Design Documents: Dracula's Castle Part 4

Rendering System
For merely rendering the graphics of the game I'm considering the OGRE system. It's scene focused, which is what the game needs, relatively easy to use and efficient. This game is more about shadows than light, so saving memory load by not going all out on graphics is my objective with the rendering system.
Camera

The Camera controls simply enough, it keeps a wide view of the area around, while automatically scrolling to keep Adelbert somewhere slightly below the center of the screen. Players can control the camera by moving the right thumb stick if they need to look before they leap, or if they are particularly interested in some piece of architecture, they can jump into first person mode by holding down the right thumb stick.

The game will infrequently take over for the player, to let draw their attention to an important element of the environment, or particularly dangerous foe, but will revert back to the players control quickly afterward.

Camera Feature
While outside of buildings, the Camera will always keep Dracula's Castle in the center of the background, and rotate the scene accordingly. Layers of background will be added depending on how far away the player is from the Castle, if out in the wilderness beyond the town, the player will be able to observe the lights in the town beneath the shadow of the Castle.

Inside of buildings, the camera pans out to see as much of the room as possible while still being able to distinguish important features in a fight. The wall closest to the player will be made into a see though "4th Wall," with the other three walls serving as background, although if there is a window it invariably affords a view of Castle Dracula. Within Castle Dracula, the backdrop is always the wall closest to Dracula's Sanctum, with any windows offering a view of the moon to allow players who are on the higher difficulty modes to know how much time they have left.

Game Engine

Ideally the game engine system that would best fit with the game-play of Dracula's Castle would be something similar to the Anvil/Scimitar Engine from games like Assassin's Creed or Prince of Persia. The game is at heart a 3D action platformer, and a good part of the game should be climbing lonely belfries, or scrabbling over the roofs in the village while in Vampire form.

Water
Although Anvil has a pretty good handle on water as it stands, it's not entirely necessary for the game. Thematically, what water their is in game should be deep, dark and stagnant, not really necessitating an advanced water engine. There will be a fair amount of water in the section of the Castle dedicated to Dracula's First Bride, but it will be shallow, an probably not require detailed water physics. Still we should be well covered in the few instances we need to make use of it.

Collision Detection
Collision detection need only be handled in a very general way, simply making sure that projectiles hit their targets, enemies don't run through one another, the environment nor player, and that a player can accurately grab onto edges while platforming. The majority of collision detection should take place between the player and platforming objects, and checking whether attacks hit their marks. However I think the engines available for the project ought to handle the task admirably.

Lighting Models
The lighting model should receive particular attention as creating the proper atmosphere in the game will require shadows for the creatures to crawl out of. Ambient light should be reduced to a minimum, while not leaving the player completely in the dark, merely making the enemies less distinct and harder to focus in on. For instance, we don't want a player too far away from a light source to completely miss seeing an enemy on screen, but it wouldn't be so bad if the player missed seeing the enemy wind up for an attack. Shadows should be long and visible, players should be spooked when they see three shadows move quickly on the wall behind him.

In the Light of Day
Area's of brighter light are generally reserved for areas of the game who are more or less safe, aside from perhaps dangerous platforming elements. Combat on the other hand will take place in darker areas, with foes sticking to the shadows to gain advantage. The engine needs he right combination of light and shadow to put the player at a disadvantage, but not so much so that they can't make out anything that's going on in game.

Design/Philosophy: Plant a Garden, Build a Church

A little change of pace this week, Dracula's Castle will return next week, with what I hope to be a huge installment that will hopefully finish it off. This week I'm going to start to talk a little about my own design philosophy and start talking about how I might start to specialize within my field.

This week I attended the weekly IMGD Speaker Series at WPI, this installment being a video conference with Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn from Tale of Tales Games. They do great stuff like The Graveyard and The Path, which you can get on their site and heartily recommend. In the talk they did a re-evaluation of their ground-breaking Realtime Art Manifesto which I must admit is the first I'd ever heard of it. Aside from a few quibbles on their opinions of modern art, the entire talk was enlightening and one thing in particular stood out to me.

4. Embed the user in the environment.

This is something I'd long been thinking about, but was unable to put so elegantly into words until I heard them say it. All too often in games it feels like you are outside of your character, going through the actions of the game and the environments are just shifting scenery that just adds a perfunctory back drop to the actions in game. In most first person shooters you could easily switch out any given military base, or warehouse complex for any other and the player wouldn't notice or even have incentive to care. This has got to stop if video-games are going to become a respectable medium.

The one advantage video-games have over other forms of media is that the viewer, or rather user, is allowed to interact with the environment constructed by the author. In films or prose the audience can only see as much of the environment as the author can afford to share with the audience before the balance becomes between detail and plot is lost and the narrative grinds to a halt. In games players control the pace of the narrative, and can look at the little details for as long as they wish, just like in the real world you can examine a particular area for as long as it holds your interest, and depending on how interesting the area you can spend quite a long time in one place if it offers something interesting to do or see. Video-game levels should be like this, interesting places with interesting things to do and see in each one, inviting the player to spend as long as they like there.

However as things stand today levels are not the environment in which the game takes place, merely a container for the game. If you eat some canned fruit, the can itself is not the important part of the experience, it's the fruit inside, the can is merely the container for the experience. Likewise if a game has you shooting some goons in a warehouse, the warehouse is not the experience, it's the container. Why are the goons in the warehouse? For you to shoot them of course!

A good level should be like a kitchen, a place that stores and gives you the means to interact with all the canned experiences, it should be much bigger than the events that take place with in it. The level should be the place where all the experiences originate from, given context and afforded the tools to interact with the experience of gameplay.

Or to use the metaphor of the people who have obviously spent much more time thinking about this than I have, "Game-spaces should be like Cathedrals, not movies. The game experience should surround them and not merely be presented to them." We as game designers have got to realize that players do a lot more in video-games than just overcome the challenge presented to them by the designer. They explore the world and poke at it's edges, and if they find that the facade is only cardboard thick they will loose interest in the environment they are put in.

If at the end of the level, they are just going to be transported somewhere else, by a generic military helicopter, or worse jump cut to another location via cut-scene, why should they care about what happens in one particular place. Why save the hostages in this mission, if they will cease to exist after we defeat the criminal leader? Why is beating the bad guys in that particular warehouse such an accomplishment? If that same fight could have happened anywhere else besides the place it occurred, then the level was not worth making.

Game levels should flow one into the next, with no interruption. The first tutorial should take place within a days ride of the final boss. The townsfolk you saved from drowning should throw you a surprise party at your in game safe-house, after making a climactic escape from the police by jumping off the roof of an office building, you should be able to follow the workers from the office home and ask to come in.

I've got a lot more to say about how game environments should interact with the player, but I think that will come out in future design documents and posts. Suffice it to say I'm thinking of focusing in on level design, and am now committed to studying architecture.

Design Document: Dracula's Castle Part 3

The Game World

Overview: The game world consists of Dracula's Castle, the adjoining manor town, and a bit of the nearby country side. Dracula's Castle is at the center of the game map, atop an imposing sheer cliff, with a winding and narrow mountain road the only way up naturally. The castle seems to tower into the sky, straining to reach the moon in the sky. The rest of the game world radiates out from this center, with the manor town broken up into four sections, with the unoriginal names of North, South, East and West, that form a ring around Castle Dracula.

Beyond that  is the wild Transylvanian wilderness, with a great variation in topography in each of the cardinal directions. To the south of town lies a dark and foreboding woods, to the west, treacherous mountain passes and steep foothills, to the north a deep and dark tributary of the Danube, and finally to the east lies a fetid marsh. Outside of a few abandoned farmsteads there is little sign of human life outside the city, a recent invasion by the Turks have driven the peasants to seek protection within the city.

The Ottomans where unsuccessful in their attacks, although they leave behind ample evidence of their passing, their siege works left in haste, abandoned encampments, their presence felt even in the city where a few catapult rounds have damaged the walls and the buildings within. Perhaps the best evidence of their presence is the bodies they left behind, fallen soldiers litter the landscape and are left to the elements, those not so lucky are impaled on gruesome pikes, a vivid warning to those who would dare challenge the Count.

The whole of the world has an oppressive sense of death and decay, the Count's corpulent form and those of his servants being only one element of the equation. The abandoned crops of the farmers rot in the field, the invading army slaughtered any pack animals it encountered and left them lying on the road, the tight quarters of the city have lead to an outbreak of some manner of illness. Throughout the weight of ages hangs off the buildings, ancient monuments can be found in the woods, most of which are some manner of burial mound or marker. There is a distinct lack of children within the city, and it really seems that there isn't now and never again will be, anything new or fresh in the region.

Day-Walkers and Night Stalkers
The world will have dynamic environments that change depending on whether it is day time or night time. In general during the day, the action is more platform and puzzle solving, and at night it is more combat focused. It is worth visiting areas twice, once in the day and again at night, to see what secrets have been unlocked.

Open the Crypt
After some basic tutorial levels the players can go pretty much anywhere they want, even directly to Dracula's lair if they so desire. Players can conquer the challenges of Dracula's Castle in any order they choose, and are encouraged to explore the world in order to gain advantages for the final fight.

Death is a Doorway
Player got themselves killed in a  tough spot? Find out too late that the area they are trying to explore is better left until later, but have already grabbed a few check-points? No worries, the player is given the option to 'return to his grave' after each death, a certain area that acts like the players home base. The player will have a few options of where to position his grave, so he can center himself near the action. From his grave he can fast travel to any checkpoint he's been to before, eliminating laborious travel times in physically moving through places they've already conquered, while making return to them to explore a snap.

Funerary Wealth
Blue orbs of  'St. Georges Fire' indicate that their is treasure nearby. This visual cue gives the player the idea to search this particular section of the map for power-ups, once the item is found the fire dissipates.

A Tour of Transylvania: The game world is broken up into three parts, the outside wilderness, the surrounding town, and Dracula's Castle. Each of these locations present unique opportunities to advance your character, but also pose a variety of dangers. A quick overview of each region and their key features follows:

The Wilderness: Outside the safety of the towns walls, dark predators stalk the shadows. This is the area where you are most in danger from enemy attacks, the areas are wide open, and there is little cover or terrain for you to maneuver with. It is recommended that your character has built up it's strength before wandering too far.

• To the South lies a dark and twisted wood, through which the initial road to Dracula's Castle leads. Staying on the path should be safe enough, although the road is ill kept and may require some skill to make your way. Straying from the highway is ill advised, dangerous animals haunt the branch choked woods and worse besides. That's not to say that those who do brave the road less traveled will come away empty handed, an abandoned farm house, and scenic glen might offer rewards to those who explore them.
• To the West dangerous mountain passes and low foothills lead thankfully away from the dark countryside of Dracula's Castle. The paths are treacherous and the inclines steep, for if it where easy to leave the area, none would live here. Braving the constant threat of avalanche might be rewarded if one was lucky enough to find a treasure strewn cave, or an isolated mountain shrine, that could greatly aide in your task.
• To the North a dark and deep tributary of the Danube snakes through the landscape. River Traders camp along the strand and sell their unusual wares miles away from the safety of civilization, seemingly unafraid of the dangers the city folk shut themselves away from. Although even the River Traders shun the ill-omened boat wrecked on a great rock in the river, claiming it to be the sleeping place of a foul beast despite the rumors of riches within. Similarly they would rather take their chances crossing the river on their boats than try their luck on the ancient bridge that transverses the river.
• Finally to the east a great marsh, full of  witch-fire and misty groves. Dangerous beasts are said to lurk within, not the least of which is the hag of a witch said to reside in a hut at it's center. Rumors of an ancient stone ruin somewhere within the bog are thought of as a cruel joke to lure would-be adventurers to their death.

The Town: Within the wooden defensive walls of the manor, the local peasants gather. At first seeking refuge from the invading Turks, now shut up in fear of the monster that stalks the land in search of blood. The constant strain of the possibility of violent attack has made the villagers paranoid and agitated, slow to trust new-comers and prone to mob violence. The city is divided into four sections North, West, East and South, each with a particularly important feature to town life.

• The North is where The Tower lies, built by order of Dracula himself. The Tower is the principle place to store criminals and prisoners of all stripes, both political and petty, with the top of the tower reserved for the most dangerous and important of prisoners. Elsewhere in the North of the city, the poorest of the poor make their homes, the  closely packed houses making them easy prey for criminals... and others.
• The West is the most upscale of the neighborhoods in Dracula's Manor, although the wealth has done little to provide for cheery architecture. Here a magnificent new Cathedral was built by order of Dracula's father on the occasion of his families pledge to the Order of the Dragon. The Cathedral has weathered the siege quite well, so it was an obvious choice of headquarters for the Knights of the Order of the Dragon whilst they are in town investigating the vampire. Also in the neighborhood, the well appointed homes of the wealthy nobles and merchants, belie dark dealings with dangerous forces.
• The East of town suffered the most from the siege, with several buildings completely destroyed. In fact the towns old church, nearly ancient even by the long reckoning of most of the residents, burned to the ground during the invasion. All that remains are charred ruins, and the graveyard of course. The locals now mostly avoid the East end, except to visit the local tavern, just within it's bounds and even that is too far to stray for all but the most committed of revelers.
• The South is where the main gate to the city opens to the road beyond. As this is the first place travelers come upon when entering the city, it is the natural place for the merchants to set up shop, hawking their wares. It is also home to the entrance to the path that leads to Dracula's Castle, although the grim stone sentinel that stands over the gate is often reason enough to drive most curious away from his demesne.

Castle Dracula: The lair of the beast himself, the Castle is the final redoubt of the terrible villain who has plagued your steps since arriving in the city. Dracula maintains several advantages on his home turf, and can seemingly set the castle itself against you. There are several important areas within the castle which are as follows:

• The dungeons, where Dracula keeps the masses of peasants he has kidnapped to feed him and his brood. There are several dangerous sentries guarding his living food larder, as well as his family vault, filled with interesting and useful items.
• The sculpture gardens are a series of interior courtyards where his third bride takes residence most of the time. On moon lit evenings she can be seen moving elegantly about amongst the disturbingly life like statues. Those who dare to sneak in and disturb her run the risk of becoming her newest statue.
• The aviary a domed bird habitat that could possibly play host to all manner of exotic birds, but as of right now only seems to be home to unnaturally large ravens. Dracula's second Bride spends her nights here amongst the birds, and she sees to it that the carrion birds eat well of their preferred meal.
• The great baths, where Dracula's first bride takes residence most of the time. The red painted walls get more and more sanguine as you approach the ladies personal bath. It is said that the Countessa bathes blood to keep young, and if you are not careful you could be put to such cosmetic use.
• Dracula's Sanctum is where the count broods as he waits for his plan to come to fruition. Heavily guarded and centrally located so as to be able to quickly call upon his servants if ever threatened, the Count is difficult to surprise and is never unprepared to do battle if it comes to that.

Travel: Players get around on foot, exploring the various paths in and around the castle. Once a player reaches a check point they can restart their exploration from that point if they die in their adventures, check points will be frequent, one in nearly each major area. If a player wishes to quickly travel to some other location, they can select a check point they've already been to on the map and fast travel there, in game it will show an animation of the player turning into a swarm of bats, and then jump cut to them reforming at the desired location.

Scale: The Scale will actually be fairly condensed, each area being one "screen" along which the camera pans across. The interior of buildings will seem larger than they aught to, to provide room for interesting and dynamic fights. In general overland travel is condensed, while giving the illusion of distance, and interiors are expanded. The whole of the game world is never more than 5 screens across, and while various screens might be pretty massive in scope, the whole world would only translate to a square mile or so in real world terms.

Objects: Objects for the most part outside of power-ups will be non-interactive bits of scenery. All items the player can't utilize in combat are pretty much permanent fixtures of the landscape. There will be the odd interactive feature in the game map, such as a spike you can throw an enemy onto, or a lever that might need to be pulled, but none of the items need their own physics or to move in any way.

Power ups float and bob a few feet off the ground, but other than that follow the in game gravity, and will not just hang in the middle of the air, unless for instance it is tied to a rope or some such.

See the objects appendix for a complete list.

Weather: The Weather in Transylvania varies between dark and overcast in the day, and mostly cloudy at night, with only small gaps for the whole of the moon to peak out of to let players know how close they are to a full moon. If we can rig it so the sky gets darker the farther along in the game he is, that's great, maybe even throwing in a dramatic thunderstorm in the end game. But alternating between grey dawn, and a dark dusk suits us just fine for our purposes.

Time: Time in Dracula's Castle will shift between day and night, time "occurs" when a player switches between screens, moving through lets say 10 screen will bring the game into night, and 10 more will bring it back to dawn. In hard and impossible modes, dying also advances the the timeline one whole day. Time is also shown by the changing of the phases of the moon in this case. If not in hard or impossible the moon just stays full the entire time for dramatic effect.

Design Document: Dracula's Castle Part 2

Feature Set

General Features

• Become a Monster- Complex and meaningful "morality system" that affects the game in fun and interesting ways based upon decisions made during game-play.
• It's a Scary World Out There- Persistent world consisting of Dracula's Castle, the manor town surrounding it, and the immediate environs of the Transylvania countryside.
• Lord of the Night- The climax of the game is the show-down with Dracula himself, but he doesn't fight fair. He summons his cronies and henchmen, boss fights in their own right, to his aide during the ultimate confrontation. However the player can seek them out beforehand and deal with them individually, or take all comers in Dracula's throne room. All the decisions the player has made up to this point will provide noticeable changes to how the battle progresses. In any case the final fight is sure to be an epic battle.
• The Dead Travel Fast- The game world is easy to navigate and explore. Characters can fast travel back to key areas, or return instantly to the place they died in their previous life, or choose to return to their home base.
• Death Comes Easy- Simple controls, combat consists of two buttons and the right analogue stick. Camera controlled by the left analogue stick, gives player control of view of the battle.

Multi-player Features

• Team Up To Take Evil Down- 2 player mode that lets players join a friend to take on Dracula together.
• The Enemy of My Enemy- Alternatively one player could play with the controls of an Evil character and one of a Good, and fight both Dracula and each other to see who comes out on top.

Game-play

• Light and Darkness- Players are given prompts in game, not in a cut-scene or dialogue tree for moral choices that affect how the game progresses. Does the player attempt to flee the angry villagers who are afraid of his monstrous form without doing damage? Or do they cut a bloody swath through the torch and pitchfork wielding crowd with their demonic power? Issues of morality should constantly come up through game-play that never leave the player entirely comfortable. For example, even "good" players have to suck blood from innocents to regain health, but must be careful not to drink too much lest they kill the innocent victim. Likewise "evil" actions lead to greater gains of power in the short term, but have obvious negative effects in the future. A "good" player can still transform into the monstrous vampire form, and the "evil" player can still use the vampire hunter tools a good player utilizes, just to a lesser degree for each.
• Things That Go Bump In the Night- The game will feature many "boss battles" with it's main focus being the final boss battle with Dracula at the end. Each boss will offer different and interesting tactical options, with a variety of different game-play possibilities for each encounter. By focusing in on a few complex and interesting enemies, instead of having the main focus killing hordes of smaller, simpler foes, we engage the players interest a great deal more and separate ourselves from other games in the market.
• Blood Lust- Controls are quick and intuitive. It's the same light attack heavy attack format seen before in other games, but light attacks are just tapping "Square" and heavy attacks are holding it down, this free up other buttons for jumping and using items. The strength on the heavy attack is based on how long the player holds the button down for, so the player can do more damage by getting into the rhythm of the opponents attacks, and striking just before it is about to.
• Explore- Platforming levels encourage exploration while blue orbs of "St. George's Fire" let players know their are secrets to be found.
• The Quick and the Dead- The game world is designed to be accessible to players interested in exploring the world. Players can return to the "hubs" of different area's to explore certain parts of the game world at their leisure, by simply pausing the game and selecting the place they'd like to travel to.
• The Hour is Drawing Nigh- Many difficultly modes. Normal difficulty is a standard game, the player fights, dies, and returns to the last check point, (their will be mid-boss fight check-points). Hard mode gives you a time limit of saving yourself from the vampires curse before the next full moon in 28 game "days." When a player dies in game, it rises the next morning by it's grave, (or last check point if they so choose), having lost a day, if all 28 days elapse before Dracula is killed, Game Over. Extreme gives the player only an in game week to slay the the Count. In all game modes a persistent day/night cycle changes the world and game-play in important ways.
• A Killing Machine- Over the course of the game the player has the opportunity to gain either Vampire Powers or Vampire Hunter Tools by completing boss battles. These upgrades will expand the tactical options available to the player and generally make them more effective in combat. Gaining these power-ups are critical to improving the players chances in the fight against Dracula.
• Whenever You Are Ready- At any time during the game, the player can decide they are strong enough to attempt to kill Dracula and storm his castle. It is recommended that a player try and stack the odds in his favor by gaining upgrades and killing Dracula's henchmen throughout the town and in the castle before the confrontation with him, but ultimately the decision is up to the player when to fight the Vampire Lord. Everything the player does up until the fight will have a noticeable affect on the final battle, so the player must consider his actions prior to battle very carefully.

This concludes part 2 of the design document, the features list. I know it seems like this is all pie in the sky fancy, and not to mention totally ignorant of the realities of actually making a game. The reason why most games don't implement many of the features I outline here are probably due to the practical realities of the medium. So why write this design document for a game I don't have the resources to produce at all?

For two reasons, first these pure thought exercises serve as a carrot to get me in the habit of writing this blog. Secondly implementing all these features in one package might be impossible, but writing out all of the possible ways they could be implemented might give me an idea on how to implement the feature for a game that is within my scope. This blog can also serve as a common place book, and I can look back on this when I (God willing) gave the resources of a large game studio behind me and try to pick up the idea then.

Also I seem to have a very liberal definition of when "Friday" is, as we are now a half hour into Saturday. Please forgive the oversight, you would not believe the week I'm having, but this isn't Live Journal, so I won't trouble you with this here. I promise to be more punctual in the future.