By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

Game Outline:::

Story:

A rat in a laboratory, you have lived your entire life as a test subject. After years of suffering and side effects, you are at your wits end and stage your escape. The scientist has been injecting you with a new round of drugs and you feel stronger than usual. It’s time. As you are being lifted from the cage you called home for so long, to the maze you've memorized after running daily, you bite the scientist and drop to the floor. Regaining your orientation, you bolt for the nearest open door. As you make your way down the hall, you realize that the scientists supplement was still far from perfect. Exhausted and disoriented, you seek out an antidote and then a means of escape. You hear the scientists foot steps behind you and you scamper off into the dark labyrinth of hallways in McMichael Science building.

Flow:

Lab Rat: Escape! is a single player scrolling platform game, designed for PC, and Xbox.

The player controls a lab rat and masterminds his escape from captivity while navigating the hallways

and air ducts of a laboratory. Evade the mad scientists and collect items as you go. Steer clear of

the scientists or risk getting injected with experimental substances that affect the mechanics of

the game and make it more difficult to navigate around obstacles. Injections cause the player to stumble, loose speed, or become disoriented. The

intended audience is Everyone 10 and up. The player must use a combination of platform skills and dynamic mechanical and environmental features in order to obtain the key, unlock the door and progress to the next level.

Simple, clean cut graphics and revolutionary control mechanics combine to give an easy to learn but

engaging play experience.

By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

Lab Rat: Escape! is a Single player, birds-eye-view, scrolling platform game for Windows PC and Xbox. Navigate the dingy hallways of McMichael Science building as a rogue lab rat on a quest to escape the sadistic scientist while avoiding obstacles, injections and hopeless disorientation. Players are confronted with puzzle style levels that involve locating a key and opening a door to progress to the next level while avoiding scientist, and other obstacles. A key feature of this game is the changing controls. Being injected causes the player controls to change pattern or might cause the rat not to talk in a straight line and wobble across the screen. Overcome these physical challenges to progress through the game. The time it takes you to complete each level determines the score for that level. Clearing the level quickly produces higher rewards. The ultimate goal is to escape the laboratory to experience freedom and reunite with your outdoor rat brethren.

Character:::

Right: a preliminary sketch of Lionel McWhiskers O'Hare, the main character of Lab Rat: Escape! He is a Rattus norvegicus, or a common Brown Rat from a large rat colony in the sewers of New Jersey. A stow-away on a college student's U-Haul, Lionel made it to Elon University, where he was captured and placed in confinement, until one fateful night, when he

made his escape. Lionel can move Left, Right, Up, and Down, to navigate each map as he makes his escape. He can jump over obstacles as well as maneuver around them. His mortal enemy are his captors, the Mad Scientists. Lionel's weaknesses include

injections that impair his motor skills and cause him to hallucinate.

Game Play:::

Lab Rat: Escape! features a technology called control metamorphosis. The standard PC controls are modeled as follows:

Blue Keys are the keys used in the game.

Move Up – W, up arrow Move Left – A, left arrow Move Down – S, down arrow Move Right – D, right arrow

Jump – Space Bar Use Key Item – Shift Key Use Science Item – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Start Game – Enter

Standard Xbox Controls:

By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

The directional controls vary as the game progresses. Scientific injections befuddle the controls and the use of scientific items act as antidotes. For example, the Rat may become drowsy causing the player to overcompensate direction left or right. Or the controls could reverse, making up, down and right, left. It is possible that in higher levels, with more powerful pharmaceuticals, the controls might change in other ways as well, manipulating vision, size and other aspects of game play.

Game World:::Lab Rat: Escape! takes place in the mystical realm of Elon, North Carolina. Your goal is to navigate the various levels of the McMichael Science building on Elon University’s campus to escape and live a drug free and happy life with the other emancipated rats on campus.

By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

Game Experience:::

The overall feeling of the game is escape. The lab rat, or the player, must escape from the terrible position it is in. These mad scientists are running many experiments on the lab rat for some sinister purpose and must escape with its life through a series of mazes and hallway chases.

When the player first enters the game they will be trapped by one of the mad scientists in the laboratory and will be running for its life from the beginning. The first level will consist of breaking out of the lab rat “cage” and into the laboratory building in which the lab rat will have to escape through many levels or floors of the building till eventually it comes to freedom.

The player view will be a top down view of the lab rat character as the player makes their way through a side-scrolling map. There will be two different types of side-scrolling levels. The first is the maze view in which the lab rat will have to make its way through a maze and the camera will follow the lab rat around. The second is the chase we believe will happen at the end of each level as the lab rat runs down a hallway away from scientists that are chasing the player. This camera view will be a constant side-scroll where the player must be in constant motion to make it through the hallway chase.

We will be able to use music and game sound to warn the lab rat of scientists nearby. During chase scenes we can provide a fast up-beat tempo to really give the player of running for its life down a hallway.

The interface will consist of a “toolbox” which will contain all the usable potions and keys that the lab rat has acquired. Also displayed in the UI will be the player's vitality and how many lives the lab rat has remaining.

Game-play Mechanics:::

The main mechanics in our game will be directly related to our mazes. This will include locked doors, small narrow tunnels, large gaps, one way portals, and potions. A huge part of our game will be power-ups that we call potions. These potions will have a wide range of effects and uses. Some will include temporary speed boost and stunning/slowing of scientists while others will be needed to bypass certain obstacles in the maze like growing/shrinking to escape down a narrow tunnel or walk over a large gap. Potions besides their normal effects and uses will also grant the player a large amount of points. Collect enough points and the player will be

granted an extra life – which is always useful when trying to escape a mad scientist's laboratory that is stock full of traps.

This brings us to our hazard mechanics in the game. We have imagined many types of hazards that would be spread out through each level. This would include gas-releasing tiles the player can step on, bridges which the player can fall off, scientist if allowed to get close enough will be able to tranquilize the payer which compromises the player's movement, spikes jetting out of the wall and more. There will

By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

also be “pot-luck” type potions that will instead of aiding the player could for a short period of time will hinder them.

There will also be collectible type items. This is divided into two separate categories. One of the most important items in the game will be keys which will allow the player to unlock doors that are in the way of completing the maze. The other category of collectibles will be types of potions that we will allow the user to save and use later. Not all potions will be able to be saved for later but certain types like the ones that stun scientists will have the capability to be used when the player sees fit.

Enemies:::

The main enemy is the Mad Scientist. This enemy character will be spread out over every single level. When the lab rat player gets within a certain range of a scientist then the scientist will start chasing after the lab rat. The scientist has the ability to “tranquilize” or “inject” the lab rat causing impaired movement and hinder the player's ability to navigate clearly.

The way the player can overcome the scientists is through escaping their visual range. The player will have to use potions like stun potions or speed potions to safely navigate away from the scientists. Once the player is a “safe” distance away the scientist will go back to the room he was patrolling and stand guard again. The Mad Scientists may have Mutant Rat Minions that also patrol the corridors but this concept is still in its beginning phase. There may also be Scientists with different abilities and levels of difficulty, etc.

Since the main focus of our game is going to be mazes the main “enemy” to the player will be the hazardous traps including in each level. With that being said scientist will be used to add another level of difficulty because not only are there traps set up but a patrolling scientist capable of “capturing” the player or “tranquilizing” the player. At this point we do not have any type of boss characters that the player will encounter.

Cut Scenes:::

Our game does not have any type of cut scenes or the need for cut scenes at this point in time.

Bonus Materials:::

The full list of bonus material is still unknown at this time but will include achievements as well as a possible unlock-able multiplayer mode. The preliminary list of single player achievements is:

Collect all items No damage Speed-daemon Super-High Score

By: Leanna, Joe, Rob and David

Irishman