Overview

A very minimalistic dungeon adventure, which explores life as we progress deeper into a dark and spooky underground cavern, seeking to find out what lies at the end.

Mechanics

This will be a typical first-person game making use of the familiar WASD and space bar control scheme to move the player.  The mouse will be used to control the direction the player is facing as well as moving.  Once a weapon is acquired, the left mouse button will be used to “fire” it.  Interactivity with objects will happen automatically so the player doesn’t miss the opportunity to interact with something.  They will be funneled into the interactive spots and forced to interact.

Story

The game will be essentially story (albeit short) based.  Using a first person camera will engage the player and make them feel as though this game is about them, maybe it is?  The progression will be linear.  The player will gradually descend into an underground dungeon, essentially pulling back their flesh, finding out who they are.  Triggers will be placed throughout the halls of the dungeon halls that guide the player.  The story will be about digging in to one self.  Finding ones true self, and told from the viewpoint of a video game character.

Aesthetic

The aesthetic will be very minimalistic due to the time constraints.  It will be very dark, and the dungeon will go down deep (as deep as time permits).  It will be peaceful, allowing for quiet reflection at times, and frightening at others.  The movement of the player’s character will be slowed, and will be made “deliberate,” with the goal being to hear the sounds of a deep and empty dungeon and see the nothingness that lies within.  The halls will be narrow, hopefully eliciting a feeling of claustrophobia.  It will also (hopefully) allow the player to reflect on who they are and ask themselves if this relates to them.  The element of surprise should play heavily into the game from start to finish.  The ending will be unexpected/surprising, the player will want to stay engaged to find out how the story ends.  Due to time constraints, the dungeon will be very repetitive.  Breaking it up with bits of text here and there will aid in breaking up the monotony.

Technology

Unity 3D 4.3.4 Professional Demo will be used as the engine for the game.  Using prefabs and modular scripts will decrease development time by leveraging reusable parts.  Maya 2014 will be used to generate low poly modular dungeon pieces.  The pieces will employ mesh colliders generated in Unity and will be comprised of as few triangles as possible for performance and size.  Texture size will also be kept to a minimum, which should give a nice retro look.  Bfxr and Audacity will be used to create the ambient and interactive sounds of the environment, as well as some voice acting.  Right now, there is no plan for music.

Next up: The technical design!