KIT109 Assignment 2 - Escape Mania Concept Document

Concept Statement

Escape Mania will take the player who is stuck in a mysterious game world where they have to find a quest which can be found once all enemies are defeated to unlock the door to the outside world.  

Genre

This game is a 2D action-adventure game which combine elements of the two genres, featuring obstacles that must be overcome using equipment which the player had and collected during the game. It is called as an action game as most of the time, the player will focus on shooting enemies to death, which is the first mission to do. Also, there will be health system that describe the player’s life during the game. Continuing to the next mission, there will be new characters as well. Not to mention that quest and dialogue will appear to help the player in succeeding from being stuck in the game world. This new missions are making this action game to have an adventurous component, which is a storyline.      

Concept Creation Process and Influences

• Influences
  

Memories of Alhambra  

The concept game of Escape Mania is mainly based on a Korean drama called Memories of the Alhambra which is an AR game related drama which its main lead is stuck in the game world even though he has already not worn the eye-lens used to enter the AR game. The storyline of this game will be similar to the plot of the game in the drama where the player will have to find the quest which can only be found when it has reach a certain level to escape from the game world. But, in the Escape Mania, the numbers of enemies defeated will be used here instead of the level game concept to make this game more straightforward and easy to be implemented.

Underrun by Phoboslab (https://js13kgames.com/entries/underrun)

The gaming scene is inspired from the Underrun game which is from the js13kgames competition’s winner in 2018. The player movement and shooting will also be similar to this but new component will be added to make the game even more fun. Also, the graphic will not be created in 3D like how the Underrun game is displayed as Escape Mania is a 2D game.

• Concept Creation Process Escape Mania is originally focus on the player defeating enemies to escape the game world. But as making the concept, I think that it would be better for me to add quest to unlock the door to the outside world. The quest will be a clue to find the secret key to escape, however it can be only found once the player has killed many enemies. Another thing is that not only the player has limited amount of lives, but I am thinking of giving health bar to the enemies as well. Same as what I have seen in Memories of Alhambra, player will be given a default weapon for the first time, but as soon as the game started they will get new equipment after killing the enemies. Then, player will get to choose a random equipment. These equipment will help the player to avoid death easily. The more the enemies are killed, the closer the player to find the quest. In addition to make the game even more challenging, I completed this game by adding time to record the duration of the player escaping this game world.

Target Audience and Competitive Analysis

The target audience for Escape Mania are for people loves to play shooting game with a hint of mystery inside, regardless of gender. But the age range are more suitable for teenagers to adult as some instructions are not too straightforward and required a little deeper of understanding to solve what is meant by the clues given. Also, since this game has equipment that will help the player from being killed easily, it does not need any professional skills to play the game. Even for beginner and those who seldom play action-adventure genre can play this game. And even they have played once, they might be addicted to play the game again since the high score will be determined from the quickest time in escaping the game world.

  There are many player shooting games that we have seen. So, to make it different from others I add a storyline which makes the player to have missions. Making this game more challenging as player will not only focus on defeating the enemies but also figure out what is the exact thing that they have to do in order to escape the game world.  I also add timer to time the duration of the playing to make this game more challenging than a simple shooter game.

Game Treatment and Concept Art

• Treatment  
  
You are stuck in this game world alone. No one is here and you have to survive on your own while trying to escape from this world. There are missions that you have to do, but the first important thing that I can tell you now is to kill enemies as many as you can. You will get to know the next mission once you found the quest. But the quest will only available if you have killed many enemies. Additional equipments will be provided during the game. These are more like survival kit for you so that you will not be dead easily

• Overview of mechanics
  
The key controls when playing this game are by pressing ‘a’ key to move left, ‘d’ key to move right, ‘w’ key to go straight ahead, and 's’ key to move backward. Player can shoot using mouse and the bullets will follow the mouse direction when clicked. There will be an equipment called shield to protect when enemies go near to the player, and the shield movement will be the opposite direction of the mouse aim. Enemies will appear if player is near and it will move towards the player. When the enemy collides with the player, it will decrease the player health. A pause menu will also available when the player press 'enter' key.

• Key Features
- Player can shoot enemies by using mouse as the direction
- Multiple missions available in the game (storyline included)
- Equipments given when the after some enemies are killed to boost up player’s health
- New creature is available once player has reached certain mission.

• Art Style
  
To make this game enjoyable, the art style will be mysterious where player can only see what is around him only. The area of the dungeon will not all be seen unless the player go to to near it. I am also thinking about making a spotlight for the player in order to implement this concept. There will be UI as well to display player's health/lives and some buttons to see the player's equipment, including the pause menu.

- A dungeon  example By FirstBlood  > (https://aekae13.itch.io/16x16-dungeon-walls-reconfig) 


- Example player Character Sprite > from KIT109 Tutorial 8-15