Game Design Document ‐ Studio 2 Escaping Earth - UQcsse3200/2023-studio-2 GitHub Wiki

Game Goals and Objectives

Game Direction

You are a lone survivor in a world overcome by zombies, and your only hope for survival is to escape Earth and find another habitable planet. The journey is hard, requiring you to hop from planet to planet to find the right one. In your journey, you must battle foes of increasing strength while your collectors extract materials required for your voyage through the stars. As you defeat enemies, you learn to strategize and you gain the necessary components to upgrade your gear and gain powerups. Along your journey your robot companion can help you in various ways and different strategies can be executed by using the buildables to help defend against enemies.

Game Goals

  • Consistency between planets - similar mechanics reskinned
  • Functional upgrade system
  • Sets of enemies that provide an appropriate challenge
  • Cool Weapons and game modes as reward for challenges

Core Mechanics

  • Resource collectors on each planet - need to be defended by mobs
  • Can move between planets (Refer to Travel between planets for details)
  • Multiple planets to fly between to advance towards a final goal
  • Top down action with player customization
  • Strategic gameplay for challenging sections - Defensive structure placement, weapon, and vehicle choice for each stage

Emotional Goals

At the beginning of the game and during encounters with zombies or powerful enemies, the players should feel fear/tension as they navigate a world filled with danger and uncertainty, in addition to the timer counting down their demise if they do not complete their tasks in time.

As the player discovers potential habitable planets, they should experience a sense of hope and relief, knowing that survival might be possible beyond Earth.

When exploring new planets, the players should feel curious and amazed by the diverse environments and unique challenges each world presents.

Throughout the game, the players may experience feelings of isolation, emphasizing the dire circumstances of being a lone survivor in an apocalyptic world.

As players defeat foes and upgrade their gear, they should feel a sense of accomplishment, knowing they are becoming stronger and more capable of surviving the journey.

During challenging battles or resource scarcity, players should experience desperation and the need to persevere despite the odds.

In moments of failure or when making difficult choices, players may feel regret and a sense of loss, as the consequences of their actions impact the narrative.

As players progress through the game, they should feel a growing sense of determination and resilience, knowing they are pushing forward despite the adversities.

Through interactions with other characters or companions, players should develop emotional connections and feel empathy for the struggles faced by others in the post-apocalyptic world.

Towards the climax of the game, players should experience moments of hope as they get closer to their goal of finding a new habitable planet.

Players should be given incentives / rewarded in the form of new cool weapons and abilities for clearing challenging sections of the game / collecting enough rewards for upgrades.

These emotional goals should be woven into the narrative and gameplay to provide users the best experience with this game

General Gameplay

  • The player has to defend the extractor from a variety of enemies.
  • The player can utilise various weapons, mines, barricades, turrets and terrain advantages. Can have companions operate turrets.
  • The multitude of options given to the player for defending the objective allow the player to utilise their creativity.
  • The player has to repair the extractor if it is damaged. The player repair the extractor by activating the repair minigame in close proximity of the extractor.
  • Game over when extractor is destroyed.
  • The player can use powerups to increase various abilities. This is done by activating the powerup pickup minigame in close proximity of the powerup.
  • Powerups can help players progress through difficult sections and let players feel OVERWHELMING POWER/INVINCIBLE.
  • Move to other maps/planets/space stations with space ship minigame/game mode, dodging rocks/debris and fight/flee from pirates/enemies. At the bottom of the screen is the progress bar. This minigame is complete when progress bar reaches 100%

Influences and Concept Art

(These are examples and not necessarily agreed upon by the design team, also note, our designs and gameplay will be significantly more crude)

Style Inspirations - the way the game looks:

Gameplay Inspirations - the way the game is played:

Potential Game Names:

  • Galactic Exodus
  • Last Frontier
  • Cosmic Conquest
  • Galaxy’s Edge
  • Spaceborne
  • Galactic Conquest
  • Odyssey of the Cosmos
  • Spacebound
  • Finding Home
  • New Worlds