Vampire Dungeon
Assignment 1 – GAME’S DESIGN DOCUMENT
Format: 2D dungeon crawler platformer
Genre: Action & Adventure
Language: English
Territories: UK
“A vampire must escape capture from a vast dungeon by battling through four keykeepers.”
Contents:
Research Prezi
Research Report
Mind Map
Mood board
Story Board
Audience Feedback
My Game Concept
Genre
Concept Presentation
Marketing
Target Platform
Objectives
Theme
Story
Characters
Environment
Level Design
Feedback Forms
Research Prezi:
https://prezi.com/view/7lf1evuSOkVCrKhQHnZo/
Research Report:
| Info required. | Source | Link | P/S | Qual/Quant |
| Character Appearance | Horror of Dracula 1958 – Dracula appearance throughout the film | RIP Christopher Lee: The best Dracula (azcentral.com) | Secondary | Quantitative |
| Item shop items as well as layout. | League of Legends item shop | Shop | League of Legends Wiki | Fandom | Secondary | Quantitative |
| More character designs. | Van Helsing 2004 film characters. | Category:Characters | Van Helsing Wiki | Fandom | Secondary | Quantitative |
| General inspiration for things such as magic, outfits, weapons. | Google images, Pinterest | Google Images , Pinterest | Secondary | Quantitative |
| Level layout and obstacle ideas. | Prince of Persia (1989) game | DOSBox SVN, CPU speed: 3000 cycles, Frameskip 0, Program: PRINCE (classicreload.com) | Primary | Quantitative |
| Online marketing age groups. | 99firms: Youtube Demographics | YouTube Demographics to be Aware of in 2021 – 99firms.com | Secondary | Quantitative and Qualitative |
Mind Map:
This is the mind map for my game where I gathered most of my ideas from scratch. I thought about what I would like to see in a game like this and used those ideas to come up with the base ideas that my game will be created around.
Mood Board:
When making this mood board, I took into account what I wanted my finished game to look and feel like. My game will take inspiration from dark fantasy and the classic conceptualization of “vampires” throughout modern media, this can be seen through the colour scheme as well as character inspiration. Another thing that can be seen on my mood board is the medieval dungeon scene that will be show in the levels of my game, this is the main level design and theme of my game.
Story Board:
Audience Feedback:
How I used this feedback to improve my game:
Firstly, in the third question I asked “How do you think I could improve the progression or challenge of my game?”. From this question I received some great feedback with some helpful ideas, my two favourites being to add difficulty options to my game that let the player pick how hard the enemies will be (health and damage increase) as well as adding more different enemy abilities and increased difficulty as the game goes on.
I will use the difficulty idea to create different options of how to play the game. The way I will add this to my game is through an option on the menu where you will start. I will aim to add at least three different difficulties these being, Painless: casual gameplay where it is a reasonable difficulty better for younger audiences and those with a few minutes to kill, Stony: Enemies will have more health as well as deal more damage and have more varying attacks and finally, Not-a-Prayer: this difficulty will be unlocked after completing the game on “Stony” I will use this difficulty to experiment with large amounts of increasingly strong enemies with more unique and high damaging attacks. The “Not-a-Prayer” difficulty will also feature the idea of increasing difficulty over time so the start of the game will be around the same difficulty as “Stony” and will then increase from there, this should make the game more challenging as it will enforce the use of the item shop and character abilities upon the player so that they keep up with the pace of the game.
Secondly, it was suggested that I add XP into my game. I think this idea is good but not particularly fitting as I want the feeling of progression to come from the items the player buys with gold. However, from this idea I have come up with an idea somewhat like an XP system where instead of levelling up, the player earns more gold from killing enemies. I will implement this only into the higher difficulties casting out “Painless” as I think it will help players keep up with the challenge in the two higher difficulties whereas it might make the game to effortless in the version with lesser challenge.
In conclusion, the overall response I got was positive. I did get some good recommendations that will definitely improve my game so I will work towards making those recommendations come to life in my final game. I think that adding more difficulty in the way described would be very progressive towards making a more enjoyable, re-playable game.
My Game Concept:
One sentence and Introduction:
“A vampire must escape capture from a vast dungeon by battling through four keykeepers.” Vampire dungeon is a 2d action-adventure side scroller where the player must battle through a dungeon full of dark fantasy creatures in order to gain his freedom.
Background:
Vampire dungeon’s concept came from national bat day which sparked the idea of a game where the protagonist is a vampire. I took lots of inspiration from the 1989 game “Prince of Persia” as I thought that it is a good combination of platforming, dungeon crawling and combat. My game has no relation to the Prince of Persia franchise or games and is its own standalone game. When thinking of how I should go about creating a level design where dark fantasy and gothic themes would suit, I thought that the dungeon of an old Transylvanian castle would be the most fitting as it plays on a lot of depictions of vampires throughout modern media so I took this idea and thought about games I had played with a similar theme and “Prince of Persia“ was the game that came to mind.
The engine that will be used to create Vampire Dungeon is Gamemaker Studio 2. Game maker studio is very useful as it contains lots of prebuilt variables and that the user can take advantage of while creating a game. This would be my second game created on game maker so I have previous knowledge that should benefit me when coding my game.
For my character, “Balthazar”, I have taken the idea of vampires needing blood to survive and I have used this to create an idea similar to that of games like Skyrim where you have magic that can absorb health from enemies to heal the character. In my game I will interoperate this through giving the player blood (health and ability charge) upon them defeating one of the dungeons many enemies.
Description:
You’re Balthazar, an exiled vampire warrior who has mysteriously awoken inside of a cell in a decrepit dungeon. You have no recollection of how you got there of who put you there but you know that you must escape. Stricken with confusion, you walk towards the cell door and realise it is wide open. How strange. You think to yourself that maybe this is a test as you walk out into the never-ending darkness.
Set on escape you charge valiantly at the single skeleton that stands between you and the open dungeon. You easily defeat this foe and notice that they dropped some gold. Continuing further you notice a tunnel above where you came in, heading up this takes you into a room where a blue orb awaits you. With a sudden urge of encouragement, you speak to this thing. In a melancholy tone it tells you that it is a shopkeeper and will sell you wares for your gold. You thank him and ask where you are to which he replies “A dungeon… but if you wish to escape you must defeat the keykeepers.” He then points you on your way through the first dungeon.
You then begin the full game where you must find your way through this maze-like dungeon to the first boss arena. Using weapons, spells and movement as you go you will defeat many enemies and eventually collect all of the keys from the bosses and be able to achieve escape.
Key Features:
Health and Abilities. The player starts the game with 100 hp (health points) and 0 ap (ability points). When playing the game if you lose this health, it can be recovered from getting blood points (a system where upon killing an enemy you gain health and ability points). In the item shop for my game, I will also feature “Relics” which will provide extra buffs to the player such as extra health and damage or extra speed and ability points. Upon death you spawn back in the start room where if you chose you can try again at completing the game, after each stage this will act as a checkpoint so you do not have to repeat all of the levels at death (I may add a sort of checkpoint system later on so you could spawn outside of the boss room for example). The way you will receive health damage would be through contact with enemies’ attacks, for enemies such as Zombies they will just do collision damage from there sprites, this could come from magic attacks, arrows or melee. These types of damage will do more depending on how difficult there are to avoid an example would be magic attacks dealing more damage than arrows as they are slower and easier to dodge. The abilities featured in my game will be both for movement and for combat and they will use the ap that I mentioned is gained from defeating enemies. I will have powerful spells like a blood blast which shoots a wave of blood towards a direction dealing massive damage but also costing lots of ap as well as more tame but equally useful abilities such as a dash where Balthazar transforms into a bat and travels and increased distance to either the left or right side of the screen (as my game is a side scroller this is the only direction you will need to go).
Player vs Level. When in game, you must avoid many different obstacles such as spikes and fire which will deal collision damage towards the player. These traps will be littered around the levels to catch the player off guard and add an extra level of difficulty to my game. There will be ways of avoiding these however such as platforming where the player will have to complete a series of jumps or face falling into the trap pits below. Traps will deal damage over time of 15hp per second to the player making them very dangerous to get caught in. Traps such as fire pits will do more and spike pits will do 50hp upon contact. The player can use abilities such as the dash to get around these traps and also reach further jumps in platforming.
Combat. The player will have a decent selection of options in combat and will be able to access more through the shop feature. At the start of the game, the player will have his signature blood sword which will be fast but deal average damage, then when the player has enough gold, they can visit the shop and buy a different weapon or chose to upgrade the sword and make it do more damage etc. The weapons the player will have to choose from will include a great sword, dagger, and a bow and arrow. With these weapons the player will still be able to use blood magic to do extra damage. The enemies that the player will face are based from dark fantasy creatures that would be typical in dungeon scenes. Firstly, the zombie, this enemy is slow and deals small damage but has high health it will be pretty easy to pick them off due to their slow speed but there is the possibility of getting overwhelmed (they will deal 5hp on collision). Secondly, the skeleton warrior, a skeleton with a sword who deals more damage than the zombie at 15hp on collision but is also weaker and can be defeated in one hit due to it being a flimsy bone man. Thirdly, the skeleton mage, these enemy deals massive damage at 30hp per hit but has slow ranged attacks that are easy to dodge and a lower health pool than the zombie but higher than the normal skeleton. Fourthly, the undead archer, this enemy is a zombie who peppers the player with quick moving arrows from its bow. These arrows deal 10hp per hit but move faster than the mage’s magic although they take more time between shot, this enemy will have slightly less health than the regular zombie. Finally, the arcane eyeball, this enemy is a floating eye that explodes upon collision with the player dealing 50hp it can be killed in one hit but is very deadly.
Genre:
By definition an action-adventure game is a game that combines both elements of the action genre and the adventure genre into one. Action-adventure usually has the player explore while fighting or doing something that the player may find exhilarating. Modern action-adventure games include games such as Red Dead Redemption and Assassin’s Creed where the player may move around a world (adventure) while doing things such as fight (action) at the same time.
In my game the player will have to explore a dungeon in order to find their way out which is the adventure side while also battling hordes of enemies and powerful bosses in order to gain the items that they need to succeed on their quest which is the action side. Action-adventure games I looked at while designing my game include games like Skyrim and Prince of Persia which for both I have taken some inspiration such as magic from Skyrim’s vampires and traps from Prince of Persia’s level design.
My game also features a lot of parts from the Platformer genre as the player will have to do lots of jumping from platform to platform while in game. A platform game is a game which includes a 2d environment where the player has to move left and right towards their goal by jumping from obstacle to obstacle. This will be a primary feature as it will have to be used to progress into the game and get around the dungeon. For this reason, I classified my game as an “Action-adventure platformer”.
Concept Presentation:
Marketing:
In order to successfully market my game, I would have to use online websites to promote my game. This would have to be done in order to gather interest for my game, I could use sites such as Kickstarter to gather a starting audience and also funding for my game, although much money would not be needed so I could use a bit of this funding after release (this is to gather an audience before my game launches). Once my game is released I would use some money to pay for different types of online marketing. For example, first I would send out formal emails to different influencers such as streamers and youtubers proposing sponsors or ads in their videos. I think this would help a lot to attract my target audience of 15–30 year old’s as this covers the primary age group that consumes this type of media, according to an article on 99 firms which suggests that 77% of US internet users use YouTube. This follows a common way of advertising games online and has shown large success for games like Raid: Shadow Legends and more. Secondly, I would put my game up on sites like steam. Sites like Steam are great for promoting lesser known games as they feature lots of store events like the Summer Sale or Lunar sale. These events would allow me to get my game to a larger audience with the drawback of it being at a reduced cost but this would likely be surmounted by that fact that it would attract more sales. Finally, I would utilize game review sites where I could send them keys to my game where they could leave reviews. However, this could be a double-edged sword as they may leave negative reviews which would result in a decrease in interest although, reviews will come anyway so it would be worth it for the promotion to audience especially if it gets good reviews.
Target Platform:
The main platform my game will be for is PC. I have chosen to put my game on PC for a selection of reasons that make it more suitable for marketing as well as audience accessibility. Firstly, because my game will be created using a computer I know that it will be able to run at exceptional standards without any issues. As well as this, having already made a PC game on game maker I can confidently say that game maker games work exceedingly well on PC. Not only this but it would be more efficient for the player to download over a computer as I want to put the game on sites like Steam, this would mean that the user could see an add while browsing the internet and, in a few clicks, have the game downloading.
Another reason why I would put the game on PC is because getting games on console is a lot harder to do. For Xbox and PlayStation consoles you have to join a sort of developer program and make sure that your game follows the store policies. This can take a long time to get verified so I think of it more as an after project for if the game does well on PC.
Objectives:
The main goal of my game is to escape from the dungeon where you wake up. However, there is multiple sub-goals that go into doing this.
Firstly, you have to find the boss in each stage. This is the first goal as my levels will be built like small mazes to confuse the player and enforce exploration. In order to get to the boss arenas in each stage the player will have to navigate through lots of platforms, enemies and traps which makes the main challenge of my game. Each stage will have loops and dead ends that are packed with traps, there will also be no checkpoints so if you die you get sent back to the start of the stage. When you reach the boss, you will need to defeat them in order to get to the next stage. These bosses will be difficult which links to the next sub goal.
Secondly, you will need to kill enemies in order to become more powerful. This won’t be too enforced in the first stage, but that is because it is meant to ease the player in, although in the second stage and so forth the game will become more challenging and will require the player to get items from the shop or save ap (ability points) to use on the bosses of each stage. This is also based from the “Painless” difficulty which will be the easiest in my game so it will step up with whatever difficulty you pick. Enemies will drop gold upon death and this is used by the player to get upgrades, weapons and relics which will increase the players power. This sub goal is to increase the players involvement in the game and create a sense of progression.
Finally, the final goal is to escape the dungeon. In order to complete this goal, you will need to destroy the 4 keykeepers at the end of every stage. This last goal requires all of the other sub-goals to achieve. I aim to make the bosses challenging so they have a combination of all that you learn playing the stages comes into play, this will combine different types of fun such as progression and challenge to create a fun experience for the player.
Theme:
The themes in Vampire Dungeon include Vampires, Dungeons, Fantasy and Magic. These themes are good for a game of this genre as it adds a lot of different pre-known scenes and characters as well as creatures that players of the game will already have knowledge of. This means that I will not have to spend extra time creating and designing completely new creatures and ideas for things such as spells. This is also good for creating sprites and levels as I have lots of images, media and other games that I can find while researching. Since these themes are reasonably popular it will also benefit my game when gathering audience as players will most likely be more interested in playing something that they already know they will enjoy.
Story:
My game has no deep story that you have to follow as the player only that you are an exiled vampire who must escape from capture. I think that due to the nature of my game it is more fitting to not have such a deep story that the player gets held up in it. For example, without a story that dictates the players actions, it provides lots more freedom for the player to spend time enjoying the features such as the item shop and different weapons. My game follows a narrative without enforcing it on the players actions directly. The player will always have to complete the dungeon by killing bosses and getting gear but the freedom to create unique builds and classes with the items they have at hand is always there. I think this more customizable gameplay would be more fun especially for a 2d action-adventure platformer game as the player is more limited to the environment compared to 3d games.
The story that is enforced on the player starts when the main character wakes up in the dungeon and realizes that they must escape. They head towards the exit of their cell and walk out into the pitch-black maze. Following the cold stone hallway from the cell you encounter the first enemy which upon being defeated grants the player some gold. At the end of the hallway the player encounters a series of paths this is where they may choose what direction to go and marks the end of the introduction and beginning of gameplay. When the player finds the shopkeeper in the first stage it will give them a bit of information of what to do in case the player is completely lost.
Characters:
Balthazar the Vampire:
Balthazar is the main playable character. The player will have full control over this character and get to use his gruesome and magical abilities to their enjoyment. There will hardly be any character to Balthazar as my game mostly involves killing things and running around a dungeon, I think nice friendly conversations would be out of place here so I will keep him quiet for the game. Also, I feel like if the character has no defined personality, then the player gets full creative control over how they would like him to sound and act which adds to the players experience.
Shopkeeper:
The shopkeeper is a ball of magic surrounded by floating weapons. They act as the one friend that the player has in the dungeon as well as the most useful feature of the game as it is the one to provide the player with weapons and other powerups. The shopkeeper will have a few lines of unvoiced dialog with the player when they first encounter, these lines of dialog being a description of what the orb does as well as tips for how the player can escape the dungeon. I will probably name the shopkeeper at some point considering they will be a recurring character in each stage.
Sem the Skeleton:
Sem the skeleton will be the first enemy you encounter in Vampire Dungeon. As soon as the player leaves the spawn room, they will run into Sem. He is essentially the combat tutorial for my game and the easiest enemy to kill although he is unique compared to other skeletons as he is completely unarmed. Sem will do collision damage to the player but not much as he is only meant to ease the player in.
Enemies:
In total there are five enemies in my game. There are two skeleton enemy types, the skeleton warrior and skeleton mage, as well as two zombie enemies, the zombie and undead archer, and one eyeball enemy. Each one of these types of enemies will have its own unique sprite as well as attacks. For example, the skeleton mage and undead archer will both have unique ranged attacks the former being a slow moving yet powerful blast of magic and the latter being a quick moving arrow. The other two variants are the skeleton warrior and zombie. The skeleton warrior (the most common enemy) is just a regular skeleton with a sword that deals a decent chunk of damage to the player but can also be easily defeated. The zombie is the highest health standard enemy that is slow and tank-like, it does not deal much damage but can be hard to defeat in a group. The last unique enemy is the arcane eyeball. A large floating eye that pulsates with strange blue magic, it explodes upon contact with the player and can deal massive damage.
Environment:
My game is set inside the dismal and cold interior of a Transylvanian castle dungeon. This will consist of lots of dark stone walls that will be detailed with crumbling bricks and catacomb-like bone structures. While conducting research for my game I looked at a lot of dungeons and under crofts and decided that I would have a bleak background with a cold blue tinge that is similar to that of games such as Dark Souls.
When the player reaches the boss areas the walls will become more extravagant and ornate to symbolise that the player has reached an area of greater importance this will be apparent for all levels. The dungeons may also have unique themes and colours in later versions of my game.
Level Design:
My games first level follows the theme of dark fantasy dungeons with long winding hallways with traps scattered throughout as well as dark enemies such as zombies, skeletons, archers (zombies and skeletons) and mages (skeletons). I think the dungeon, which is designed to be an obstacle course, will provide the right amount of challenge to the player as the combination of jumps, traps, and enemies should create fun throughout the level
My creative process behind my design came when I was brainstorming ideas for a game based around bats as the brief was to create a game concept from an event that happens on my birthday. I decided to go with a gothic fantasy theme as the first thing I thought of with “national bat day” was vampire bats and consequently the story of Dracula and the Transylvanian castle that he resides in in fiction. My main inspiration for the design of my level came from dungeons and how they are typically displayed as dark, dangerous hallways filled with horrific creatures that create a maze as I thought this would be very fitting for dark fantasy games and the creatures within.
The second thing that I have taken inspiration from with this idea is the original Prince of Persia games where the player must battle enemies while on the way out of the dungeon that is packed with things like spike traps and false floors that can throw the player off course. I have used the same idea in my game for obstacles such as spike pits, fire traps and hopefully disappearing or false floors in later levels. Not only have I used Prince of Persia and Dracula as inspiration but I also aim to have a shop feature at the start of my level, for this idea I looked at the game League of Legends as this has a very dynamic shop that allows for lots of different strengths and weaknesses for the players which I think would put a fun spin on my game.
Feedback forms:
In this piece of feedback, I was informed that I should add a contents page onto my document. I realise this is necessary for the reader to understand where information is and quickly get around. I have added a contents page because of this comment.
| Author (presenter): Seb C | |
| Unit / Project: Games Design Document | |
| Assessor: Daniel D | Date: 30/11/21 |
| Assessor’s Feedback |
| Description/Proposal: A game in which you play as Balthazar escaping a dungeon where he is mysteriously locked up. You must defeat enemies to escape and gain your freedom. Strengths identified (aesthetic, technical, ideological, workforce, etc.): Good game concept, excited to see the game. What could improve the overall impact or the production value? Make sure the art is good and effective (because there wasn’t any in the document). |
| Identify one element from author’s approach you could apply to your own practice |
| In the document there was art on the borders, I could use this in the actual game menu maybe |
Author Signature: Date:
Assessor Signature: Daniel D Date: 30/11/21
Seb Crowhurst Game Development 