tempest design brief

Game SummaryThe world I am creating is the earth sometime in the near future they year 20XX, and it is directly inspired by the art project News from Nowhere of dOCUMENTA 13, by MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho. In this universe the Earth becomes flooded due to erratic climate change be-cause of this all of the hazardous materials on the planet have become exposed to the environment causing the surfsace to become unlivable. Since the flooding was so rapid the continuity of government was lost and the only remaining bastion of human civilization is on the corpo-rate floating island of Tempers.

Tempest DESIGN BRIEF


My objective for this alternate reality is to create a game-like experience which is based upon the story from the video component of News from Nowhere which is titled El Fin del Mundo. The main objective in this game will be to obtain citizenship from the government of Tempers. To do this you need to collect samples of contaminated materials from the surrounding environment. Items that the player needs to collect are simple things from everyday life such as Dream Catcher, Fast food waste papers, and Insects. All three of these artifacts are scattered throughout the game world and you need to follow three separate paths to collect each of them and bring them back to the Archive. The Archive is a collection facility where the items are stored and tested upon for research. Tests run on the items are to uncover the effects of the radioactive waste and other toxic chemicals on the surrounding environment. The “tests” that the player runs on these objects are simply a part of the narrative function of the game, once an item is in the Archive the player needs to simply examine it to see the effects of the radioactive chemi-cals on the environment. Once a player examines the artifact it will display a popup bubble containing information that is important to the narrative of the story. After collecting all of the items and learning about the stories behind them.

Game Summary Cont’d

Design Goals


Tempest is targeted towards those who are more interested in a narrative experience rather than balls to the wall combat. By having strong critical paths with a linear narrative to help push the story along players who enjoy this type of presenta-tion will find Tempest to be a great experience.


The atmosphere of this environment will be a post-apocalyptic world and will have a look and feel similar to that of the Fallout series. Artificial lighting in certain indoor environments such as the Archive will be bright and overwhelming in indoor environ-ments while it will be dark and dusty in outdoor environments. Temperatures in this world will be very hot on a daily basis often exceeding 100 degrees fahrenheit and it will often be very hazy from the smog.

Look and Feel


EnvironmentsStilt Houses - One of the first environments that the player experiences is a set of stilt houses which have been built in floodwaters. These stilt houses are artificial platforms that the survivors of the flooding but who are not Tempers citi-zens reside. For visual reference of what this village should like like please refer to these images of resort stilt houses as well as abandoned oil rigs. By combining the textures and rustic look of abandoned oil rigs and the apparent makeshift nature of tropical stilt houses you can create the look of a refugee hideaway for those who are down on their luck. Textures for the metal will be dark and rusty but the rest of the environment will feature a bright sun with a clear blue


The Archive- Is an abandoned nondescript building, which has dusty concrete walls, still shiny tile floors and bright artificial lighting. The purpose of the archive is to store and test artifacts which the player has found in the outside world. Through these tests the player learns about the fate of the planet and the region the artifact was found in. In the Archive there are three separate transparent storage tubes in which you are meant to place the artifacts. This is where tests are run upon these them and the player must walk up to and observe the test tube to progress the story. Players should be reminded of the lab where the virtual reality chair was in assassins creed when they enter this space and it should mim-ic the look and feel while presenting itself as older and aban-doned at the same time.

In the world surrounding the Archive there are three separate biomes each accessible via its own doorway from inside the Archive. Within each of these biomes the player must find and retrieve one of the three artifacts described above.


Biome 1 Abandoned Town - in this zone there will be primari-ly one to two story buildings in a neat row along a main street, which will have weeds sprouting up through the asphalt and the shrubbery on the side of the roads will be overgrown - spilling into the street. Interior spaces of the buildings in this town will be damaged with the earth pushing up through the floors. Players need to navigate the main street searching through houses shops and backyards to find the artifact.


Biome 2 Forest - With the vast majority of biomes being de-stroyed the forest is no exception however the mysterious ar-chive managed to capture and digitally preserve one a section of the forest that used to stand outside of the town in Biome 1. The forest is dark eerie and circuitous. Players won’t be di-rectly alerted to the fact that it is a virtual forest but there will be blue glowing particles being emitted from the forest floor.


Biome 3 Cave - In a small section of the forest of Biome 2 there is a path which leads to a small cave which is a dwell-ing of a flood survivor. The cave is very primitive in its dec-orations and there are many mysterious artifacts inside, but which one do you need to obtain your citizenship from Tem-pers?


Deliverables - standalone game client made with Unity and a Game Design Brief. For the website wireframes and style guide along with the html5, css3 and jQuery companion web-site as a platform for the online version of the game.

Class 3 - Final Design Brief dueClass 4 - Wireframing and Design for game websiteClass 5 - Asset creation Class 6 - Asset creationClass 7 - DevelopmentClass 8 - DevelopmentClass 9 - QA and Bug FixingClass 10 - Present!

In this schedule I am giving myself 3 classes for asset cre-ation; this includes both the game and the website itself. Like-wise, development will be split up between the game and the website over the course of two classes. Depending on how fast asset creation goes the development timeline can be pushed up.

Schedule and Deliverables

tempest design brief

Design

tempest design briefbiome

game world

player experiences

surrounding environment

game summarythe world

abandoned town

story buildings

narrative experience