Working Title for the Game: The War Machine
Type of Game: Top down shooter
Design Focus for the Game: Making the player feel powerful
| Game World/Level Setting Explanation: a fantasy/alternate version of WW2 in a town in Western Europe after D-day | Main Mechanics of the game: Weapon pickups Recharging health enemy types |
| Brief Synopsis of the Game Story: after being separated from your squad you set out defeat German defensive position and suspected research facility re-join friendly forces but end up finding plans for a new Nazi superweapon | Characters in the Game: the player Friendly forces |
| Description of Player Avatar: WW2 British soldier of some sort | Additional Possible Mechanics: Grenades |
| List of interactable features: Grenade boxes Ammo boxes Weapon racks Weapons Superweapon plans | List of Enemies: Nazi trooper Nazi machine gunner Nazi officers |
I created this document in order to help me expand upon the idea for my project and I feel that filling out all of these sections has helped me because it has given me the opportunity to see all of the aspects split up into more manageable chunks that will be easier plan my production around and to help keep my idea at a size that I feel I can be confident that I can complete within the given time for the project. It has also given me the opportunity to see what potential problems could be with each section for example will there be a difficulty creating a certain asset or creating a specific mechanic?. Overall I feel that filling in this document will go a long way to help me in this project as it has made me able to see different aspects of the project as well as problems within these areas.
| Sound Effects I will need | description of sound | Sourced or Created |
| Grenade explosion | Grenade exploding | Sourced |
| Player Walking | Footsteps | Sourced |
| All weapon sounds | sounds of all the various weapons that are included in my game | sourced |
| Ambient sounds | sounds of distant tanks and gunfire | sourced |
| Enemy alert sound | shouting muffled by a gas mask | sourced/ edited |
| Enemy hurt sound | Grunting muffled by a gas mask | Sourced /edited |
Above I have created A table listing what sound effects I will need, the descriptions of them and weather they will be sourced or created as I feel if I have the choice to source a sound effect they are usually of a much higher quality than something I can create although if I cannot find a sound effect that matches what I need I will have to create one although this problem can be solved to some extent through editing the sound to my liking for example if I need a noise to sound muffled I can get the sound that I need and edit it to be muffled as this would save me a lot of time in the long run as I would have to spend a long time trying to find a sound with that effect that is to my liking. When sourcing the sound effects for my game I will have to use different websites for the sounds that I need such as “freesound.com” and “ZapSplat” which will contain most of the sounds I need although if I cannot find some of the sounds I need for example the sounds of specific weapons as keeping these sounds as accurate to the weapons as possible is something that I would like to do for this project I may have to find videos of these guns being fired and convert the sounds from these videos into sounds that will be usable in the game
Story planning:
Plot synopsis:
During the latter end WW2 the German’s have just begun an unexplained rapid technological advancement thought to be linked with the discovery of a new metal that is light in weight but very resilient that has allowed them to begin equipping troops with more advanced gear such as bullet proof armour and many prototype weapons that are yet to see use as well as sparking the plans for many superweapons with high destructive capabilities. After starting an offensive on a German stronghold in a small town the player loses their squad this is where the game begins the game after fighting your way through the German defence the player finds a room in one of the houses were some officers are gathered round a table rushing to escape with parts of a plan after further inspection of the plans they seem to be for a new super weapon (similar to Schwerer Gustav) after discovering this information the player needs to re group with friendly forces and warn them of the plans.
Character Profiles:
George Thompson (Main character) a British commando separated from his squad. He is a resourceful man and skilled soldier who will stop at nothing to get the job done.
The Wehrmacht (Enemies) a vast technologically advanced war machine growing in number beginning to regain there foothold on both fronts of the war.
The allied powers (Allies) after beginning the assault on western Europe and gaining some distance they find themselves fighting a very difficult battle against a technologically advanced enemy creating squads of the best soldiers they can find and sending them on important missions to seize plans and enemy equipment.
Here is a mood board I have created to try and get a feel for how I want the main character of the game I included many images of British commandos from WW2 as I wanted the character to have that sort of feel and look as I feel the many pouches for ammo and equipment featured in many of the images above would help in making the player feel powerful as the character looks and seems well equipped I also included images of the main character of Wolfenstein B.J. Blazkowicz as I want to have the same sort of feel that comes across from this character to come across in my game and I feel that incorporating aspects from this character can help with this.
Above I have created some concept designs for ways that the character could look in the game taking ideas from the moodboard that I had created previously in the design on the left I drew a lot from the images on the moodboard of the British commandos as I included a lot from these uniforms such as the red beret the camouflage jacket and the ammo pouches although I did draw some influence from other places such as the gloves which were inspired by B.J. Blazkowicz and I am quite pleased with this design and I feel that aspects of this one will work there way into the final design that I will make for this project. The design in the middle was again inspired a lot by British commandos but this time I decided to try other things that were on my moodboard such as a different pouch arrangement, a helmet, a backpack and a lack of camo and I like the design that resulted from this although I feel it looks a bit too much like a generic British soldier from WW2 but I feel that there are still aspects of this design that could work their way into the final design. For the design on the right I decided to draw a lot more from B.J. Blazkowicz as I wanted try and create a design that felt like more of an action hero than the last two as this would tie in quite well with the main design focus of my game of making the player feel powerful with this in mind I opted for this design to have no helmet and have the characters sleeves rolled up which I drew from the design of B.J. Blazkowicz as well as the brown gloves I also included the same pouches as I had seen on some of the british commandos I had put into my mood board although I did make a couple of small changes such as an extra strap to which I decided to have a sheath for a knife on as I felt this would help in making the character feel more aggressive I also decided to give the character an eyepatch as I felt that this helped make the characters face and head more distinct as well as making the character look like they had seen a lot more combat before the game takes place I feel that this design is quite good and feel that this design does a lot more than the previous two for making a player character that evokes a feeing of being powerful as it looks more like an action hero than the previous designs that seemed more like uniforms with slight alterations so I feel I will use a lot from this design for the final player character for this project. I feel that I will be able use the aspects of each design that I have created well for use in my game for the main character in both the UI for the Chicken O Meter and for the version that will be top down in the gameplay of the game.
Here is a moodboard I have made to try and get a feel for the sort of look and feel I want the enemies in the game to have in my project In this I used a variety of images featuring SS soldiers/ officers as well as some more fantasy WW2 stuff such as the nazi soldiers from wolfensien as I feel taking a more fantasy WW2 approach will help support my main design pillar of trying to make the player feel powerful as this can allow for more suspension of disbelief but I still feel that it would help to have some pictures of the actual uniform from ww2 for when I make the designs as I feel the basic nature and aspects of the uniforms could be a really good help as I feel that I will still want to include some of these basic elements in the designs I create.
Above a created a couple of concept designs for how I might want the enemies to look in my game the design on the left is the first design I came up with to make this design I drew inspiration from the SS soldiers uniform and the Nazi soldiers uniform that I had included on my mood board although I did not like this design as the way that It ended up turning out looked too much like a normal WW2 German soldier although this design would serve as the perfect base to modify upon to create the second design that I came up with which I feel created the sort of look I wanted to go for as I drew a lot more inspiration from some of the Wolfenstein enemies that I included on mood-board in the form of including a gas mask that conceals the face of this character as well as the inclusion of some metal plating including the imagery of the Nazi eagle that is also present on the Wolfenstein designs as well as drawing some inspiration from the SS officers uniforms I included more specifically the imagery of skulls on these uniforms. overall I feel quite happy with the way that the second design I came up with turned out as I feel it is a perfect fit with the more fantasy style WW2 direction I have decided to go with. I feel that I will be well within my ability to re create these designs for use in the game in a top down style.
Here I have put together a plan for how I would like the UI for my game to look like I have included a health bar so the player can easily gage there health in the game as well as a Chicken O Meter that the player can use to do this as well but I also want to include this so the player can see a lot better as to what the character looks like as the game is top down I also included an ammo counter next to which there is a graphic for what gun the player is holding so they can easily tell as the top down view could make this hard in game I also included a counter for the player to see how many grenades they had and keeping in fashion with the ammo counter I decided to include an image of the grenade itself so it looked similar to the ammo counter. I feel that this as a UI that I will be well within my ability to be able to create in the game as all of the aspects within it ,such as the Chicken O Meter, are all aspects that I have used in previous projects in a successful manner.
Above I have created a moodboard to try and get a feel for the way I want the environment to look in my project I have used a range of pictures of towns were battles have taken place during WW2 as well as some dioramas of similar areas which I feel are especially helpful as they provide more of a top down view which I really think will help when I come to creating the environment for the level I also included images from some movies that have recreated this sort of environment for the set I feel that these images help me to get a good idea of the sort of environment I want to create for this project.
Here I have constructed a level layout I feel I have constructed it well using some of the picture I put on my mood-board as inspiration for how the level is laid as I used many of these pictures as a sort of guide as to some of the ways streets in these towns can be laid out with the small alleyways/ spaces between many of the buildings as well as a large open area that is supposed to be similar to a town square which I had seen in some of the pictures I had put in my mood board. Another thing that I feel has gone well with this level plan is the enemy placement as I feel it will provide a challenge for the player whilst still allowing them to feel powerful as they will be able to make there way through many enemies as I have split them into smaller groups that the player will be able to deal with with a small amount of challenge. I feel that I am well within my ability to recreate this level design in the production of my game so that it is similar to the plan I have drawn although I do not feel it will stay 100% the same as I will improve upon this design from the feedback of both my own testing and peer testing of the game.
Here I put together a quick drawing of how I might want the level to look although it did not turn out exactly to my liking I feel that putting this together quite quickly helped me to get a better idea of how I want the level to look I feel that the moodboard that I had created of images of towns from WW2 helped me a lot as I was able to draw a lot of inspiration from the pictures that I have on it for example the cobbled roads were drawn from a lot of the pictures of the real locations from WW2 the colours of the for the scene were drawn form the dioramas that I put on my moodboard as most of the pictures from WW2 were in black and white another thing I drew inspiration from the dioramas were the tank traps and sandbags that I included in this drawing. What I feel I might change when it comes to making the final version of this is making sure that the cobbles seem more defined as cobbles themselves although these are all things that can be easily changed when it comes to creating the final version and things that this drawing has helped me to see and keep in mind so I do not make these same mistakes when it comes to making the final version. I feel that I will be well within my ability to create graphics for the environment of my game that are similar to this rough plan of it that I have drawn.
Above is my production schedule I feel that I have planned out when I will do my production in a way that provides me with enough time to create/source everything I need for this project in a way that still grants me enough extra time to conduct some testing and improving upon issues and bugs that are brought up because of the testing after the game is complete as well as providing enough time so that I will not be stuck if something in production were to go wrong and require extra time from me to make sure it works. Overall I feel this production schedule will be a good guide for this project as it will help me to see what tasks I need to have done by what time in the project to be on track to finish by deadline.
Here is an updated version of my production schedule for the work I have completed up to this point which I coloured in green as you can see I am up to date for were I need to be at this point and I still feel at this point I have given myself enough time to complete the graphics and sounds for the game and even if during these I start to feel I have not given myself enough time I have left myself plenty of room to finish off if I am unable to stay on schedule.
Here is the state of my production schedule at the end of production as you can see it is not fully complete as when working on sound I did not spread my time equally over each aspect and spent too long trying to perfect each weapon which cost me a lot of time that I could have spent working on the other aspects of the sound design that I did not get on to due to this mistake.
19.04.2022 Planning reflection
I feel that the planning that I have completed at this point is to a good quality and I think that it will be very helpful to me when it comes to the creation of my product as this planning has allowed me to figure out what I want the games mechanics, story, characters, level and designs will be like and if I had not done this planning I would have gone into the production process without knowing any of these things and the end product would have suffered because of this for example had I not planned out many ideas of what the main character could look like I would have to come up with a design on the spot when creating assets which I feel would result in a design that would not be of a good quality.
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