Nexus Detective Agency is a narrative-driven video game centred around a detective, Max Everett, with the ability to jump in between dimensions in his attempts at saving his home reality from a world ending climate catastrophe. During gameplay the players must investigate two drastically different realities to explore what made one reality a near-utopia and the other a complete dystopia, solving various puzzles and problems, whilst engaging with a set of mechanics unique to the universe they are present in. In doing so, we want to emphasise the impacts and results of said actions rather than the ability to make the choices in the first place.

Through utilising a decision-making mechanic within our interactive storytelling game, we can put the players in the shoes of the protagonist and make the player feel as if they are fully in control when they are tasked with having to make a decision. It allows for players a unique opportunity to take an active role and shape the progression and outcome of the story. The players feel a sense of empowerment and this mechanic can be manipulated to portray the bigger picture of a decision made by the player. This feeling of control and being able to achieve different results based on different decisions has the potential to positively benefit the player’s mentality and confidence as it can allow the player to feel that their decisions actually do have an impact on certain situations. By creating a narrative within our game that revolves around the current issue of climate change and having the player being able to interact and make choices that produce a unique outcome depending on their decisions, can further encourage young audiences to develop a stronger stance against the issue in order to have more involvement in the progression and shaping of their future while also raising awareness of the issue.

The key visual aesthetics that we are engaging with in this project are cyberpunk and solarpunk aesthetics, representing the dystopian and utopian realities respectively, due to their contrasting visuals and attitudes towards the future but their similar themes surrounding the state of society and the environment. We will also be engaging with noir visual aesthetics, particularly in the protagonist’s office in his home reality, and neo-noir narrative themes such as distrust in authority and vigilante justice. We have chosen these aesthetics particularly due to the noir genre's evolution into neo-noir in the 1970’s, which was a major influence on the cyberpunk aesthetic, and in turn the solarpunk aesthetic being a countervision of the cyberpunk aesthetic and how intertwined they all are aesthetically and thematically. Due to the level of contrast between the two realities we also wanted to incorporate art deco elements into the architecture and symbolism of the realities to tie them together and make them feel more coherent. Our choice of acoustic style is heavily influenced by these visual aesthetics as well, having the music of the project centre around three primary soundtracks utilising jazz, synth, and classical instrumentation for his home universe, the cyberpunk reality, and solarpunk reality respectively. To achieve this visual style we have commissioned an environment artist to produce concept art for each universe, where we will use this as a basis for the 3D models we are producing as well as the level design for the project.

We plan to initially develop the game only for PC, to reduce technical scope for the project, this however limits the potential revenue as the PC platform represents about 20% of total videogame income. We intend to counteract this limitation by developing with controller in mind, and controller capabilities, to allow for us to appeal to the console market, and potentially allow us to expand to consoles later if we were to continue on this project. The three primary avenues to explore would be Sony’s Playstation 5, Microsoft's Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo’s Switch, due to their consoles being the most prominent on the market

As such, the main focus of our game is not necessarily the idea of exploring multiple universes itself, but rather a puzzle-solving game where the player must think on a different scale in order to proceed, taking into consideration their abilities in one world as opposed to the other. Our game plans to build upon the likes of BioShock and Dishonored, similar in giving the player the 1st-person perspective and a range of unique otherworldly abilities, but approaching our game in a more puzzle/accomplishment light as opposed to the more ‘action shooter’ trend that the developers of the previously mentioned BioShock and Dishonored have seemed to gravitate towards with negative reviews. Our game offers an experience inspired by such halcyon games, yet in the context and thematically based on current-day media and media trends. In addition, we can fit into that market gap by keeping our game more affordable, sticking to a low price point compared to such similar games on the market.

We have posted here, asking for funding for a few reasons. Ultimately, we are going to release the completed game on the PC platform, where it will be available on Steam. We need to be able to pay for the initial posting cost. We are also going to have to source models of the web, as we have a limited timeframe to develop the game (About 15 weeks). Last but not least, we are going to need to commision a "rigger" to make our player NPC's be able to move, as we do not have the expertise required to complete this task ourselves. Any extra funds we gain will be used to further our game in quality, with extra levels or models.