Who the game is for
The game is targeted toward gamers who enjoy tension, suspense, and mystery. It is for people who like games such as “Limbo” and “Braid,” which are traditional games that introduced different mechanics in a meaningful way, contextualized by background and story.
The game was also inspired by European horror films, such as “The Orphanage” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which utilized ambiance and tone to an effective degree that we wish to emulate with our own game. In turn, this means that the game will be similar to game genres such as survival horror, mixed in with stealth elements, which means that fans of those genres will enjoy our game as well.
What is the game
Project Hestia (the codename for our project) is a top-down 2D survival horror game with an emphasis on stealth. The game features no combat, but instead a set of mechanics that allow the protagonist to strategically assess enemies that she encounters and flee or avoid them. The main mechanic of the game is the manipulation of various kinds of light. The protagonist will be equipped with several different light sources (shuttered lanterns for a long straight beam, regular lanterns for a wide berth of light, light orbs that can be thrown to light up areas that are further away, and flash-bombs which will very briefly illuminate the whole map exposing all that the character is up against). In addition, the protagonist will be able to change these lights between natural light and various other colours of light to reveal different objects and enemies around the game world. This will encourage the player to take time to explore the various areas with several different kinds of light.
Where it will live (platform)
Project Hestia will be released for Windows and Mac. We hope to expand the project to other platforms in the future, should it be successful, such as to mobile platforms like iOS, Android, or Windows Phone 7.
How many hours you anticipate it will take to make
We assume that each of us has to work about 14 hours a week which makes 84 hours per week for the whole team. Since we have 13 weeks to work on the project the total hours of work should be around 1092 hours.
A list of your preliminary milestones:
- Class diagrams, UML, etc.
- Create start and finish points of a maze.
- Create character and move character from start to finish point of maze.
- Augment character with fire/light.
- Create maze between start and finish points.
- Create enemies.
- Determine business rules of characters (enemies and player), items, and environment.
- Develop interaction between characters/items/enemies/environment.
How you will develop the game (tools & tech)
We are planning to use Unity which is a video game development tool that is going to make much of the work easier for us, especially the graphics and animation work. We are capable of using three types of programming languages which are UnityScript (like Javascript), C#, and Boo (like Python). None of them are completely foreign to us but C# seems to have the shallowest learning curve, so that is the language we are going to use.
Preliminary skills inventory (of your team and what is missing)
We all have good experience with various programming languages, including Java, C++, and Python, though not everyone knows them to the same extent.
Only one of us has experience with Unity so most of us have to learn how to use that. None of us have any experience with graphics or animation so that’s something we all have to work on. Some other skills we will need to acquire are 2D and 3D animation using engines and libraries like OpenGL. Nobody has any experience with these but our team will be looking towards using them.
Skills Inventory:
Matthew
- Languages: Java, C++, very little C
- General writing
- Game Industry Trends
- Film
- Critique
- Lover of Single Player experiences in games
- Basic Photoshop skills and video editing (Final Cut)
Nick
- Languages: Java, Python, C
- Databases: MySQL
- Made large pieces of software in similar-sized group before
- Music production, useful for soundtracks
- Basic AI experience
Jake
- Languages - Java, C++, C, Visual Basic, PHP, HTML /javascript
- Databases - MySQL
- Experience in making games using Visual Basic
- Marketing and business experience
- Website skills
Thor
- Object-oriented programming: Java, Python, C++, C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, HTML
- Functional programming: MATLAB, R
- Databases: MySQL, PostreSQL
- Have experience in all the phases of software development
- Some experience in AI and machine learning
Ken
-Languages: C++, Java, C, PHP
-Databases: MySQL
-Have experience being a webmaster.
-Have experience in writing software requirements.
-Technical Writing
-Enjoys mathematics.
-Prefers working on back-end portions of software.
-Wants to learn more about network programming.
Phil
-Languages: Java, C, C++, Haskell, Prolog
-Technical Writing
-Creative Writing
-Video Game Design Experience
-Basic AI experience
Risk analysis
The primary hazards to our project are technical, market, or administrative in nature. The chief harm that can potentially be caused by all of these hazards is the delaying of the project to such a point that one or more deadlines are not met.
The first sets of technical hazards come from the implementation of the aesthetics of the game and our main mechanic, which is the lighting effects caused by the main character’s light-emitting tools. The former is risky because none of us have much experience in graphic design while the latter is risky due to the inherent technical challenges of manipulating light in the game environment (e.g. reflections, shadows, light fluctuation, etc.). The risks, however, can be greatly reduced through proper selection of a game engine which mitigates the technical obstacles presented by the above.
The implementation of the AI and movement of the enemies may also be hazardous due to our inexperience in such fields. Some enemies have to “detect” the player and chase after them. Enemies will likewise require collision detection logic as well (e.g. going through walls to reach the protagonist when they’re not supposed to would be a major bug). Once again, the selection of an appropriate game engine can mitigate the challenges presented by AI and movement.
Assessing the required difficulty of the game will be difficult, as while we have a few games that we can base the difficulty curve on, we are trying to do something that is quite a bit different from the current gaming landscape.
Another hazard is the game losing its distinctiveness in the undeniably competitive market of horror games. The game’s unique selling point is its focus on light and the use of it to navigate around an otherwise pitch black environment. Only being able to see small areas of the world while knowing what lurks in the dark areas will evoke strong feelings of anxiety and fear in the player. If not enough of a focus is placed on this component, or if the mechanics don’t quite work, then the game will be at a severe disadvantage. Market research and a proper appraisal of existing games in the genre will minimize the risk of our game being branded as “another” cliched horror game.
Administrative hazards leading to loss of productivity include the limited number of time slots that can be used for team meetings (due to the differing availabilities of each of the six team members) and the procrastination of tasks for this project in order to make time for other courses. Team members may be put in a situation where a sacrifice must be made and they choose to sacrifice this project instead. This hazard is especially prominent during midterms and final exams. The risk of administrative hazards can be mitigated through good communication between team members and awareness of each other’s schedules and commitments.
Should a team member go out of commission for any reason, his work will be available in one of the shared online repositories (e.g. Google Docs/Google Code, etc.) and therefore, any leftover work can be resumed by the rest of the team. Regularly uploading updated project artifacts to the shared online repositories will be a strongly encouraged practice amongst the team.
Why this game will succeed if it made it to market
The game will succeed because it appeals to people’s exploratory nature and love of the horror genre. A strong sense of suspense will engage the player and without the ability to fight back, their sense of survival will be activated on a more emotional level. Project Hestia will also have the advantage of being a very unique product in a market that is saturated by very similar and cliche products. We hope that the game will also be the subject of critical acclaim as well, for its tone is accentuated by the gameplay mechanics and design.
