The Project Design: CERNO’s Escape

By on October 25th, 2013

An industrial robot, CERNO, got stranded on a foreign planet and is trying to find its way to the crash site.

Game Summary

The player controls an industrial grade robot, CERNO, who is stranded without any support or protection. This robot does not carry guns and has fairly limited defensive capabilities. Being a transporter bot, CERNO can pick up objects and throw them, but has to expend the same energy that powers its shields to do so.

CERNO finds himself in a deep valley and has to find his way to the transporter portal to get back, while fighting back evil denizens of the planet and figuring out how to cross different obstacles. CERNO’s only way of dealing damage is picking up something big and heavy and throwing it at the enemy. Different kinds of objects will be available to CERNO, and they will expend different amounts of energy to pick up, carry, and throw. Some objects will be breakable, and even contain certain powerups.

Game Plan

Story

  • An industrial robot named CERNO was being transported in a ship with other supplies as the ship encountered a space anomaly, resulting in an emergency landing at some unidentified planet. CERNO landed far away from the ship in some valley, and is trying to find his way back to the crash site.

Lore

  • CERNO is an industrial robot, and has no guns. Its abilities are limited to picking up, dropping, or repelling objects. Its shield capabilities are shared with power and not well optimized for combat, and it has a rather weak hull. It has an anti-gravity engine installed, allowing it to pick up objects heavier than itself and hover over small bumps and irregularities in terrain. CERNO is also equipped with side thrusters.

  • The planet location where the ship crashed is ancient industrial alien ruins. It is filled with various traps, hidden turrets, and guardian robots that will all pose a threat to CERNO. The ship crashed quite deep into the ruins.

Target Player Experience

  • Game Feel

– actively involved in the real-time, continuous experience of controlling the robot. The player has to learn to move the robot efficiently in order to traverse terrain and approach objects.

– has to balance the robot’s main resource, which is power. Power is needed for most of the robot’s functions, in particular: shields, object manipulation, and side movement:

* would get acquainted with the different power requirements for various actions over time;

* use power to optimize movement process.

– evaluate and learn the relationship between object mass, carry speed, and power consumption:

* catch projectiles thrown at him in order to throw them back at the enemy.

  • Decision making

– determine what needs to be done in any given situation;

– determine what actions, or objects, are required to actually do it.

 

Base Mechanics

  • Power

– many actions consume power. Power has a base recharge rate that is fastest when the robot is not consuming power.

  • Defenses

– the robot has a hull. If the hull value reaches 0, the robot will be destroyed and the game will be lost;

– the robot’s power level functions as a shield value and is consumed instead of the hull, if available. Power doesn’t recharge for a set time after the shield has been hit by something.

  • Movement

– general movement is free (costs no power);

– W moves the robot forward;

– mouselook makes the robot turn left or right;

– A and D have the robot strafe left and right, respectively. These moves expend small amounts of power and have a drag component.

  • Manipulation

– pick up objects by pressing E -> this will assign the object as carried by the robot; picking up objects consumes power depending on the mass of the object: a constant amount at pickup, and a continual amount after pickup that may be higher or lower than the power recharge rate. Moving with the object will increase the continual amount drained;

– drop object by pressing E when the robot is already carrying an object;

– repel object. Press and hold Left Click. The object is repelled forward depending on how long Left Click was pressed. Holding Left Click costs continual power, increasing over time, until a maximum repel level or until out of power. Repel applies an initial velocity to the object, resulting in a parabolic path. The throw angle is decided by the Right Click. Holding down right click over time increases the angle and on release settles back to the original position.

 

Secondary Mechanics

PowerUps

– Regen (Green) : Allows Cerno to regenerate back shield and hull back to maximum.

– Haste (Red) : Grants Cerno speed bonus over time for 10 secs.

– Invulnerability (Gold) : Makes Cerno invulnerable to any kind of damage for 10 secs.

– Power Surge (Blue) : Grants Cerno infinite power for 10 secs.

 

Graphical User Interface (Mockup)

  • General

– place a panel in the bottom left corner (metallic/industrial themed) to serve as background for other elements.

  • Power/Shield

– bar filled with blue. When the power is utilized, color the piece used yellow and drop it off. When the shield is damaged, color the piece red and drop it off;

– show a number in front of the bar, representing percentage of shield available;

– show a number in front of the percentage, showing current power recharge/loss. Add a ‘+’ in front of recharge, ‘-’ if loss.

  • Hull

– similar functioning bar to the shield bar, but without a recharge counter.

  • Carried Object

– show object mass.

  • Rangefinder

– while carrying an object, show the object’s predicted parabolic repel path. Adapts to the degree of repel (i.e., how much the button was held down).

General Feature Set Targets

  • Low-Bar:

    • basic mechanics implemented for object manipulation;

    • optimized robot controls;

    • optimized camera controls;

    • shield-power relationship implemented and balanced.

  • Expected:

    • a few select powerups (Regen, Haste, Invulnerability, Power Surge);
    • basic GUI that does the job;
    • a number of well-designed rooms;
    • hoverstrafe implemented;
    • moving enemies with basic AI;
    • enemies throw objects;
    • parabolic repel path;
    • object physics feel natural.

  • High-Bar:

    • responsive, nice-looking GUI;

    • repelled object parabolic path predictor;

    • multiple larger rooms with a wide range of options for completing them;

    • hoverjump implemented;

    • additional puzzle mechanics: overhead bridges, push vents;

    • multiple types of enemies;

    • improved enemy AI;

    • good array of different powerups with solid particle effects.

Weekly Timeline

October 28

– design, in detail, one full room;

– optimize robot responsiveness, camera controls, and overall game feel;

– implement a turret enemy;

– basic powerup (Power Surge);

– playtest.

Reasoning: this week will mostly be concentrated on implementing the feature set for the alpha deadline. The core target is having a complete game experience that allows us to test and balance the game feel, and then have the alpha players give us feedback we can use later.

November 4th

– apply game feel related changes from alpha feedback;

– implement basic GUI (hull, shields, object mass);

– balance turret enemy;

– implement Invulnerability powerup;

– start the design of moving enemies;

– start design of enemies that throw objects;

– provide more ideas for a room, start working on a second one;

– playtest.

Reasoning: the week after/during the alpha test. Here we will implement the changes that the feedback requires, particularly general game feel. We will move on to implementing a basic GUI, start thinking about more complex enemies, and about more complex rooms with more content.

November 11th

– polish existing features;

– finish developing enemies;

– implement Regen and Haste powerups;

– more adaptive hoverwalk, more realistic physics; parabolic repel;

– have two rooms fully designed by end of week;

– playtest.

Reasoning: week before the beta playtest. The focus will be on polishing and fixing the bugs and kinks in the functionality that was finished the previous week. Depending on time constraints, we may implement an additional feature, such as parabolic repel.

November 18th

– look over feedback and make changes accordingly;

– meet the expected target feature set;

– polish and balance all implemented features.

Reasoning: this week would be spent making sure we actually met our target feature set. It is more difficult to predict what we will be able to get done as the weeks go on, but here we will look over what we wanted to get done and finish unimplemented features.

November 25th

– incorporate feedback;

– high bar features / polish.
Reasoning: last week before final presentation. Concentrate on getting everything working flawlessly.

Milestone Feature Set Targets

Target feature set for November 4th (alpha):

  • one room with one simple objective fully playable;

  • robot can pick up, drop, and launch objects;

  • robot movement/controls optimized;

  • objects can break;

  • objects have varying weight;

  • some basic objective available for completion;

  • stationary turret enemies;

  • shields displayed and react to damage;

  • shields related to power.

 

Target feature set for November 18th (beta playtest):

  • everything in the alpha feature set;

  • stationary and moving enemies that shoot projectiles with some form of basic AI;

  • implement the Regen, Haste, and Invulnerability powerups;

  • robot’s shield responds to objects thrown at the robot by destroying them;

  • moving enemies and ones that throw objects implemented;

  • more adaptive hoverwalk, more realistic physics; parabolic repel;

  • have two rooms fully designed by end of week;

  • 2 rooms featuring different objectives with a range of solutions;

  • parabolic repel.

 

Target feature set for November 25th (final playtest):

  • everything in the beta playtest feature set;

  • everything in the expected feature set;

  • have nice particle effects and such for powerups;

  • everything well balanced and polished;

  • high bar features.

 

 

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