Overview

This game design document describes the details for Hold-up Artist, a multiplayer stealth virtual reality game which makes use of a tablet companion component.

Characters

PCs

Player One - "The Thief"

The first player plays the game in virtual reality, and is known as “The Thief”.

Ideas for actual character design? Generic and "stealthy?"

Player Two - "The Director" or "R"

The second player plays the game using the tablet companion app, and is known as "The Director".

No character model is present within the game, and therefore they will not have a specific design.

NPCs

Security Guards

Guards in the game will attempt to find the player in VR and apprehend them, which will result in a game over. Guards will follow a patrol pattern, and will only deviate from this patrol pattern if they spot the player, or another guard calls for help when they spot the player. If the player is hidden after being spotted, the guards will move to their last known location.

The guards' character model was designed to be physically imposing as to not only make appear at first glance a threat to the player, but also to make spotting them easier so the player will be able to plan accordingly to stealthily move through the level. Another reason for the guard character model to be so large is to try and keep to the decided art direction of low-poly cartoon aesthetics.

Story

The story of the game is that the VR player, Vee has be contacted by a Mafia boss to steal a painting, and they will be assisted by their long-term sidekick and hacker friend known simply as "R".

Gameplay

The player in VR will move through a method of teleportation which uses stamina, this decision was made to try and mitigate motion sickness, which is especially prevalent when smoothly moving in VR games, however, the player should have the freedom to move in whatever space they have cleared for VR play.

Objectives

The primary objective of the game will be for the player in VR to find, steal and extract a painting which is guarded in a museum, secondary objectives would involve not being spotted by AI guards. The tablet player's primary objective is to help guide the player in VR to their objective.

User Skills

The game will require certain skills from both players, primarily, for both players communication will be very important and a player's ability to clearing convey information to the other player will have a significant effect on gameplay. The player in VR will also need to have good observation skills.

In vaguer terms, it is assumed that both players have at least played other stealth video games before.

Game Mechanics

The main game mechanic stems from the VR player avoiding detection from the AI guards, the second player must help the VR player locate and steal the target painting.

Interactable Items

The player in VR will need to be able to interact with and carry paintings, in the form of a painting to complete their objective. One concept which may or may not enter the final game is the player in VR may be able to interact with a weapon to attack guards if and when they are spotted.

Art Style

The Art Style of the game will cartoony and low-poly, the environment of the game will be within a Victorian/Beaux-Arts style museum.

One of the inspirations for the art style of the game is "Giant Cop VR". Another inspiration is from the game "Job Simulator".

A recurring theme throughout the inspiration of the art style is that the models generally have low poly counts, which will help performance of the game, which is a genuine concern with the resource intensive nature of first person virtual reality games.

Level Design

The level should take place entirely within an art museum. One inspiration for the level design is from the level "Paris" in Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 (2018).