Down to design: Objectives and layout

Originally Posted August 3, 2008

So with the code shaping up nicely and almost complete, I have been concentrating more on the gamplay side of things again and brainstorming objective ideas and finally got down to some level design. Here is what I have so far:

Game Objectives

Main Objective: Gather Supplies to repair your boat in order to escape.

The area surrounding the retreat is filled with zombies and is an extremely dangerous place. Escaping on foot is not an option, the limited ammo and supplies available would be exhausted within hours. Your best option is to take to the water using the boat you have been restoring on the side whilst writing your novel. Unfortunately the boat is far from being sea-worthy and you must gather the supplies needed to repair it before you can escape. To do this you must venture out into the world outside the retreat and scavenge what you need to repair the boat.

Objects needed:

• Working motor x1

• Oil                          x2

• Gasoline cans     x4 – Diesel

• Rotor                     x1

• Batteries             x2

• Flares                    x3

• Rope                     x1

• Compass              x1

• Map                       x1

• Oars                       x2

• Radio                    x1

• Food & Water   x1

These objects will be spread out over the area and will be placed randomly each time you start a new game (hopefully!) so exploring is an important aspect of the game play. The player will only be able to carry one object at a time, and whilst carrying the object will not be able to sprint or use weapons. Careful planning and strategy are the best options when extracting these objectives.

Secondary Objectives: Finding tools for survival and uncovering what happened to the outside world.

The mystery of what happened to the outside world during the months while you have been isolated will be unravelled through newspaper articles, radio transmissions, diaries and various other media scattered throughout the environment.  The rewards to finding these important clues will sometimes be coupled with info on hidden weapons caches and where certain objectives can be found. Exploring the more dangerous areas will also reward you with more useful items and information.

Level Design

Been working on various layouts and designs over the past few weeks and finally came up with a design i liked today and so fleshed it out a bit:

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The locations are not final, this is just an inital sketch so I can get a feel of things. Later i will come up with a more solid list of locations, but next I would like to get stuck into hammer and knock out a quick map to see how it feels to scale.