BLOOD PUNK 1. May it Flow

Introduction

To the horizon in all directions is a torn landscape of rock, sand and ruins. The sun beats down from its zenith. The deafening bashing, rattling and smashing of the patch work of metal and rust of the land train thunders around you. You stand atop a rampart on the land train spying across the landscape for signs of the outpost that Drizzle pointed you towards. "I promise you, plenty of blood there". Suddenly, a crack of a gunshot barks out above the deafening roar of the jumbling metal all around. Raiders, and plenty of them on motorbikes start to surround the train, where could they possibly have come from? You grab your rifle and get ready for combat...

Welcome to the world of BLOOD PUNK. The objective is simple: Deliver blood to the citadel. The task is impossible: navigate across the desert-like wastes in your land train. Heading straight to the Citadel is certain death. Explore the wastes, grow your crew, upgrade your train and grow stronger. there is one catch... Everything in this world is powered by blood.

BLOOD PUNK plays like a single player tabletop RPG infused with the mechanics of modern, sophisticated board games. Develop your character, traverse an open-world map, negotiate with characters. At the heart of the game is the maintenance and upgrading of your land train and crew.

The game will look and feel like an Amiga 1200 title with Index Painted sprites and environments. Expect a fake AmigaDOS boot-up screen and "please insert disk" loading prompts. I want to take you to my childhood.

Setting

The game takes place in the far future on earth long after the human race has abandoned it for more prosperous planets. Now a planet depleted of resources and reduced to rubble through environmental collapse, the planet is a desert.

Although naturally occurring life on Earth is obliterated, the planet is not totally dead; humanity continues to live on in the new form of androids. A colourful, chaotic species scattered across the wastes: sometimes taking on the forms of their former human creators and sometimes, something entirely new. Cybernetic augmentations and genetic modification has created a creature of incredible variety: talking dogs, multi-limbed mechanics, weapon-infused warriors.

Factions, alliances, tribes, cultures, and societies are diverse across the wastes. It will be your job to negotiate your character through them. Not everyone will like you; some will want you dead. They all want your blood.

The world will be a tongue-in-cheek exploration of the human condition reduced to the drive of survival. Characters you will interact with will reflect their human counterparts, their struggles and feelings will be real.

Gameplay

Start the game by creating a new character in a tabletop RPG style fashion. Pick an android type, a calling and quirks. Your character creation choices will impact how NPCs and your crew will treat you. As your character grows, so do your skills, improving your chances of success.

Android culture reflects our own in some ways but does little with antiquated concepts that are part of our Zeitgeist. Androids are fluid, free-form and whatever they want to be, which means you can freely express yourself through your own character without limiting choices.

Your main objective is to deliver blood to the Citadel or die trying, and you will die, a lot. You will gradually learn what risks to take and how to exist in the world of BLOOD PUNK, iterating to ultimate success. The world is hard, but fair. If your character dies, they are dead forever, but it is easy to roll a new one.

Your land train is your primary means for transportation, defence and survival. Too weak at the start of the game, it will require continual upgrading and advancement to have a possibility of making it to the Citadel. Mount guns, emplace armour, replace tyres for tank tracks, add a second engine. You make the upgrade and modification choices to meet your play style and approach.

The wastes are populated with settlements, ruins of old cities and towns. You will navigate between these, completing quests gathered from NPCs in settlements, purchasing upgrades and recruiting new crew members. Crew are required to operate mounted weapons, conduct repairs, and operate equipment. Be mindful of their background, alliances, and morality as not all of your crew will like each other or even you. No one wants a mutiny in the middle of the desert.

As your blood reserves and power grows, so will word of your mission and land train. A Threat amount will grow over time in relation to your exploits which will increase the difficulty of the game. Expect more bandit raids at higher levels.

The world of BLOOD PUNK may be chaotic and diverse, but that does not mean it is lawless. Your cargo will be searched when entering big cities and might be subject to random searches by patrolling police interceptors when travelling the waste. The more illegal activity to conduct or the more contraband you have, the higher your Crime level. Higher levels gain more attention from the police.

Blood Punk is a game of balance. You cannot cheat your way to using illegal shortcuts to achieve your means or rapidly powering up, people will notice. You must be strategic and considerate of the impact your actions have.

Blood

How does a society thrive with no sustainable resources or food? Androids bleed, they are wetware beings, like humans after all. Android bodies generate blood which is replaced after it is taken. In this world, the only sustainable resource is the one that flows through its denizens' veins.

Blood plasma is used to power generators and vehicle engines. It is processed to make food and drink. As the single most defining resource of this age, it is also its currency.

Bandits will capture defenceless victims and hook them up to machines to drain their blood. Don't have any blood on you to pay the bill? no problem, use a hand-held, portable extractor to use some of your own. Did your land train run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere? take it from one of your crew members. Problem solved!

Community

Transparency and interaction with the community will be a given from day 1 of development. My personal experience of working on game projects in the past is the invaluable contribution players and community have in terms of feedback and ideation. You will have a Discord and a Patreon to interact with the game and me during its development. I am looking forward to hearing your input.

I will aim to do a blog post each week and a video each month. As the game and community grows more content will be produced.

Next Steps

Let's get the blood flowing! Paper prototyping is next to determine the essential, basic layout of the game. After the paper prototype design has been through several design loops i'll start producing experiments for the aesthetics.

Thanks for reading. May it flow.