Idea Info Name: The Shaft Index: Primary Category: Fighting Submitted: 3/28/2004 4:02:59 PM Written By: Kristafon Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition Book Highly Recommended !

The Shaft

You are the 18 year old violence-obssed collage student Jack Birch. On a field trip you visit the Seek Whale center, an undeground labatory that was closed in 2007, ten years ago. All anyone knows about it is that it was kept secret for many decades until the purpose for building it was complete, studying time itself. However something goes terribly wrong (obviously) there is a malfunction and the lift that was carrying you into the open A-zone of the lab drops down into the heart of Seek Whale. When you stop your classmates and teachers are attacked by crazed mutant, things. They are killed and torn apart by the creatures until only you are left, however you are not going without a fight.
As the adventure progresses you delve deeper into Seek Whale as secrets about time, space and life are discoverd. Every where you go you are ambushed by the savage mutants, you live only to escape this living hell, and discover the truth.

The view is third person, so looking at youself from a 45 degree angle from the ground. You do not control the camera.
In the game you basically control two things, where you move and your weapon hand. One thumbstick sends you running in a direction depending on where you pressed it, the other moves your hand in a direction depending on where you pressed it. Where you look is not directly controled, you look where your running too or at the next enemy.
The weapon you use in the game is a KNIFE. There are no swords or guns.

To explain how the game works better I will list the controls on an XBOX controller and say what they do.

Left thumstick
Move, pressing up send you walking towards the top of the screen and so on.

Right tumbstick
This is where the diffrence comes in, this controls your hand movement in the game. Moving the thumbstick left to right will move your weapon hand in the game left to right, from one side of your body to the other. Moving it up and down in the game will move your hand up and down in the game, from you waist to your head.

Left Trigger
This toggels the way you are holding your knife, stab or slash. For stab you hold the knife in a stabing position, for slash you turn the knife around 180 degrees so the blade is pointing in the oposite direction.

Right trigger
Lunge, this moves your hand away from you forecfully. This is used for stabing enemys and long armed slashes.

ABXY
Special moves.
A- Jump
B- Backstab, if an enemy suddenly comes up behind you you hit this button to stab blindly behind you over your sholder.
X- Punch, you press this to hit an enemy with your fist, this can finish them off and stun enemys.
Y- Block, press this to use your kinfe to defencivley.

D-Pad
This is used to select the fighting style.
Up- normal one handed.
Left- Two handed paralel, you move both hands around together deeling double damage when attacking. This however can be innacurate and clumsy.
Right- Two handed opposite, one hand mirrors the movements of the other. So if you move one hand left with the thumbstick, the other will go right. This is usefull when you are being attacked by two enemys. However your attack force is weakend.
Down- Two handed tacticall, in one hand you hold the knife in a slash position, the other in a stab position. One hand is controled by the thumstick, the other by the right trigger. When a wound is made on an enemy the right trigger can be pressed for the other hand to lunge at the same place. So you could slash a mutant in the chest with the thumbstick and then stab them where the cut was made using the trigger.

In The Shaft there are a variety of weapons to be found and used. They are all based on a knife shape but still vary a lot.

Human Weapons
All around Seek Whale knives can be found that where abandoned when the lab was closed, they are the least useful but the most common.
Kitchen Knives
These can be found all over<