Originally drafted on Fri Jul 17 2020

The idea is to create a first person shooter called, “First Person Sorcerer” or “First Person eSper.” That way, the abbreviation FPS fits the title, as well as the genre; A clever name.

The idea is to create a magic casting FPS which uses speech-to-text as the way to cast spells. I got this idea from the book, “pulling profits out of a hat” which has nothing to do with video games.

Anyway, the idea is that spells are simply words arranged in a certain order. Just like, “open sesame” or “abracadabra” There’s nothing magical about the individual words or sounds. What creates the magic is how the words are ordered and uttered.

A player attempts to cast a spell by holding down the incantation button and speaking into their microphone. A speech-to-text engine interprets their words.

If a player’s incantation matches the correct order of a spell in the game, their spell is conjured and the spell’s action and animation are processed.

All speech uttered when holding the incantation button is heard by all other players in the immediate area.

The spells vary by game. No two matches will have the same spells or the same incantations. This keeps things interesting and keeps players from simply remembering last matches incantations or reading them from a wiki.

At the start of each round, no player is able to cast a spell, because no incantations are known. Incantations are found on the map in scrolls which are scattered randomly around the map.

Incantations can spread between players either by physically sharing the scroll, or verbally teaching the incantation. Care must be taken to not cast a dangerous spell when teaching it to teammates.

For example, if a fireball spell is, “euclid spectre adjacent fragment,” a teammate cannot say, “hey buddy, fireball spell is euclid spectre adjacent fragment” because that would instantly cast a fireball.

I suppose they could say the spell, as long as they are looking in a safe direction. The alternative is to pad the incantation with inert words such as the following.

euclid tock spectre tock adjacent tock fragment

I just randomly came up with, “tock” because it sounds like something a wizard might say. Military types might say, “A4 tac 5 tac 3” to verbosely convey, “A4-5-3” and “tock” is more like a clock.

euclid tick spectre tock adjacent tick fragment tock

Gettin’ fancy now

I’m sure the community could come up with more interesting and efficient ways to pad text and safely communicate spells to their teammates.

euclid spectre adjacent ABRACADABRA fragment

More ideas pop up all the time!

As you might expect, spell incantations will spread simply by eavesdropping. At the start of each match, spells would be nonexistent. As time goes on, they become rare. At the end of the match, everybody has a huge arsenal of spells.

Teams

	Team 1	Team 2
Team Names	Science	Magic
Also Known As	Espers	Wizards

Tech Stack

Unreal Engine. We could find a FPS template and modify the crap outta it.

Game name ideas

• First Person eSper
• First Person Speller
• First Person Sorcerer

Team

• Chris – match code and speech to text spell incantation code
• David – Spells & combat code
• Michael – Art & spells FX
• Mindsforge – Metaphysics and mysticism consultant

Spells

Science Metaphysics Blueprint

A metaphysics blueprint is the type of object which is found on the map. It would have a blue color and contain the ordered words which make up the incantation.

I could think of a whole bunch of nifty things about how spells are displayed. Maybe the spell name isn’t displayed unless a certain spell has been uttered which gives players the ability to see the spell’s name. (maybe it’s ciphered otherwise.) Eh, that might be too much of an annoyance.

Maybe the spell doesn’t have a name and you just have to try it out and see what it does. Or maybe it does have a name and the more complicated parts of the game occur elsewhere.

Science metaphics blueprints are

• Most effective when used by espers (they do crits)
• Have an emphasis on electricity, light, and gravity.

Magic Primordial Scroll

These are aged paper scrolls which roll up and are kept together with string. Maybe they have a wax stamp!

Magic Primordial Scrolls are

• Most effective when used by wizards (crits)
• Have an emphasis on earth, wind, fire, air (etc.)

Spell Types

• Attack (projectile)
• Defense (shield or buff)

Combos

Players can chain together two spell incantations for a combination effect. Depending on spell types, combos may do increased damage, nullify damage, or inflict damage on the caster.

Combat

Opposing players approach each other and utter incantations to cast spells. Players may wait to hear the spell being cast by their opponent before quickly uttering their own incantation to counter their opponent’s spell.

Nullifying combos can be used to feint an opposing player into casting an ineffective or self-destructive spell.

Respawns

Respawns are just a spell. In other words, nobody respawns if a remaining player does not cast a respawn spell.

Respawn spells are team specific. For example, a science team respawn spell will respawn science team members. A magic team respawn spell will respawn magic team members. This can cause all sorts of problems for a team who’s respawn spell falls into enemy hands, because teh enemy could then summon their opponents directly into a waiting trap. (fireball AOE, perhaps?)

Inversely, a respawn spell could be used as the ultimate combo, with players summoning a mass army in an instant, which emerges and each deploys epic spells.

No players can respawn if the respawn spell for that round is never discovered. Teams can deny their enemies respawns by finding the opposing team’s respawn blueprint or scroll before they do, and taking measures against the other team learning the spell.