Heyo~

micia here, your dull developer who deeply values games, anime, caffeine, and pizza.

I am the designer and lead developer of Eris-RF117. Today, I wish to briefly introduce its storyline, and discuss why we’d like to put a story inside a shoot ’em up.

Eris-RF117 is a sci-fi themed, side-scrolling horizontal 2D shooter.

Traditionally, certain genres are more likely to include involved stories, shoot ‘em ups aren’t among them. Players usually expect minimal lore, enough to justify the bullet-fest on screen. Yet, we feel there is an unexplored potential in them. With Eris-RF117, we’re trying to achieve a deeper immersion, while staying true to the fast paced action we all love. In essence, events unfolding should integrate with the natural flow of the gameplay.

Game media offer several means to convey a story, the most recognized and widely used being traditional cut-scenes and dialogues. The level progression itself, the audio design, the artistic direction, and the overall atmosphere are often overlooked as narrative instruments, to us, they provide the perfect opportunity to achieve our goal.

I am positive this would bring an additional layer of depth to the genre, and it looked like the perfect feature to experiment with, for our first game.

Story

Eris-RF117 takes place in a future where a consumed and overpopulated Earth is plagued by relentless climate catastrophes. Humanity’s home planet has become inhospitable, as people strive against unbearable conditions, starvation, lack of essential necessities and cures. It became painfully evident that no country was apt to face the situation at hand. Desperate to survive, humankind decided to unite out of necessity under the first Earth Government, tasked with the mission of guiding the world out of its hopeless predicament.

Eventually, the Government achieved its first breakthrough result: the Global AI Mainframe. An Artificial Intelligence computing system capable of managing the ever more scarce resources of the planet. With its assistance, the Government was able to slowly reduce famine and casualties, distributing energy and supplies more efficiently. Earth population had just seen a glimmer of hope for the first time in decades, and the Government’s leadership was now more secure than ever. The Global AI Mainframe technology would subsequently become ever more pervasive and effective.

The Government pursued space colonization as its next step, perceiving it as the only final solution to overpopulation and resource scarcity. Mars was designated to become the first human space colony.

The first pioneers left Earth as heroes, and few of them lived to step back on their home planet again. Through immense sacrifices, the Government’s ambitious plan gave its fruits. As humans finally settled on the Red Planet, the Mars AI Mainframe was built to manage the colony, mirroring its Earth counterpart. Resources extracted on Mars started to flow to our planet, while more people answered the call of the Government to join the settlers. Earth was slowly emerging from its ruins.

In the year 2XXX, the Earth Government suddenly receives an incoming transmission from the colony:

FROM: MARS-AI-MAINFRAME
DATE: 2XXX-[!]?@_#&^=_-[ELIDED]
PRIORITY: HIGH [SECURITY/NOTICE]
MSGID: 0×0011-ffff-000102-074920bb1ceddf001a

SUBJECT: Mars Settlement Attack Alert
   ACT. TREAT LEVEL: - UNKNOWN -
   EST. TREAT LEVEL: MODERATE/REAL

\BODY

Hostile rebel spacecraft violated the Mars Extraction Plants area perimeter. Enemy vessel class is - UNKNOWN -

@PATTERN RECOGNITION DATA FOLLOWS:

• Model: [TAMPERED] Mars Multipurpose High Mobility Spacecraft
  • MHMS-3 Mk II
• Equipment[1]: [LETAL] Drone Suppression Ordinance
  • Icarus LMG-255
• Equipment[2]: [UTILITY] Earth Space Alliance Universal Equipment Adapter Joint
  • UEAJ-2X
• Evaluation: OFFENSIVE/MILITARY (Confidence: HIGH)

@ENEMY FINGERPRINT FOLLOWS:

• Model: Eris
• RFID: RF117
• TID: 0×0011-0000007543ae

Colony structural damage avoided. Defense systems report moderate damage. Military defense drones have been deployed (Suppression Notice Dispatch [RES: 0/Complete]). Rebel treat confinement and containment is underway.

Please, stand by for further updates…

\EOT

This was the first time humanity ever known of Eris-RF117, the rebel fighter who would single-handedly free their kind.

Conclusion

This concludes our brief overview on Eris-RF117’s premise, and our first article on itch too! We are pretty excited about this ☺

Keep following us for more updates, and have fun~