GDD (Cont.)

TITLE


The Dark Half of Madness


OVERVIEW


Having no memory of what happened or where you, the name Lynch and being able to kill everything that moves seems to be the only two things you can remember.

Play as the half God half human Lynch, as you shoot, burn, and blow up all sorts of undead and supernatural creatures using yourself and a variety of weapons. Your goal is simple: to stay alive as long as possible so that you can find out who you are and who made your life a living hell in the first place!

Discover the true meaning of a killing spree in this unique stylized side-scrolling, arcade-style, run-and-gun shooter filled with supernatural frenetic killing action.

STORY


Not knowing who he is or why he has to fight hordes of werewolves, zombies, vampires, and other mainstays from the vintage horror assembly line, Lynch (the only thing our character seems to remember) is forced out on a quest to find out who he is and why he has to fight to survive.

Flashes of a life that seems to be his but make no apparent sense keep coming to his mind as he struggles to remember something.

Sometime after all the madness starts Lynch finds Faun, resembling the mythological creature of the same name, who tells him that he must venture to the lands of the Great Famine to kill the one responsible for the chaos the world turned into and that put him through this. It just so happens that these lands are also infested with Lycans (werewolves), Vampires, Shape-Shifters and other agents of evil -some of them once pure souls - that were turned into these creatures due to centuries of famine and anguish. Could this Faun be trusted or is this just another trick to get him killed?

The Faun plays an important role in our character's life. She seems to know a lot about him but does not reveal it. On the other hand she keeps aiding him release his powers every time he runs into trouble. More than that, there seems to be something that she does not want to tell. The only thing she keeps saying when Lynch askes something is that "when the right time comes, all your questions will be answered"

The Dark Half of Madness is a game of contradictions. For most part of the game, in-between Lynch's visions, the Faun will only reveal what our character needs to know in order to kill what keeps coming. As Lynch progresses and starts to unveil the truth, the Faun is forced to also reveal pieces of information that make Lynch's visions have more sense for the storyline of the game and his own story.

Only later will the player realize that he is in the realm of Hades, and the Faun is in fact his mother - Persephone.

Persephone was once the daughter of Zeus. She was abducted by Hades - the god-king of the Underworld. Persephone was abducted by Hades and, because of that, Demeter - her mother -; cast a curse on the world of men and the Underworld causing the Great Famine, leaving both mankind and the Underworld to perish. The Gods kept asking Demeter to lift the curse but she asserted that she would not lift it until she saw her daughter again. When Zeus, God of the Gods, finally intervened he cast away Persephone to the world of men, lift the curse from their world, but condemned his own brother Hades to suffer for his sins in the sickness and famine of the Underworld.

Persephone was unable to return to neither Olympus nor the Underworld, and was condemned to live amongst the mortals as a God, so that she could suffer with the aging and death of all those she would come to love.

Unable to return she knew that the only way to open the door to Olympus was through the Underworld and, for that, she would need the help of a God, unknown to neither Zeus nor Hades. This is where Lynch comes in. Lynch was born half human half God. Persephone gave birth to Lynch and waited for the right time to guide him through the madness of the Underworld and get revenge on the God responsible for everything.

Equipped with great combat abilities and more than enough special skills to combat the forces of, Lynch is set on a Journey to find the truth. Be thrilled or be killed.

CHARACTERS

Lynch

Persephone - The Faun

Hades - Final Boss


King of the Underworld, the god of death and the dead. He is brutal and knows no limits when it comes to torture souls. Haides was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals.
Hades was devoured by Kronos as soon as he was born, along with four of his siblings. Zeus later caused the Titan to disgorge them, and together they drove the Titan gods from heaven and locked them away in the pit of Tartaros. When the three victorious brothers then drew lots for the division of the cosmos, Hades received the third portion, the dark dismal realm of the underworld, as his domain.

Hades desired a bride and petitioned his brother Zeus to grant him one of his daughters. The god offered him Persephone, the daughter of Demeter. However, knowing that the goddess would resist the marriage, he assented to the forceful abduction of the girl. When Demeter learned of this, she was furious and caused a great dearth to fall upon the earth until her daughter was returned. Zeus was forced to concede lest mankind perish, and the girl was fetched forth from the underworld.

Vampires

Lycans

Shape-Shifters

Undead


LEVEL DESIGN

For time sake, I'm only going to focus on one stage of the game, though the whole game will take place in different places of the The Underworld, home of the God-King Hades.

Underworld is the Kingdom of the dead and home of Hades. The Underworld is separated from the world of men by five rivers:

Acheron - the river of woe

Cocytus - the river of lamentation

Phlegethon - the river of fire

Styx - the river of unbreakable oath by which the gods swear

Lethe - the river of forgetfulness.

It's location lies beneath the secret places of the earth and the way down there lies over the edge of the world, as well as various entrances through caves and deep lakes. The Underworld is a shadowy place where nothing is real, but rather a soul's existence there is like a miserable dream.

The only way to get to The Underworld is to either be a God, Half God or to die. Hermes (messenger of the gods) leads the souls down the path to The Underworld, to where Acheron pours into Cocytus. There the ancient boatman, Charon, ferries the souls across. Charon only ferries those who can pay for his service, with the money placed on their lips during their funeral. Those who cannot pay are trapped between two worlds and must wait a hundred years before Charon ferries them for free.

Once on the other bank the souls face Cerberus, a three-headed dog with snake and dragon heads for its tail. His job is to guard the gates to the underworld. Cerberus will allow all to go in, but none to leave. Upon its arrival, each soul is brought before three judges: Rhadamanthus, Minos and Aeacus who pass sentence and either send them to eternal torment in a part of the Underworld named after its master, Hades, or to a place of blessedness, the Elysian Fields, sometimes said to not even be located in the Underworld.

Somewhere in the Underworld lies the great palace of Hades. The Palace is many-gated and crowded with guests. Around it are wide wastes, it's cold, and meadows of asphodel, presumably strange, pallid, ghostly flowers.

The stage I'm going to focus now is the final stage, inside Hades Palace, where Lynch already knows the truth and is set to kill his own father.


GAMEPLAY


USER INTERFACE AND GAME CONTROLS


SOUND AND MUSIC

Onto GDD

INTRO

Today's opportunity to access free software that allows the creation of games as well as the ever growing community of artists and independent developers has led to a whole new era of games and gamming types. Different people look for different types of games and todays stress and lack of time gave developers the opportunity to create small but entertaining games that allow those that don't have time to enjoy a bit of action (the so called indie games)

So, as you probably already noticed from the previous post, I have established a Genre and Theme for my yet-to-develop game. 

Having in mind that I want to create a game for those that don't have time to play full-lenght content driven (time consuming) games, I have decided to develop an indie game. This week I'm going to write down the Overview and start working on the document itself, since I already have a clear vision of what it is that I'm after.

Since I've been a gamer for quite some time now I came to realize that more and more games are becoming one of two things: content driven and engaging stories; or pure out of the box entertainment with no story whatsoever (shoot to kill and have some fun, basically).

Having this in mind I want to create something for those that have little to no time in their lives but still want to be able to sit down for a couple of minutes and have some fun. So, I'm looking to create a simple game that can engage players by its action and frantic killing action. More like an Action Adventure Arcade Game with a Horror Theme, where players get rewarded with a score for killing zombies, monsters, strange creatures and level bosses (as the difficulty increases).

Having as reference games like Metal Slug:

Limbo:

Oddworld Abe's Odyssey:

The early versions of Sonic, for megadrive:

Castlevania:

As well as two of my favourite tv series, Supernatural:

And Grimm:

And many many others, the game will be 2D. The character will have to progress through the level killing everything that moves and, by the end of the level, will have to face the level's boss.
So, these are the elements that I will be working on the next couple of days and that will be included in the Game Design Document:

TITLE


The Dark Half of Madness


OVERVIEW


Having no memory of what happend and no clue of why there's a demon inside you, the name Lynch and being able to kill eveything that moves seems to be the only two things you can remember.
Play as the half demon half human Lynch, as you shoot, burn, and blow up all sorts of undead and supernatural creatures using yourself and a variety of weapons. Your goal is simple: to stay alive as long as possible so that you can find out who you are and who made your life a living hell in the first place!
Discover the true meaning of a killing spree in this unique stylized side-scrolling, arcade-style, run-and-gun shooter filled with supernatural frenetic killing action.


STORY


CHARACTERS


LEVEL DESIGN


GAMEPLAY


USER INTERFACE AND GAME CONTROLS


SOUND AND MUSIC

Developing the Game Idea

Genre: Action-Adventure


Theme: Horror


"As Leon turned the Jeep down Bybee, heading for one of the main north-south streets that would take him to the RPD building, he got his first hint that something was very wrong. In the first few blocks, he was mildly surprised; by the fifth, he found himself slipping toward a state of shock. It wasn't just strange, it was ... well, it was impossible. 
Bybee was the first real city street, coming from the east, where buildings outnumbered empty lots. There were several espresso bars and cheap diners, as well as a bargain movie theater that never seemed to run anything but horror movies and sexy comedies - and was therefore the most popular hangout for the youth of Raccoon. There were even a few generically hip taverns that served microbrew and hot rum drinks for the winter college-student ski crowd. At quarter to nine on a Saturday night, Bybee should have been teeming with life.
But of the mostly single or two-story brick shops and restaurants that lined the street, Leon saw that almost all were dark and in the few that still boasted some light, it didn't look like there was anyone inside. There were plenty of cars parked along the narrow street, and yet not one person that he could see; Bybee, the hangout for cruising teens and college students, was totally deserted.
Where the hell is everybody? 
His mind grasped for answers as he crept down the silent street, searching desperately for a reason - and for some way to alleviate the sweaty anxiety that had once again settled over him. Maybe there was some kind of an event going on, a church function, like a spaghetti feed. Or perhaps Raccoon had decided to take up Oktoberfest and tonight was the big kickoff."

I've always been a huge fan of horror movies and survival horror games. More than that, I always wanted to know how they made them, I wanted to be part of the people that made those amazing games that I would spend hours playing. 

So, for this assignment I went looking for those buried ideas and collect all those references that fill my subconsciousness.

First things first, the first survival horror game I ever played was Resident Evil 1, for the old PS1:

This was never seen before on a console, plus it was a completely new genre. I really enjoyed the game play, the physics and the puzzles that you had to keep solving in order to progress in the game.
So this game was not only about aesthetics, but also about game-play. Also, one of the things that completely caught my attention was the plot. Having zombies on screen was not something new for the film industry (City of the Living Dead - 1980)...

...but for games, having a game with this plot and so dam engaging was something new and fresh for the games industry.



(continues...)