THE STORY:
A computer lab technician working on a top secret weapon for the government was planning to steal the information and sell it to Ivana for a king’s ransom. While trying to leave with the stolen CD-Roms he stored the information on, the technician had a mishap with Queelocke, Freefall’s teleporting critter friend.

Unexpectedly, the technician was whisked away to an unknown location, and his CD’s were scattered randomly around the world.

Queelocke returned to La Jolla, Gen13’s current home, with a CD. Lynch was able to determine the contents, and realized the threat posed if these CD’s fell into the wrong hands. The Gen13 team must get them back.

Meanwhile, Ivana finds herself a little upset that her CD’s have not been handed over. She immediately initiates a search of her own, no holds barred.

With the help of Queelocke, the Gen13 team will scour the globe in attempt to retrieve the CD’s before Ivana. It is up to the player to succeed, gathering as many CD’s as possible. Ivana’s troops won’t give up easy, however, and are bound to snag a few CD’s themselves. It is inevitable that the Gen13 team will face Ivana in the end to re-capture the final CD’s.

THE GAMEPLAY:
The normal gameplay engine will be similar to that of Earthworm Jim where the player controls at least one of the five different Gen13 characters. There are also “team-up” levels where the AI controls additional players on the screen. In the case of a two-player game, both characters will be actively controlled.

In addition to side scrolling fighting/shooting, the engine will be designed to be flexible, allowing for a variety of scenarios such as: vertical shooter, static screen action, zoomed in cinematic sequences, zoomed out view of gameplay, and forced scrolling action.

Normal Gameplay Perspective

Zoomed Out Perspective

Extreme Close-Up Perspective

The boss combat engine will be a dynamic 3-D environment where the characters can cruise around in an arena. The closer the character is to the “boss,” the closer the camera will be. The camera will zoom out respectively when the characters are apart.

Large Boss Combat Perspective

CHARACTER DESIGN:
All your favorite Gen13 characters are in the game, each with their own special moves and animation.  WildStorm Productions sent EA visual character specifications in order to ensure that the characters are intricately and properly portrayed.

The Gen13 characters can't get by on their good looks and sparkling personalities alone.  Throughout the game will be various ways to help the player survive, in the form of traditional gameplay "power-ups."  Of course, Gen13 offers that extra twist: The Ultra Move.  The most potent powerup in the game is the "Ultra Move."  Each character has only one "Ultra Move" hidden somewhere in the levels of the game.  The "Ultra Move" is the ultimate manifestation of a character's Gen Active power.

BOSS DESIGN:
The design team asked Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell to create the bosses for each of the levels. They have also been commissioned to create the mother of all end bosses to climax the Gen13 game. The mother of all bosses will require true teamwork from all of the Gen13 characters in order to defeat. The game ending boss would be introduced in comic form in an upcoming Gen13 series. A possible marketing ploy would be to offer a secret code that is unlocked upon completion of the game that will allow the player to send away for a poster of the mighty end boss.

Early conceptual designs of the mother of all bosses.

LEVEL DESIGN:
Levels will provide diverse physics and game mechanics to give a variety of challenging gameplay experiences.  Levels on skates, on ice, driving vehicles, flying, swimming, or climbing will give the user several types of gameplay to master.  The different areas of Gen13 will be truly living and breathing environments.  Locations will be chosen not only for good gameplay and storyline, but for exciting and realistic visuals.  25 levels were designed conceptually, many of which were drawn out for the developer.  Some of the levels include the Grunge and Freefall traveling to Las Vegas in “Viva Las Vegas”, Fairchild discovering an underground complex under the city in "Down In It", Grunge saving Freefall from One-Eyed Jack in “No Tut In Common,” and Freefall loose in a shopping mall after hours in “Mall Maul.”

Original concept sketch drawing of "Viva Las Vegas."

BONUS:
Arcade classic bonus games will be hidden throughout the Gen13 game. The games will be spoofs of famous arcade games that are recognized by all. The goal of the bonus games is to score points to earn extra lives. Proposed games include:

• Fairchild in Space Invaders or Galaga (concept shown below)

• Grunge in Donkey Kong (concept shown below)

• Freefall in Asteroids

• Burnout in River Raid

• Rainmaker in Defender

MUSIC:
Possible licensees for music included: Thomas Dolby, Mark Mothersbaugh (the genius responsible for Crash Bandicoot), and most favorably, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
 

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