Death is the ultimate mystery, with people holding on and coming back to life while others move on into the afterlife. In that split second decision, what if you choose neither life nor death? Welcome to Limbo, a mysterious and gloomy dimension where hostile spirits lurk about and your Virtues manifest as magic, a place where how good you are as a person is judged by whether you survive or not.

Play as Val as she tumbles head first into Limbo and fights her way back home, saving a civilization of diverse and quirky characters from imminent destruction under the Founders along the way. Featuring a unique twist on the traditional RPG battle system as well as an art style that hearkens back to the PS and N64 era, prepare to wise up and take action: welcome to Ennea.

Ennea is a turn-based RPG game where you control Val through her journeys in Limbo, moving around in a 3D environment. A unique system reliant on Virtues, which acts as both your HP and stat modifiers, allows you to cast magic and fight against the numerous hostile spirits that roam the island. By building Virtue, you are better able to get these enemies to recognize the error of their ways and peacefully move on. Strategy is key to winning any battle in Ennea. Outside of battle, Ennea is an exploration of human personalities based off of the Enneagram, talking to the Islanders over the virtues they follow and how it can both make a person great or terrible based on how they act on them.

The project would be a medium-sized undertaking, very much feeling like an indie game with art and mechanics trimmed down to the basics. On the other hand, the assets required as well as story are very fleshed out but a balance between battle and exploration would be fantastic. The best situation is to have some concept art, a refined battle system, and a clear main plotline fleshed out by the end of the semester. The roles required would be:

• Concept Artists for enemies, characters, and the environment. With 11 areas in total, consisting of a small village and 2 dungeons, there many opportunities for artists to draw their own flora, fauna, and designs. The enemies are all based on various pitfalls of human nature like Procrastination and Bad Tan Lines, so artists are free to let their imaginations fly!

  • Water Tribe (Understanding) beaches, jungles, Indian/Polynesian aesthetics

  • Dark Tribe (Loyalty) swamps, mushrooms, Iroquois/Ethiopian aesthetics

  • Light Tribe (Joy) desert, glass, Mali/Navajo aesthetics

  • Fire Tribe (Courage) volcanoes, charred forests, Medieval European aesthetics

  • Nature Tribe (Harmony) forests, wild animals, Northwest Coast/Aztec aesthetics

  • Ice Tribe (Just-ice) tundra, taiga, Inuit/Nordic aesthetics

  • Earth Tribe (Kindness) caves, mountains, Persian/Japanese aesthetics

  • Thunder Tribe (Diligence) steampunk, mechanical city, Victorian aesthetics

  • Air Tribe (Integrity) cloud mountain tops, Incan/The Capitol aesthetics

  • Spirit and Metal Tribes (Faith and Temperance) plains and wasteland, no aesthetics as the Founders killed the nomadic Spirit Tribe and assimilated the Metal Tribe

  • Chaos and Order Tribes (Hope and Patience) futuristic sci-fi city and ancient Roman/Egyptian ruins; people deported

  • The Founders the villains, buildings in industrial modernist style, Americana aesthetics

• Storyboarders for writing out the script and dialogue. There is expected to be at least 4 main chapters, each encompassing 3 lands. As linear as the game is, the story writers have a unique challenge of presenting the different Virtues each tribe represents while still pushing Val onward in her journey.

  • Chapter 1 Water, Dark, and Light

  • Chapter 2 Fire, Nature, and Ice

  • Chapter 3 Earth, Thunder, and Air

  • Chapter 4 The Lost Tribes and the End

• Game Designers for refining the battle mechanics and the user interface. Because Virtue, the HP, is a modifier for attacks AND defense, it becomes tricky in battle to make sure neither the player is too strong nor too weak. In addition, we will need game designers to create maps for the various dungeons.

  • Battle System

  • Level Design

  • UI

• Sound Design for composing music and adding sound effects

In regards to aesthetic, the world of Limbo is gray, gloomy, and supernatural. Colors are dark or desaturated except in areas where the Islanders live, each with their own associated color palette and patterns. The art would best be done in a stylized cartoon look along the vein of Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker with a twist of Tim Burton. The modeling of the characters would be lowpoly, with the textures and animations imitating the aesthetic of N64-era games.