in my photoshop class we were asked to create a cover for a fake videogame of our own design.
i came up with the idea for Fade, a surreal survival-horror game where a terrorist organization has released a powerful hallucinogenic gas on the city where you are. Its your goal to escape the clouds range before you are driven permanently crazy by its effects, fighting for your life against threats both real and imaginary while you search for food, water, and most importantly gas masks, which allow you to walk though the gas without experiencing the terrifying and potentially deadly hallucinations.

the longer you spend in the gas, the worse the hallucination's get, and the less preventative measures work against it, such as going to higher ground above the gas or wearing a mask. this is what makes the game increase in difficulty as it goes on, along with the introduction of military and terrorist enemy's.

the hallucinations you experience are effected by the world around you. harmless things like cars and billboards can become things far more sinister under the gas's effect. in fact visual and auditory cues help to determine what hallucinations you experience under the gases effect, and it doesn't take much to set your imagination to overdrive. a epic fight between you and a 20 foot tall snarling T-Rex could be set off by a plastic T-Rex doll laying on the street. this can also mean that bosses can appear suddenly, without the slightest bit of warning or build-up, or things like this scenario can happen.
a woman runs up to you screaming and begging for help,saying that there are bugs, bugs everywhere, and suddenly you start to see massive swarms of cockroaches spilling out of your surroundings, she goes on to say big black bugs, and suddenly the cockroaches are shiny black beetles, and she says "with big sharp teeth" and the beetles sprout scissor like mandibles as they swarm in on you.
of course the fact that yelling scary things at people makes them actually experience it can be used by you or against you, in fact one of the boss enemy's just being a guy with his own gas mask shouting at you.
other's you encounter may not be as resistant to the gas'es effects as you are, making for deadly, and often morally questionable enemy's, such as young children. when this is the case, then wearing the gas mask can make things even more disturbing as a terrified woman attacks you to try and protect her kids, or a cop shoots innocent civilians.

and did i mention that wearing a gas mask makes you more scary? this makes people more likely to attack you when your wearing it, but it also allows for some fear based attacks, which can make them cower, or even do your bidding. this is the best way to be "evil" in the game. collecting a group of loyal "minions" who will follow you to either safety or death.
this is the basis for some side missions, guiding people to higher ground above the gas so they can be saved by helicopter.
as the game gets more difficult, it becomes harder to distinguish friend from foe, which can cause you to accidentally kill allies in your decent into madness.


my idea for the most traumatizing instance of this is when you reach the elementary school. if you hadn't been religiously rationing your gas mask up to now chances are you have no idea where you are. only that your being attacked by small goblin-like creatures in a creepy as heck dungeon like place. but once out of the building, you find a gas mask container, and should you use it, you'd realize that you just killed about 30 or so terrified children.

throughout the game your fed a stream of misinformation, warped by your own impending madness. things only seem to make sense in the here and now, but as you continue you cant help but think that you made a lot of wrong decisions in the past as your actions, good or bad, seem to come back to haunt you. in other words there is no right decision, all have the potential for negative consequence. and things can get seriously confusing.

POSSIBLE GAME MECHANIC: unstable environment
when under the gases effects, reality has a tendency to change when your not looking at it. parts both large and small will spontaneously change location slightly. for instance a streetlamp may move a few feet to the left when you look away and then turn back to it, or maybe it gets replaced with a mailbox. this would also work with some enemy's, making for randomly spawning enemy's that wont attack unless you take notice of them.

(a few ideas for endings.)
-almost never used gas mask-
you stumble out of the fog that engulfs the city to see the line of rescue and military personnel waiting for you. but out of the fog reaches a giant hand that drags you kicking and screaming back into the city.
-rarely used gas mask-
instead of rescue personnel, the city is now surrounded by the terrorists, your shot on sight.
-sometimes used mask-
they're rescue personnel, but they look kinda evil, you panic when one approaches with a needle
-often used mask-
you walk out have have your wounds tended to normally, but are then arrested for killing so many.