:: thanks a ton to Venns for a lot of the ideas I'm using.

After some idea-sparking discussion (http://hitrecord.org/records/122934), I decided it would be an awesome idea to work together, using hitRECord, on an Alice in Wonderland video game. As discussed earlier, video game collaboration is not necessarily easy, but we are more than ready to put together the awesome pieces that a programmer, like myself, could stick together into a finalized game. What I have in mind is an art-driven, puzzle-based 2D platformer-- think Paper Mario, but with less action and more puzzles. It has 12 stages-- 1 for each chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Wikipedia Synopsis (also see the rest of the article for other info): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland#Synopsis
Whole Story Online: http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/alices-adventures-in-wonderland/

Each level will be based on its respective chapter and thus should have a distinctive theme. I'll leave that up to your imaginations, but make sure you actually know the story before you start.

As far as level design goes, again, use your imagination-- however, this is what I do ask: I want it to be almost a walkthrough of the story. Puzzles are good to stimulate the mind along the way and make the experience interactive, but they shouldn't make it so hard that some people, especially those who don't play video games often, cannot finish the game. It should be more of an embellishment than an obstacle. Think games in the spirit of Samarost (http://analogik.com/mm_rev_samorost.asp). However, this one will have narration so it should be less bizarre and hard to pick up.

I'd like to leave it pretty open, but if things aren't going how I'd like them to, I'll post a text RECord explaining myself a little more.

For now, what you should RECord:

-Concept art: An essential part of every game's development. While most concept art is not used in the actual finished product, and that will be the case for most of the art submitted, some could possibly be used since it's a game that should be art driven. Characters that have several hand-drawn poses rather than a typical, fluid, computer generated look would be really interesting. Also, we need level designs, think color palettes, also art that definitely wouldn't go into the game but would help us think of the world we're working with.

-Story narrations: We need someone (or multiple people) to submit whole readings of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, starting with "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll" and going all the way through each chapter, starting with "Chapter X: XTitleHere" each time. Again, the whole story can be found here http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/alices-adventures-in-wonderland/. It is entirely unlikely we will use the whole recording from start to finish without pause, but we will definitely splice out parts and use them throughout the game to walk the user through what is going on.

-Character designs, poses: When we have a character who is going to move around in the game, we need to have several poses for that character. As cool as it would be to have a character who just moves around and experiences absolutely no non-locomotor movement, we'd like to take it somewhere more interesting.

-Puzzle ideas/designs: How can you have a puzzle game without puzzles to fill it? If you have a great idea for a puzzle or want to go so far as to visually design it, go for it! Even if you don't know where in the story it would go, how to use it, or how to specialize it so as to fit with the Alice story, give us what you have.

-Text proposals: When you have an idea but not necessarily art to go with it, DO NOT hesitate to RECord it! Ideas are wonderful and that's a crucial part of the game development process.

-Music/Sound Effects: Whether it's previously written music or new for this game, a soundtrack is definitely in order.

-Video?: While video is quite the opposite of interactive, many games include transitional video footage throughout. Preferably this will come later down the line, incorporating art and audio contributed already to the project that will also be used in interactive segments.

Thanks!