Game Details Grid
Working Title for the Game: New World Order
Type of Game: Stealth game
Design Focus for the Game: Making the player feel stealthy
| Game World/Level Setting Explanation: Steampunk England | Main Mechanics of the game: Hiding, attacking with melee, attacking with gun. |
| Brief Synopsis of the Game Story: England, 1899, the British Empire has taken over the world and rules supreme. Technology has evolved greatly while the planet is under one party rule, the player seeks to fight against this new world order and must assassinate one of the key leaders of “The Party”. | Characters in the Game: The player, the leader (name not yet decided), and random guards with voicelines. |
| Description of Player Avatar: An average male dressed in clothes of the time, a long trenchcoat and flat cap/ bowler hat, with brown hair and a beard/ moustache. | Additional Possible Mechanics: Smoke bomb to obscure enemy vision |
| List of interactable features: Various doors, communication devices, and pieces of machinery. | List of Enemies: Different types of guards; Standard, heavy and elite. |
Games explanation (detailed mechanics, gameplay flow diagram),
•Visual Planning (Level Layouts, Production Art,
•Sound Planning (Audio Design Sheets),
•Production Schedule, Asset Lists
•Anticipated problems you identified in the context section and researched in the research section should have some planning associated with them, as part of the solution.
Plot Synopsis (a short explanation of what happens in the story of the game)
During the American Revolution, the British Empire sent an overwhelming attack that completely crushed the revolutionary forces, which slowly lead to a complete takeover of America in its entirety, slowly expanding throughout the neighbouring lands and eventually crossing the seas. The Empire gradually took over the entire globe country by country, leaving one final spot of resistance in the Balkan nation of Albania. In the years under one party rule, technology has skyrocketed into what can only be described as otherworldly, with steam powered robots replacing the usual workforce, as well as infantry roles for soldiers.
The current year is 1899, and the Great British war machine marches ever closer to the resisting nation of Albania, you play as a soldier, sent to infiltrate a war office in Manchester that holds plans for the imminent invasion of your homeland. Your mission is to sneak in, steal the plans, kill “The Officer” and escape.
Character Profiles (Should include information about their past, personality, skills, role in the game, etc)
Mateo Murati, an Albanian soldier sent to infiltrate the British War office to retrieve plans that will disrupt the British army’s advance.
Steam guards – steam powered robots build to defend areas of national importance. These powerful behemoths are slow, but powerful, though they require a moment every so often to release steam to prevent an explosion.
“The Officer” – A shady high-ranking politician in charge of the war office, who is sat reading and guarding the plans to the invasion of Albania.
Asset List
| PROTOTYPING | GRAPHICS | AUDIO | |
| Background Elements (all elements that make up the backgrounds) | Background | Sound Effects | |
| FOLEY | COLLECTED | ||
| Environments that heavily feature the use of cogs and steam pipes to accentuate the steampunk setting, assorted decorations for a war office. | Diegetic Non-Diegetic | Diegetic Gunfire, footsteps, robotic movement Non-Diegetic Music, detection sound | |
| Sprites (enemies, collectables, main character, power-ups, effects, etc) | Characters | Music | |
| Human enemies, “The Steam Men”, “The Officer”, Mateo, the plans, ammunition (possibly) | Mateo Murati, “The Officer” | Menu: Albanian war songs In-game: Low key stealth music/ nonapplicable | |
| Animations (A list of the animation you need e.g. Enemy Walk) | Objects | ||
| Attack, walk, run, hide (in locker etc) |
To begin the character design of the enemies, I had a look at steampunk style soldiers and compiled a few of the results. I initially planned to have the enemies all be human, though now I believe I want to do a mixture of human and robotic.
Here, I looked at old Albanian soldiers for inspiration for character designs, these designs, specifically the ones seen in the middle, give me a vague idea of how I should design the player character
For this moodboard, I looked at weapons that could be carried by enemy soldiers/ the player, as these are some of the weapons used at the time. Since the game takes place in an alternate version of the timeline, I may change the appearance of the weapons to fit the steampunk style.
For this moodboard, I had a look at weapons that I believe the British officer featured in my game would carry. The alternate timeline means officers can carry golden weapons, as all officers are very rich and have an abundance of gold, and the golden weapons show this. I also believe having an officer with a golden gun would signify the importance of the character himself.
Having researched real Albanian soldiers, I decided to use them as a basis for the design I have made here. In comparison to the actual thing, I have provided them with steel plate armour and a helmet, in some cases. There are 2 different variants I have designed, the standard desert troop, and the post-battle mask troop. The regular troops have their cloth hoods over their heads to protect them from the elements and shade their heads, while they also have their sleeves up. Their plate armour features a small Albanian flag on the chest, marking the character’s nationality. The masked soldiers feature more armour than their hooded counterparts, with the added protection of a helmet and metal mask that obscures the soldier’s face and protects them against the elements. They also have their sleeves down properly and have their gloves on so that no skin is visible. While the armour itself is the same, it is darker and more battle damaged, showing signs of continuous combat, as also shown by the various bloodstains created by the rifle bayonet. One of the armoured variants is also wearing forest green gear, which would be more appropriate for the climate of Albania and the surrounding Balkan nations.
At this point in time, I have constructed several moodboards and completed initial character designs, as well as the various planning documents needed. Doing this work leaves me with only a couple more things to do, which should be completed this session, which is good as it means I have completed planning in just less than a week. I could have done things a bit faster in hindsight, but I believe the rest of my work will still be completed to a good degree within a fast timeframe. My outstanding work is my production schedule and my level designs, which I should be able to complete in this session.
This is one of the designs I have drawn for an enemy soldier, this is just a drawn version of the British army uniform from 1899, which will be featured in my game as the main enemy.
Above is the simple level layout I have designed, with blue representing the player, green representing interactables, and red/brown representing enemies and their line of sight. The green diamond in the first room, on the left, shows a key that is guarded by a static guard, this key unlocks the door that is guarded by another 2 static guards. Every other guard in the game is on a set patrol route, including the brown markers. Those brown markers represent the robotic enemies that cannot be killed, these enemies will have a set movement time, and a few seconds to vent out steam, which will provide a brief window of opportunity for the player to move past.
Above is the production schedule I have created for this project, which outlines what I plan to do and when. I believe I have set myself enough time on the artwork side, as graphics take up the majority of my practical work and usually puts me outside of my schedule.
Finn's Games Design Journal 