XB3002 - Bitizens for Unify GDD Villagers

XB3002 - Unify GDD Draft 2

Unify

Game Intro

Unify is a side-scrolling platformer. The player assumes the role of Charlie, a child whose parents have recently divorced. Designed as a commentary on uniting North and South Korea the player must do what they can to re-unite the mother and father. Charlie begins by talking to the people in the town, the villagers seem distant, unconcerned, perhaps brainwashed, many are distracted believing their problems are greater than Charlie’s. The player has to pander to each by completing a quest or request, rewarding Charlie with a memento from their parents’ past.

Character Bios

Charlie (Player Character): An androgynous character and should never be directly referred to as either male or female. Similarly the visualisation of the character will be ambiguous on this subject also.

            Charlie is a selfless character devoted to equality and greater good as many children are, but may come across as naive as a result of living in the sheltered village society.

Mom and Dad: Charlie’s parents who have gotten a divorce. These two characters – although featured heavily in the narrative – do not appear in game very often. They are featured during the premise of the game, but for the majority of the playthrough will be elusive, either away, missing, sleeping or locked in their house.

            The Villagers always talk about the parents as if they have only just become unavailable (before Charlie came home they were available), and will relay messages from them, adding to the layer of suspicion gathering in the player’s conscience.

Villagers: The villagers make up the majority of the game’s population and although each character is unique many hold similar traits – they are conceited and selfish. Many even deny that Charlie’s parents were ever together. Whilst some of the villagers do empathise with Charlie none offer to help without Charlie fixing their problems for them first.

            The majority of characters are not to be portrayed as assholes, but instead hold the same naivety the whole village seems to drip with.

Wise Old Man: This is the only character in the game that seems to be on the same wavelength as the player, who talks sense and empathises with Charlie. The character is initially introduced as creepy, mysterious and avoidable, but the player will gradually realise they have been misled.

            The Wise Old Man is also the only character who can be found outside of the village, the player will bump into him sporadically throughout the game. The Wise Old Man is used as an exposition tool to further players’ curiosity

Plot Overview

4-6 paragraphs. With as little backstory as possible, describe the game from start to finish. Include a rough breakdown of what is cutscene, what is gameplay, etc. With each part of the plot, it should be obvious how it will be presented in the game itself.

(Unknown premise of the game) Charlie is a North Korean child growing up in a village of rural North Korea. Charlie’s parents get a divorce (symbolising the division of North and South Korea), the villagers are brainwashed and naïve, many denying the divorce ever happened, some claiming reasons totally fictional.

Charlie’s parents divorce. Leaving Charlie upset, confused, and lonely. Charlie realises it’s up to them to make things right

Parents’ divorce -> Charlie decides to take matters into their own hands and re-unite the family -> Charlie talks to townsfolk for advice and help -> but no-one is 100% happy with the idea, want minor problems solved first, naïve about the whole concept -> Charlie must complete quests for each of the townsfolk -> Charlie collects parent’s love letters ->

The Narrative of the game is designed to culminate to an end-point where a slight twist is introduced revealing the metaphor behind the game. This point is reached by collecting the parents’ Love Letters.

Gameplay Description

1-2 paragraphs describing each distinct mode of gameplay, starting with core gameplay. For instance, Half Life 2 would first describe general running around and shooting, then twists on the core gameplay (such as the gravity gun), then vehicle sequences.

Inspired by the efforts of Okhwan Yoon, Charlie must travel the world to re-unite their parents. Gameplay starts in the Village which serves as a central hub, from here Charlie can access each of the 6 areas. Most quests will originate from the Village and Charlie will have to return to the Village each time they need to travel to a new area or turn in an objective.  Charlie’s core functionality includes moving left and right, jumping, and interacting with switches, people, items, and doors etc. – The staple ingredients of any platformer. Movement will be aided at times throughout the game with the inclusion of moving platforms, ladders, springboards, ropes etc. By collecting and equipping mementos Charlie can access new abilities allowing them to reach new areas.

The Mementos add an extra dimension to the game each granting the player a different new ability, these are used to reach new areas, traverse puzzles quicker/easier and ultimately to reach the Love Letters. Each Memento fits to a socket on Charlie’s structure, gloves going to hands, hats going to the head. More than one of these can be equipped at any one time, however each socket can only hold one item at once for example Charlie cannot wear two hats at once.

Players are recommended to use a gamepad especially for the harder platforming/movement based elements.

Artistic style outline

2-3 paragraphs describing the artistic style and feel. Cover actual in-game art, UI and menus and sound. Mocked up screenshots are preferred, if not, reference art.

Unify is presented in a pixel art format. The game has no HUD and dialogue is presented as pixelated speech bubbles, Unify has a 1-hit health system but players respawn at checkpoints which are evenly spaced throughout the levels.

The Korean Villagers and the Village environment are lower in pixels, showing them as simple minded, as the levels progress more and more detail is added.

Systematic breakdown of components

A rough outline of what systems will be required (for example, ones that will show up on most lists: 2D and/or 3D renderer, state machine, save/load system, UI system, collision system, particle system, etc). Include special features that, while they may not have their own system, will still need to be accounted for when creating systems (ie. day/night cycles, sound affecting gameplay, etc). If you will be using an API/SDK for a system, note it down - you'll still have to do some work learning/integrating the foreign system.

Unify is a 2D pixel based game built in a 2D renderer.

Unify saves the game at each “level complete” screen or when Charlie goes to bed in the Village. The game always loads to Charlie’s room, but all sections of the game are easily accessible from this point.

Unify has no HUD, dialogue is presented on-screen using pixelated speech bubbles (advanced by player prompt). Charlie has no health but can die; the use of a 1-hit health system is accompanied by having checkpoints evenly spaced throughout levels, allowing the player to rest on their laurels.

By pausing the game the player can: resume, access the settings of the game, or quit. The player can also view their objectives, Mementos and Letters by bringing up the alternate menu. This provides the player with a quick refresher of what they have, what they can do and where they should go.

Sound design in Unify is used to create pleasant atmospheres with light and emotive background music. Sound effects are on the subtler side and help fill out the beautifully aesthetic locations.

Letters to a Loved One: The narrative of Unify is progressed by collecting the parents’ love letters which are scattered accross the world. The letters pull the player into the mysterious narrative keeping them ever, the letters aren’t specifically organised, however the flow of the game encourages them to be discovered in a rough order. These letters amount to an epiphany “wow moment” ending.

1. Mementos: By completing the quests set by the townsfolk Charlie can collect mementos from their parents past. These can be equipped in-game each granting a different bonus, and can be used alone or in combination. These are used to reach new/secret areas, granting access to more letters. Abilities include, inverting gravity, strengthening usual abilities, smashing through certain elements, lighting up dark places, revealing hidden ladders/platforms, parachutes and grappling hooks amongst others.

Asset breakdown

Similar to the System Breakdown, but for visual assets, text and sound.

Art Assets: List each major area of artwork (Player, Enemies, Worlds, UI/Menus, HUD, Effects), specifying roughly how detailed animations and states will be, and however much you know at this point about the pipeline/programs used.

Text Assets: Identify major areas (tutorial, tips, scripted dialogue/quests, dynamically presented dialogue, narration), and attempt to gauge the amount of effort required on each section.

Sound Assets: Similarly, the major areas (In-game sound, UI/HUD feedback sound, music, voice) should be detailed and described.

Characters

Worlds

The world of Unity encompasses 7 distinct areas:

The Village, The Arctic, The Jungle, The Grassland, The Desert, The Coast and The Mountains

Suggested Game Flow Diagram

The intent of this section is to lay out, step by step, what the player experiences from as soon as they turn on the game until the end. While this can be generic and use a lot of loops (ie. Start Game -> Cutscene -> Tutorial -> loop(Cutscene -> Level -> Results Screen) -> End), it's probably a good idea to attempt to envisage how your game might be able to break up the monotony that is evident in that design.

The great thing about this section is it gets you really thinking about what your game is and how it is presented, as opposed to the amalgam of disjointed ideas in your head. The deeper you get into this Game Flow Diagram, the more confident you will be about what your game is precisely made up of, and what the experience of playing it will be.

Suggested Project Timeline

Here's where we get to the part where hearts break and tempers are lost - laying out a rough schedule for the game's development that utilizes the breakdowns that were made earlier in the document. Schedule aggressively, but be realistic - you're probably not going to get all of your menus in and working in a day. You don't have to be specific about where and when - the most important information to end up with here is the number of man hours per team member required, and exactly who will be responsible for what.

Additional Ideas and Possibilities

This final section is a bit of an amalgam of everything that didn't fit in the sections before hand. It's an appendix of all of the things that you didn't think were necessarily core to the game, but you'd like to consider along the way. It's also for alternate possibilities - for instance, if you had two main characters in mind, put the better one in the main document, and then the alternate here. Finally, if you have any ideas that you're not sure about, but would like to prototype, then this is the place for that stuff as well.

XB3001 - Memorial Modelling