DISPLACEDGame Design Document

EpicGaming

Background:

Displaced™ is set in modern-day Japan, Hiroshima. Players take on the role of Jill Tanake who is an ordinary High School Student at Hiroshima High by day but at night, she becomes the mysterious “game goddess” of the popular game Displaced ™. Decked in a dark hood and overalls, she hits local arcades, and tops the scoreboard at every game machine she plays. No one is her equal in skill and mastery of the game and she has gathered a sort of small cult following. Her obsession for the game grows as she tries to outdo her last performance amidst the cries of her adoring fans.

When a replica of the teleport gun from the game Displaced ™ is announced to be released, Jill rushes to the scene. Little does she know that Mr. X, the creator of the game, is using this as a scheme to lure fanatics of the game to be trapped in his little virtual recreation of the game. He uses these “test subjects” to create stages for his game releases. When Jill unwittingly activates the gun by accidently touching it, she is sucked into a vortex and was send to a digital realisation of Displaced™ with real dangers that could actually kill her!

With Mr. X watching from behind the screen, can Jill summon all her skills she has to survive a real life version of her “favourite” game? Or will she finally succumb to the many ingenious traps and devices that the crazy Mr. X has set for her.

Objectives:

To solve puzzles with enough health intact to progress to the next level.

To survive the many obstacles which are present in the level

Key Features:

Teleport Gun

o Allows the player to move objects via teleportation from place to place to solve puzzles.

o Used to teleport dangerous projectiles and enemies away from the player.

Mind Boggling Puzzles

o Game play will have challenging puzzles which require thinking outside the box to solve. It may not be as simple as it looks.

Freedom of Play:

o Players can enjoy the freedom to complete the stage objectives in a variety of ways regardless of sequence. There's more than one way to complete a level. You will never have to play it the same way twice.

Physics based puzzles:

o Real world physics used to make puzzle more challenging and realistic.

Game Theme:

Action / Puzzle

o Player will have a chance to explore different environments and stages. Mission objectives may seem easy to achieve but others might turn out to be more intellectually-challenging.

Game Flow:

The player will have to solve puzzles in the form of a series of obstacles or blockades to get to the end point, a teleport machine that teleports the player to the next level. In the game, the player uses a teleport gun which can be used to teleport objects to complete the different puzzles of that level.

In some levels there are enemies that can hurt the player, reducing his health. The player can choose to either avoid or indirectly kill them. The player’s health will be determined by the health bar as it will be reduced if the player is injured by enemies or dangerous objects. The game is over when the player’s health is reduced to zero.

The health bar can be increased by picking up health packs or bonuses that are available on that stage. Armour packs are also introduced in later stages of the game to prevent the health from decreasing. The armour will be indicated by the armor bar.

The objective of each level is met with the player still having health remaining and reaching the teleport machine to the next level.

The health bar will be fully restored at the start of a new level. In later levels, new features of the teleport gun and new enemies with different abilities will be introduced.

In every level, the puzzles and obstacles also become harder and more challenging for the player to overcome as the player will have gained more experience in using her teleport gun to manipulate objects in the game.

When the player has completed all the levels, he has to finish a final boss level to complete the game.

Game Mechanics

Stages

The game is broken up into levels or stages. The aim for each level is for the player to get from the start point (Spawn) to the end point (a teleport machine). Each level has a different puzzle to solve, which come in the form of obstacles which the player has to overcome. Obstacles are physics-based and increases in difficulty as the player progresses through the levels. A simple physics engine is employed to simulate real-world physics.

Teleporting of Objects

The main theme of the game is the ability of teleporting objects. This is done through the use of a Teleport Gun. The player first selects the object that he wants to teleport by shooting at it once. He can still shoot another object if he wants to change his selection. He then shoots at the position he wants the object to teleport to, which teleports the object there and clears the selection for the next teleport event.

By combining this ability and the simulation of physics, the player can avoid enemies and overcome obstacles in more than one way.

Crates

Crates are the most important objects in this game. Crates are given physical properties like weight and friction and can be teleported. They are therefore used in many expects of the puzzle solving. Crates are used to trigger map events and to avoid several of the Enemies.

Platforms, Doors and Triggers

In levels that involve heights, platforms like lifts are used to elevate the player to reach that height. These are often triggered by buttons that must be constantly pressed to keep the lifts active. Another thing that is governed by buttons are doors which block the player by sealing another room off and can only be opened if the buttons are pressed down. To keep the buttons pressed down constantly, crates have to be placed on top of them by teleporting them there.

Survival

In all the levels and especially at the later ones, there will be many elements of danger that not only hinder the player but can actually end the player’s life. The player thus has to find a way to either avoid these dangers or to overcome them without getting hurt too much. A life bar will show the amount of damage the player has taken and will end the game if it reaches zero.

Dangerous elements include lava (which instantly kills if the player falls in); falling from great heights that cause damage and various blood-thirsty enemies that are out to kill the player.

Pick-ups

To help the player survive, there are a few items that can heal or increase the player’s armour. These include candy bars, health packs and armour kits. These items are usually found in places just after a highly dangerous element. This maintains the challenge as the player has to still survive the obstacle before he can get to the pick-ups. Pick-ups will also auto-regenerate after a short duration.

Artificial Intelligence

Enemies come in the form of robots and in three different types:

The Walker- This robot serves as a guard. It walks back and forth in a fixed path and will chase after the player if it’s within its line of sight. To avoid them, the player can either teleport a box in front of it to block its motion or he can use a box to hide behind and avoid the walker's line of sight.

The Tosser- This character remains at a stationary and elevated position and is usually found right in front of an area that the player has to walk through. His job is to fling explosive barrels at the player when he enters its line of sight. The barrels follow a trajectory and explode on contact with the player damaging the player. To avoid damage, the player can teleport the barrels away before they hit. The player can also teleport the barrels to a position just above the robot, which would instead fall on the robot and kill it with its own weapon.

The Turret- This state of the art device is very similar to the Tosser in that it will shoot at the player when it sees him and is usually placed in the player’s path. There is however, no way to kill this device and the only way to avoid it is by placing a box in is line of fire and hiding behind it.

The turret can also be teleported away. This is however made difficult by an energy shield that protects the turret from the teleporting bullet but lets its own bullets through. The player has to thus slowly proceed towards the turret by teleporting a box progressively in front of the player until the player gets behind the energy shield. The player is then able to teleport the turret away.

Another thing about the turret is that it does not discriminate against its targets in that it will shoot anything that it detects. It can then also be used to kill the other two robots by teleporting it at them provided the player does not get killed by it first.

I/O Control

Our game utilizes only the keyboard and mouse as media of input. The table which is to follow describes input keys and the action(s) to each key map. We detail separately the keyboard inputs and the mouse inputs, and explain the camera in a subsequent section.

Keyboard Input

Key Action

W Forward movement

A Left strafe

S Backward Movement

D Right strafe

Space bar Jump

EscGame Menu(Save, Load, New Game, Quit functions available)

Mouse Input

Key Action

Left ClickShoot

First Shot: Shoot a target object for selection Second Shot: Teleport target object to new location

Camera

Our game utilizes a strictly 3rd person camera with one available point-of-view: behind the player. Camera pan is controlled by mouse movement intuitively -

Upward movement pans the camera in the direction above the player Downward movement pans the camera in the direction below the player Rightwards/Leftwards movement pans the camera in each respective direction Strength of movement corresponds directly to the degree change of the pan

User Interface (UI)

The user interface is an important aspect of the game as it keeps the player updated of the player’s character's status. Too many things on the screen will however distract the player and make the

game less engaging.

To deal with this, we have created a “Head up Display “with only the most important information shown.

Health Bar/Armor bar

This two bars show the current health and armor of the character respectively on a scale of one to hundred. Any damage will be indicated here by reducing the amount of health left. The armor bar depletes to zero first before the health bar and it is only when the health bar reaches to zero that the game ends.

Selected Object

This area shows the current object selected for teleportation on the first shot of the gun. The picture changes accordingly to what is shot and hence selected.

Menu Area

This area shows the menu options of the game. These include the Options menu, the Save Game menu and the Load game menu. This screen only comes up when the player has pressed the Esc key and chosen one of the menus to be displayed. In the rest state, it is not visible.

Play Area

The diagram shows the current view of the player in a room with the player’s avatar and its surroundings. (3rd person perspective view)

Environment

The game has a 3D environment with a 3rd person perspective view. Most of the levels are indoors and the boundaries are usually the walls that confine the player inside the room. The game environment also consists of many objects that the player can interact with. Physics activated objects have weight and friction and can be pushed or jumped on by the player. Buttons move down when an object or player is on top of it and triggers other objects like doors and lifts.

Level

There are about 4 to 6 levels in the game. The level of the game will relatively get harder and harder with different ways of solving the puzzle. When the last level is completed, Jill will be able to get out of her digitalized form and handle the menace that is Mr. X.

Level Description

Level 1 Believing the Unreal

Jill cannot believe her eyes when she has a whole different view of her favourite game. She is so used to seeing it from behind the screens and now that she faces a whole new world right in front of her eyes filled with danger that can really do harm to her.

Objective: A button in the centre of the level has to be pressed down to open up doors leading to the teleport machine. This is done by teleporting the box onto it.

Level 2 Going Up!

Getting the gist of using the portal gun, Jill discovers that it is not much different that it is from playing behind the screens. Nothing less from the best of Displaced ™. However in this new stage, a new ability is required and it all comes down to perfect timing and playing the “buttons” right. Not to mention that the floor is filled with burning magma.

Objective: There are four lifts that move up to increasing heights. Each lift is triggered by one button with each of the buttons placed at a height higher then the last one and at the

same level as the end point of each lift.

Four crates are placed on each lift to trigger one of each button. The end point of the level is on a ledge of which the player has to reach through the use of the lifts.

This is done by activating each lift one at a time and riding them to the next level until he reaches the ledge.

Level 3 Pesky Robots

After a tiring test of agility, our heroine steps into a path of new danger. As the first 2 levels are just to prepare Jill up for the epic level that is the real taste of Displaced ™. This time our heroine faces enemies and sentry guns that block her path to freedom and into the real world. The key lies beneath the heavy Statue of Great Status, the key that opens the final teleport machine to the real world.

Objective: This level introduces the robots. The level is separated into segments by flowing lava.

The first obstacle is a small lava pit which the player has to get across. He can do this by teleporting crates into the lava and using them as platforms to get across. This task his however made difficult by a Tosser which is placed at the end of the pit. The player has to get rid of it first to proceed.

The next obstacle is a turret gun that the player had to overcome.

The last obstacle is a walker that the player has to either avoid or kill using the turret that he can teleport.

After this, the player has to activate a set of large doors by activating to buttons. He does this by using 1 box for one button and the sentry gun for the next.

Level 4 Rain of Terror

Obtaining the key that leads to our heroin’s freedom has set her morale high and ready to take on any challenges that comes her way and nothing will hinder her from her road to freedom. However the road ahead will only become much tougher to tackle. What lies ahead is simple narrow path to the next level however in this path a rain of terror showers it and just for fun, Mr. X has begin filling the room with hot magma raising the level of magma in the room within minutes. Will our heroin be able to outwit this challenge?

Objective: This level tests the skills that the player has obtained from the teleport gun to use it wisely against enemy robots.

This particular level only has the Tosser robot which showers a narrow path that is

broken into 5 different platforms at different elevation.

The player will have to use the teleport gun to teleport the exploding barrels coming towards him/her away from the player or towards the Tosser to end the constant bombardment of the exploding barrels.

The player will also have to be accurate as the level of lava in the room will exponentially increase with time.

After reaching the final platform, the player will proceed to the next level.

Level 5 Boulder Dash!

Having braved the blistering lava-storms, our heroine once again finds herself in another predicament. Furious and thawed multiple times, Mr. X decides to end our beauty’s lucky streak right here right now. Trapped in a narrow corridor of doom, a large boulder comes thundering down behind our heroine. Nowhere else to go but forward, she braces herself as she runs for her very life!

Objective:

The player is trapped along a single long path with a giant boulder rolling down behind. The player must then continue running forward towards the goal.

In the way will be crevasses where a miss timed jump would lead to a swift death in a pool of lava. The path will also be blocked by various objects such as crates or rocks, players have to be able to use the teleport gun to run and remove these objects from their path.

As the player progresses down the path, the walls get narrower until the point where the boulder cannot roll through anymore. Only then is the player considered safe if they can make the jump past a long gap using the help of some available crates.

Level 6 The Final Displacement

Our heroin triumphs once again. This time to the final lair of world of Displaced. Having survived numerous puzzles, avoiding detection, destroying evil robot nemesis and testing her agility at its peak, Jill is just one step away from being whole again as human and not digitalized.

She holds in her hand a the master key that will allow her to unlock the final teleport machine and get her revenge on Mr. X. Our heroin stumbles upon a quiet dark room with air very still. She takes her step precautious to ensure that she does not activate any traps or such.

Suddenly the still air turned warm and the whole room illuminated from beneath, as

magma start to fill the room. Our heroin soon discovers that this room will require summoning all of her skills that she has used before to end this nightmare. As she can see in her line of sight the final nemesis that guards the exit to her freedom, Shadow at the very top of the room.

Objective: This final level will test the all the available attributes our player has. The room has a very high ceiling where the highest platform lays our final boss which the player has to defeat before being able to end the game.

Before reaching the final boss there will be a series of lifts, similar to those in level 2 but arranged and to be solved in a different way.

Halfway reaching the top of the room, the player has to go from one corner to the other corner of the room only to be separated by 7 different platforms that allows her to cross over. This scenario will depict of that similar to level 4.

While our player is attempting to reach the very top of the room to encounter the final boss, the room will be filled with turrets and walkers guarding the pathway of our player to reach the highest platform.

Upon reaching the final boss, Shadow will toss exploding crates at random at a much faster rate then the normal Tosser robots and also posses the strength that the walker has. The fiery eyes of Shadow also allow it to fire laser like the turrets. To defeat this boss, our player will have to use the surroundings of the room to let the boss has a taste of its own medicine.

Bonus level Homewards Bound ?

Having just conquered her most dangerous obstacles yet, Jill finds herself in an empty room with nothing but a downwards bound platform and a harrowing death drop awaiting her. The door she entered from now firmly shut, Jill has no choice but to get on the platform and face whatever awaits her at the bottom. But before she can get to her destination, she finds herself facing another puzzle! The platform on which she stands is no ordinary lift, but a weight sensitive one. There are many stops on the way down, each with its own obstacles to overcome, objects to balance the lift weight, and buttons to activate for her to finally reach the correct level with the door to the next level.

Objective: This level is a large cylindrical room with several rungs carved out along the wall. On each rung there could be a button, an obstacle, an object or any combination of the three. The rung the lift stops on is dependant on the weight on the lift, which is contributed by Jill herself and the various objects available throughout the level.

The goal rung will be the second to bottom-most rung, and it will contain a Tosser guard

and a door which is only triggered if all the buttons scattered throughout the level are triggered.

The other rungs will contain walkers and sentry guns and various boxes to add to the weight of the lift, or to otherwise impede the obstacle and trigger buttons.

This is a bonus level that is only activated at level 4 if the player managed to collect a secret puzzle piece to activate the teleport machine to this room. At the very end our player will be able to obtain a faster firing teleport gun to aid in her journey.

Character

The character descriptions are listed as below:

Name of Character Character Description

Jill Tanake The main Character of the game. A high school girl who is not very popular with her peers but very good at gaming especially with Displaced ™.

Her knowledge and skills in the game are major strengths/ ability to solve the puzzles of the game at every level.

Equipped with the multi purpose Teleport gun this character is able to open portals within the same room to transport objects that may help her in solving puzzles as well as teleport away damaging objects such as barrels or enemies.

Mr. X The main antagonist of this game. He is suppose to be the game developer of Displaced ™ but he uses evil methods to test his games on real humans so that the game can relate to real live as much as possible.

He controls the outcomes of each level in the game i.e. creating the puzzles and obstacles for our heroin Jill to see the limits of a real human in his mind boggling game.

Enemy Characters (AI Controlled)

Name of Character Character Description

The Tosser The Tosser was originally players that suffered the same fate as Jill; however they were too weak to finish the game or was outwitted by the puzzles that Mr. X created.

In order for them to live on, Mr. X gave them a lifeline by destroying future players or creating obstacles for players. Therefore they were assigned to hurl explosive barrels or deadly objects to players coming towards them in a robotic body that ensures them to be working.

Their fate will be sealed until a player is able to free them from their stationary prison and hard labour; they are doomed to be the Tosser.

Walker One of Mr. X’s most disciplined henchmen that patrol the paths to deny freedom for the players of Displaced ™.

They have a strong sight ahead of their path and ensure that no player gets past them and eliminate the player if within sight.

The walker is strong and sturdy robot that is programmed to walk a specific path in each room.

The Turret This high tech device was designed and structured by Mr. X. the evil genius. Using the latest laser technology, the turret is accurate and deadly when in range.

The turret is programmed to target any moving object that resembles the player moving in each level.

Shadow Mr. X’s personally trained hero to ensure that no one leaves Displacement alive. He posses the skills of all the other robots but at higher skill of executing them.

Shadow used to be Jill’s nemesis in the gaming world of Displacement in real life. He too suffered the same fate as Jill did but managed to defeat the game from within the screen.

However after being offered to be the greatest of all in the world of Displacement, Shadow chooses to be a disciple of Mr. X and stay forever in

the virtual world to be the world’s greatest player of Displacement.

Visual Effects:

Visual effects play an important role in video games in setting the mood and creating a suitable environment in which the user sees in game. Visual effects are largely done through the use of appropriate textures and models as well as lightings in the game.

Lighting:

Lighting sources are added to a room/stage so as to provide the player with visibility of the area at which they are looking at. Firstly rooms are all lit up with 2 sources of ambient lightings; this is to give the entire room a proper light source.

Next point source lightings with specific directions are used to either create effects or highlight certain objects which the game wants the player to notice. For example, there exists a button which the player has to depress to open the doors to the lift; there will be a point source light above the button to denote its location. When the player activates the button, another light will be turned on to show the location of the lift door.

As can be seen from the above diagram, Source 1 provides the lighting for the button and Source 2 provides a timed lighting for the lift door. Once the button is detected by the game as depressed, Source 2 turns on and illuminates the lift door.

Below are a few more instances of using lighting to create a proper environment and ambience.

A warehouse setting with ceiling lights.

Using external lighting sources through a transparent window to provide lighting in a room.

Shadows:

Using lighting sources in the game make it necessary for shadows to be cast in-game. The use of shadows for characters and objects add a lot of variety to the environment as well as visual eye candy and realism. But at the same time takes a very hard toll on the computers graphics card.

Shadows also provide another dimension to the game-play such that players are able to “hide” in the shadows to avoid detection by enemies much like in real-life scenarios.

Textures:

Textures are a very important graphic part of every game. It gives the game environment the desired look and feel which the designer wants to present to the player.

In game, textures will be applied to all in-game objects and surfaces including player models. Examples would be walls would have “brick-like” textures; crates will have “wooden-surfaces”. Below are examples of object that have had textures applied to them.

Camera:

In game cameras define the view of the world which a player gets. In this particular game, the third-person camera view is used to provide the player with a view of the character and the game environment. The camera will move according to how the player moves, always remaining behind the player at all times.

The camera can be zoomed in and zoomed out for the player to get a better view of his/her surroundings and also be able to visually detect collision with in-game objects.

The camera will tilt depending on how the player changes the view using the mouse to tilt the visible axis. The camera will also pan left and right depending on how the player controls the view using the mouse. If the player causes the player to face another direction, the camera will also pan left and right according to where the in-game character model is facing.

This is the default camera mode, resetting the camera will revert it back to the original position, behind the player in an isometric-3rd person back view.

Audio Effects:

Sound effects play an important role in every game; it helps create the correct atmosphere which the player experiences when he or she plays the game. It also helps create realism and immerse the player in the world fully. Using the correct sound effects at the right time also help to add to the element in game; for example when a monster suddenly jumps out, lowering the music before helps add to the element of surprise.

Music/Sounds:

Ambient Sounds:

Ambient sounds are used to help create a more realistic environment in which things like lights swinging or cans rolling can be heard by the player. This gives the player an extra feel to what he/she is seeing in the current game scene. For example when the player has just entered a room, the door opening is accompanied by creaking. If the player drops something on the floor it is accompanied by the sound of the item hitting the floor.

Character Sounds/Voices:

Character sounds are produced whenever the player character performs an action or interacts with the environment around him. For example when the player is hit by an enemy, the character produces an “Oww…” or “Urgh” sound. Or when the player runs from point to point, it will produce panting sound, much like in real life. Normal walking will also produce walking sound, while walking over different kinds of surfaces such as water or sand will produce different sounds.

Other in-game characters also produce sounds such as enemies or Non-Player Characters (NPC’s). Enemies might make sounds when they have spotted the player while NPC’s will have voices when they are injured by the player or when the player interacts with them.

In-Game Music:

What usually defines a good game is the music which is played during normal game-play. It can help the player really “feel” the game as well as react/interact more with the surroundings and environment. Music used in the game will be one of more suspense and mystery, in accordance to the theme of the game.

Interface/Interaction Sounds:

Sounds are also produced when the user clicks on something in the menu or interacts with something in the characters backpack/inventory. When the user clicks the save button a sound is also produced. When the user presses the escape key to bring up the in-game menu it also produces a sound.

System Requirements

Minimum: 512 MB RAM, 3D video card (32 MB), sound card. Recommended: 1 GB RAM, 128 MB video card, Shader 2.0 support.Windows ME / 2000 / XP / Vista and DirectX 9.0c or above.

Game Mode

Single Player Mode The first mode is the Single Player mode. This is the game's normal story-based mode with cut scenes and normal game play.

Time Trial Mode

This mode allows players to replay levels that they have completed and to try and beat the clock. The fastest timings will be displayed on the high score screen. There are no narrative elements in this mode. Players are encouraged to think of the fastest way of solving the levels.