BLIP
A world-building concept guide.
About
BLIP is a 2D, story-heavy platformer set in the Underground: the tunnels beneath a strange, walled-off city humming with electricity. Awoken at the lowest level, missing information and low on city-issued batteries, Blip must work his way up to the surface, through battery-powered puzzles, city outcasts and Underground vendors who warn him that the world above is not a forgiving one.
The World of Blip
Welcome to The City - you're safe here!The City will provide for all of your basic needs. The walls are high and thick enough to keep our citizens safe from the harsh conditions and dangers outside.
Everything is in its place.
You may not leave.
You do not want to leave.The City was founded and remains cared for by Futureprises™, the megacorporation responsible for saving your home from the deadly wildfires and lethal droughts that swept the nation.
You may not leave.Futureprises™ has a new line of Life-Improvement Droids! The LI-Bot will assist you in being a model citizen. Allow The City officials to dispose of any outdated tech and bring your new family member home today!You may not leave.
You must be a model citizen.
You must be happy here.You're safe here - keep smiling!
Game Synopsis
A small robot wakes up deep underground and begins to explore. Observations are made via written monologue as the player makes their way to the guide character, Badger. She nicknames the robot 'Blip' due to their partially rubbed-off print and the soft 'bleeping' sound they make. She informs them that they came from the ominous City above, teaches them about the trade system, and warns them of the puzzles that need to be solved to explore further into The Underground. She then challenges them to make it to Aino Marketplace alone, saying she will meet them there at her shop.
Blip believes that getting to the surface will help them regain their missing memories and hopes to find the place they belong.
Note: The world-building information on this site is meant for the purposes of writing and designing a game from Blip's perspective - not all information listed here will necessarily be readily available to the player.
Characters
"You feel the soft drumming of the street cleaners above. You remember they were louder once - clunkier. You realise you too, once, had become too loud and clunky. You suddenly feel very small in the world."
Blip
B LI-Bot (Life-Improvement Bot, type B)
Role: Hero Protagonist
Gender: Non-Specific
Age: 5 (manufactured 5 years ago, unplugged a few months ago)
Mannerisms
Non-verbal; friendly; gentle. The player is given emotion via soft bleeps and typed monologues.
Motivation
Curiosity; amnesia; a desire to learn and reach the surface. All they want is to find their home. Is able to solve unfamiliar puzzles - something in their mind just clicks when analysing.
Abilities
Is able to solve unfamiliar puzzles - something in their mind just clicks when analysing. They can program maps of places they've been and a codex of information they have relearned.
Flaws
Gentle, unwilling to fight; missing memories; easily trusting. They are an old discontinued model with amnesia.
Personality
Gentle; harmless; trusting; naïve.
"Looking for something specific tonight, friend? Got a few rare batteries in if you're interested".
Badger
A resident of The Underground that makes her living trading. You can find her in the 'swap n steal' section of most market events, but she lives specifically in the Aino area (the main lobby space).
Role: Trader and guide
Gender: Female (she/her)
Age: 42
Mannerisms
Badger is friendly and clever. As a thin, older woman, some suspect she plays up the non-threatening act in some cases. She is firm and fair, and has lived in The Underground most of her life. Her prices are fair, but she's not above scamming and stealing.
Motivations
Like most humans below, Badger doesn't belong above. She doesn't appreciate being told what to do and where to go. Disability is not represented well in The City - they are not 'model citizens'.
Abilities
She specialises in rare finds - she's the person to go to for memorabilia of the time before, anything nostalgic or sentimental.
Flaws
She is adamantly against The City and Futureprises, much like most of The Underground, but to the point she is suspicious and distrustful of strangers. She is adamant about never sharing maps and will at first discourage Blip from trying to reach the surface despite their curiosity.
Personality
Badger comes across as a friendly guide-type. Blip is able to trust her enough to ask for information, directions, or buy from her.
Locations and Level Design
The Underground
"The air is thick, heavy, and uncomfortably warm in this area. The walls are slick with clotting chemicals and overgrown with sticky moss that looks...wrong. Corrupted, patchy, and half-way dead. It's probably not safe for humans this way."
The sprawling tunnels that form a network between old bunkers below The City. The City knows about the world below, but it is not seen as a huge issue - as long as those dangerous criminals and outcasts aren't on the streets. It has become a safe haven and home for those who don't fit into The City's idea of model citizens.The Underground was built in the time before, likely in fear of war or natural disaster - in case the population would have to move underground to survive. A large bunker exists in the center, and further smaller bunkers are connected by sprawling tunnels.No one knows how deep the tunnels go. While it is well-ventilated in most areas, it is also wet, musty and overgrown in some areas. Some tunnels are thick with toxic substances or mutated creatures/plants. Towards the city walls, the heat can be suffocating for humans.Some areas are only accessible by moving blocks, turning switches on and off, or clearing the area of toxic substances.
The City
"Keep smiling - you're safe here."
The skyline seems to extend forever until you reach the white cement walls. The streets are a neat, perfect grid. Everything in it's place. The weather is always pleasant and comfortable. Towards the walls, it can get very humid and warm. The walls themselves are hot to the touch - from the scorching sun outside, or the power humming within, you are unsure. There's much the citizens of The City are unsure about.They find they don't have it in them to mind too much.After the world as we know it was destroyed by chemical war and climate change, the mega-corporation Futureprises built The City from what was left. The leaders began to plug the City's citizens in - their moods, purchases, and lives became increasingly controlled. The Underground (existing from the world before) became a hidden haven for those who don't fit into the City's order.The weather is pleasant and comfortable inside the walls. The sky above appears blue, though it looks a little glitchy at times and you can see a green/grey smog above. The residents of the Underground refer to the happy citizens above as being 'plugged in'. All they know is that they are happy, they are safe, and that they may not leave.
Artist's Statement
For my final, I wanted to focus on what has interested me most since beginning this course - the art of building a world. My favourite game worlds are those with care put into their history and backstory. I love when you can clearly see there is more to a game world than first meets the eye.
The game world also links heavily into design choices down to their most basic core - Breath of the Wild focuses heavily on the overgrown, post-apocalyptic troupe, with heavy emphasis on wild greens and gentle blues, soft and intricate lighting, and distinct differences linking to location and tone. Hollow Knight’s design brings the ‘dark and eerie’ just close enough with gorgeous parallax backgrounds, a dark palette, insectile yet charming character designs, and dynamic light/shadow.
These choices only work so successfully because of the success of the world-building the designers began with. To create character stories, mechanics, narrative arcs, you first need a ‘home base’ - raw, workable material your game emerges from, whether it’s all used in the final product or not.
Blip’s design was hidden somewhere under files and folders of silly sketches and initial warm-up thumbnails that never went anywhere. The more I considered about this character, mostly how they could fit into a game world, the more the world of The Underground unfolded for me and presented new potential characters, cultures, issues and stories that I had to fit together like a puzzle.For BLIP, I wanted to get into the dystopian-city motif, complete with droids, neon, and systematic corporate corruption. I’ve previously stayed away from this theme for fear of it being overdone and cliched despite enjoying it. I do, however, have a soft spot for the idea of a ‘safe space’ in an otherwise overwhelming monotone world, and so came The Underground: a place where the closer our main character gets to the surface, the more the player feels they want to stay below.