Design by: Group 2 Productions For PC/Mac Rating: 10+

Ship date: TBD

Will H, Sam M & Sam H

Game story: Jeremy is an alien visitor from an unknown planet he crashes his spaceship on Earth and he is immediately taken away by the FBI to Area 51. Jeremy has to escape before this dark corner of the government kills him and dissects him for their research. Jeremy manages to escape his cell but the bunker he’s trapped in is alerted to his presence, Jeremy dodges patrolling guards, bullets and top-secret defensive lasers booby-traps. Along his way Jeremy also notices that this facility has files on him and his spaceship knowing he can not allow this evil species to come after him with the information they have gathered he collects the files. He eventually finds an exit point and escapes the underground bunker completely, with the feds hot on his tail Jeremy makes his way through a near by town where he hijacks a sports car from the locals and drives towards a pillar of smoke in the distance that he knows to be his spaceship. Arriving at this hillside Jeremy sees the place surround by large white tents and more security and at the top of the hill where people in white lab coats are he spots his craft. Thinking that these being are more scared of him then he is of them he creates a large shadow of himself and starts to drool from the mouth baring his teeth and growling. All but a few scream and run, fleeing in all directions leaving Jeremy free to simply climb the scaffolding surrounding the mountainous hill to his space ship while avoiding getting shot or tackled by agents. Jeremy also notices some strange creatures on the hill known locally as sheep, fearing for these animals safety Jeremy takes them aboard his ship. He escapes Earth but his still damaged ship crashes in the local system’s asteroid belt. The ship’s crash has caused many parts to separate, Jeremy seeing a rocket coming from the horrible planet he just left coming straight towards him, rushes out to collect the parts for his ship but too late the FBI Astronaut Division lands equipped with laser guns. Jeremy knows he must collect some the parts of the parts for his ship so he can at least get to the next nearest service area the AAA (the Alien’s AA). Gameplay: In First Impact you play as Jeremy, an extraterrestrial beingwho is running for his life from the FBI. Jeremy is a peaceful alien, so therefore he does not carry any form of lethal weapon, instead he relies on his wits to outsmart the simple guards’ patrol patterns and solve puzzles to escape. Jeremy is

also gifted with having three lives, which will reset on a New Game, if all three are used up though, Jeremy will die. These lives work as a type of checkpoint, upon being hit, Jeremy will respawn nearby in a safe location (if all three lives have been used up and he is hit, game over).In each level Jeremy has something to collect, in Area 51 he has to collect documents with information about his species that humans have recorded so they never find out, on Earth he has to abduct cows to experiment on, and in space he must collect new parts to repair his ship. Elevator Pitch: Platform game, 3 levels, character is an alien. First level: Area 51, Second Level: Earth, Third Level: Space. Score obtained in levels. Game Flow As Jeremy progresses through the game, he will unlock bonuses such as increased speed and the ability to jump higher. This will help the player as each level has an increase in difficulty and the game will become near impossible without these upgrades. There are collectables scattered across each level, while these do not affect the game in anyway, they do add to your score. To gather these collectables, Jeremy simply has to walk over them.

Above: Designs for the collectables on level 1 & 2.

Player Character: Jeremy. Jeremy’s appearance remains the same throughout the game and if the game is completed without loosing one life, you unlock a new skin for Jeremy, which features an extra life. You can upgrade Jeremy’s abilities however, such as his speed, and the height he can jump.

Player Controls (PC/Mac):

Main Gameplay Concepts and Platform Specific Features First Impact is a 2D platform game that can be classed as an arcade, adventure game. The game-play is split into levels, these levels are designed around the story that Group2Productions wrote. The first level is set in a top secret bunker run by the FBI and the second is on a hillside near a crashed alien ship, this is then followed by a level in the solar system’s asteroid belt. The aim of this game is to escape from capture and flee back to space. As there are significant gaps in the locations being shown there will be comic strip scenes showing the in-between stage journeys and making the stories progression easy to follow by the player. The player will be engaged in a non-violent, puzzle solving role, the idea is to have are target audience find ways around a maze filled with threats and succeed in getting finishing point without injury. As the game progresses on the mazes the levels have become more difficult to navigate and the desired collectables that every player should want to get become much hard to collect without the level restarting.

Designs for platforms.

Game World In First Impact we have three levels for Jeremy to navigate through; each one increases in difficulty. Level 1 is set in Area 51, Level 2 is outside on a hill with the spaceship crashed at the top, and the final level is set in space on an asteroid. We aim to make it self-explanatory why we have each level, as the idea is Jeremy is working his way up through a base, then up a hill to his spaceship. In level 1 we want to create a tense Sci-Fi feel that keeps the player engaged and makes them think tactfully, level 2 will be a lot more colourful and cheerful, as it is set against a lush background and not grey and metallic like level 1. For level 3, we want a dramatic and suspenseful atmosphere, as Jeremy is navigating his way across an asteroid, we want it to have the ‘big dramatic final level’ feel to it that games have.

Above: the background for level 1 and the concept design for level 2’s background and layout.

Flow chart for a working game level/

Interface

The interface of First Impact is simple to navigate and understand the main menu has labelled buttons, which can start the game, show the controls and rules or show the credits. On each scene within the game there is always a menu button allowing the player to exit to the main menu at any point, for the controls and rules menu as well as the credit scene the main menu button is allocated in the top right corner. However for the game’s playable levels the menu button is to the bottom left side with a pause game button alongside it. The game’s interface has been designed in a uniform manner the playable levels and the other scenes have the same position for their button links with the exception of the main menu screen, which is positioned centrally. The scenes of First Impact all include music the Main, controls and credits menus have a generic sci-fi beat that’s fits the game perfectly and is practically unnoticeable so your able to listen to it for hours without getting irritated. The music changes once you start the game, the introductory scene that tells the player the game’s story has a faster pace and more stellar sounding sci-fi track than the main menus. Level one is set in a secret government bunker so the tone of the backing sound had to be a science fiction type soundtrack, the music has a strong base with a quieter high-pitched keyboard on top it feels like a light heart chase scene and works well with the escape scenario the alien is in. Level two is completely different to level one the alien is now outside and within reach of his spaceship, the music had to be cheerful, up beat, with an outdoors quality and as this level is difficult it had to be cheekily irritating after a player failed so many times. The soundtrack was successful in this respect with a light-strumming guitar, light tapping on some drums and the occasional bellowing trumpets. The loading screens are the only screens without a musical soundtrack.

Mechanics and Power-Ups The unique mechanics within the game are using “A” to move left, “D” to move right, “W” to climb up a ladder and “S” to climb down a ladder. These buttons are used because they are close enough to each other to all be pressed by one hand. On both levels there are also collectibles, which the player can choose to pick up. To pick up a collectible the player just has to walk through it, we did this as it is simple for the player and there won’t be any need for any extra instructions such as “Press B to pick up collectible”, also adding an extra animation could have slowed down the pace of the game. On the first level these collectibles are in the form of secret documents that the FBI agents keep which has information about Jeremy’s species. On the second level these collectibles are in the form of sheep that Jeremy can experiment on. When Jeremy walks into the FBI document he collects it and the silhouette version of the document in the top left part of the screen, part of the HUD, turns into a picture of the document, notifying the player that they have collected it. There will also be a unique high pitch sound played signalling that when then player went through the collectible something good happened.

The very same thing happens when Jeremy collects the sheep although instead of having a pitch sound there will be the sound of a sheep, then one of the silhouettes of the sheep will turn into a picture of a sheep. When Jeremy gets caught by the guards, or they collide with/touch him, they respawn at the beginning of the level and have to redo the entire level, including collecting all of the items again. This is to ensure that the game is not too easy. Not only does this happen when Jeremy gets caught by one of the guards but it also happens when a guard shoots a gun and the bullet hits Jeremy. The guns get fired at different times to each other but all have a timer set so that they get fired every few seconds, some are every 5 seconds and some are a different number, this is so that the player will have to quickly guess when it is safe to climb/run and avoid the guard whilst getting to the end of the level and, if they choose to, get the collectibles. All of the collectibles are located at different heights, i.e. the player will have to climb up or down a ladder to pick up more than one. This has been done to make the game more challenging and get the player thinking about what they will have to do and when they can move to certain parts of the level. There are currently no power-ups in the game, nor do we have any plans to have any in the future as we think that power-ups will just complicate things for the player, we think that the collectibles within the game are enough “added features” to entertain and challenge the player without adding anything else. Enemies and Bosses: The main opposing enemies in the game are the FBI agents, some of which shoot their guns and others, which move from left to right around parts of the level which need accessing to continue e.g. ladders. The FBI agents are much bigger and physically stronger than Jeremy. While the guards are ruthless the fact that they merely patrol back and forth on levels in a simple fashion means that with intelligence and

patience,by watching and learning their patterns for a brief amount of time the player should be able to out-smart them and avoid their patrols. We wanted to have more than just the “walking back and forth” guard to make the levels a little bit more interesting and challenging.

Above: Old and new concepts for the FBI agents. On the left is the very first design for our agents, our original intent was to go for a block/”Minecraft” look but after some negative feedback we decided to change it to the design on the right. We changed it to look less like squares and more like an actual person. The designs on the right were of three different coloured agents, we went with the darkest one in the middle for the final game. The other main challenge/enemy Jeremy will face in the levels are the laser traps, these will kill Jeremy instantly upon contact and send him straight back to the beginning of the level with all of their progress reset. Some lasers are triggered by stepping on buttons and require a separate button turn off and others are set to turn on automatically for a specific amount of time and turn off automatically for a specific amount of time. These laser traps only appear in level 1 because it is The only environment it makes sense for them to be in, they can’t be connected to wooden platforms outside. (Level 2). Because of the lack of laser traps in level 2, there will be more patrolling guards and a more complex level layout to ensure the level is harder than the previous one.

Cut scenes, Bonus Material, and Competitions The cut scenes are going to be drawn in Photoshop using a graphics tablet. These are going to be individual drawings with text either underneath them or beside them to explain the story and there will be between 2-4 at a time. It will be a little like a comic strip. The cut scenes will be between the main menu and level one explaining who Jeremy is, why he’s on earth, what he has to do etc. The cut scene between level one and level two will explain how Jeremy got from Area 51 to the farm and the cut scene between level two and three will explain how Jeremy gets into his spaceship. The cut scene at the end will explain that Jeremy has made it past all of the cards and is returning to his planet. At this time we have not planned any bonus material nor are we planning any. We have also not planned anything for the player to unlock at any point in the game. The player will want to play again because not only will they most likely find it fun but they may want to attempt to get more collectibles than they got in a previous attempt at the game. There wouldn’t be any major competition on release. There will also be no competitions associated with this game. We don’t think there needs to be.