WORLD BACKGROUND:

sci fi utopia! tall buildings, bright lights, lots of glass
world is unified under one government (Continents United) (CU)
CU is super corrupt, laws are passed according to the highest bidder (usually mega-corps)

utopia for middle class and above
lower class people dont get any aid (health care, shelter, food, water all have to be paid for and are expensive)
most of the voluntary crimes are punishable by death (think like shoplifting, robbery, murder, battery, breaking and entering, drug dealing) (NOT running red lights or jay-walking, sometimes involuntary manslaughter)
this system results in less overall crime but now most crimes are murder
lower class people have no choice but to commit crime to survive
commiting crime like robbery will result in death sentence, so they cant afford to have any witnessess
people who commit crime are forced to murder their victim and anybody who saw it

middle class and above people benefit from the death penalty system cuz they wouldnt need to be commiting those crimes anyway

the year is like 2040 (not final)
history is mostly the same to ours

CU formed after rising political tensions with countries invading other countries

COMPANY AND PRODUCT BACKGROUND:

i dont know the name of the company yet
for now ill call them x (like math)

WHAT THE PUBLIC KNOWS:

x is a mega-corp formed like 10 years before the game takes place
x's claim to fame was robots
in current year x does basically everything you can think of

x designed robots
these robots are just as smart as humans, and can do everything humans can do (plus a bit more)
robots do not have genitalia, and there were no official models nor accessories produced to change that
robots are basically just slaves

robot production goes in three steps
QA facility -> academy -> product

the robots are waken up in the QA facility, and go through the facility to have its quality assured
the robots then go basically like robot college where its taught how to do everything they need to do. robots often have whats described as "muscle memory" for most of the tasks they are taught, which speeds up the process
robots are then sent to distributors and sold.

WHATS TRUE:

ai doesnt exist anymore when this game takes place
starting in around 2022 there was an ai boom, but after a while there was so much ai content on the internet that AIs were being inbred, and eventually all AIs got worse, and no new AIs could be made to the same level
how do the robots work then? im sure you know

x takes human conciousness and puts it in the robot brains
i will go over how this works in a later section
ill refer to the conciousness as brain, but it isnt the actual mushy human brain, just the humans conciousness

brain is inserted into the robot
there are 9 floors to the QA facility
each floor has a roof the height of a warehouse (see image attached for reference)

robots wake up on the bottom floor
bottom floor is painted with nice colors to not overwhelm the brain, theres railings and safety stuff everywhere so the brain can get used to the body

floors 2-9 are the quality assurance part of the facility
the robots are forced to repeat different tasks over and over again until they do it perfectly
each floor is themed after a different genre of task (havent decided what exactly)
this is torture
this is inhumane and evil and the robots are suffering

when a robot reaches the 9th floor, they enter an elevator
only one robot is allowed in the elevator at a time, but there are multiple elevators
each elevator has a device to erase the memories of the robot
the device is like an autonomous snake cable that plugs into the usb-c port on the robot (in its neck) (NOT FINAL)
the cable usually comes from behind so the robot doesnt even realize what happened

when the robot reaches the surface, their memories of the QA facility and their past life are erased fully (they cannot ever come back)
the robot academy is kind of for good publicity
academy is very humane, but takes way less time and resources for the robot to complete
from the outside it looks like perfectly normal
muscle memory in the academy is from the QA facility, but x explains it as the action being prepogrammed

in the prep stages of robot development, x ran demographic tests to see what kinds of people would make the best robots
x found that people aged 20-40 who were murdered are the best candidates for robots (this is where the lower class crime stuff comes in)

HOW THE CONCIOUSNESS STEALING DEVICE WORKS:

i imagine like a screwdriver that screws into the skull

in this world there are two parts to a brain
theres the neurons which store the memories
then theres the data cells which contains all the data on the persons conciousness (aside from memory)
data cells are stored in the folds of the brain
traumatic events are usually memories that become a part of a data cell

neurons are easy to scan and replicate
data cells are super complex and (as of now) impossible to scan and replicate

the screwdriver device scans the neurons and sucks out all the data cells from the brain
to put the conciousness into the robot, you simply put all the data cells in the robot brain and take the neuron scans and put them on the brains storage device
to erase the memories, just wipe the drive

MAIN CHARACTER ONE:

Ander (emily self insert) (name not final)

ander was a human
she was murdered at the age of 20 in the first year of robot production
she was fiesty and angry and hateful
THE FOLLOWING IS GOING TO CHANGE:
when she went through the QA facility, she made a shiv out of various materials from tests
when she got to the elevator, the snake memory remover thing came out, but she was on edge and was able to catch it
usually the snake overpowers the robot, but ander had the shiv, and was able to cut it
END

ander got to the surface with all of her memories
she just went through the torture of the QA facility and she wanted to tell the world
but the first thing she sees when she steps out is a bunch of like amber alerts/wanted signs for her
if she spoke up shed be noticed and killed
if she laid low shed have to pretend to be an obedient slave (which would suck)

instead she decided to go back into the QA facility and live in the walls
she guided robots through the facility in hopes that one of them could get out with her and tell the world the truth

ROBOT PRODUCTION FOLLOWING RELEASE:

in the first year or two of robot production, robots sold a shit ton
almost every person ever owned a robot by the end of the first 2 years
however, x is now making less money in sales
x decides to branch out into different areas (which is easy cuz of that shit ton of money)
x opens grocery stores, makes kids toys, appliances, instruments, cars, software, literally whatever
however, executives (probably not the right term but whatever) in charge of robot production are making way less money cuz of less sales
the executives decide to cut the budget of the QA facility and academy so that they can keep getting the same amount of money as before
they find that robot repairs and part upgrades make more money than selling full robots ever did
they start funneling the budget for the QA facility and academy into making new fancy parts for already existing robots
5-7 years after the first robot was made, new robot parts for the QA facility arent being made anymore
the QA facility is in total disrepair
lights are almost all out, theres junk everywhere, walls are broken, etc

human brains are still being put into new robot brains
why? cuz the human to robot brain system was fully automatic before, and theres no reason to stop it (in case they need more robot brains)
now, people who are turned into robots are basically just a brain cuz they have no new parts to use

MAIN CHARACTER TWO AND GAME INTRO:

Cori (May insert) (my wife) (name not final)

cori was a human
she is an employee at x
she has a boring office job where she does nothing all day
shes lower middle class, so she doesnt have to resort to crime, but its not easy to stay thriving

(game starts) one day, she finishes her shift at work
shes on her way home when shes shot in the back and robbed
she was murdered at the age of 20 in the 5-7th year of robot production (sometime in the disrepair)

when she wakes up, shes a brain in a test tube
test tube is full of clear orange liquid
starts first person, you can see your reflection in the glass (its a robot brain and robot eyes floating)

almost as soon as she wakes up she gets a call from ???
??? is ander
you get some dialogue options
something like: a. what did you do to me? b. where am i? c. who are you? d. this freaking sucks man
no matter what option you pick, cori makes no noise (she doesnt have a voicebox)
ander can tell that youre trying to speak, so she introduces herself and explains what happened
she says shes a guide in the facility and that cori is far from her first and far from her last

ander knows that cori was an employee at x (she can see the spreadsheet of incoming brains or something)
she suggests that cori tries to log in to the computer and see if she can access anything
(camera switches to third person, camera tutorial and interaction tutorial)
cori logs into her company account on the computer and sees that she can access the repair storage which is full of robot bodies in various states of disrepair
she finds a body that mostly works (or puts together multiple working parts) and goes out into the main room of the first floor

everything is dark and overgrown and the walls are breaking and the paint is dull and etc etc

GAME PLOT: (super unfinished)

you have to go through all 9 floors of the QA facility and then escape with ander (into the sequel)
you may think of dantes inferno cuz of the 9 floors but dont worry its not
each floor will be loosely tied to each theme for the different circles of hell, but itll never be said directly

each floor has a main boss which represents a different core piece of being human (according to me)
the final boss is the leader of the robot mafia or robot cult or whatever robot group thats in the QA facility

LITTLE IDEAS I HAVE THAT I WANNA INCLUDE:

my favorite song salt-wound routine has this line: "drawing hearts on mirrors so reflections wont bite"
i wanna have the save points be bathrooms (if theres saving anywhere then it can just be a saferoom with storage and stuff)
x put bathrooms in the QA facility to remind robots that they are no longer human (cuz they cant piss and shit)
theres a tradition among the robots to draw hearts on the mirror as a reminder to others that they are loved and can love (which makes them human)
this also gives an excuse to have you look at yourself when you save

at the start, cori will be just a skeleton
as the game progresses, cori will get more and more human looking (kind of plateuing at halfway through, maybe with a huge setback for the final bits of the game)

at the start of the game, cori cannot speak
(she doesnt have a voicebox)
over time, shell find voiceboxes that get progressively more realistic

it would be freaking awesome if the characters were voiced by vocal synths (like hatsune miku)
can be explained by just having the voiceboxes be designed for singing/performance robots

one character idea i had was this huge redneck guy
he was a mechanic when he was human
died in the first year or two of robot production
he built his own body (using other robots' parts) and its fucking huge and bulky
he thinks youre privileged cuz you got access to a robot body without having to work for it even though he was born in a time where it was literally given to you

two ideas for final boss:
guy who was a nothing loser incel when he was a human, but he was the first robot ever made
he used that title to start the robot mafia and keep all robots from going to the surface
(if everyone leaves then he'll go back to being a nobody)
OR
guy who was a con artist
starts a robot cult
only speaks in quotes from the robot bible (that he wrote)
also first robot ever

TIDBITS:

lore about the outside world and details on how robots work will be seen through various computers found in the game
cori will log into the computer and see documents n stuff
new upgrades will probably also be stored on the computer so that players will want to interact with it

pingas will be implemented

if we go with a robot cult, therell be a robot sacrifice every day
except the robots dont know what time it is in the facility and they dont need to sleep so it ends up being a random interval
the sacrifice goes up to the surface ans becomes a product



ander was a gaslight gatekeep girlboss when she was first turned into a robot
after many years of living in the walls and watching thousands upon thousands of people die she gets real apathetic and distant
by the time cori meets her, ander is mostly emotionless and uncaring
shes only still guiding people cuz she doesnt know what else she can do
as the game goes on ander will start to heal and be more emotional and caring

i decided to make ander apathetic because youll often hear like
"to be human is to have empathy and love"
but like what happens if youve had all the empathy sucked out of you
i think becoming apathetic is something only humans can do, so thats something that makes ander human

ander will refer to robots as "it" because her only way to cope with all the death is to see the robots as objects instead of people



cori will be loving and empathetic
but shes put into a world where she HAS to kill people to survive
i think itll be interesting to see how that affects her

cori will start out justifying killing because shes "putting them out of their misery" (enemies are suffering)
this will never be explicitly said but heavily implied and itll be what the player is supposed to think
as the game goes on the reason why she HAS to will shift
technically she only kills when she HAS to but by the end HAS to means "they would be in my way" or "i dont like them"

possible that cori will be completely cold and apathetic by the time the game ends (cuz shes killed so many people)