Nonsensical Product: Spoof!

Opera Paper

"Hans Heiling" The Video Game

Harrison Covington

Art and Technology

Professor Thompson

September 20, 2014

            The World:

             In this video game based on the opera "Hans Heiling" by Heinrich Marschner, the setting will be a modern small town in middle of nowhere. This town is fairly isolated and only with a population numbering a few thousand. The people in this town are friendly and almost everyone knows each other. What makes this place important however, is its proximity to an ancient forest. This forest holds the only known portal that connects this world to the underworld. A realm of darkness known as Erdgeister, a place where magic and the occult run amok. This is a realm of great and powerful beings, however, one such being longs for something more.

            The Characters: 

            Anna: Having grown up in this small town her entire life Anna longs for something interesting to happen to her. Anna is athletic and very intelligent, she knows at least one form of martial arts and is more than capable of take care of herself. Anna wants an adventure to go on in which she can finally experience something more then what the dreary friendly little town has offered her entire life. One night Anna gets her wish, and runs into a stranger while out on the town. The stranger promises to show Anna something that has never been seen in our world before.  Anna is a little curious to find out who this person is, and if he is telling the truth.

            Gertrud: Gertrud is Anna's loving mother. Always there for her daughter, this mother raised Anna all alone after her husband died in a terrible hunting accident with Konrad's father. Worried that Anna might get hurt, Gertrud was a little over protective of her daughter. However, it has paid off and Anna grew up learning how to defend herself and is now a strong woman thanks to Gertrud.

            Konrad: Konrad is a skilled hunter and knows the surrounding area of the town like the back of his hand. He has been hunting with his father ever since he was old enough to hold a bow or a rifle. While an expert marksman, Konrad prefers to use a bow and arrow on his hunting trips because they give him a connection with nature that firearms take away.  Konrad has been Anna's long time friend and secretly is in love with her. They grew up in the same town and have known each other for their entire lives. However, Konrad can no longer hide his feelings for Anna and feels the time is now to let her know. What Konrad does not know is that Anna secretly has feelings for him as well.

            Hans Heiling: The prince of the underworld, Hans grew up in a realm of wonder and magic. Never wanting for anything, Hans has slowly come to the realization that the emptiness he feels cannot be filled with possessions or power. Hans only companions are the minions who have been bound against their will with a powerful spell, as a result Hans feels utterly alone. Looking for something to fill this void in his life he secretly ventures out one night into the darkest corners of Erdgeister for a means in which to escape into the fabled other world.

            Queen of the Erdgeister: Queen of the Erdgeister has ruled her dark land longer than anyone can remember. She seeks to keep the worlds separated from each other, because only she remembers the catastrophic consequences the last time our world and hers collided. The resulting dark ages cost both worlds greatly and it is not a price that the Queen wishes to pay again. She understands her sons desire for adventure and love despite Hans never telling her about his feelings, very little escapes the Queens attention in her realm.

            Story:

            Prologue: The opening cut scene for the game is of Hans Heiling stealing away into the darkness of the realm of Erdgeister. Hans Heiling expertly avoids detection and slips away into the forbidden areas in which lies the only known portal that leads to the one thing that has been denied to Hans his entire life: adventure. Upon finding the portal, Hans Heiling jumps through, and finds himself falling through a vortex of light, and lands in a densely wooded forest. Hans pushes forward and discovers a town and enters the nearest interesting building. Inside Hans Heiling bumps into the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and instantly falls in love. After a brief conversation Hans departs to return to Erdgeister in order to bring back something to win over the girls heart. Once in Erdgeister, Hans makes the mistake of telling his mother of his intentions toward this otherworldly girl. The Queen is furious, and forbids Hans from pursuing her any further. However, Hans is madly in love and refuses to listen. The Queen is left with no other alternative but to try to stop Hans Heiling from returning to Earth.

            Game mechanics: This is the first boss battle, meant to capture the players attention as well as act a tutorial of basic controls. It is set in the throne room of the Queens palace in Erdgeister. The player will be playing as Hans Heiling fighting against the ethereal Queen of the Erdgeister. Both Hans and the Queen are extremely "over powered" because they both draw their power directly from the realm of Erdgeister, so essentially both are immortal. The Queen is capable of teleporting anywhere in the room at will, and can take on a ghost like form and rain down bolts of dark energy. She is also capable of summoning her personal guards who rip holes in the fabric of reality and crawl through them and attack at close range with their knurled hands that appear to be more like talons. Hans Heiling cannot change forms or teleport like his mother, however, he can also summon his personal thralls to fight for him in addition to shielding himself from his mothers onslaught. He can also fire dark bolts of his own. The fight will continue on for several stages, each increasing in difficulty as the Queens health decreases. The player must hold out against the Queen long enough for his thralls to return with his spell book so he can make his escape. Hans then retreats back to the portal confident that he will not be followed because of his mothers fear of interfering in the other world.

            Act I: Upon returning to Earth with his spell book, Hans Heiling quickly discovers that magic in this other realm acts very differently than it does in Erdgeister. A deer is nearby, and makes for a perfect target for Hans to test out his magic on. Hans casts a spell to turn this creature into a thrall, however, the resulting monstrosity is much to feral to control . Hans decides it is unwise to explore magic further and quickly goes out in search of his love Anna. Meanwhile the freshly created bear is left to go about as it pleases.  Several hours pass, and Konrad is out hunting the deadly bear who has recently devoured an unwary out of town hiker.

            Game mechanics: (This is so the player does not have to witness the lovey-dovey stuff that is currently going on between Anna and Hans Heiling, and Anna convincing Hans to destroy his spell book. It also serves the purpose of getting the player used to playing the game as a beginning level character after having played as the much more powerful Hans Heiling. Also it prepares the character for a different set of more realistic mechanics on how a character would be in our realm as compared to the underworld.) After following the bloody trail the bear has left behind, Konrad finds the bear but only has only his bow and arrow to take down such a fearsome creature. The bear is deadly at close range, so the player will have to use the environment to his advantage in order to put enough arrows into the bear to take it down.

            After defeating the man-eating bear, Konrad has to return to town and figure out how he is going to inform Anna of his feelings. Konrad knows Anna will be at a formal party that evening so he gets ready and then heads over there. When he arrives, Konrad finds Anna with a stranger in strange clothing, but asks Anna to dance regardless. The stranger is annoyed and objects to this, which confuses Konrad, however, Anna accepts her Konrad's request. Hans Heiling stirs in the background, feeling something he had never experienced before; jealousy.

            Act II: The character is now in control of Anna, who after having such a mind numbingly unusual night takes a shortcut home through the outer edge of the forest. Thinking back on the extremely unusual night she has just had, Anna finds that she has gotten lost in the woods. Anna had never gotten lost before, and it was almost as if the forest had guided her towards its center. By the time Anna realized she should have been home an hour ago she had gone very deep into the forest. Observing her surroundings, Anna gets the feeling she is not alone and calls for whoever is there to reveal themselves. Immediately, the ghostly image of the Queen of Erdgeister rises from the ground in front of Anna and speaks in a chilling voice. The Queen urges Anna to convince Hans Heiling to return to the underworld and that it would never work between the two of them. The Queen has not spoken to a mortal in many years, as a result she has forgotten what a shock such sudden and ghostly appearances can have on people. Anna faints, and the Queens nerve for being in our realm fades, and she returns to Erdgeister with the hope that Anna heeds her warning.

            The players control is now switched to Konrad who decides to go to Anna's house to tell her how he feels after not working up the courage at the party. Once there however, he discovers from a worried Gertrud that Anna never returned home from the party. Worried for her safety and knowing that Anna always took a shortcut through the woods and that there could be a second bear in the area, Konrad rushes into the woods to find Anna.

             Game mechanics: In his search for Anna, Konrad has to scour the woods and fend off the various inhabitants of the area with only a knife that he has on him at all times. This teaches the character how to use melee mechanics as well as introduces new enemies such as wolves. The player can use stealth to avoid the wolves who are deadly in packs, or use the environment and survival skills to separate and pick off the wolves one by one to make the area safer for everyone, but also to make sure that Anna was not a recent victim. After dealing with the wolves by sneaking past or defeating them Konrad finds Anna and carries her home.

            Once Konrad takes Anna home he makes the creepy discovery of Hans Heiling waiting for Anna in her room. Anna begins to wake up and is now placed in an awkward position of having two guys in her room and no idea how she got there. Being in the arms of Konrad though gave Anna the clue that he had found her in the woods and carried her home, where he ran into Hans Heiling in her bedroom, who she had promised to marry. Instantly regretting this decision, Anna returns the gems that Hans had given her. She now wants to be with Konrad. Hans Heiling's heart is broken, and he is consumed with uncontrollable rage. So used to getting what he wants, he does not know how to deal with someone saying no to him. Also having no power, Hans feels completely vulnerable and lashes out at Konrad with a knife, stabbing him. As Hans Heiling then runs from the house into the woods he laughs, knowing that at least if he could not have Anna, neither could Konrad.

            Game mechanics: Anna is now being controlled by the player, and must find a way to treat Konrad's wound before he loses to much blood. Fortunately, Konrad is lucid enough to instruct Anna on what to retrieve from the first aid. Gertrud is busy calling for an ambulance; all the while muttering about how this is what happens when you invite strangers into the house. Luckily, help arrives and the knife missed major organs and arteries. Konrad is strong and recovers quickly. Konrad and Anna agree to get married.

            Act III: Hans Heiling returns to the underworld, much to the delight of his mother. However, Hans Heiling's power over his thralls is gone, and he is now left completely at his mother's mercy. Using what little power he has left he opens up a window to Earth, a feat that was impossible unless he had been there before. Hans wanted to see how Anna was doing and if some part of her missed him. Much to Hans horror, he sees her with the very not dead Konrad. Enraged that he had failed to kill Konrad, Hans endeavors to find a way to gain his power back in order enact his righteous revenge on the man who stole away his fiancé.

            Game mechanics: In order to gain his power back Hans Heiling ventures to the vault of the Queen, where powerful dark artifacts are stored, one being a copy of his original spell book. The player must battle through waves of dark guards and shades using only the most rudimentary magic's at Hans fingertips. However, his time on Earth taught Hans Heiling a few tricks which allow for him to summon a dark saber to use. Once the final sentry is defeated and Hans has his spell book and his powers restored. Now he can focus his fury on Earth, and casts a terrible curse which summons the dead to rise from their eternal sleep and turn the living into the undead.

            While Hans Heiling is casting his curse, Anna and Konrad are at the altar in a chapel on the edge of the forest about to say "I do" when suddenly there is loud banging on the church doors. When someone gets up to see what the ruckus is all about and opens the doors he is swarmed by dozens of corpses. Outside in the graveyard next to the church is an image of horror, as the dead break through the ground and claw their way out of their resting places. The dead begin to swarm the church eating the people alive. Anna and Konrad are shocked at the sudden carnage, only Gertrud is quick to action. Pulling a massive hand cannon out of nowhere, Anna's mother begins picking off the undead with amazing skill, shouting at Anna and Konrad to go out the back. Konrad quickly picks Anna up, who cannot move very well in a wedding dress, and carries her into the woods.

            Game mechanics: Once in the forest, Konrad cuts Anna's wedding dress to a more manageable length so she can move on her own. After remembering the Queens earlier appearance, Konrad and Anna embark to the center of the forest to try to find her for help in stopping the undead onslaught and save the town. At this point the player can switch between playing as Konrad or Anna, who are traveling together through undead/wolves/bear infested forest. Konrad has a hidden stash of bows and arrows as well as a hunting knife. Anna is adept at using sharp objects from years of martial arts training and culinary classes, and Konrad is a deadly archer. Once Anna reaches the spot where she first met the Queen, which also happened to be the same spot of the portal, Anna and Konrad run into Hans Heiling. He is furious and is brandishing an unholy looking blade made of pure darkness. The boss battle that ensues is intense, with Anna fighting off her ex who is trying to impale her with an outer worldly blade with only a hunting knife, all the while Konrad is holding off the endless waves of undead that Hans Heiling is continuously summoning. Anna is much faster than Hans, and more skilled with a blade, Hans never received any real training and his power is limited because he is not in Erdgeister. After Anna and Konrad defeat a wave of undead they must focus all their damage onto Hans Heiling while he summons the next wave. That is the only time he is vulnerable. Anna and Konrad must defend against his assault while defeating the undead. If Konrad chose the sneaking option with the wolves earlier then they appear at this point and attack everyone. If the player is skilled enough they can use this to their advantage by using the environment to avoid the wolves. Once Hans Heiling is defeated the Queen appears to talk Hans down from continuing to fight. However, neither Hans Heiling or the Queen have the power to end the curse of the undead in our realm so the happy couple is then allowed to return to town and clear it out of all the undead before they wander into a larger populated area and infect the entire planet.

Roll credits.

After the credits, if the player did not skip them, then they are given control of Gertrud and allowed to go to town on the undead as an old lady with a massive pistol and really bad attitude, who has a lot of awesome punch lines to say as she blasts her way through the armies of the undead.

                             

Bibliography

Mendoncacorreia, "Hermann Prey - Hans Heiling - Heinrich Marschner." Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, 13 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2014

Musicanth, "Marschner - Overture: Hans Heiling." Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, 14 May 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2014

"Opera Today." : MARSCHNER: Hans Heiling. N.p., 1 Dec. 2006. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.

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