Team Outbreak: Detailed Design Document

By on October 25th, 2013

Here is our more detailed work up for the design document that we will be using for the rest of the project.

CONCEPT

    Outbreak is a top-down zombie shooter that is more atmospheric and creepy than fast and action-y. The player plays as a lone survivor in a city beset with zombies and must traverse a danger-filled level in the dark to reach safety and supplies. The player will have realistic abilities, being an average person equipped with a rifle, bow, and flashlight. The zombies will be powerful, capable of killing the player in one hit, but slow, being outrun by the player at normal speed.

CONTROLS

    The player will always face the mouse position and will move with WASD in tank-line controls such that W always moves towards the mouse. Firing will be controlled by the mouse buttons. Some extra buttons such as Q or E may be used for other controls like weapon switching and environment interaction.

FEATURES

For the game, we really want to build the mechanics around three core concepts: Restrictions on player movement, sight, and shooting.

MOVEMENT

– Core Concept:

    The player should move in a way that is more representative of actual human movement than we see in other games in the genre. The most reliable motion should be moving forward, resulting in quick, error-free motion, while strafing or backpedaling should be slower and introduce errors like tripping and stumbling. Backpedaling would obviously be slower and clumsier than strafing. The standard speed for avatar movement should be at a brisk walking pace.

– Dash:

    Dashing will be an important choice for the player to make. It has the potential to get the player out of sticky situations, but will inevitably put the player in a worse position if used incorrectly. The dash can only be made in a forward direction, eliminating side to side movement and looking. The duration of the dash will be controlled by the amount of stamina the player has. After stamina has been depleted, the player will be slower and more clumsy for a short recovery period. So again, using the sprint effectively can really help the player survive longer or expedite your death.

– Errors:

    The mechanic of movement errors will mainly be realized by obstacles and debris found throughout the map. If a player is moving over one of these obstacles in a strafing manner, there is a chance that the avatar will stumble and be locked out of all movement for a short amount of time. Backpedaling over an obstacle will incur a significantly higher lock out should you trip and fall. Both of these actions will be there to really make the player think about how they are going to move about the map.

VISION

-Core Concept:

Another way to really emphasize the feeling of isolation and hopelessness is the restriction placed on vision. Even though the camera will follow the avatar in a 3rd person, overhead view, the player will be extremely limited in what they will be able to see at any given time. Barring external light sources, the player’s path will be illuminated only by the flashlight that they carry. The area where the light flashlight is pointed will be well lit, while the rest of the screen will remain fairly close to pitch black.  Zombies that are beside or behind you and close enough will also be lit up (so you have a very small window to avoid cheap deaths).

 -Environmental Lights:

    Lighting will also be handled in the game through various sources external to the player. For example, a flickering street lamp might give you a slightly better look and the area around it. Or a fire that lights up a larger area, but at a decreased level of brightness. These types of light sources could potentially aid the player in finding a safer route through an area, depending on the position of the zombies. If nothing else, they will provide a quick respite from the almost perpetually darkened cityscape.

SHOOTING

-Core Concept:

    Shooting will be the final core mechanic of the game. The player will have a choice of two weapons to use. The rifle will be a reliable and accurate but loud weapon. The bow on the other hand is a less accurate but silent weapon. Both will have their pros and cons and will require the player to think about when and where to properly use each in order to maximize their effectiveness and to keep the player alive.

-Mechanics:

    The standard shooting mechanic is the same for both weapons. The player will click the mouse to trigger the beginning of the aiming procedure. During the procedure, the player cannot move. Two straight lines will appear on screen defining a cone in front of the player in which the shot will randomly travel. As the mouse button is held, the lines will converge. The lines will begin at a roughly ninety degree angle and converge quite quickly, with the convergence slowing down as the lines get closer. To put it another way, the shot will be accurate enough to hit an adjacent zombie from the hip and the time it takes to guarantee a hit on a zombie will linearly scale with distance. Moving the mouse will widen the cone. A shot is executed when the mouse button is released, but the player may press the right mouse button to abort the shot. A single shot from either weapon is sufficient to kill the first zombie it hits. It will not have any further effect.

-Weapon Differences:

    The rifle will have a large maximum range, able to be shot reliably the length of the screen. It will also be able to fire instantly or near instantly when a click occurs. It will be loud enough to awaken zombies at a large distance. It will also be able to trigger environmental effects, if those are implemented. There will be unlimited ammo, although we may require the player to reload periodically. The bow will have a smaller maximum range and require some time to ready before firing. Its cone will also converge more slowly. The player will have a limited number of arrows to use, which must be recovered from the environment to use again. The arrows will stick to zombies and walls. The arrows will move at a decent speed, so longer shots can still be made accurately once lined up. Very little noise will be generated by the use of the bow.

 

MISCELLANEOUS GAMEPLAY FEATURES (some are stretch goals)

– Adrenaline:

    If zombies are close to the player, he or she will get a small boost to movement speed, stumble recovery speed, and aiming. This will be most noticeable as a boost in speed conferred to the player when unexpectedly approached.

– Fatigue:

    Sprinting will generate fatigue, which will cause the player to be slower and worse at aiming for an amount of time. This is part of the risk of sprinting, but can be momentarily counteracted by adrenaline.

– Interactable Objects:

    Gas canisters and propane tanks may be scattered throughout the level, which will create fire or explosions respectively when shot by the rifle. These effects will activate zombies in a wide radius. Other interactable objects may include switches that

 

VISUAL DESIGN

– Lighting:

    Lighting will be very sparse, with only a dim blue overhead light when outdoors and only very little ambient light indoors. The brightest light will be the flashlight vision cone belonging to the player. Small spots of environmental lighting will be used as cues to the player, directing them where to go. Well-lit areas will be few and far between and serve as checkpoints and lulls in the action.

– Environmental Design:

    The game is set in a city that has very recently been subjected to a zombie outbreak. Therefore, almost all of the city is still intact and many powered things (streetlights, doors) are still operational. The game will mostly have asphalt, brick, concrete, and wooden textures, as though in a more industrial or warehouse district.

 

SOUND DESIGN

– Functional Design:

    The player will glean much of his second-to-second information from the sound design of the game. Because vision is so restricted, he will have to listen for the moans of zombies to alert him of danger. The sound listener will be placed on the player avatar, so the closer a zombie is, the louder it will be. The soundtrack will reinforce this, as layers of creepy, ambient soundscape will be added with each active zombie and should scale with zombie proximity. The player will also be alerted to fatigue via the sound of heavy breathing.

– Atmospheric Design:

    There will also be sounds to provide atmosphere. Environmental noises like the buzz of streetlights and a windy noise in outdoor environments will provide atmosphere to the game. Footsteps and stumbles will have appropriate sound effects as well. The soundtrack will consist of dark, low, atmospheric music that will range from silent when in a safe area, through a low drone when near unawakened zombies, to a slow but intense driving pulse when in danger.

FEATURE TARGETS LIST

  • Minimum Requirements

    • Restricted vision – when not near environmental lighting, the player relies on the light from a flashlight, which illuminates a cone on the ground that is always in front of the player’s avatar

    • Player movement – the player can outrun zombies while moving forward, but lateral and backward motion is much slower

    • Basic shooting – projectile travels linearly in the direction clicked; collisions with zombies kill them

  • Expected Goals

    • Level design that plays off the tensions of all three restrictions (vision, movement, and shooting)

    • Sound design (3D) – alerts player of nearby zombies and adds to the creepiness

    • Better zombie AI – zombies react to noise and move more smartly

    • Two kinds of shooting – loud, precise rifle vs. quiet, unreliable bow

    • Movement obstacles – impede player movement

    • Simple Animations – tripping, shooting, zombie death, etc.

    • Simply interactive environment

    • Adrenaline/Fatigue

  • Potential High End Goals

    • More guns

    • Multiple levels

    • More fully interactive environments, e.g. destructible areas

    • Varied zombie abilities/AI

    • Detailed animations

    • Detailed sound design

    • Possible resource management system

    • Verticality (with respect to level design)

 

TIMELINE

  • Week 1 (Oct 21) – player movement

  • Week 2 (Oct 28) – zombie movement; simple shooting

  • Week 3 (Nov 4) – detailed movement; zombie AI

  • Week 4 (Nov 11) – audio; alternate weapon attack (bow)

  • Week 5 (Nov 18) – animations; polish

  • Week 6 (Nov 25) – refining; high-end goals if possible

TARGET FEATURE SETS

  • Alpha (Nov 4)

    • Avatar movement

    • Zombie movement (simple)

    • Basic shooting, at least rifle

  • Beta (Nov 18)

    • Better Zombie AI

    • Two types of shooting

    • Level design elements (not a fully put together level, but scenarios)

    • Refined movement (stumbles, tripping, dashing)

    • Basic sound design

  • Final (Nov 25)

    • Finished level

    • Any feasible stretch goals

    • Animations:

      • Shooting

      • Tripping

      • Dashing

      • Zombie Death

    • Polish/Tuning:

      • Perfecting Game Feel

      • Getting the attacks/delays absolutely tuned up on everything

      • Getting adrenaline and fatigue interplay just right

    • Sound Goals:

      • sound effects

      • soundtrack

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