´Engaging, suspenseful, atmospheric and above all else fun.
´Character and narrative driven.
´Heavily influenced at it’s core by the World War Z books. Chapter based, characters all tell a part of the story, there’ll be flash backs and other back and forth.
Story Overview
´A strange and unknown virus has infected cities within America, striking people down. Researchers are desperately attempting to find a cure and the army have been called in to handle the quarantine zones, attempting to ensure that the virus does not spread.
´The virus seems to be man-made and all of America has been put in to a state of emergency, as this is potentially a large biological terrorist attack. In reality, the virus was made within the army research labs at the scientific and medical facility situated at Rosebury Military base by Dr. Jeremiah Roberts and his team. To test the stealth and efficiency of the virus, they had released it in to a nearby military town – Rosebury Heights – through the water supply. They had done so at extremely small doses, wanting to monitor the effect on the residents. Ready to show their new chemical weapon to the Pentagon, a member of Dr. Jeremiah Roberts’ team travels with vials of the virus, during transport an accident causes large doses of the virus to be released and this leads to the epidemic. Now the army are trying to destroy all evidence and cover its tracks.
Character Overviews
Rina Miller
Is around 30 years old. She has been in the military since she was 18 years old. She is a good, dedicated and accomplished soldier.
Father was a soldier who died while in service.
Mother died of cancer 3 years ago (turns out to have actually been made worse by the virus in the water).
Emi Miller
Is about 20 years old. She is rebellious in nature. She feels abandoned by Rina after the loss of both of her parents and therefore tends to act out.
Emi is street smart and able to look after herself, but can be naive.
She is a fighter and determined with an interest in anything that makes her feel good.
Dr Jeremiah Roberts
Is in his late 40’s. He is married but has no kids as his work is more important. He is a research scientist who helped to create the virus. Although also trained as a medical doctor, he finds working with people difficult.
He feigns concern when people continually turn up in the medical bay with obvious injuries, however, he really just wants to escape to save his own life.
He is cowardly, but extremely intelligent and technologically adept.
Chapter 1 - How To Play - Rosebury Heights
Using your objective tracker and general narrative flow provided to you navigate through the scene.
As you come under attack the idea will be simple; survive. Spread out throughout this chapter will be health pick ups in the form of first aid kits and other pick ups that may alter player performance in a variety of ways.
Controls will be taught as the user begins and slowly progresses although a reminder will always be listed under the pause menu (Tab).
The main aim will be to avoid a variety of NPC patrols, some will patrol, some will wander and others may be waiting when you least expect it. Follow the objectives whilst staying alive, avoiding or fighting - this will be a player choice, both will be valid play styles. The chapter will end with an unavoidable boss encounter.
System Requirements
Minimum settings requirements:
8GB
Pentium i5
GTX 760
Recommended settings requirements:
16 GB
Pentium i7
GTX 9 or 10 series
Game Architecture
All AI patrol paths:
Pink:
Red:
Blue:
User Interface
Below is a series of UI / HUD imagery:
Here is a close up showing the contrasting 'on hover' effect:
Later on towards completion the following customisation options were added to the top right of the main menu:
Here is the controls menu (widget) which will also appear the same in game via the pause menu:
Here is the 'ReadMe' specifically for the main menu interactions:
And finally here is an early visual representation of a functioning inventory system and it's estimated screen position and space:
Artwork
Map Design / Layout
Here is some of my scenes primary map design from an environmental perspective, starting with a base height map and bringing this into engine:
From here I started gauging the size in engine in relation to my town and accounted for a variety of factors, primarily being optimisation / efficiency:
And finally an early mock up of my sculpted landscape 'complete' with procedural terrain material. Roads now had a rough block out placement with exits / entrances to my town:
Global Elements
The game will be optimised to run at 30 + fps on PC at standard settings and this aim will carry over to any console exports.
Many decisions have been made in regards to:
shadows, contact shadows
A variety of light types
Baked / Non baked maps
LODs & Foliage optimisation
And many more.
Models, Renders / Final Renders
Note: Glass will be rendered in UE4 at a later stage as Quixels 3DO renderer has issues with the workflow I have used in relation to displaying glass / transparency properly. As such the window frames and headlights in relation to my jeep may either not exist or show up solid black.
Jeep Hero Asset
Here is a standard close up render of my jeep in it's first iteration (tires needing work but the rest is coming along nicely):
Here is a standard full body render of my jeep in it's first iteration:
Rear view render showing additional internal elements such as seat piping frames.
Warehouse Windows (Modpack)
Here is a render of the windows that will make up all the various shapes and sizes within my windows. This one in-particular already has the grime and dirt in place wheres the one below will be a cleaner view:
Here is a cleaner view of the windows before additional dirt and grime was added:
Warehouse
Below is a 3DO render of my warehouse from a top down angle:
Development - Wireframes / HCI
Below are a series of wire frames showing my pre production work on my main menu and pause menu before development on the aesthetics and functionality of these begin development - function before form:
And here is an additional series of wire frames for my inventory planning:
Development - Blueprints Only
Please note: My in game logic systems (blueprints) won't be fully revealed or shown as the development process draws near to an end for obvious reasons.
Below are blueprints in development for one of the scenes NPCs. These will be subject to changing and expanding dramatically throughout the process:
And below the same for my player, you'll notice currently this is fleshed out to a considerably higher level. This is because the player is pivotal and will work alongside all future NPC's so once this is complete the NPCs will see significant developments:
Map Interaction Flow Chart (Pseudocode)
Audio & Sound Effects
TBC - Future development as per presentation.
Technical Requirements
No strict technical requirements regarding sound are necessary at this stage.
As the game develops and sound files need to be optimised with potential options for sound quality then this may change as necessary.
Future considerations: Option to change sound output source (i.e. speakers/headset)
Player Elements
Movement based sounds:
Yawning / stretching as per the animation
General moans / grunts as damaged
" " - forward / backward rolls and jumping
Future developments:
Dialogue
Marketing
TBD - Game will be released for free once project is in a better position to begin early testing.
Suggestive key features and ideas for future dev, DLC and marketplace can be seen in the below sections.
Key Features / USP
The key features of my game will derive from the project as a whole:
Varying patrol / survival based mechanics
Clues and narrative driven by a day and night cycle
Whilst 2 points amidst quite a broad scene these can be broken down into lots of additional functionality:
Slow Patrol / Strong melee
Fast patrol / weak melee
Balanced both in patrol / melee
Ranged patrol - doesn't really engage in melee
Melee only - lethal in melee, MMA backgrounds
These will be mixed with a strong narrative based scene that helps guide you through these game play factors.
Future Development / DLC / Marketplace
Future development and / or DLC considerations will be in the form of additional chapters. They'll be as follows:
Chapter Two:
Is a flashback to Emi’s escape from Rosebury Heights on the night that the army try to kill the residents and destroy all evidence.
Location: Rosebury Heights
Characters: Emi, Soliders, Residents
Chapter Three:
Dr Jeremiah Roberts is now working at the army base as medical personnel, as they have temporarily closed the research labs. During this time he sees people injured from beatings and rapes and becomes uncomfortable. To his wife, he claims that this is why he wishes to escape. However, Dr. JR knows that the army is likely to come and kill him soon, to protect themselves.
When the army eventually comes for him, Dr JR runs, abandoning his wife, who is killed.
Location: Rosebury Military Base
Characters: Dr Jeremiah Roberts, Mrs Roberts, Soldiers, Commander.
Chapter Four:
Rena makes it to the base and starts to investigate and sees the evidence of corruption. She finds some files about the virus and its creation. While in the scientific research centre, she comes across Dr. JR who is currently in hiding. Rena agrees to help him escape, if he can give her any information. They work together to escape the base.
