Games Design - Team Project

This is the Word Doc I will be sending out to the Team. Italics are highlights of the text of ideas that may not be able to execute due to time constraints.

Firehouse Game (STILL NO NAME :P)
Opening Level:
Player wakes up in a bedroom; first visual impressions are that the vision is in black and white and that the props and scenery are those found in a child’s bedroom. As the player moves from the bed, an objective appears on the top right of the screen (not in the far corner, but around that area.) This objective asks the player to perform certain actions in the bedroom.

These actions help the player get an understanding on the controls for the game. The Default controls for Half Life 2 are:
Movement
"W" - Move Forward

"A" - Strafe Left

"S" - Move Backward

"D" - Strafe Right

"Spacebar" - Jump

"Ctrl" - Crouch

"Shift" - Run (hold)

"Alt" - Walk (hold)

Actions

"Left Mouse Click" - Primary attack.

"Right Mouse Click" - Secondary attack.

"Mouse Wheel" - Scroll up and down to browse current weapons, left click to select.

"E" - Use (open doors, pick things up, etc.)

"R" - Reload current weapon.

"Z" - Zoom

"F" - Turn flashlight on/off.

"G" - Gravity gun.

These would be the controls to base the game around. The objective is to find 5 different toys in the bedroom. First action to learn is the WASD movement controls and Mouse Movement. When the player learns this they should be able to move towards an obvious toy in the middle of the room. This is where the second tutorial helps the player. This being Interaction, controls for picking up toys and other objects with LEFT and RIGHT Clicks. Other toys will make the play have to jump to higher points and crouch to lower points. Once the Player has found and collected all of the toys, they should have a good understand on the basic controls. A new objective will appear for the player to find their mother in the kitchen. This will see the player enter the hall way. In the hall way there are images of family photographs and locked doors except the one into the kitchen. Once the player enters the Kitchen the (Depending on if we and script well and time constraints) either a scripted event of the mother making the player sit at the table and have her cook something and a Chip pan fire happens, or when the player enters they witness a chip pan fire caused by the mother. Either way the fire (which is in colour to show drama in the flashback) causes the mother to panic and shout for the player to leave the room. When they player does leave the room, a Fire-fighter enters the front door (Opposite end to the kitchen). As the Fire Fighter walks towards the player (Also in colour to show drama) the flash back ends and scene changes from the hallway to the fire stations dormitory and a work colleague walking the player up for the meeting about fire house training.

Fire Station:
The player wakes up in the Fire Station dormitories and has to make their way the meeting room for firehouse training. The bedroom is on the 2nd floor and the meeting room is on the 1st floor. The player has to work their way through the different floors and rooms of the fire station to get to the meeting. Here players can explore the different rooms and have a feel of what a Fire station actually contains. (Maybe depending on Time constrains and etc) Here players can interact with NPCs and learn different tips for some of the questions that will be asked in the fire station. Also if players notice the posters on the walls, these will have the answers to the questions in the meeting room. Once the player has had a look around in the different rooms and has a feel for the fire station, they will enter the meeting room. There the Fire Chief isn’t happy about you taking so long and makes a comment about the player sleeping for so long. For this he makes you answer 5 Fire Safety Tips to answer to the rest of the new recruits and here players can see if they learned and thing from the NPC’s and Posters in the Fire Station. After that, the player will learn about the Fire House and what they will be doing (Main objectives). Once the meeting about the Fire House is over, it’s time to gear up and tackle the firehouse.

Fire House:
I don’t know how to tackle the Firehouse, maybe everyone can fill in what they would like to see and I could try and work out a story/flow of the game that way. I know I would like to see the player tackle a Chip Pan fires as the last thing just to tie in the fact about the player’s mother panicking about the Chip Pan fire at the start, it would tie the game up quite nice.

I think I’ll try and make a basic Layout of the levels in Hammer for out next meeting so that I can walk through the story ideas in-game and have you guys pointing out want could and couldn’t work.

I hope it makes sense and send it back with comments
Jacob