Carioca is a first person RPG which simulates a dangerous Brazilian
favela where players can choose the course of actions which suits their
self-imposed goals. The game tries to generate an emergent narrative by
embedding narrative cues in the environment as well as presenting a
tactile gameworld. Via their interaction with the game and its
characters, the players can change the meaning of life in the favela -
for better or worse.
These actions [beat, mug, kill, buy/sell drugs, have legitimate jobs or scavenge among garbage] can be categorized into legal actions (i.e. working in
legal places), violent actions (i.e. beatings, killings) or drug related
actions (i.e. drug trafficking). The player himself has the possibility
to perform any of these actions. These categories are used in order to
formulate a visual feedback schema for the game environment. If violent
events or drug related acts take place in the game then the environment
changes and portrays which category’s actions are performed. If the game
world is prosperous (earnings from legal spaces) and the
violence/drug-dealing events are at low levels then the environment
remains intact and nice looking.
An important element of the game is that NPCs rate their relationships
with every other character in the game - including the player. Having
good relationships with NPCs can unlock dialogue options and features
for the player, while having a bad relationship can result in them not
talking to the player at all. Players interact with NPCs through a
dialogue system, that has consequences on the player’s and NPC’s stats.
For example, the player can talk to a gangster and choose to threaten
him, steal money and beat him (repeatedly till death) - all through the
dialogue system. The dialogue data is retrieved from a SQLite database
depending on the bot type and player stats.
The game simulation is setup in such a way that the gameworld will start
spiralling into a violent state. It is left up to the player to choose
whether he wants to accelerate that process by taking part in the
violence and make money, or try to help the situation and save civilians
by donating money to the church. The game however, does not compel the
player to do either; he can decide to simply stand around and look at
the favela go up in flames (metaphorically speaking).
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