The graduation project aims to help grasp the basics of game design and developemnt. You'll need the paid asset Sci-Fi Laboratory Pack 2.
In the year is 205x, some companies have been able to create AI systems, but they tend to deteriorate over time due to the difference in processing speed between their processing units and the real world. You play as a test subject who has been merged with the AI system and prosthetics and navigate through tests made by the company to test your limits.
Enhanced Perception
The design started with a simple mechanic; enhanced perception. Due to the AI embedded chip in the player character, they’re able to enable enhanced perception for a limited time. This is portrayed in-game with a blue overlay that kicks in whenever the player enables the mode and is supposed to indicate that character would be seeing something similar if you were to peer through their eyes. A reason was needed to be created for why the player can only enable this mode for short durations of time, which led me to think of the synchronization bug.
Synchronization bug
I created the idea that human beings and AI’s difference in processing speed is so staggering that the human/AI hybrid tends to have a lifespan of only 7 to 8 years. Depending on the severity of this bug, the hybrids can lose control of when to enable the enhanced perception mode and it can kick in randomly leading to a state of insanity for both the human part and the AI part of the hybrid. This conceit then allows the mechanic to only be activated for short periods of time, where the player has to think through when is the best time to enable the mode to pass through the obstacles in the game.
Hacking
I needed more ways to interact with the world than to simply click a button to enable the enhanced perception mode, so I thought that a super intelligent AI would probably be able to crack encryption very easily. But I also needed limitations to this power and so enforced that the player character can’t hack any object unless they’re able to come in physical contact with it and interface with it through a wire in their wrist. This is mentioned in one scene, but unfortunately has no animation and most players would pick up on the mechanic but not the narrative justification for it.
A lot of these limitations of power ups are supposed to be lifted when the character gets out.
