begin to shimmer, break apart and wink out of existance. The sun above begins to dim. Sam him/herself begins to break apart. Doodle hurriedly detaches part of himself and places it in Sams hand. Sam's breakdown ceases, but at a cost - Doodle cannot effectively control atoms which has been his special power. Now that power has been passed to Sam. They are now effectively stranded on the small island with a cow and white objects that are floating above the island. Doodle say that the free atoms floating above them are highly dangerous, but Sam now has the power to collect them and convert them to useful energy to bring back the island and him/herself back to normal. After Sam has done so s/he is told by Doodle to collect the atoms (which are hydrogen atoms) and pass them to the cow which might help us get off the island (puzzle)

Prototype
In the prototype, Sam, a young black boy, has already been selected. We encounter him after he has landed on the second island, which is larger than the first one. The player can see rain falling on far mountains and the rain collecting and forming a river that flows down through the island to a lake surrounding an active geyser. At first Doodle is relieved that nothing seems to have go wrong on the island. But as he speaks, the water slows and stops, the rain remaining frozen in the sky, breaking apart and then disappearing, along with other objects around the island, Sam begins to break up again, but again Doodle's part he is holding prevents him from disappearing.

Doodle tells Sam that the only way to get of the island is to bring the water back and use the geyser to jump onto a passing cloud, but the island will need to be reenergised as well. Any water Sam makes will replenish the water, any other molecules made will be converted to energy and used to bring back the objects that have broken down.

Sam therefore collects atoms and bonds them together to form stable molecules - whilst trying to avoid being hit by the free-floating atoms. When he creates water molecules, the water streams out from the ball he's holding and fills the river and lake. When he creates other molecules, the ball is energised and when Sam is close to an object that has disappeared, energy disipates from the ball to the object, making the object appear.

When Sam has re-energised the objects on the island and replenished the water, the rain begins to fall, the clouds and river moves and the geyser becomes active once again. Sam can cross the lake to get to the geyser and if he is standing on the geyser when it erupts, he is flung high into the air. If he can land on a cloud that cluster above the geyser, it will take him across the island and on to the next island.

Yesterday I finished basic modelling of the island in the prototype, Island no. 2 (O2/water island) and have also made a working raincloud.