Game Design Document - UQdeco2800/2021-ext-studio-1 GitHub Wiki

Introduction

Overview

This design document provides all relevant design information relating to the game "Ragnarok Racer". Ragnarok racer is a single player side scrolling video game where the player will start from one side of the map and aim to reach the other side. The player will face enemies (demons) who can be defeated by picking up powerups such as swords, additionally, other powerups include: Player armour, health packs, defence shields, etc.

Game Origin / Story

Based from the movie Thor: Ragnarok, this game acts as the aftermath in a parallel universe where Thor (the main protagonist) was not able to save the region of Asgard and was defeated by Hela (the main antagonist), causing Asgard to become overrun by Hela and an army of demons in what is now a post-apocalyptic wasteland setting. The main character will be Thor who served to protect Asgard prior to Hela's takeover, now Thor is on a mission to restore Asgard to its former glory.

Goals and Objectives

The main goal for the player is to reach the other side of Bifrost bridge without being dying, aiming to either defeat or avoid enemies at all costs, as well as aiming to avoid obstacles and potentially harmful powerups.

Emotional Goals

General Emotional Goals:

Some general emotional goals that suit the general game vibe, message, theme or form of communication), that should be felt throughout the game at a lower intensity include:

Throughout the game, the atmosphere will make the player feel isolated and abandoned, as a result of the , destructive and lifeless appearance of the post-apocalyptic landscape. The player will also feel a level of discomfort and desolation given the atmospheric theme of devastation due to the destruction of the land by both Hela and the demons who inhabit the bridge.

The player will also experience feeling eerie, or slightly fearful as the player does not know what obstacles lay ahead. Additionally, the player will a sense of independence and fight for survival, knowing that the population of Asgard have been wiped out and the players survival, as well as rebuilding Agard rests on the shoulders of them alone.

The idea of rhythmic music in the background in order to keeps the player focused and stimulated was discussed as it seemed to be an effective way of keeping players captivated, especially considering that the game aimed to be short and intense. Additionally, The due to the initial difficulty setting of the game being rather simple, the team discussed the idea of increasing the difficulty of the games in stages/levels, so that is easy to win in stages, increasing player confidence and gradually increase the difficulty, so that players who like challenges will continue to play the game.

Specific Emotional Goals:

Some emotional goals best suited in specific situations/scenarios (i.e., where the feelings of urgency and anxiety should be most prevalent during specific events or stages in the game) include:

During the stages of the game where the player faces an enemy boss, they will feel increased anxiety (measured by the speed of the player's decision making) as a result of the increased toughness of the enemy boss in comparison to enemies faced throughout the game.

During the stages of the game where the player experiences diminishing health, they will feel increased pressure and stress (measured by number of decisions made in a certain period of time) as a result of increased difficulty level (i.e. less power ups) and enemy ability to deal more damage to the player.

During the stages of the game where the players health reaches dangerously low levels, they will feel increased fear and frustration (measured by player attempts to find health packs, avoiding hits by the enemy and number of decisions made during this period)

During the stages of the game where the player is close to defeating an enemy boss, or are close to level completion, they will feel increased levels of excitement as a result of the realization that their efforts to defeat the boss enemy may succeed.

During the stage of the game where the player has defeated an enemy boss, they will feel a sense of accomplishment as a result of defeating a high difficulty level enemy.

Influences, Inspiration

Art Style

During the early stages of the design process, when discussing the aesthetics of the game, a retro-inspired video game was largely the consensus. Considering the difficulty of implementing a game with 3D aesthetics and appearance, studio members agreed on a 2D game. Further into the design process, studio members began considering the pixel art which is often used in retro 8-bit/16-bit side-scroller games. A retro aesthetic would also tie into the outlandish retro-nostalgic feel of the Thor: Ragnarok film.

The introduction of pixel style The game as a whole will use pixel style. The pixel style comes from the early arcade OS interface style. After the hardware performance improved, people generally gave up using this style and replaced it with a style that enhanced technical ability and artistic expression. However, today, the pixel style is still retained and used in the design of some game interfaces.

Pixel style is often linked to the dot matrix, when we zoom in on the dot matrix we will find a small square, that is the so-called pixel. We are familiar with 720p and 1080p, which represent the number of vertical pixels in the image.

Strictly speaking, even the finest bitmap is made up of pixels, and what we call "pixel style" often refers to the art style with small squares visible to the naked eye. Pieced beans, cross-stitch, mosaics, led light signs ...... are actually a kind of pixel art.

Why use pixel style With the development of pixel style, the current market of pixel style games have smaller pixels, finer color processing, obvious layers of characters and environment, and can reflect the material of objects to some extent. Works to this extent are quite mature and have their own artistic characteristics, as shown in the figure.

Some video games/Aspects of certain video games that were used as inspiration for the game include:

Minecraft for heart and armour system:

Street fighter, Stardew Valley for 2D pixellated appearance of characters and terrain:

As seen in the above pictures, Stardew Valley and Street Fighter have a very nostalgic type appearance with the use of 2D pixilation. This is due to the fact that most older games (pre 2000's), typically had this type of appearance in order to increase both design and computational capabilities. While typically modern video games have drastically improved and refined graphics to the point of being lifelike, 2D pixelated video games can still provide thorough enjoyment to players, and for the purposes of designing building this video game this art style seemed to be the most suitable for the teams capabilities.

The Dinosaur Game (Google Chrome), for the basic gameplay style, elements and pace:

Fallout: New Vegas for the post-apocalyptic and overrun jungle themes and scenery