CS4455 Fall 2014

Game Name: Window to your soul: A VR Horror show.

Team: BBD

Members: warl0ck, gtvgd03, virtuahost

Game:

The player starts in a nightmare. He/ she is trapped in the nightmare by his/ her darkest fear and cannot wake up. To wake up the player has to move around in their nightmare and find clues to escape. Once enough clues are gathered the player can create a connection to their real life and wake up from the nightmare. As the players move around in the nightmare to find these clues, the horrors they witness make them less sane with passing time. As the players lose sanity, they have a harder time navigating due to sanity effects. A guiding wisp(ball of light) guides the player through the levell.As the players find more clues they gain bits of their sanity back. Players will have this feeling of being followed. If players look behind, players lose sight of the wisp and they must find it again.

Fun Aspects:

The fun aspects of the game involve using unique abilities provided by the rift to create some “aha” moments. These fun moments involve using the ability to look around freely, this allows us to create unique mechanics for various aspects of the game, different from traditional horror/puzzle games, these include but are not limited to the following:

Inspecting Clues:

Once a clue is found you need to inspect it to decipher it. To inspect it you need to physically look around it, like examining a map or a book or a mode in  which you need to find some hidden marker, you would need to actually look around the object in the rift.

Looking Behind:

We use various polish effects to make the player feel that he is being followed, these include sounds of footsteps behind you, sounds of breathing, and sudden shadow’s appearing in front of you. This gives the player the urge to look behind in the rift, it also decreases the sanity of the character.  Actually looking behind will penalize the player by having them lose sight of the guiding wisp.

Perspective Distortion:

As the sanity of the player decreases  we distort the player’s perspective  by making the hallway’s seem longer, blurring out the players vision making the world shake which make it harder to find clues.

Core Mechanics:

The player will be able to navigate the level with a standard keyboard and mouse control scheme or a gamepad, and will be able to naturally look around using the Oculus Rift. They will be able to see fairly under normal conditions, but occasionally the ambient light will require the player to use their flashlight. Upon finding clues or starting certain puzzles, the player will be able to enter an inspection view in order to see the clues more closely or manipulate the puzzle in greater detail. The player’s sanity will slowly drain as time passes in the nightmare. Finding certain clues and solving puzzles will allow the player to stay sane by giving them a boost to their sanity level for connecting back with reality. As the player looks around the game may make small changes to the world outside of their view, in order to throw them off or make them uneasy. Upon finding enough clues and solving enough puzzles, the player will be able to fully reconnect with reality and wake from their nightmare. The wisp will move towards the player’s next goal in order to guide them, but the player must be careful not to lose sight of it.

Targets:

Minimum Targets(for the alpha):

• Basic Character Movements: Making moving around in the rift feel natural using keyboard+mouse OR a game controller, this can include mechanics like adding in a head bobbing effects.
• Basic Sanity Effects: Dependent upon sanity level create various effects which are follows:
• Walls closing in: As sanity level drops the walls in the passageway you are in start closing in making it more claustrophobic, also makes navigating the level harder due to obstacles in the way.
• Floating objects: As your sanity decreases gravity on the obstacles also decreases and they start floating, as sanity decreases beyond a specific threshold they start flying towards you and you have to dodge them to move forward, as the walls are closing in too this makes it harder, this is the motivation for keeping your sanity high.
• Simple background sounds
• Have a scary background sound that ties in with the setting well
• Flashlight feature
• Single clue mechanism: Map
• Have a simplistic map of the area on table which you can inspect and use this to find the destination in that level.
• Win/Lose State
• Win:You reach your end goal
• Lose: Death and loss of all sanity

   Expected Targets (in addition to Minimum targets for final build):

• Refined character movements with polish effects.
• Add scare mechanics including door slamming effects,environment shake effects, directional audio for following effect.
• Multiple Clue Mechanisms: Inspect Objects
• Guiding wisp to lead the player
• Look behind mechanism to influence players movement in the game. Looking behind will affect navigation in game by having the player lose sight of the wisp.
• Resource(sanity) based environmental effects: Audio, Lighting (simple volume etc)

Time Permitting features:

• Panorama clue finding mechanism. This mechanism will involve looking around in a large angle and finding clues.
• Lock picking mechanism. Look and pick locks by using rift mechanics.
• Large scale environment distortion like floors tilting, jelly walls etc
• Look down to see character legs.
• Larger, more refined level.
• Refine, refine, refine and refine some more.

Revised Schedule: