Copyright (C) 2008 Vancouver Film School – All rights reserved
Game Design Document for:
Tire and Brimstone
All work Copyright ©2009 Vancouver Film School
Written by Team God Like Games
Version # 1.00
Monday, September 28, 2009
Table of Contents
Version 1.00 5
Version 1.01 5
Version 1.02 5
Version 1.03 5
High Concept 6
Tagline: 6
Philosophy 6
Multiplayer Vehicular Battling 7
Seven Deadly Weapons 7
Combo Mechanic 7
Satan's Favoured 7
Multiplayer 7
Game Overview 8
Objectives 8
Primary: 8
Secondary: 8
Win Condition 8
Losing Condition and Death 8
Vehicles 8
Vehicular Combat 8
Ramming 9
Driving/Movement 9
Turbo Boost 9
Seven Deadly Weapons 9
(Satan’s Stack) 9
Satan's Favoured 10
Overview 10
Max Players 11
Servers 11
Internet 11
Gaming Sites 11
Main Camera 12
Overview 13
The Physical World 13
Scale 13
Objects 13
Overview 14
Choosing a Character 14
AI Characters 14
Enemies 14
Each vehicle has properties that are broken down in the table below. 15
Individual breakdown of attributes for each specific vehicle: 15
Actual adjustable attributes for each vehicle in the unity Engine: 16
Car Wheel Attributes (to be changed) 16
Car Body Attributes (to be changed) 16
Azazel/Pick Up Truck: (Image to be inserted from Mooney) 17
Belphagor/Shelby: (Image to be inserted from Mooney) 17
Astaroth/Zonda: (Image to be inserted from Mooney) 17
Vehicle Justification 17
Primary Weapons 18
Weapon Pick-ups/Secondary Weapon 18
Tracking Weapons 18
The Seven Deadly Sin weapons 20
Lust: 20
Greed: 20
Pride: 20
Sloth: 20
Wrath: 20
Envy: 20
Gluttony: 20
The weapon characteristics represented individually in a bar graph: 21
Overview 23
Match Start 24
Match End 24
Misc 24
Screen Flow Diagrams 24
Section 1 (Bottom Left) 25
Section 1 (Top Right) 25
Wireframes 25
Overview 26
“Competitive Analysis” Appendix 27
“Game Interface – Menus” Appendix 27
Section 1 (Left Side) 27
Section 3 (Right Side) 27
“Objects” Appendix 27
Design History
Version 1.00
Scrapped.
Version 1.01
Edited entire document as the game changed.
Version 1.02
Weapons Changed and modified, Driving and shooting added, Combo Mechanic changed.
Version 1.03
Changed combo mechanic, added more details to the weapons, added tentative balancing stats to start with for cars and weapons, changed the Satan's Favour mechanic, Battling/Shooting feature section re-written.
Game Overview
High Concept
Tagline: What’s your deadly sin?
Tire and Brimstone is a vehicular combat game that takes place inside hell themed battle arenas. Players control one of three vehicles. Players will chase each other down and blow each other up in a death match scenario utilizing their primary weapon and secondary weapon pickups scattered around the battle arena. Once a player has earned enough points to satisfy the victory condition through pure hellish carnage, the match will end.
Philosophy
We believe there has not been a memorable multiplayer vehicular combat game since the Twisted Metal series. Tire and Brimstone is a pseudo-realistic, over-the-top vehicular combat game full of carnage. This game will breathe new life into a recently neglected genre, and focus on a fun multiplayer experience.
Feature Set
Multiplayer Vehicular Battling
Players battle against each other to earn Satan’s Favour. These battles take place inside of drivable arenas. Every car can cause damage through shooting opponents with the primary weapon, or utilizing the secondary weapons which are power-ups scattered throughout the map.
Seven Secondary Weapon Pick-Ups
There are seven different types of weapon pickups in Tire and Brimstone. See the weapon section of this document for more details.
Satan’s Favoured Combination
Player’s are shown a combination of weapon pickups on the HUD. For example the combo could be Power Missile, Homing Missile, Barrel Bomb. If the player picked up the weapons in this exact order they become Satan's Favoured and are given an upgrade to their vehicle and weapons.
Satan's Favoured
The player has an upgrade applied to their weapons and vehicle. This upgrade will remain active until the time runs out. Once emptied, the upgrade is removed.
Multiplayer
Tire and Brimstone is a browser based multiplayer game that allows up to 6 people to play at once. Players register on the website and will have their stats recorded in order to earn achievements. People can choose to not register on the website and play as a guest.
Feature Details
Game Overview
Tire and Brimstone is a death match between armed vehicles taking place inside of an arena. Players are competing against one and another to reach 2000 points.
Objectives
Primary: To destroy other vehicles in order to gain as many points as possible and in turn satisfy the score cap of 2000.
Secondary: To become Satan's Favoured through obtaining the correct weapon combination displayed at the beginning of the match on the HUD. Becoming Satan's Favoured during a death match grants players a damage bonus towards other players and a damage reduction, therefore aiding the player greatly with the primary objective.
Point System
Health
· Each player starts the match with 100 points of health.
· If destroyed a player’s health resets back to 100 points.
· There are 4 health pick-ups on the map. Two are worth 25 points, two are worth 50 points.
Shooting/Destroying an Opponent
· Each individual bullet fired from the primary weapon does 0.25 damage to an opponent when it hits.
· Ex: A player has 100 points of health and gets hit by a primary weapon bullet. S/he now has 99.75 health left.
· SECONDARY WEAPON DAMAGE SYSTEM IS RELATIVE TO THE CAR IT IS FIRED FROM. SEE VEHICLE SECTION OF DOCUMENT FOR THE SECONDARY WEAPON DETAILS.
Scoring System
· The amount of damage a player inflicts on his or her opponent is directly relative to the points s/he will receive.
· For Example: If a player is hit with two machine gun shells both dealing 0.50 damage, the player who fired those two shells will receive 0.50 points.
· The player who destroys an opponent will receive a 25 point bonus.
Satan’s Favoured Scoring/Attribute bonus
· When a player becomes Satan’s Favoured s/he’s damage attributes are multiplied by two.
· When a player becomes Satan’s Favoured s/he’s health bar is replenished to 100 points, and multiplied by two.
· Satan’s Favoured will receive a 50 point bonus upon killing another player.
Win Condition
· If a player reaches the score cap of 2000, s/he has won.
If the timer runs out, the player with the highest score wins. Losing Condition and Death
· If a player is killed they respawn after 3 seconds.
· During the 3 second respawn time, the player will have a live bird’s eye view of the map.
· The player will not lose any points for being destroyed.
· The player loses any secondary weapons they are holding.
· Players will respawn at a random spawn point inside of the arena.
· A player has lost the match if another player manages to satisfy the win condition.
Vehicles
See “Vehicle” section of the document
Vehicular Combat
· Players have unlimited ammo for the primary weapon. After 5 seconds the machine gun will overheat.
· Players can find secondary weapon pick-ups within the arena that have a one-time use.
· A player can hold a maximum of 3 secondary weapons.
· The secondary weapons are stackable up to a maximum of 3 similar weapons at a time. This gives the player access to a total ammo count of 9.
· The HUD informs players of the amount of ammo they have for the secondary weapons they are carrying.
· When a vehicle is hit, blood will spray from it, and that player’s screen will shake allowing the shooter to know s/he has successfully hit the target.
· When a player has destroyed another vehicle, that vehicle will explode, indicating to the player that s/he has destroyed the opponent.
See “Weapon” section of the document for further detailed information regarding weapons and the effects they have on other players.
Driving/Movement
· Vehicles have attributes related to top speed, acceleration, and handling.
· A player can push “R” on the keyboard if the car flips over which will put the vehicle back on its wheels.
See Vehicle section/Controls section of document for detailed information on driving/movement.
Turbo Boost
Vehicles have a speed boost meter. The meter only depletes when the player is holding down the turbo boost button and begins refilling when the player releases the turbo boost button at a specified rate.
The Secondary Weapons
· The weapon spawns will be in specific locations throughout the arenas.
· Each weapon spawn will consistently spawn the same type of weapon every 3 seconds.
· There will be two spawn points for each weapon, totaling 14 separate spawn points.
See the Weapon section of the document for a detailed breakdown of the seven deadly weapons
See the Game World section of the document for a map of the weapon spawns
Satan’s Favoured Combination
· At the start of the battle there will be a 3 second delay followed by a weapon combination that appears on everyone’s HUD in a specific order.
· The combination is always three secondary weapon pick-ups.
· The required combination is randomized from the seven weapons.
· The player must then pick the weapons up in that order to become Satan's Favoured.
· If a player has picked up the wrong weapon required for the combo, s/he can fire it off to clear out that weapon combo slot and replace it with the proper pick-up.
· For Example: If a player picks up a power missile, but the combo slot requires a stun missile, s/he can simply fire off the power missile, and pick up the correct secondary weapon the stun missile.
· As the combo is picked up in proper order the icons are struck-out on the HUD of the player that picked up the weapon. If the combo is completed it is removed from the HUD for all players.
· There will never be two of the same pickups in a combo and the same combination will not appear more than once in a game.
· When a player completes a combo successfully, s/he becomes Satan's Favoured.
· Once a player has lost Satan’s Favour, a new combination appears on everyone’s HUD after 10 seconds.
See the Game Interface section of the document for an example of how the combo will appear on the HUD
Satan's Favoured
· If a player has completed a combo they gain Satan’s Favour.
· The player’s weapons will do double damage and the player’s health bar will regenerate as well as multiply by 2.
· The player who has Satan’s Favour is worth 200 points to kill.
· When a player becomes Satan's Favoured, a timer will initiate and countdown from 15 seconds. When this timer runs out, the player is no longer Satan’s Favoured.
· The player whom is Satan's Favoured has a particle effect attached to the vehicle informing others that they are Satan's Favoured.
· The player who is Satan’s Favoured receives a x2 bonus for killing opponents which is worth 50 points.
See the Game Interface section of the document for an example of how the Satan's Favoured meter will appear on the HUD
Multiplayer
Overview
Tire and Brimstone is a browser based multiplayer game.
When the game starts players are placed in spawn points throughout the arena and the match will begin after a short countdown. Players can then battle against each other to attain Satan's Favour and reach the point cap first.
Max Players
A maximum of 6 vehicles can participate in a battle.
Servers
· Unity supplies a server we can use to mediate data being sent from each client. It should be sufficient for the user base we expect from this project.
· We will use a different server to store statistics in a MySQL database. The server will also have PHP files on it to handle any statistic information being recorded, as well as achievements, buddies, messages, and groups.
Internet
· Tire and Brimstone is played in a web browser with a minimum recommended internet connection of broadband.
· You can play multiplayer against 6 other humans.
· Players have the option of registering an account on the Tire and Brimstone website. If they do, they will have their statistics and achievements recorded and tracked in our database to create a leader board.
· Some statistics and achievements are programmed in PHP and are handled by the website’s server (not the game).
Gaming Sites
We have our own website (www.tireandbrimstone.com) and web space with PHP 5 and MySQL installed.
Camera
Main Camera
The main camera is a 3rd person view floating slightly above and behind the character. It allows players to mostly see in front of them, but also to their sides and a bit behind them.
The Game World
Overview
Tire and Brimstone is a combat game that takes place in hell.
The Physical World
Scale
The arenas in Tire and Brimstone are going to be dark, fiery, and full of brimstone, see the art bible for more details on the look of the arenas. It will take the player about 5 seconds to drive straight across an arena. Each arena will have a different feel to it.
Objects
See the “Objects Appendix” for a list of all the objects found in the world.
Game Characters
Overview
The characters in Tire and Brimstone are based off of these three vehicles:
- Azazel (Pickup Truck)
- Belphagor (Shelby Mustang)
- Astaroth (Zonda Roadster F)
Choosing a Character
The characters are premade and are selected by the player prior to the battle. There are no customization options, but each character (vehicle) has predefined statistics bounded to it that are displayed in the character selection screen.
Enemies