Level Design Document (WIP)

 

Imagery Based on Literature (IN-GAME)

AVATAR GAME

GEARS OF WAR SERIES

Game Mechanic Overviews

Imagery Based on Literature (DIGITAL MEDIA)

Game concept - Ideas from Literature

The Diamond Age

LITERACY – THE DIAMOND AGE ( NEAL STEPHENSON )

Seeking an alchemist in paradise

BLURB (Main source of inspiration)

High above the diamondoid bedrock of 21^st Century New Chusan, powerful neo-Victorians rule over Atlantis/Shanghai, which is still subject to the rigours of Confucian law.

John Percival Hackworth is one top Neo-Vick. A brilliant nanotechnologist. The fugitive creator of an illicit copy of A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.

Poor little Neil is a thete orphan, sharing a bed in Enchantment with her ruffian brother Harv. She might have stayed there forever, but for one glitch: the theft of the Primer. An interactive device to enable women to think for themselves. Heaven help the future if it should fall into the wrong hands…

MORE DETAILED INFORMATION

An inner plateau about a mile above sea level, where the air was cooler and cleaner. Parts of it were marked off with a lovely wrought-iron fence, but the real border was defended by something called the dog pod grid – a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.

Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air.This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays. Nanotech materials were stronger. Computers were infinitesimal. Power supplies were much more potent. It was almost difficult not to build things that were lighter than air.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCEPT

A design similar to Fuller's Cloud Nine might permit habitation in the upper atmosphere of Venus, where at ground level the temperature is too hot and the atmospheric pressure too great. As proposed by Geoffrey A. Landis, the easiest planet (other than Earth) to place floating cities at this point would appear to be Venus.[3] Because the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is 50% denser than air, breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense Venusian atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth. In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. This means that any large structure filled with air would float on the carbon dioxide, with the air's natural buoyancy counteracting the weight of the structure itself.[4]

At an altitude of 50 km above the Venusian surface, the environment is the "most Earthlike in the solar system",[5] with a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C-50°C range.[6] Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates, giving time to repair any such damage. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe and a protection from the acidic rain.

Since such colonies would be viable in current Venusian conditions, this allows a dynamic approach to colonization instead of requiring extensive terraforming measures in advance. The main challenge would be using a substance resistant to sulfuric acid to serve as the structure's outer layer; ceramics or metal sulfates could possibly serve in this role. (The sulfuric acid itself may prove to be the main motivation for creating the structure in the first place,[original research?] as the acid has proven to be extremely useful for many different purposes.)

Game Mechanic Concepts

Group Task - My Sketchpad Development

Bloodcave - Game Concept Document

Group Task - Initial Development

CHARACTER ABILITIES

Walk

Run

Jump

Lasso 

Running Jump

Items Interaction

Health Regeneration

Walk

Character walks at 1 unit per second. 

Run

Character runs at 2 units per second. 

Jump

Jump takes 2 seconds from static, followed by a 2 second pause (to regain balance) before the player may move again.

Lasso  

Ledge Grab

The character may grab on to an upper right edge, upper left edge or exposed edge of an object and can hold this position until ready to either climb on top or drop down.

Swing

The character can stick the lasso on to various objects within the environment and use a pendulum motion to swing across (or up to) inaccessible areas.

The character also has control of the length of his arm during this action, and can shorten or lengthen (up to 10 units) his arm to allow him to reach higher or lower places.

The lasso may get caught on an edge during the arc motion, which will thus increase the distance and speed the character is traveling. This would be useful for areas like below. 

Abseil/Climb

Player can use the lengthening and shortening of the lasso to scale up and down the environment (restricted to 10 units up or down).

Grab

Player can simply hold their position whilst performing a climb or abseil action and could then continue to simply let go and drop on to an enemy from above.

Running Jump

Jump takes 3 seconds, followed by a 2 second pause (to regain balance) before the player may move again.  

Items Interaction

Lasso could be used to activate levers or buttons further on in the level than their character could normally physically reach. 

Pushing environmental objects would be dependant on the scale of the object vs. the player, and also the player would be required to be within 1 unit of the object to be able to physically move an object (as apposed to activating it/modifying it).

Health Regeneration

Players could regenerate health by eating enemies by grabbing them with their lasso tool, and pulling them in to their mouth. Other methods of regeneration would be through collecting specific items (such as test tubes) which would boost health.