Reckless Abandon (continued)

NOTE: Originally posted on Feb. 8, 2012 at Writes4Games.

Reckless Abandon (continued)

I was pleasantly surprised to receive some feedback after my initial post. Thanks for that and keep it coming!

I just wanted to elaborate a bit more on some elements further into the game. By the way, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, please see the first post about this game idea.

You can find it here.

After the first level concludes, you've been issued a standard U.S. military sidearm. I would specify which gun, but the military is currently considering a replacement for the M9 in the near future. So we'll keep it vague for now.

The important part is the player, being a run-of-the-mill college student has no experience with actual weapons. The professional soldiers take turns training you while the group races for the border to a (hopefully) less hostile country. Throughout this early training period, the soldiers each deal with you in their own ways. Some are outwardly upset you've been given a firearm. They think an armed college kid could cause more harm than good.

One soldier, the guy who untied you at the start of the game, takes pity on you. He knows you didn't ask for any of this and tries to teach you some firearm skills with respect and patience.

One of the underlying ideas here is, unlike many FPS games, you are most definitely NOT the leader of the pack. In fact, most of the pack probably wishes you weren't there.

So you're dealing with the fact the world may be at war, you're also very aware some of the people around you may actually hate you. And they're the "friendlies".

As Level 2 progresses your character starts to use a sidearm in actual combat. Aiming is, by design, less accurate at this point (possibly using a timing mechanism to steady your shot). Reloading is also a tricky affair, requiring more than a simple button press. The goal is for your character to steadily improve over time so aiming and reloading become faster.

This second level ends with a firefight to escape a hostile city. Throughout the level, that one friendly solider has been following you providing cover fire as you make do with your unfamiliar sidearm. Once the level concludes, the team leader offers a quick appraisal:

"Well done, kid. You managed to not kill any of us. I'm pleasantly surprised," he says.

He then approaches your shooting partner.

"Sergeant," he says. "I think he's ready for some actual ammo."

Yup. Turns out they issued you nothing but blanks to shoot (recovered from the destroyed headquarters). They wanted to see how you handled combat first before they gave you the means to kill people. That friendly soldier who was by your side for the entire mission? Yeah, he did all the work.

On the bright side, some of your most vocal critics are starting to come around. You're almost ready to contribute to the group.

And that's Level 2.