GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT

Malicious OnslaughtThe Roguelike of Speed

Prepared By:Chay Kimberley

Last Updated:28/06/2019

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GAME ANALYSIS 3

MISSION STATEMENT 3

GENRE 3

PLATFORMS 3

TARGET AUDIENCE 3

STORYLINE & CHARACTERS 4

GAMEPLAY 5

OVERVIEW OF GAMEPLAY 5PLAYER EXPERIENCE 5GAMEPLAY GUIDELINES 5GAME OBJECTIVES & REWARDS 6GAMEPLAY MECHANICS 6LEVEL DESIGN 8

CONTROL SCHEME 11

GAME AESTHETICS 12

USER INTERFACE 13

AUDIO 14

REFERENCE 15

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Game AnalysisAn action platformer where you move around at a fast pace and kill evil with different types of guns. With movement inspirations from the likes of Mario games and more it will be a unique 2.5D side-scrolling shooter with roguelike elements.

Mission StatementMalicious Onslaught is set in an era after the malice of the world corrupted the lands and overrun civilizations in mass. Your objective is to traverse levels consisting of broken-down city buildings while eliminating any threat to your survivability. As a rebel free runner in the past you have mastered the arts of mobility and can perform front flips after jumping to gain further upwards momentum. Enter this action-packed platformer with procedurally generating worlds for you to conquer an endless amount of times and be prepared to discover new weapons to change your playstyle.

GenreRoguelike, Action, Platformer

PlatformsNote that in Prototype version of the game it will track cursor location (exclusive to PC) to shoot bullets. Until method is resolved for controller input to choose a direction for shooting that works it will be a PC game. This is further discussed under control schemes but in general it is in my best interests to look towards localising my game for as many platforms as possible. This ensures that the sales of the game will be maximised as there is a greater number of members it is available to. The only other causes for making this game exclusive is if certain deals are struck with console owners that will either cover the budgets for the game and provide insurance over the loss of sales or provide new opportunities to make profit or increase game quality and reception.

Target AudienceDark themes of malice will result in directing my game away from youth gamers, my target audience of around 16 and above should usually enjoy fast action and have their reason for playing games to escape into another world. They can easily immerse themselves into annihilating enemies by blasting them to pieces and having a great time achieving new things and finding loot.In the case that I wanted to broaden my target audience I would have to make it more suitable for a younger audience, considerations I may want to take would be adding an option to turn gore off and censor any cutscenes displaying dark themes. I also may want to consider adapting a graphical approach to make the game brighter in colour and more friendly to younger audiences, however this may impact the emotional effect I

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want my game to have on players where they feel empathy for the character. Something like Fortnite uses a concept about being the last survivor by killing anyone that threatens your victory however it is still suitable and played by young gamers because it reduces themes of violence and removes gore by replacing it with bright visual effects to make it more cartoony.

Storyline & CharactersIn terms of storyline, Malicious Onslaught follows the main character (to be named) on a quest to avenge his/her fallen race that fell to the “malice” of the world. Through an onslaught they destroy enemies out of rage and fear of the world, however, as the character progresses those very feelings that drive him/her are discovered to be the source of malice in the world when he/she begins to undergo mutations (which will be in the form of new abilities and loot). Upon reaching the final level you will face an illusionary malice acting as your alternate self as what you could have become where victory will grant the loss of your humanity. Special endings and bonuses for beating the game without upgrades as that would mean you have overcome the malice and retained your humanity.

Character Description Characteristics Misc. InfoToBeNamed

Nea from Dead By Day-light, a

theme for character

Free runner believing themselves to be the only one left in the world of malice, has quick wits about them with an agile ability in mobility.

Potential to be consumed by malice and evil, angered at the world they live in and a quick thinker.

Maybe some sort of developed past to have the player feel empathy.

Malice/Evil

Malice from Breath of the Wild example

Corruption of man, there to consume.

Knows nothing but destruction through rage and fear.

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Gameplay

Overview of Gameplay

You start playing with a small amount of power to overcome the malice, after clearing the tutorial, you as the player come to understand that you can run, jump, do flips (double jump) and launch a projectile towards the position of the mouse cursor.At the start of each “run” you will have a weak sling with some rocks to use to defeat enemies at a low value of effectiveness. The sling and rock will require you to hit an enemy multiple times before defeating it but when it dies there will be a chance that your character is given the opportunity to inherit some of the malice. This will come in the form of an organic mutation that may allow your body to repulse more effective projectiles than the rock or perhaps a mutation that makes your body more streamline for speed or stronger at jumping.Each level will have a themed environment starting from the interior of a large building, onto the rooftops, city landscape, countryside, old villages or old castles, caves, and more. Each scene will be procedurally generated to some degree taking from designed templates, but it means that each playthrough the player will have a different experience while also having certain spots feel slightly recognizable so that the level design does not feel soullessly random.

Player Experience

When playing this game, I want the player to feel in control of their character and enabled to move about how they want to, so I will include responsive control schemes where the player feels in charge.From research on game psychology in the past[1] I know that in order to make the game even more fun I will have to include reward systems to my game, this is seen in the randomness’s of inheriting malice because by killing enemies, which is what I want the player to do, the player is sometimes rewarded with a random power-up to spice up their gameplay.The hazards to the player are the varying forms of malicious enemies that attack in different ways based on their AI, some might charge directly at the player, some may shoot at the player, and some may float back and forth around the player. The purpose of beating avoiding these hazards is the objective to get revenge on malice and destroy powerful lead figures in the “colony” and destroy the evil.

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Gameplay Guidelines

For ethics purpose I can’t have things like malice that replicates young children which you then kill or follow the organic theme to make an enemy that is in the very dark theme of something like a deformed foetus. In the target audience section I have already talked about what it takes to make a game suitable for younger audiences but it should also not follow themes that will be frowned upon.

Game Objectives & Rewards

There are varied levels of reward that the player can achieve during gameplay, the main one being the gain of new abilities, rewarded for killing enemies or leaders (bosses). The drive to play Malicious Onslaught comes from the sense that if you keep playing you will encounter new monsters and areas to explore, even new abilities perhaps. Whereas if you have completed it once already, then the motive is to get the highest score possible, either from going faster than before or performing certain special acts to boost your endgame score.

Rewards Penalties Difficulty LevelsA new mutation, chance to receive when an ordinary enemy is killed or more often when a leader is.

Points or score, when enemies are killed, dotted around levels or based on how fast a level is cleared.

An achievement, new special area and/or separate story branch. Rewarded for beating the game without any mutations and retaining one’s humanity.

Some parts of levels may be inaccessible without mutations, such as high up platforms that may require you to scale walls using suction cup mutations or spring action legs. These exclusive level areas could have more abilities or points to collect.

It is a roguelike, so death sets you back to the start to try again with a different experience.

If the game is to have difficulty to be selected, then enemy health or appearance could be reduced or increased accordingly.

Gameplay Mechanics

Character AttributesCharacter Movement Abilities / Actions AvailableMain Protagonist Base actions:

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Run; move faster, uses stamina. Jump. Shoot; sling rocks or project mass

from a mutation. Front flip; jump while in the air.

Mutations:

Shield Mutation; manipulate the earth to erect a defence against the malice, uses stamina, separate input key.

Repulsion gland; repulse mass out of your body to destroy the malice, replaces sling.

Fins; streamline movements for increased move speed.

Suction cups; grow suction cups on the surface of your skin to attach to walls briefly, then jump off them.

Spring action legs; jump shortly after landing to convert impact on the floor into upwards momentum for a higher proceeding jump.

Energy manipulation module; change running direction quickly and follow up with a jump to reach higher than before by converting change in force to extra momentum.

Grown limb; extra limb to store more repulsion glands or interact with manmade tools such as weapons.

Malicious Enemies Common enemies will fly towards or charge towards the player, they may shoot projectiles or move in erratic ways.Bosses (Leaders) will be designed with telegraphed attacks and in order to defeat them the player will require a combination of memory, reaction and skill. The enjoyment from defeating a boss is inspired by games like Dark Souls and Cuphead where bosses are a mix of predictable moves and randomness of choosing which move to use.[2]

Game Modes

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Story Mode Co-op Mode Player vs Player Mode

Story Mode:Objective is to kill malice, explore all the areas, take out the leaders and reach the ending, either to be consumed by your malicious mutations or to overcome the malice as a human.Co-op Mode:Play story mode with a friend, but with a higher volume of enemies and viciousness to account for more friendly power.Player vs Player Mode:Go against other players in a battle to distinguish the top of the food chain.

Scoring SystemPoints/Malicious Chunks as Currency/Score How it’s Awarded & BenefitsThe point system could relate to the accumulation of chunks of malice from those you defeat or find already deceased, if the good thing to pick up looks similar to the enemies of the game it would be a good idea to outline the silhouette in a bright colour or something similar.

Awarded during a run for killing malice or finding it, also awarded on successful completion of a run (not death) for filling certain criteria (No common malice kills, no mutations) or based on how fast you beat the game/each level. At the end of a run or on death the points are totalled up and put on a global scoreboard where the top player has the most points.Possible types of merchant that deal in malicious chunks to provide either weapons or mutations based on merchant type (malicious or infantry?).

Level Design

In each level theme there will be forms of malice related to them, for example in caves you may find malicious monsters armoured with rock, in the ocean there could be those which swim around or in forests the malice may attack you with vines or plantation.Respective areas will cause the player to inherit certain mutations, such as fins or gills from fish like malice or shields from rock covered malice. Malice that uses medieval weaponry could inflict your brain with the knowledge of sword arts or moves, plus some mutations could make your body shoot out arrows like a medieval crossbow/longbow may.Each level will also be generated procedurally which is a common usage with roguelikes as they induce a sense of unknown to what may happen next. As mentioned before in the gameplay overview I would like the levels to still have some design to them so that certain challenges will always occur such as areas that can only be reached through the

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use of mutations, a method like this takes inspiration from the likes of Spelunky’s level design with it’s perfect balance of random and authored content.[3]

LevelsTutorial Purpose to teach the player the

main mechanics, is not revisited unless requested by the player on a menu screen. It will look like you start in a city and climb onto the roof of a building.

Rooftops

Mirrors edge rooftops.

Level with open top features and mostly horizontal traversal.

Building interior Level enclosed, broken down building and objective to descend to city floor.

City Floor Another open level but along the roads and short buildings this time.

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Something like this stock image but not as bright.Countryside Calm environment with less

vertical action and more running left or right.

Villages Introduction of more buildings to traverse and a smooth transition from the countryside.

Ocean Coral reefs and perhaps only traversable underwater if in the countryside rivers you found gills as a mutation. Otherwise you cross over it on boat.

Forest Tall and twisting trees to jump about.

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Castle Eroded down castle landscapes with.

Caves Underground winding systems.

Ruins

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PZZvy

Ancient landscapes, either underground or above ground but where the malice was originated from human emotions of rage and hate.

Control SchemeThe game will need left and right movement inputs, a jump action input, shoot input an active ability input and possibly a switch active ability input. To aim the shooting

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mechanic, you will need to position a cursor with mouse movement or in the case the game is localized to console versions the right stick could represent the direction of fire while the left stick be used for movement.It is important to note that when new mutation abilities are added as a mechanic to the game certain controls may seem natural for them meaning that instead of having buttons switch which ability is set to the ability button there could be multiple different ability buttons instead which may play more natural because all of them will be accessible in one press.

Input Action it PerformsKeyboard: AController: Left stick move leftController: D-Pad left

Add a negative value of right direction movement to the player.

Keyboard: DController: Left stick move rightController: D-Pad right

Add a positive value of right direction movement to the player.

Keyboard: SpacebarController: South or west face button

Jump, front flip if in air, suction cup wall jumps if applicable and so on.

Keyboard: Left shiftController: Left shoulder trigger

Run.

Mouse: Left clickController: Right shoulder button

Shoot projectile.

Mouse: Right clickController: Left shoulder button

Use active mutation ability. (Shield)

Mouse: X-axis movement + Move cursor right.

Mouse: X-axis movement - Move cursor left.

Mouse: Y-axis movement + Move cursor up.

Mouse: Y-axis movement - Move cursor down.

Controller: Left stick move right Move aiming HUD right.

Controller: Left stick move left Move aiming HUD left.

Controller: Left stick move up Move aiming HUD up.

Controller: Left stick move down Move aiming HUD down.

Mouse: ScrollController: North or east face button

Next active mutation.

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Game AestheticsWith the implementation of different themed scenes each area will have individuality in how it looks, the aesthetic will always express character through its various forms. This will make gameplay fresh every time the player enters a new area and is ready to adventure more.In my prototype I use a bright red for the colour of malice and a blue for any character related objects, these two colours are known to each mean something different, red signifies danger while blue symbolises calmness, they are not polar opposite colours but still stand out apart from each other well so that the player can distinguish a clear difference in asset. When it comes to the game later I would still like the enemies of malice to be an alarming red so that the player feels danger about them, however the character will most likely look natural to fit in with the more realistic environment. Because the game levels are generated procedurally realistic levels might become a challenge without super complex algorithms but to the standard of a game it will be more realistic than cartoon like.The game will often seem dark and dull visually which can help immerse the player into the post-apocalyptic world they face during gameplay. They should come to question why the character is so angry and what the malice has to do with it, which eventually leads to the end climax of the story where the malice was rage and fear itself all along.

User Interface

The user interface for my game will consist of a main menu when you can configure options and select the game mode in which to play the game. There will also be the pause menu, HUD, death screen, win screens and leader-boards. The UI will look like the evil organic malice is slowly taking over just as how the mutations take over the player character. The menu will follow traditional game menus and be tailored towards my game experience accordingly. Below is an example of submenus and options I would use on the main menu; it is modelled in the case that the game would support things like voice chat and be on a platform with friends and social systems such as steam. Any sort of local play would have to involve controllers either plugged into the PC or in multiple use on a console if that is the case.

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Welcome to Malicious Onslaught, press any key to continue… Play

Story Mode Co-op Mode

Invite Players Join game Local Play

PvP Invite Players Join game Local Play

Options Controls

Reconfigure any gameplay keys here Graphics Settings

Fullscreen On/Off/Borderless Resolution Brightness Gore On/Off

Audio Settings Music Volume Sound Effect Volume Voice Chat Volume (PvP & Co-op)

Leader-boards Friends Only

All-time Weekly

Global All-time Weekly

Exit

AudioI will always want light music in the background so that the gameplay is not silent, and it would feel empty without any sound at all. Squelching sound effects could be used for my UI buttons and the death of malicious enemies as well as other organic sound effects for various mutational abilities and misc. gameplay features.When rewarding the player I should consider fundamentals in great sound design and use sounds that raise in pitch to signify the raise in praise or currency to the player. And although I myself am not versed in musical theology I can appreciate and take from

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Super Mario’s great sound design with the heightening of pitch in rewarding the player as well as the harmonisation of sound effects to match the music.[4]

Reference

1. https://chaykimberleygames.wordpress.com/project-1-game-development- practices/ Research on Game Development Practices, refer to under heading “Design Theories & Player Engagement”

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8T6Ul4aHTI Game maker’s toolkit video on the design behind Cuphead’s fights

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqk5Zf0tw3o Game maker’s toolkit video on how Spelunky makes its own levels.

4. https://medium.com/game-audio-lookout/musical-sound-effects-in-the-super- mario-series-b14872fb2d94 Sound Design in the Super Mario Series

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