Anaphora Pitch Deck

Anaphora

Contents

Logline

Anaphora is a sci-fi horror game where the player is a clone trying to repair a large spaceship while fighting off aliens that look like demons.

Synopsis

A clone wakes up on a long-abandoned spaceship that’s falling apart. They’re forced to defend and maintain the ship and cloning facilities to stay alive. They enter a perpetual loop of dying and being ‘reborn’ as aliens that look suspiciously like demons attack the ship, resetting their progress each time.

The 2D animated cut scene is of one of these many deaths.

As they work to progress from just surviving, to exploring the ship and eradicating the aliens, they start piecing together what’s going on and where everyone’s gone.

Characters

Snibble

The Snibble is the weakest and most common enemy type the player encounters. It is red all over, with a tadpole build and big eyes. It has a small trunk and two legs. It has wiry blonde hair on its head. As it grows longer it hardens and becomes like a porcupine quill. Its pupil size changes depending on its emotional state (dilated when relaxed, etc).

Despite its small size it can run faster than the average enemy, and attacks by throwing its body at the player. The Snibble is very agile and can cover short distances by leaping forward. Its finned tail also allows it to swim in liquids and steer itself through space.

Other enemies are more humanoid and wield weapons, and some fly above to survey and alert other enemies where the player is.

The Clone

The Clone is the character the player will experience the world of Anaphora through.

She is a pale dark haired woman who is serious and pragmatic. She keeps her hair cropped and wears any practical clothing she can find abandoned on the ship. Fully formed, she's convincingly human. However, a deteriorating cloning facility can produce inferior clones, with musculature and sometimes even bones left uncovered.

She is very resourceful, and under the plavyer’s control will use all methods to achieve her goals. To fight the aliens she can set traps, hand-make explosives, and improvise weapons from the bones of the enemies she’s killed.

The clones have very intense survival instincts built into them, leading them to prioritise their survival above everything. Although they die many times to the alien hoards, they have a supernatural will to continue instilled by the creators of the cloning facility.

World

Spaceship Exterior

This location serves as the main battlefield for the player. Most conflicts between the alien-demons and the clone will take place here. It is covered in machinery and protrusions of miscellaneous industrial rubble that make up the shell and inner workings of the spaceship. These can be used as cover or taken apart to build weapons and traps.

The alien hoard destroys the ship and kick up shrapnel, and occasionally repurpose pipes and panels from the spaceship as primitive weapons. This is the first layer of defence that the player must defend and maintain in between waves of aliens.

Cloning Facility

The cloning facility is located deep inside the spaceship the player wakes up in. Here the player wakes up and continues to wake up after each death.

Half formed clones are hung in lantern-like cubicles of preserving fluid until its time for them to awaken. The facility does this by unceremoniously dumping them out of their container. There is constant industrial noise present, as the facility moves clone containers and manufactures preservation fluids and parts for the clone.

This is one of the key locations the player must defend and repair. If the repairs are not made in time, or if the facility becomes damaged, the subsequent clones will be increasingly incomplete. This can affect the player’s strength.

Alien Nest

The alien-demons hoard originates from this nest. It is a pulsating fleshy group of complex tunnels and bridges crossing over and through each other like an ant’s nest. The nest starts at the core of a planet, being built slowly by a growing colony of alien-demons. The aliens repurpose the materials on from the planet into a sort of clay. The nest will eventually break the planet’s surface. From afar it looks like a beating heart bursting out of an egg. Over time the nest can branch out and be made from several different nests. Eventually these will break off and float through space dormant until they find another planet. When the clone discovers the nest, it marks a turning point where the player can go on the offensive and start tackling the source of their enemies.

Style Frames

One crucial style choice is the to flat cell shaded colouring and uniform line weight of all moving/animated components in the 2D animated cut scene. This is inspired by the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996), which does this to save time and resources on animation by making moving elements easier to draw repeatedly. This means that any elements that aren’t animated, like the background, will be rendered in more detail to bring more life and realism to the scenes.

The colour palette of the enemies and clone must stay consistent to differentiate from each other and stand out from the background.

Anno, H. (1996-1997). Neon Genesis Evangelion. TV Tokyo. Retrieved from https://talkfilmsociety.com/articles/neon-genesis-evangelion-a-primer

The enemy designs are inspired by the goofy-grotesque medieval depictions of demons, especially the work of Hieronymus Bosch and the painting Torment of Saint Anthony (Michaelangelo, 1488). Specific motifs like fish-like features, multiple horns, and webbed wings, should be included consistently.

Bosch, 1500

Bosch, H. (1500). Temptations of Saint Anthony. National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon, Portugal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych_of_the_Temptation_of_St._Anthony#/media/ File:Jeroen_B osch_(ca._1450-1516)_-_De_verzoeking_van_de_heilige_Antonius_(ca.1500)__Lissabon_Museu_Nacional_de_Arte_Antiga_19-10-2010_16-21-31.jpg

Michaelangelo, B. (1488). The Torment of Saint Anthony. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, U.S.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony#/media/ File:Michelangelo_Buonarroti_ -_The_Torment_of_Saint_Anthony_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Michaelangelo, 1488

About Me

My name is Nina Nakano-Broers.

I am currently studying Concept Design at SIT and love art. I come from a bicultural background and am influenced by bad horror movies and video essays on old videogames.

I have excellent knowledge in Photoshop, Indesign, Illusatrator and Storyboard Pro.

Instagram @ninanewblue Email 2024000575@student.sit.ac.nz