GDSMC Assignment 01 My Game Concepts

“ 3 RONIN ”

High Game Concept: Japanese Samurai meets Red Dead Redemption.

Genre: Action-Adventure RPG, open world.

Main Character: Satoshi (clear-thinking, quick witted), a former samurai, forced to flee his home by his master for not carrying out an assassination. In turn he has earned himself a bounty and thus is being pursued by his fellow samurai. He has come to America in search of a safe haven amongst the lawless west. 

Story and Objectives: Satoshi had to battle his way out of his village. By his side, Satoshi’s companion warriors, Takeshi (fierce warrior), and his younger sister Ishi (stone).  The three samurai must fight and evade enemy assassins by any means possible. Travelling through mainland Japan, across the pacific on a steam ship, and over the Rockies to reach their final destination of 1880’s Dodge City, Kansas. The three companions must adapt to their new surroundings, sometimes having to reframe from using their superior combat skills to aid townsfolk or fight for justice and risk being brought to the attention of the possible assassins lurking everywhere.

 

Gameplay: Hack and Slash type gameplay with some first person capable events, mostly the third person view like that of Assassins Creed, will be the preferred camera view.  You can switch between any of these characters. They never leave each other’s side. Using the meaning of their names as a play style, Satoshi is the quick and agile play style, Takeshi is the fierce warrior who doesn’t use words but his multitude of weapons and heavy strikes to destroy enemies. Ishi, though smaller and a female character, she is as tuff as a stone and the most cunning of the three.  They must adapt the weapons of their homeland to that of the old west. Katana swords with a six shot colt revolver attached to it for instance. A pike staff that functions as a long range lever action rifle. They must craft these items and learn to use them effectively, practicing on the local bandits and aggressive natives.  Having to avoid being noticed as samurai, their actions whether good or bad depending on how you the player chooses to solve the situation, they build up or decrease detection points. Once it reaches a certain point, it can bring on a group of enemy samurai assassins that will always be slightly better than you. When this encounter occurs, the player must use all the talents of the three companions to fight and survive.

As the characters advance in experience, they can upgrade each of the three characters skills. Though only one at a time, creating a strategic play mechanic, that forces the player to really think about what skills they want to play with and what style they want to play as. When you possess one character, the other two are acting on the pre-determined ai behavior you choose for them.  Items can be looted and purchased from around the environment. These items can also be upgraded and combined to create very powerful weapons and armor.

Controls: Typical WASD control style, that of a first person shooter. Spacebar to jump, E to interact with objects. Tab to open your inventory. Left Mouse to attack, select items in inventory, drag and drop items in inventory and to move them around. Right Mouse to zoom in and to bring up your guard stance. Middle mouse to scroll through weapons and pressed selects highlighted weapon or object.  Ctrl to crouch. Shift to sprint.

Creation: Plan to create a medium to large landscape area, with a few small towns and forested areas with as much detail as possible within the time period we have.  Mainly to showcase the heavy game mechanics that will be required for this kind of game concept. Will probably only have time to create medium detailed blocked out versions of all the buildings and props. The landscape will be lightly detailed do to the size needed for the prototype.

Group: This concept would require the entire team of 8 to build a functioning prototype by semester end. The game mechanics would take up most of the time. But I feel it can be done with this group. This is one of the more ambitious projects, though do-able.

Some some concepts that were of inspiration.