Anti-g: The Game Story
Part I

Part 1 - Proteus’s Glory

Once upon a time, last week, astronomers at the Kuaval Laboratory on the planet of Proteus noticed a strange little planet revolving around the star they called Weimar. Weimar had nine such planets of varying sizes revolving around it. However, this one they noticed, the third one, seemed to be developing an advanced society. They decided to call this planet Quixote. The scientists immediately told their president. The president was intrigued by the concept of another advanced life form in the same galaxy. She immediately ordered a welcoming committee to visit the planet and form an alliance.

Commander Ralph Goatsucker headed the mission to introduce the Proteuns to us Earthlings. Upon the arrival of his ship, they entered a high orbit, mirroring a satellite, and looked for the most suitable place to learn about the planet. They decided upon landing in the most advanced society, and that they should land in a city in the middle of that land, and of course, they should go to an academic institution to find the most educated people to communicate.

That’s why they came to DePaul.

Now, there is a little something you should know about the planet Proteus. Proteus is a carbon-based planet with similar size to Quixote, I mean Earth. They have large quantities of water and a similar climate, as well. In fact, so much is similar to Earth, that upon first glance, you might not notice a big difference. But there is. Proteus has a soft core. In other words, Proteus is much lighter. This results in less gravity. Creatures of the planet, Proteus, reach similar size to Earth creatures, but don’t weigh nearly as much.

When the Proteuns came down to DePaul, they found this perceived mass difference to be rather intriguing. They projected themselves down to Chicago and Goatsucker turned to address his crew. As he spoke about their mission, to first educate themselves about the Quixotian society and then meet with agents of the academic ministry, he slowly began to shrink. First, it was hardly noticable. His abdomen started compacting like an accordion. Then, his neck started to go with it. Finally, he stopped when he realized that his normally 5’8 frame of reference was looking at his shrunken troop from a 2’7 perspective. This bothered him greatly. A second thing that bothered him was the local Quixotians.

Now, in movies, we’re used to seeing people run and scream when they see aliens. However, this is Chicago. We have two zoos, an aquarium, and the Southwest side. In other words, we’re used to seeing strange creatures. However, we aren’t familiar with ones that look like Technicolor accordions. The passing people turned to the aliens, approached them, and began to laugh uncontrollably.

Then, the homeless people came and begged them for money. The Proteuns wanted to learn about the culture and read the Streetwise, but they didn’t know what money was. On Proteus, they simply shared everything in a group effort to enrich and educate each other. The homeless people wouldn’t go away.

This upset them greatly. Goatsucker ordered the troops back to the ship.

He had planned for contingencies like these. They had long mastered the control of gravity. In fact, this was how they were able to make it across the galaxy in the first place. They simply had to pack devices that would create a lowered gravity field around them. They also had personal robotic module vehicles that worked on springs bouncing them around, which would work regardless of gravity.

Now, their strange appearance was also a problem. For this, they had some unusual wrist devices. These mechanisms could distort their appearance to anyone who would see them. They could portray themselves to be any form they wanted.

Then, their lead research scientists noticed the Quixotian public communication system. A huge network of information resources and communication channels covered the world. It was driven through key processing centers, one of which was fairly close to Chicago. They tapped into this channel to find more information about the Quixotians. The first thing they noticed was how much it was in a state of disarray. There was more useless junk than documentary or scientific information. Even worse was the remedial search systems and complete lack of ordering. It seemed to be driven by the pursuit of material possession, rather than gain of information, which made absolutely no sense.

They began their research, working chronologically from the beginning of recorded history, through archeology, mythology, and traditional practice. They found mathematics, religion, and art. Then, they found war. They found a lot of war. They found peoples driven to take over the lands of others. They found colonization of inhabited lands. They found subjugation was still in vogue, economically, politically, and socially. They found that the people would have the technology to notice Proteus in a short time. They found they would have to stop the people before sweet Proteus became Quixote’s Conquest.

From the ship, they regrouped and chose a target-landing site. They would swoop down Jackson Boulevard and land at the coordinates of 1 East and 300 South. There was a open spot there, close to the building they were most interested in taking over.

Part II - Contact Is Made

As the ship’s pilots made there descent, they hadn’t figured in relative g. Gravity was a force pulling them down too quickly. They tried to boot up the anti-g machines, but they were accelerating at an unexpected rate of 9.8 m/s/s. They came crashing down, aiming for the target, but the rotation of the anti-g’s heavy disks threw them slightly off course. BOOM! They smashed right into the 243 South Wabash building. When the dust cleared, they found themselves in a large conference room on the top floor of the building.

The crash had knocked much of the building’s high stonework down onto a passing elevated train below. The ‘L’ train rocked uncontrollably on its track, and the support gave way. The train came down toward the building, sliding toward the front doors and closing the entrance off. Meanwhile, more stonework locked the building off from the other side as it crashed through the side door, lodging into the doorway. Without any fire escapes, anyone in the building would have a long wait to leave. Let’s hope the plumbing still worked. Luckily, it was Saturday.

The building was not empty on a Saturday, but it certainly was unfilled. In fact, the only people to hear the crash were some professors, the security, and a group of computer elite called the Computer Science Society.

The security went to investigate. First, they noticed the train had dislocated from its track. Then, they went to the Egan Center, the place where the ship had landed and found the large craft. This upset them greatly. They decided to share what they learned and left to find DePaulians.

Meanwhile, on the ship, the Proteuns were having problems of their own. In the crash, the control mechanism on the locked rooms had disengaged. All the Proteun animals they had brought to represent their planet were freed and running amok on the ship.

There were cow-sized slug-like creatures that worked on striated muscle. They were unaffected by the new gravity. These Proteun slugs had made their way to the control center and were oozing all over the controls. There were large spider-like creatures walking around. There were even creatures that resembled taco-eating puppy dogs, except with knees bent the wrong direction. The aliens themselves were not little green men, but little pink humanoid-shaped creatures.

The aliens knew they had landed in the place where much of the new technological developments were taking place. If they could destroy some of the work of the faculty in the building, they could prolong invasion of their planet and prepare strategy. The aliens set out to complete their mission.

Meanwhile, the Computer Science Society had launched an investigation into the crash. While some set out to search lower levels, a couple went towards the higher levels. Tony, the president, and a couple professors went to the top floor, the 9th floor. What they found was amazing. The alien animals had escaped the craft with the visitors. One of the alien Chihuahuas met them at the elevator door.

"Yo quierro Taco Bell?" Tony said.

"Yo quierro Taco Bell!" The dog said. Tony looked at the dog with big, amazed eyes. The dog looked back with exaggeratingly large eyes. It had eyes the size of cantaloupes. Tony leaned toward the dog as the dog jumped up, bounced off the ceiling, and bounded away like a overgrown cricket.

"Well, that was interesting," Tony said in his characteristic manner.

Meanwhile, Mike passed Professor Sadler in a hall on the fifth floor, then turned the corner of the winding narrow corridor. As he continued to walk, he passed her again, coming from the same direction. "Um? That’s not good," Mike said to himself. "Professor Sadler?" he said to her.

"Yes, Mike?" She replied.

"Hi." He turned away, shaking his head. "Now I know I gotta get a new job." He turned the next corner to find one of the spider creatures. He was surprised to see an overgrown spider and the spider was surprised to see an overgrown Mike. Mike tried to hit it with a newspaper.

The spider got whacked on the head. This upset him greatly. He lunged at Mike and sliced him up with his claws. Mike stood there for a second. "Doh!" he replied. Then, he fell into pieces like a Blooming Mike.

Will Mike ever be the same? Will the aliens rain down terror on the CSS? Will Tony play some mean air guitar? Stay tuned for the next episode of Anti-g, same CSS time, same CSS channel

Note: All names are symbolic of a deeper meaning, (i.e. A goatsucker is a misunderstood bird that is thought to attack goats and live off their milk, but really eats worms. Proteus was a messenger for Poseidon, god of the sea. Quixote was a misguided man who thought he was saving damsels and fighting giants but was really making a big mess. OK, so I have some social satire. We're a college. We do intelligence and reason.) All characters portrayed are supposed to accurately reflect their real counterparts in a gesture of flattery through imitation.

This story basis for the game is aliens have come down from space and taken over the CTI building. They're assimilating the professors. We need to save them and the school.

We enter the game at the front door with very little (I think we have some diskettes as ninja stars. We need to move through the school, collecting an arsenal of non-lethal and (more silly than violent) weaponry. Some confirmed weapons are the Slinky of Death (which will only incapacitate, not decapitate) and the Hockey Stick of Love (which I think is self-explanatory).

The road to victory in the game is not carnage, but strategy. For example, you need to enlist the help of CSS members to help you defeat level bosses and find needed tools.

The game will have 9 levels, just like the building. However, the player may need to play them out of order to win. The game will also use quite a few "cutscene animations" (movie sequences) to develop the plot and add depth to the story.