Using the stuff that we had all written and noted down together before, Annie put it all together in a word document and edited it and made sure that none of it contradicted itself:
Overview
The Forgotten Rome is a
third-person platform game for the web, it is based in Rome in 27 BC,
where the climate of the Earth has dropped rapidly and now everything
is buried under snow. The player plays as a woman called Charlotte
who has found herself stranded alone in the now snowy Rome, the
player must get to the end of the level without falling down an
endless pit or being eaten alive by wild animals, collecting as many
gems as possible on the way. The player only gets one life so to
survive they must avoid all traps, when the player does die they will
lose all their gems and game will restart from the beginning. Similar
games include Crash Bandicoot as the game follows a straight path and
there is only one camera position, forward, there are also enemies
and traps that the player has to avoid and wumpa fruit to collect.
However, Crash Bandicoot has a health system, where the player is
able to get attacked a few times before dying and respawning. The
player is also able to collect 100 wumpa fruits to get another life.
The design of the game is cel shaded, where the characters and
objects are almost realistic looking but still carry a lot of cartoon
characteristics.
Story
Based 27 BC, back when the
Romans were around, the world's climate has changed dramatically and
Earth is now covered in freezing snow and ice. A woman named
Charlotte has found herself stranded in this dangerous, freezing,
white world, she has lost her memory and doesn't remember how she
ended up where she is. She seems to notice familiar architecture and
landmarks from the buildings and rubble that are protruding from the
snow, she realises that she is in Rome, but not the Rome that she
remembers. It is now covered by snow and surrounded by mountains that
tower over her.
What Charlotte doesn't know is
that a horrible blizzard appeared and everyone started evacuating
Rome, as she was scrambling to get out of her masters villa, she was
knocked unconscious and fell heavily into a dream. Her dream is now
the game and she must find her way out of it.
Wild animals, such as wolves
and Arctic foxes have taken over this land and are not giving it up
with a fight. Charlotte will have to survive and find her way through
this chaotic, freezing place and get to a safe place. On her travels,
Charlotte will be a prey to the animals, to survive she will have to
keep on running, jumping and dodging. There will even be traps lying
ahead to stop Charlotte from getting to the end of her terrible
journey, only the strongest and most willing can survive.
Characters
The Forgotten Rome includes
one main character, she is in her early twenties and her name is
Charlotte. She is a slave of a rich Roman family, she has long
brunette hair which she ties up to keep out of her face, olive skin
with faded freckles, brown eyes and a scar on her cheek (but she does
not know how it got there). Her outfit is the typical Roman attire
(she can survive the cold because it's a dream), a dirty, light brown
tunic with brown wooden shoes. We chose a female character as most
games use male protagonists, and we feel that we need to make the
female gamers included and welcome in the gaming community.
There are also lots of enemy
characters, such as wolves, Arctic foxes, penguins, seals and snowy
owls. They will each be wearing their own Roman armour to show that
the game is based more in a dream, as in real life, animals don't
have armour.
Level
Design
Each level will have
collectable gems that the player must gather, and traps such as
endless pits, spikes that come up from the ground and animals that
are trying to attack the player. There will also be hurdles such as
pillars lying on the ground that the player has to jump over. The
player will be surrounded by mountains meaning that they can only
move forward to progress in the level, at one point in the level the
path will split and the player will have to choose what they believe
is the safest route to take. There will be platforms with endless
pits underneath, the player has to make sure they don't fall down as
they are jumping onto the next one.
Stone and snowy textures will
be used on all of our assets such as the buildings, ruins statues etc
for the level’s environment. A snow falling animation will be added
to the character controller, particle effects will be added to the
enemies when they are defeated, to show that they have been defeated.
Gameplay
On the journey, the player
will be collecting gems, the more they collect the higher their score
will be at the end of the level. When the player go towards a gem, it
will disappear. Once the player has collected the gems (Maximum
amount of gems you can collect is 30) and has got to the end of the
level, a scoreboard will pop up to show how many gems the player has
collected.
However if the player touches
an enemy without killing it (by jumping on top of it), the player
will have to restart the whole level again and the amount of gems
they have collected will reset back to zero. Pits and spike traps are
also an automatic death zone, the player has to jump over them to
avoid falling to their death or getting stabbed.
A respawn system will restart
the whole level again, meaning all enemies and collectables will
reset and appear back to where they originally were. When the player
respawns, the character will flash red for a few seconds to tell
player that they have died that they are starting again.
User
Interface and Controls
HUD
Elements
Score Count
Pause Menu (Resume / Settings
/ Quit)
Main Menu (To maybe be added
later to introduce our game)
Controls
Simple controls using a
keyboard, controls that people are or should be used to:
UP ARROW – Forward
DOWN ARROW – Backwards
LEFT ARROW – Left
RIGHT ARROW – Right
SPACE - Jump
Additional buttons could be
implemented once the character development on Charlotte is finalised,
such as a button to fight or a button to make the character run
faster.
Sound
and Music
The music that will be used in
the game will complement the speed of the characters movement. (So
very fast up-tempo music)
As it’s based in a snowed
over Rome, we want the soundtrack to really make the players feel
like they are in Rome. Solid sound effects to really bring the game
to life, environment sounds such as the snow and wind could be over
enhanced just to let the player know that something is about to
happen.
Some very good examples of
this aspect are in the Tomb Raider series:
Links to sources of music,
which would complement the theme of our game:
-Ryse Son of Rome Soundtrack:
Mad Nero -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfpEK_RyM7Y
-Total War: Rome 2 OST-
Engineering An Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJkfZprcjS0
- Fallout 3 (Ambient
Soundtrack) from 12 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLozm8LNxsg
A sound for when the player
collects a gem, could be a metallic sounding click or something. A
sound for when the player dies, and sounds for the enemies such as
growling or cawing, or for when the enemies are killed.
