[Handwritten margin note: Opening movie distorted clouds fly then c.f. Lost Boys]

Insomniac II

DragonSpan

High Concept: You are a Dragon defending his territory by smashing, incinerating and eating everything in your path.

Game Style: Third-Person Shooter/Smasher (Heavy on the smashing)

Game Play: As a Dragon, the Player flies through his world defending and expanding his territory by use of his brute physical strength and fearsome breath weapons. With these the player has the ability to down trees, smash buildings and pound the landscape. In addition to physical attacks the player can use a more refined form of attack via magic. Spells such as charm, heal, berserk will help in the further conquest of his foes.

Various Playfields, or Eras, would have a different dynamic driving gameplay. Examples would be a 'forced scroll' or 'reactor' type round, or the focus of play could be derived from the classics like BreakOut, or Defender.

As the game progresses, your dragon would grow in terms of size and abilities.

Environment: The game takes place during epic times in an Earth's past, present and future where magic and myths rule. The history of this world follows the familiar path of our own but with far more fanciful and deadly flair. Mythological creatures about; there is a lost world at the centre of the Earth; majestic cities float among the clouds with DeVinciesque [sic] machines flying between them, and much, much more.

The Premise (one of many potential stories): The Circle of Dragons is an ethereal council that oversees the evolution of both man and dragon. They have two goals: the first is to protect humans from all forms of evil or catastrophe as they evolve into a more sophisticated race. Their second goal is to ensure that all dragons reach the next plane of existence: immortality. The Council appears in your dreams and provides you with tasks and guidance over a many century-long trial period.

There are other dragons scattered around the globe but because they cannot venture far beyond their lairs, gatherings are rare except during mating seasons.

The Goal (again, one of many potential goals): To complete all of your quests, save humanity and become immortal, joining the Circle.

Potential Playfields:

(Note: All Playfields, enemies and obstacles would have a 'fantastic' or 'otherworldy' [sic] quality and style about them.)

Evolutionary Path of a Growing Dragon

The Dragon would mature from one stage into the next upon the completion of a segment or approximately three levels of game play.

The scale of the playfield relative to the Dragon would change as the game progressed. By the start of the game a man would stand shoulder height to the Dragon. By the end of the game a man would barely come to the Dragon's knee. (This might also allow us to have 'hordes' of tiny creatures attacking the Dragon by the final rounds of the game.)

Ideas for Gameplay

1. Forced scroll - player sees dragon from front as he is flying up a volcano shafe. Lava is rising, forcing the dragon up while rocks fall from above. Halfway through, camera changes to either back or side view where dragon has to blast obstacles out of his way.
2. Complete obliteration of all man-made structures.
3. Times round - Aliens are invading and if dragon does not take out mothership, earth is destroyed (earthings [sic] are on his side, perhaps jet fighters are allies)
4. Search & Destroy - new race of beings has evolved. There are six guardians waking up slowly whose purpose is to guard one massive boss. If you can take out the guardians before they or the boss wakes up, you'll have a better change of defeating the boss.
5. Strategic Strikes - troops from castle are building structures to reach your lair. You have to go back and forth between destroying castle and destroying structures (castle will generate infinite soldiers and soldiers will build until dead.)
6. Aerial battle around Lair - features one-on-one dogfights.
7. "Defender" - eggs and eventually young dragons are being taken away by humans and choppers. You have to rescue a certain number to ensure your race's survival.
8. Bonus round type 1 - Mating Challenge - version a: show off your new moves to impress the chicks, version b: fight other male dragons. Winner gets the girl. Good way for players to learn how to use new moves between rounds.
9. "Star Castle" - cybernetic castle in clouds repairs itself while dropping drones. You penetrate to its core.
10. Bonus Round type 2 - dragon racing around pylons.
11. "Breakout" - you are imprisoned and have to break through walls to escape.
12. Swimming Round - you wake up because your lair is filling with water. You escape to find the surrounding landscape covered with water and your lair under attack by Atlantean hordes. You have to obliterate Atlantis and perhaps steal its treasure (by defeating the boss - Neptune). Air bubbles and air pockets provide easier breathing.
13. Save the Innocents - pluck villagers from impending disaster.

[Note: in the original pdf, the pages are out of order. The last one-and-a-half items in this list are displayed on a different page further down the document.]

Weapons

1. Flame-Thrower: Burns combustibles, little effect on inorganics i.e. stone, does not affect some pickups
2. Multi-Tongue Flame-thrower: Same as above, but multiple streams / targets
3. Low Density Fireball: Explosive impact. Effective against combustibles and non-combustibles. Can knock holes in structures.
4. High Density Fireball: Same as above, but more so
5. Low Density, Multi-Tracking Electro-Bursts: Similar to Fireball, but with a tracking, multi-projectile burst of electricity. (i.e. Photon Torpedos)
6. High Density, Multi-Tracking Electro-Bursts: Same as above, but more so.
7. Acid Shower: spray from the mouth that eats away stone more quickly than any other attack (goes through multiple layers of walls)
8. Cold Blast: freezes airbourne targets which will fall to the ground and shatter, like floating mines - will last in cloud form for a while
9. Fire Needles (off of tail): low damage but high accuracy and rapid attack
10. Energy Blast: destroys everything within a certain radius
11. Arcing Electricity - can fry multiple targets at the same time

Magic

1. Earthquake: creates earthquake which can destroy structures and disorient or hurt land-based forms
2. Nightvision: landscape is visible at night, lifeforms show up as glowing blobs
3. Call Fire or Lightning: sky rains molten fire or random forks of lightning
4. Charm: enemies are neutralized or fight for you for a time
5. Berserk: causes enemies to attack each other
6. Heal: converts magic to physical health
7. Storm: wind & lightning hurts everything except you
8. Warp: like hyperspace, drops you into random, previously explore spot
9. Stealth: dragon becomes invisible and will not be attacked until player attacks something
10. Create Energy: converts magic spell points to weapons energy
11. Chasm: creates gaping holes in ground

Abilities

1. Pick up and drop objects
2. Spinning tail attack
3. Claw attack
4. Gust/Gale attack
5. Sonic boom

More Ideas for Premise

1. Dragon is pure evil, just wants to kill and destroy.
   Goal: Kill everything
2. Guardian Dragon. Dragon is ultimate good and is looking for ways to protect his adopted people.
   Goal: Defend civilization against various assaults (barbarians, nature, aliens, evil creatures, etc.)
3. [Note: there is no item 3 in the original pdf; it skips from 2 to 4.]
4. Dragon's objective is to be left alone, but ends up being attacked by locals and is forced to retaliate to defend his territory. Then has to become ultra-aggressive to win the new war. Cycle repeats after each hybernation [sic] or move.
   Goal: Defend lair
5. The Dragon is actually an apprentice wizard, who accidentally transformed himself into a young Dragon. The Player then takes this young Dragon through the ages searching for a cure. As time passes, the Dragon matures, gaining along the way greater strength, greater magic and ever increasing flying skills. (Perhaps the Player can choose between several different types of creatures at the beginning of the game.)
   Goal: To find the lost pages to the Reversal Spell.
6. The Player is actually a magical creature whose [sic] enjoys the ability of transforming into other creatures. The highest and most powerful form is that of a Dragon. As the Player takes damage he loses his ability to maintain his current form and therefore must 'degrade' to the next level of creature; unless he is able to replenish his magical strength. The degradation of the Player would follow a line something like; from a powerful flying Dragon into a less power [sic] flightless Dragon, to a giant Orc like creature and so on until he is back to his natural state. It is in this nature [sic] state that the player is most vulnerable and can actually be killed. (Although there would also be the occasional situation with the ability to 'kill' the Player instantly no matter what his form.)
   Goal: To defend your territory and subdue your enemies.

Questions:

1. What is so important about lair?
   *The Dragon's heart or soul is hidden there. This limits the distance the player can get from the lair (cf Warhawk, Shadows of Empire).
2. Where does magic strength come from?
   *Gold? The more you pickup the faster you [sic] spell points generate and the greater you [sic] max capacity.
   Other Possibilities: By draining enemies. By performing aerobatics.
3. What are some other things that might make this really "cool"?
   1. Very fluid animation and control on the Dragon!
   2. Lots of dragon animations. Some examples:
      1. "Hovering" animations for when the player is doing nothing
      2. Firing animations (e.g. neck whiplashes to release fire)
      3. Pre-dive animations (wings tuck and dragon rolls over for dive)
      4. "Braking" animation
      5. Edges of wings flutter when in dive
      6. When going full speed, wings move further back and body becomes more streamlined
   3. Pickups like cows and sheep that use rudimentary AI to move around and perhaps flee from the dragon
4. Where does energy for weapons come from?
   *Single source, special rocks, plants, animials [sic], or machines
   Other Possibilities: Fire Weapons: You must find and consume brimstone.
   Electrical weapons: You must find pockets of static build up, in clouds etc. or consume the power supplies from electical [sic] creatures or machines. Eating something special allows temporary super-charging of weapons
   Acid weapons: Special fruits
5. How do we take advantage of the code/engines that we already have?
   1. Limit flying height to approximately 10 meters. This means creating environments that are fairly short (i.e. castles are no more than 16 meters tall)
   2. Environments are fogged limiting visibility to 12 - 16 meters.
   3. Create walking versions of dragons so that we can still create interior rooms
6. Using our current engines, how do we differentiate ourselves?
   1. Destructible playfield
   2. Third-person
   3. Flying
   4. Dragon
   5. Gameplay

Two Player Mode

Dog fighting with Dragons in special arenas. New Arenas and new Dragons are made available as the Player progresses through the game.

Full contact racing around pylons