R078

The media specialist module for my Masters program at Kingston University required us to create a prototype to understand our specialization. This was the first module, and an early Do check out my blog to see my development process.

Topic & Role

Highlights of the project: Adventure, Sci-Fi simulation, Puzzle

Team Size: Individual

Prototype Footage

R078 is a 3D adventure game, based in a sci-fi world, and is a tale about Hannah. She has been unwillingly put in a simulation and now has no memory of this anymore. To her this simulated world seems like the real one and she slowly discovers the patterns, glitches in NPC behaviors and strange secrets, while carrying out her daily activities.

Objective of the game is to play out each day, interact with objects and NPC's around, and eventually discover the mastermind behind this, while maintaining their secrecy meter. The game is spread over 10 simulated days, after which the game, or the world resets.

Game Design - Plot, Dialogues, Mechanics, Interactions
NPC design - Behaviors
Level Design - Town Setup
Maintaining blog

Tools used: Unity, MS Word, MS Powerpoint, Draw.io, Photoshop, Illustrator

Here's my GDD for the project.

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Try out the prototype here!

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Story Development

The game was heavy on the narrative side, and hence the plot development was the first priority. The drive for creating a story based on a simulation came from a personal theory. In the game, player assumes the role of Hannah, who's backstory involves being recruited by a company that deals with simulated worlds. She realizes that the company carries out unethical procedures and decides to fight back, only to being unwillingly put in the simulation. She now has no memory of these events.

The story is revealed during the course of game, where Hannah discovers about glitches in the world, and these are usually dealt with in a strange manner, that leaves behind no traces. She also realizes that she's wearing a gadget that let's her pause the world around her, and this soon starts bringing memories back.

She eventually makes contact with the guy who put her in the simulation, Rustin. She eventually gets option to shut the server down of the simulation, depending on the choices made in the game.

Story Flow

Design Process

The gameplay for R078 is based on exploration, the decisions that players take and doing repetitive chores. This was an experimental design, since any new quests were only given if discovered. Player could interact with NPC's and objects in the world, leading to simple interactions.

The game required the player to carry out their activities in a manner that didn't resemble the glitches, hence the exploration had to be carried out in careful manner.

Hannah would be given regular quests - Like visiting shop to get food, attend uni, attend work to earn money.
Hannah is required to do these tasks at the appropriate time, else she starts gaining attention, hence affecting her secrecy meter.
Anything other activity done was considered a glitch, and if enough attention was gathered, the NPC's in the simulation started observing Hannah.
Hence the exploration required that she gained trust and broke these NPC's out of the simulation, to gain any information.

The simple interactions helped me provide enough time to designing NPC behaviors, since this was dependent on how Hannah behaved in the simulation.

If the player took a negative decision that reduced their secrecy meter, the NPC's would usually show a repulsing behavior.

Repulse

If the player continued to drop their secrecy meter, they tend to get stalked by certain NPC's, which usually ends up wasting their time, since if they are stalked for more than 30 minutes, the player gets sent home.