Main Character

Top-Left: "Love Death & Robots" The Dump, Ugly Dave

Top-Right: Daniel Tao's concept sketch based on my description 

Bottom-Left: DALL-E 2, "insane skinny old man wearing VR headset, digital art" 

The Old Man (character design)

First of all, why old man? To be honest I didn't go through too intricate of a thinking process when I decided to make this character a insane, skinny/slender old man. I just thought a skinny man with long arms and legs would have this right amount of "ridiculous" factor when the player start swinging all kinds of strange and crazy weapons from the POV of this guy. 

Why VR headset? This part is mostly about the storytelling: it functions more like a special tactical lens for the "hunters" like this guy, but on top of providing an interface that shows the player status (health, aim cursor, etc), it also works like a filter that "rationalizes" the unspeakable horrors that the hunter is facing, rendering gross looking fish humanoid enemies into more acceptable "cartoon figures" for the sake of the hunter's sanity (yes that's why all the enemies will be low-poly models, but I'll try to make a "realistic" version of the scene in the future in case we will ever need a fight that our hunter has to take off the headset).

"What do you mean it doesn't look safe" ("cooking" system)

So previously we mentioned, our old man also dabbles in some traditional seafood cooking. How so? This actually ties to the combat mechanics and resource management. 

In the dystopian future where most of the land has been taken over by the deep creatures and their goons, either medication or health inspection ratings are overrated. You are what you eat, so for the sake of survival, it's justifiable if you feast on the FLESH OF YOUR ENEMIES on top of some seaweed and rice balls, you are going to get health (sometimes even buffs) from that. 

So far before I figure out better ways to register player's "precision hits" on specific parts of the enemy bodies, I would keep this mechanic closer to a "loop drop" system. That you slay enemies, stuff drop out of them, and with specific ways to execute your enemy, there are unique food types that can drop from them. 

Temperature & Moisture