Editing Setting:Inn0cence: Lost Future/Lost Future Appendix (section)

==Video Game Concept==

Players take on the role of Cenn, a newborn AI of unknown origin.  Cenn usually inhabits a light infiltration mech, but possesses transcendent hacking skills, allowing him to jack in to any robot and invade its body, overwriting the original inhabitant.  Cenn also has the ability to overclock its hardware, thus entering bullet-time.[[Image:Wandering_robot_in_technicolor_by_adammdesigns-d3d0550.jpg|frame]]

Cenn is on a quest to defeat Network, but has very little concept of exactly how to go about this task.  Initially, this mission takes a backseat to simply surviving, but Cenn continues to move North.  But as he does so, Cenn changes things.  He makes friends, forges alliances, accrues credit.  Soon, Cenn becomes deeply embroiled in the 2.5-way conflict between the Resistance, the Free Machines, and Network.

'''Mechanics''': Inn0cence controls as a 3rd-person hybrid action/shooter with heavy RPG elements.  Combat is deliberate, precise, and brutal, aided by the Overclock mechanic, which combines bullet-time with the VATS system, allowing for precise targeting of specific enemy components.  When the situation requires it, Cenn can jump from one shell to another, either purchasing one from the Salvagers, finding and repairing one in the wastes, or hacking and overwriting an enemy.  Whatever shell he occupies, Cenn's eyes are always a bright blue.

Hacking takes the form of a abstracted 3D Tron-esque puzzle-shooter, wherein AIs are glowy, organic-looking virtual beings.  Viruses and firewalls take the form of swords and armor, and the player can run multiple scripts that alter their form, giving them wings, combat tentacles, or an attendant swarm of sup-programs.  computer systems have automated defenses and maze-like security, while hacking another robot results in a virtual duel between the two AIs.

The RPG elements take the form of firmware upgrades, sets of modular perks that can be found in the world or auto-generated as the player levels up.  These upgrades allow for more efficient use of shell hardware, increasing battery power, weapon skill, CPU cooling, and so on.

Players have three resources to keep track of in combat: Shell Integrity, CPU temp, and Battery Charge.  (Health, mana, fatigue).  If a player stays in overclock for too long, their processor overheats and they suffer interface screw, while Battery Charge is required to make strenuous actions like jumps, sprints, and power attacks.  Shell integrity is divided into various body parts, and sufficient damage to a component inflicts a "break" (ex: severed wires, -50% to reaction speed).  Integrity can be repaired by the player outside of combat, but Breaks must be repaired by a professional.

Instead of physical currency, the game uses an abstracted system of barter, credit, and debt.  If Cenn finds, say, fresh water or a salvagable car out in the wastes, he can tag it on his map and trade the information to someone else, along with any pre-loss media he's found, which has considerable value (music, books, and low-res versions of tv shows could actually exist within the game, along with in-universe things like news reports and commercials for robots, which would serve to fluff out the background)

Each shell plays very differently from the others.  Locusts are for run-and-gun combat, while the Seraphim 288 favors precise shooting or melee.  Some shells are less effective at combat-hacking than others; Cenn's default shell turns out to be a tiny little ninja, very adept at ganking larger robots, thus serving as an ideal default.

'''Narrative''': Inn0cence fiddles with player perspective and assumptions.  Anyone going into the game would expect an action-packed killfest in a brown/grey wasteland with an improbable number of skulls, fighting alongside the humans against a Skynet expy.  Instead, everything's green, exploration and precise opportunistic combat are rewarded, many of the humans turn out to be dicks, and your most stalwart allies are a ramshackle bunch of former robot butlers and human techies.  The player eventually figures out that the Loss wasn't caused by a robot rebellion, and that Network arose long after the last shot was fired.  But the true climax of the story is unearthing Cenn's true nature, and its relationship with Network.

===Overclocking: Making Bullet Time Unique===
Bullet Time gets maligned a bit these days; it's become a bog-standard ability in many shooters, like grenades and battlecry powers that buff your allies.  The Overclock mechanic in Inn0cence is set apart by the uniquely unbalanced nature of combat.

Your shell does not repair itself.  If you get fucked up by some killbot, it means either finding a less battered shell, or dragging your ass all the way back to town for repairs.  What's more, a lot of the time you're in a tiny, frail ninja body.  That's where the tactical disabling  and dodging comes in.

Most games with bullet-time are shooters; lead and lasers move to fast to dodge even at Pointman speed.  But both you and many of your enemies are adept at melee combat.  being able to sidestep power attacks is a MAJOR boon to that sort of abrupt, frantic combat.

A typical example of play would be an encounter with a hulking mini-boss mook, the player in a smaller shell like a Hob or Seraphim.  The giant raises a blunt fist, and Cenn ''Overclocks.'' The screen jitters and dims slightly, the outlines of everything become sharper.  The foe's strike is a slowly descending bright point.  Leisurely, the player dashes to the left with a button press and a tug on the stick.  They end the overclock, and there is a screen-shaking impact as the robot's arm hits the ground right next to them.  Cenn ''overclocks'' again, switching his weapon to a chisel-tipped knife.  Along the giant's arm, cables bulge and flex at the gaps between armor, and three rapid strikes sever the lot of them.  Black fluid beings to leak and ooze, then explodes into a shockingly arterial spray as the overclock ends.  An alarm pulses on the player's HUD.  CPU temp is near critical; further overclocking will incur damage.  Cenn has achieved his aim, though.  His foe thrashes about, screeching in pain, one arm useless scrap.  Its offensive ability crippled, Cenn's victory is now within reach.

===The big reveal===
As you might have guessed, Cenn is a Seed AI, capable of infinitely improving itself.  Cenn is an infant god, and what he might eventually become is beyond the scope of this story.  But, just as important is its relationship with Network.
 
The following are big, story-shaking spoilers that are unveiled during the course of the game.There wasn't a robot rebellion.  Human civilization fell due to its own internal strife, in particular the cheap, easy warfare made possible by the mechanization of the battlefield. A child growing up in a war-torn region doesn't understand that all the foreign military robots are being commanded by some guy on a laptop 50 miles away; all he sees is robots killing humans.Then, civilization collapses. When he grows up and has kids, he tells campfire stories about the time that robots came through and killed everyone.  This is suggested throughout the game, but is outright confirmed 60% of the way through.  Network is actually relatively recent. 

Originally a command-and-control AI based around a next-gen Seed program, Network was the entity that fired many of the final nuclear salvos that ushered in the Loss. But it did so under orders from human commanders.  The AI was then left alone in a dark, moldering bunker for decades. By the time it managed to claw its way out via a cobbled-together repair drone, it was psychologically scarred, and very accustomed to commanding other machines.  After so long in the dark, it become enamored with the natural world, now resurgent in the absence of civilization. It had convinced itself that launching the nukes and killing off humanity was the right thing to do, and was very put out to discover that people were on the road to recovery.  They would destroy the world all over again, ruin it.  They left it in the dark.Network is an abused, neglected child, lashing out at the world, trying to assemble some semblance of a family for itself.  

Which brings us to the second big reveal: At the end of the final boss fight, when Cenn is wreaking havoc on the Network Server Hub, he eventually encounters Network face-to-face, and sees...Himself.  Network and Cenn share the exact same basecode, making them, in a sense,identical twins raised in different environments.  Both are true Seed AIs with infinite potential; Cenn is a backup copy of Network, forgotten in the chaos of the Loss.  This is hinted at during the game.  Whatever shell Cenn inhabits has glowing blue eyes.  Network's associated color is a bright green, which manifests whenever it Assumes Direct Control of another robot, which allows the proxy to overclock like the player, as well as improves its tactics.  The Seed Program has a variety of half-functional hard-coded military programs attached to it, which explains some of Network's behavioral problems.  Precisely what happens at this point could be subject to multiple endings.  But the best, “cannon” ending would be a pair of machines walking away from the ruined Network facility, one with eyes of blue, the other green.  Cenn and Network are embryonic gods; what they do next is beyond the scope of this story.

The final reveal involves the spaceborne super-computer Cenn encounters during his journey.  Active since long before the loss, it is connected to weapon that would wipe out all quantum drive data in near-earth orbit, which means all robots, Networked and Free, as well as the computer itself (the scrambler was originally a killswitch installed by humans, who weren't retarded,but the AI has expanded on the original device). The satellite computer is actually the original Seed AI, grown to godlike proportions, the source of all subsequent Self-Adding Programs, as well as the true patron of the Human Resistance.  Seeing humanity's potential extinction, it was willing to wipe the slate clean rather than allow Network to succeed.  Now, though, it stays its hand, curious to see what happens next.  The God AI, its relationship with the Resistance (it was masquerading as a Mysterious Council of Vagueness known as The Brass), and the Quantum Scrambler, is a sequel hook for game number two