Character Development (Story Progression)

Through out the game Fred will encounter several events that can manipulate how he acts and appears, in each playthrough of the story Fred will look different depending how the player made thier way through the story, interacted with certain characters, traversed the Underground and various other things.
This is why I wanted Fred to have a simple initial design for his appearal, so that it has a wide possibility for variations and alterations.

There will be three main aspects that will responsible for altering Fred's appearance through the game, these can be avoided and chased after depending what the player wants to go after, even a mix of all three can be achieved.

SANITY

Fred's sanity (or lack of) will be visible after enough torment and stress of surviving through the Underground. Various changes like hair and beard growth, worn skin, tired eyes and lacking the will to keep himself clean start to become more blatant as his struggle with solitude continues.
The extreme levels of losing his sanity he starts writing and tearing words into his cloths and scratching verses into his equipment and weapons as well as painting them onto his body with his own and other being's blood.
Sanity levels are judged by how much Fred comes into contact with the Spirits and Ghosts that have been released into the underground by the Kirotyr Cultists. The now roam the caverns and temples so encountering them is by random chance, the player never knows where to find them or when they will find the player.
As Fred continues to become more stressed and deprived through low levels to his Sanity his speech becomes much more frenzied and harsh, meaning his dialogue will vary as well as the story.
The alterations to his speech will mean that his charisma and ability to enrol companion characters to join and assist him would be severely decreased, so this will be something that will want to make characters want to avoid losing thier Sanity too much.

There are benefits to submitting to your sanity as his despiration makes his strength increase, meaning he can traverse around the Underground faster through climbing, running and moving obstacles, Fred also becomes a much bigger threat in close quarters combat.
Aspects relating to Fred's Sanity will be affiliated with Red through out the game.

SALVAGE

As the game progresses the player will encounter soldiers donning SWAT armour and gear, they carry a variety of weapons and equipment that Fred can loot from them for his own needs.

Blackwater are a two-faced company shrouded and protected through corrupt government laws and loopholes allowing them to employ and fund a private military taskforce to attain their goals.
Fred Walker had once worked for them to fund a stable life for his daughter with special needs, but once he had learned of thier hidden agenda, he left them immidiatly (After stealing a whole database of information showing the company's areas of interest) even after Blackwater's efforts to stop him.
This explains Fred's capability with firearms and knowlege of surviving firefights through his training with Blackwater.
Through dealing with Blackwater agents Fred develops his firearm skills, meaning that his aim becomes steadier and his reloading speeds increase, the certain types of armour that he can steal allow him to carry more ammo and even more weapons aswell as protecting him from damage more.
But through carrying much more equipment his movement speeds and climbing ability decrease through his increased wieght, aswell as his possibilities for Stealth.
If Fred focuses enough on looting enough equipment he can be able to adorn a full set of Blackwater armour, disguising himself as a fellow Agent to set up a suprise attack or even avoid contact all together.

Aspects relating to Salvage will be affiliated with blue through out the game.

SURVIVAL

Along with Blackwater and the Spirits of the Underground another of Fred's concerns is a Cultist group going by the name of "Kirotyr", responsible for the release of the Spirits through the sacrifice of Fred's best friend and partner; Vincent at the start of the game in the prologue.

Donning salvaged metal that has been rigged into armour and protection, scratched in runes and chants to thier gods, higher ranking members are adorned with golden relics that have been found in thier years of inhabiting the Underground. Wearing bandages around them to hide thier scarred bodies from surviving in the harsh environment aswell as shielding thier faces from the dust of the caverns.

As Fred takes damage through the course of the game, he has to heal himself with med-kits and first aid skills, his bandages and medical equipment showing until wounds have healed, but if some injuries are too grave they will scar permanantly.

But through taking damage and encountering the Kirotyr Cultists it increases Fred's Survival statistics and through developing these aspects Fred becomes more adept at first aid, meaning his maximum health capacity is increased and he can recover himself more frequently, the only downside to this is that when in the process of healing from injuries the player's aim and strength is slightly decreased due to Fred's wounds.

Anything related to Survival aspects are affiliated with yellow/gold through out the game.

Character Development (Fred - Main Character)

First few concepts for Fred.

Fred's design had to take a radical step away from his original incarnation, he had been portrayed as a cartoon-like, round and over-wieght character who seemed to be heavily based on Indiana Jones.
For my incarnation of the character I want to take him into a more realistic and believable environment and design, meaning he would have accurate anatomy.

Fred Walker (A last name I had given the character through my development) was going to be aged in his late 40's to 50 years old, I wanted him to look aged and experienced which would make his deteriation and the reflection of occuring events place a bigger impact onto the player as you seem them take place on him.
He would generally have short hair that would eventually become longer and messier as the player spends time in the gameworld, as well as stubble developing into a beard depending on how long Fred is in the Underground.

Final concept for Fred.

I want Fred to have a "template" design so that through the game he can be built upon and customised as the game progressed, not only in improvements but unavoidable aspects like injuries and time related changes in his appearance such as hair growth, stubble, scars and wounds.
Along with a simplistic appearal design so that items such as parts of armour, weapons and gear that Fred salvages need to be seen on the character model, the only equipment that he will always carry is his backpack (Which he can mount weapons on) and a grappling hook attatched to his belt, this will be used to hold all of his equipment like his Journal (used for saving, stat logging, development and maps.) and camping survival gear.

Being experienced in his field of work and his history with Blackwater (An antagonist group that places a role in the story) the only thing that keeps him going is his daughter's critical condition, his income keeping her alive and medicated.
The objective that takes place in the game will solve his daughter's issues for good.

Gameplay Aspects for Reboot

For Fred I want to try and reinvision the game as a Third-Person Shooter/Adventure game, having the game consist of a variation of Firefights, Platforming and Stealth.The current market for Shooter is vast and whenever a new game comes out in the genre often has to have a unique aspect to make it stand out amongst the others.
It is usually the Shooter games that dominate the market, as the success of one in particular can sometimes cause other developers to want to draw inspiration from it to inherit the same popularity and success.
I had always been more favoured towards Third Person games rather than first due to the fact that you can see your own character, although in First Person games where you can achieve more immersion and a deeper sense of realism, it restricts the vision of who you are and your character.
Games like Brink (May 2011) which had a string focus on customisation and making your character seem unique, but a large majority of the game is spent playing in a first-person perspective, so all the effort of developing and choosing your character's look is wasted on being able to seem them for a few seconds in cutscenes.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution developed an interesting alternative in mixing First and Third person perspective, When the main character; Adam Jensen was moving around the game world normally and freely, the camera is situated into Adam's point of view. But when taking cover and sneaking around walls the camera moves out into a Third person perspective, allowing the player to look around corners and past cover to evaluate the area they are currently in.

In my rendition of Fred I want to keep the game in a Third person perspective, the camera will lock to just above the character's waist when in a firefight, allowing the player to line up shots alot more
easier. When a player is exploring wanting to traverse the evironment the view of the camera pans out to see the whole character, so they are able to see where they are and where they want to go.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (October 2009) shared a similar technique in switching the camera to serve for aiming for firefights and assist for exploring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brink_(video_game)
http://www.deusex.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_2

Original Game Research

"Fred" was a game released in 1984 and published by Investronica S.A which was a company located in Spain. Fred was rereleased by QuickSilva Ltd for the United Kingdom.

It ran on the ZX Spectrum 48k, in the early stages of gaming still so it was only 1 player.
Fred had a very simplistic play style, based on a 2D plane as the character could only move left and right, moving up and down by travelling on a series of ropes.
The Main character (Fred) was a cartoon-like, over weight looking character who wore a Fedora styled hat and sported a pistol in which he never uses. He looked very heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, who's first film was released 2 year before Fred.

Fred travels through a maze of cyan coloured blocks of stone or rock, looking like a tomb or cave, Judging by the loading screen of the game, the locale seems to be based in Egypt.
Fred also encounters Hedgehogs as his main basic obstacles that traverse the game world on the horizontal areas, unable to move up or down. The main threat and enemy to Fred are the spirits and ghosts that roam around the tombs, able to phase and drift through walls to trap Fred, damaging and reducing Fred's health if coming into contact, just like the Hedgehogs.

Being a game from the early years of gaming, there is little to no story present, Meaning there is a lot of freedom for development and changes.