CHARACTER - ASHLEIGH SKELTON

Character asset designed and modelled by Tzehai Shapard
Narrative Design made in collaboration with Daymon Mancini, Tzehai Shepard and Michael O’Driscoll

NARRATIVE & THEMES FEATURES and DESIGN
DESIGN INTENT
The player character and every aspect of its design have been designed to support, deliver and reinforce the project identity of INFILTRATION and the game narrative.

IDENTITY
Ashleigh Skelton, the player character, is agile and of quick reflexes. She is precise, nimble, slim and slick.
She is highly adaptable, resourceful, professional and with a perk for high-end technological equipment, always prepared for any circumstances. She loves technology, high-tech equipment and efficiency.
Ashleigh quickly adapts to the situation to reach her objective and acts and manouvers around obstacles to overcome them, but doesn't fear face to face confrontations if the circumstance corners her into doing so.
The dialogue within the game is also designed to represent her professionalism and her personality, very much like the people she works for, by her cold, short and direct demeanour during conversations.

VISUAL STYLE
Ashleigh's visual style has been designed to both represent her identity as individual character and also as character within the narrative, and to support, deliver and reinforce the project identity of INFILTRATION.
She is slick and slim, with a minimalistic touch to her appearances and equipment.
A factor that helps pointing this out is that once the player will gather and carry around all the available weapons of the game, they will all be displayed on her making her look almost overburdened and awkward.
The color of her suit is black and almost void of any highlighted detail to aid the stealthy style of her character.
Her visual style contrasts heavily with the looks and feel of the environment and with the threat she is going to face. This factor highlights how her presence within the base is extraneous and foreign and how her every actions and intent within the facility are an act of intrusion and infiltration.

GAMEPLAY FEATURES and DESIGN
DESIGN INTENT
The abilities of the player character, how they are handled and how they are presented to the player have been designed to support the game identity, production filter goals and the player character identity.

The player will start with all the abilities readily available to be used to support the readiness and high-tech style of the player character.

No ability can damage or influence directly the enemy.
All abilities provide tools that reinforce the game identity and the player character identity.
They are tools meant to avoid, divert and slide through obstacles and provide aid in putting the player in positions of advantage over obstacles in relation to the game objectives and spacial advancement.

All abilities have been connected to the Energy system to make sure that the player always has the resources necessary to make use of the abilities, to never put the player starving for the resource, while at the same time limiting their use in large amounts and in rapid succession.
This has been done so to attempt to stimulate intentionality in the player, prevent the player from overpowering obstacles and defeating the game challenge, achieve a specific calibration of the pacing and rhythm of flow, promote an aware and calculative gameplay and direct the player to make more focused choices to help differentiation of gameplay, playstyle and gameplay experiences.

ABILITIES & CORE MECHANICS
MOVEMENT: Ashleigh can walk, run, sneak, crouch and roll.

INVISIBILITY: Ashleigh can become invisible to all enemies. For as long as Ashleigh is invisible, enemies will not attack her.

SONAR: Ashleigh can scan the proximity of the environment around her to highlight any enemy within range. Once an enemy has been scanned it can be seen through walls for a short period of time.

SHIELD: Ashleigh can create a shield around herself that will absorb a set amount of damage before de-activating. The shield is activated on a timer which will de-activate it once the timer is over.

HOLOGRAM: Ashleigh can create a hologram of herself which cannot take damage and cannot inflict damage, and that lasts for a set amount of time. All enemies within range will prioritize attacking the hologram over the player for as long as the hologram remains active.

TORCH: Ashleigh is equipped with a torch.

ORIGINAL CONCEPT ART by Tzehai Shepard

CONCEPT MOODBOARD

Images used in the moodboard have been borrowed from the internet.