Game design document
From Nephilim Wing
Contents |
Shoppink Game Overview
Storyline
You play the role of Nephilim, the main character in this game. Nephilim lives in a small town with her old temperamental grandmother.
Everyday, Nephilim is asked by her grandmother to find some items of her needs. Unfortunately, Nephilim is only given 5 minutes to buy all the things which her grandma asked. She needs 2 minutes to reach the nearest supermarket. In other words, Nephilim only has approximately 1 minute to find all the listed items inside the supermarket.
Objective
To locate all items from a shopping list within the given time.
Key Features
- Fun and leisure game.
- All age range: non-violence, can be played by whole family.
- Educational: Educate children to learn English words by recognizing the items.
Game Play
Game Mode
Single Player
Game Flow
User play the game as the main character, Nephilim, with first-person camera view. Player starts the level in the supermarket with limited time to locate the shopping goodies in the list. Player can navigate within supermarket by using WSAD key and mouse click to pick up goodies that the player wants to buy. A random list of items are given to the player to picks. When player collects all of the items in the list, the game will progress to the next stage. If the player exceeds the given time or makes too many mistake (to avoid random click of the item by player), it will be considered as game over.
Game Control
- W = Move forward
- S = Move backward
- A = Move left
- D = Move right
- Left Click = Take item
Game Progression
Player will start in the first level with a certain amount of time (about 1 minute) to find few number of goodies. The shopping list will be randomized when the game starts. As the level progress, the number of items which have to be bought will increase. The level progression is a linear campaign, i.e. each level can be played independently. As the level progress further, the difficulty will be raised as well, such as additional shopping list and tighter competition from the AI-controlled customer.
Future Implementation
In later level, there will be a lot of customers entering the market and hunting for goodies. There might be certain discount for some items which will increase the interest of customers for those items. The player must get those items before they are sold out, otherwise the player have to wait until the supermarket's employee fill out the shelves with new stock of goodies.
Player will also have a limit to the number of goodies she can carry at once, i.e. limited space in shopping cart. Once she reach the maximum capacity, she must go to cashier, put the goodies into car, and then she can continue shopping. The player may need to check out from supermarket earlier to avoid long queue caused by overflowing customers paying for their goods.
Other improvements
- Difficulty levels.
- There could be some items only exist in certain market, or the price is much cheaper in other places. There will be more than one supermarket in vicinity, and player has to navigate through all of them.
- More obstacles to be implemented, e.g. trap, banana skin, wet floor.
- Power-up, e.g. invisibility, speed up, call/booster from grandma.
- Implementation of point, e.g. collect some secret point along the way. The point can be used to purchase power-ups.
- High score, time attack.
Game AI
Some customers may have same shopping targets. They will compete to grab the goodies as fast as possible. Player needs to observe the goods with limited stock.
Characters
- Nephilim: Our main character. She lives with her grandmother in a small town. Her grandma often asked her to do chores and stuffs.
- Grandma: A bossy and temperamental 85-year-old lady. She always gets angry whenever Nephilim does not finish her task perfectly.
Level
The level is in a supermarket
Interface
Flowchart
This chart shows the navigation through the various screens and windows.
Head-Up Display
Item List
A list of items can be seen on the top left corner of the window. This shopping list is generated using random algorithm. Each time you collected the correct goodies, it will disappear from the list.
Time Indicator
On bottom left corner, there is an indicator how much time left for you to collect the goodies specified in the list.
Hand Icon
On the middle part of the screen, a hand icon is shown to help the player in choosing which item to grab.
Game Play Elements
The elements are set based on normal supermarket look and feel. Some of the elements are shelves, food, drink, clothes, shopping cart, shampoo, utensil, cashier, and many others
Visual and Audio Effects
Visual
Texture mapping and lighting were used.
Sound and Music
The theme of this game music is to create a cheerful ambience. However, for a game over scene (time over) a sad music will be used.
Sound effects include footstep, sound played for choosing correct and wrong choice of item, environment sound of supermarket, etc.
Game development
Tools
This game is mainly developed by 3D Game Studio, which consists of Script Editor, Model Editor, and World Editor. Script Editor allows developer to create script in game by using Lite-C and C-script language. Model Editor is an interface to do editing to the 3D models in our game, such as texturing, skinning, animation etc. Beside Model Editor, we also made use of 3D Studio Max, since many of our models is in 3ds format. World Editor is integration tools which incorporate all elements in the game, such as terrain, map, 3D model, character animation. From World Editor, we test look and feel of our game and making adjustment accordingly. Adobe Photoshop and GIMP was used to create bitmaps to be included in our game's Head-Up Display.
System Requirements
- Minimum: P-75, 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM, sound card, standard VGA card or laptop.
- Recommended: P2-350, 64 MB RAM, 3D video card (16+ MB), 3D sound card.
- Windows 95 or above, and DirectX 5.0 or above are required for software rendering.
- Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP and DirectX 8.0 or above, and a decent 3D card are required for hardware rendering.
