Design Doc

• todo: gfx ovehead bridge(protectts from kaiju) with door to transit.
  • transit is exposed?
  • reverse it where overhead bridge is the alley and transit is normal terrain?
• TODO: brainstorm water sim, civilian, and kaiju. Find somethign that interconnects. game verbs,
• TODO: simulation (figure out water, is water more interesting if it canmodify the enviornment like erosion?)
• TODO: simulation (survivors)
• TODO: figure out major events
• TODO: Kind of worried that just having kaiju alone is boring. It relies heavily on atmospheric tension and exploration, but pixel art isn’t te strongest medium to create atmosphere. Exploration works best as a secondary motivation in support of a higher goal. Like finding new enemies or items. Or advancing the plot. I guess Alien Isolation had the same worries which is why there’s all kinds of upgrades and fight sequences. The upgrade stuff isn’t highly regarded though, but they give somethign to do and reasons for exploring. the stealth/hiding mechanics are pretty varied. I think the story was pretty engaging and left me wanting to learn more.

Organizing some ideas for a platformer-style survival game with Kaiju. A bit rough at the moment. Eventually going to reorg this into something that makes sense. For now I’m just writing down ideas and evaluating/organizing where it makes sense..

Demo Idea

• intro cutscene (poewr goes out. character says a few words)
• establish mood (distant thuds outside. empty ransacked apartments)
• demonstrate survival mechanics (water clock, kaiju stealth, TODO: what else)
• goal is to get to the second city via the water plant

Setting

A post-apocalyptic city at the mercy of a Kaiju. Abandoned, few resources remaining, and the survivors are actively hunted by a Kaiju that’s taken a personal interest in humans.

Gameplay Hooks

Trying to think of 2 or 3 concepts that will be the foundation of the core experience

1. Kaiju survival
   • You can’t kill the Kaiju
   • Can’t outrun it in long street, only hide from it
2. Story
   • Discover why Kaiju have appeared
   • Escape the city
3. Environment manipulation
   • The world feels very tactile
   • Simulation of survivors
   • Destroyable obstacles
   • Enter/exit buildings (inside of buildings is more secure than outside)

1. Kaiju Survival

The survival aspect should try to balance the panic of being stalked by a giant creature while providing the player with agency for exploration. More Alien: Isolation than the scripted Samus-X encounters in Metroid Fusion.

• Buildings and open areas are very dangerous. Getting stuck on higher floors is a death trap for certain building where the stairs are at opposite ends of each floor. It’s impossible to outrun Kaiju in the open.
• Kaiju responds to sounds
• Could be interesting if it tracks smell. Kind of unituitive so it needs some sort of UI that reveals limitiations to the player

2. Story

I’m more fond of Godzilla movies like the original, Biollante, or Shin-Godzilla than the battle royales like Destroy All Monsters. Nothing against the the battle royales, I just find it more interesting when Kaiju are a supporting character or secondary element. Like in the original Godzilla it was symbolic of the devastation of nuclear bombs. Biollante was about a researcher grieving for his lost daughter. Shin-Godzilla was a critique of the Japanese response to crises like Fukushima.

One idea I was thinking about was using the massive depopulation of wildlife and other animals not part of human industrial foodchain. The Kaiju could’ve originally foraged deep in the oceans where large biomass was available. Eventually these food sources were overconsumed and they migrate to seek out more food causing ocean ecosystems to collapse. They stumbled upon cities and eventually devastate the human coastline cities.

A couple of unresolved elements:

• how to bring in a third act monster brawl between original Kaiju and newcomer?
  • maybe the second act is about getting a handle on the original Kaiju. Once it seems like it’s under control we realize it was pointless because there was another Kaiju overconsuming its own resources.
• ending resolution?
  • Don’t need to wrap everything up. It’s OK to kill off the 3rd act Kaiju, but leave the original alone.
  • realization of a massive resource depletion that deflates the victory a little.
  • Or maybe we find out there are other Kaiju attacks in other cities?

Making of Godzilla ‘98

I loved the design of thge ‘98 Zilla so this was fun to read. There was an interesting point by the directors about how they failed to get the audience to relate to Zilla so the ending didn’t seem as impactful.

Could have the same thing happen here. Would be interesting if we did a 180 and introduce a new villain in the middle that become the ultimate threat. Maybe an evil Mothra? As the story progresses we start to see lots of people sized caterpillar things. Eventually we find a whole nest of them that cocoon together, liquify, and come out as a giant moth to take on the regular kaiju

3. Environment Manipulations

• outer walls of buildings are destructible and can be entered/exited
• tiles that destroyed by collision events
  • Top floor tiles of a building are destroyed by Kaiju walking over it
  • Ceiling tiles of tunnels an be destroyed
• on the fence about entire building being destroyed. Many cons
  • Creates imbalances (remove resources, hiding places)
  • World consistency. Does it leave rubble equal to its mass? are they tile based? Does it block off parts of the map preventing progress?
  • Maybe compromise by allowing 2 floor buildings to be destroyed since Kaiju can’t nab you on the lowest floors
• power breath
  • It can’t physically destroy buildings, but it could have devastating effects like blowing out a buildings windows and flaming everything minus the 1st floor
  • Acidic bile that can flood sewer areas. maybe forms solid block goop that impedes progress
  • Some kind of pheremone goop that attracts feral animals

Gameplay

A collection of ideas to sort/discard

• To give it stakes/weight, Kaiju have to move fast, faster than the player. To make it fair, maybe the Kaiju doesn’t accelerate to it full speed very quickly, while you can move full speed right away.
• There will be special areas that are basically walls that block your progress. Like a long tunnel that separates two sections of the city. It’s too long to get through without the Kaiju catching up to you.
  • Or it has rubble can be destroyed but blocks your progress until you do.
• Kaiju climbs up/jumps ontop of buildings. it will crack and destroy the top most floor.
• The inside of buildings can be dangerous. Kaiju is quite fast as smashing the side and grabbing you
  • normally presses itself against a building to spy on the insides
  • once it notices, it can grasp inside less than 2 seconds later (like the Rampage game)
  • the bottom 2 levels are safe as kaiju can’t reach that low
• day/night cycles. Prefer something a bit short like 5-6 minutes = 24h. But it depends on how integrated into the gameplay it is.
  • Always felt like Stardew Valley had too long of a day. Mighe be because the day is optimized to larger crops instead of the small ones at the beginning.
• Player Movement
  • Platform jumping. Max reach is two tiles high.
  • Can jump one tile across.
  • Can fall 4 tiles down. Happens automatically by walking. Else you’re forced ot manually jump down but it kills you.
  • There are ladders and stairs.
  • some buildings will have ledges you can climb up. Could be used to enter buildings that are locked because of security.
• Survival Mechanisms. There’s a food clock. You need to drink water every day.
  • Food is automatically found (lots of vending machines in the background)
    • there are plenty of large water supplies that make refuelling in places simple. portable supplies are more scarce. This can add anxiety around exploration.
  • Your idle animation around food will show you taking vending machine food and eating it
  • The map is design with nooks and crannies that the Kaiju cannot reach or access
    • They give some peace of mind when travelling outdoors.
• Simulation
  • There is a semi-procedural simulation of survivors. You can meet random people and the Kaiju can take notice of them smash buildings to grab them.

Kaiju

• Movements
  • Walk, crouch, stand up tall, lean forward
  • can grab through windows (horizontal motion like Rampage)
• Behaviour changes over game
  • becomes more active on the map. More prone to stalking.
  • at first, ignores grabbing you through windows

The Kaiju initally accelerates slowly allowing you to draw some distance. It has a walking speed and a sprinting speed. The walking speed matches your run speed, Sprint speed is like 3x faster.

The Kaiju will employ different stalking behaviour depending on how it encounters you. In green zones, it’s stalking is less deadly to provide extra chances for escape. It’ll just walk (lets say for 10s). Then stop until it disappears from the screen. Then it switches to sprintspeed and will run/jump in front to cut you off. It holds its position where you will have less than 5s to turn around and escape before it sprints at you and grabs you. At this point, perhaps there can be some kind of stun system that gives you a 20s window to search for a hiding place. Maybe you can throw a water bottle at it distracting its attention.

In red zones, the behaviour is much different. You can’t be allowed to cross between green zones. Entering the yellow zone will cause the Kaiju to reevaluate its current position and position itself so that it can reach you before the end of the red zone. Once you’re in the red zone the Kaiju will immediately start chasing you from whereever it is on the map.

The Kaiju is aware of in game progression so it can be smart about how to block your progress. It will squat in a lo cation that blocks your progress if it finds itself in your future path. Once you come across it it will sprint and grab you. No second chances, you’re a goner.

Non-Fighting Gameplay Refs

Just collecting some examples of game mechanics where you don’t need to fight to win

• farming(growing crops, tending animals) harvest moon
• crafting minecraft
• dialog Fallout, Neverwinter night, CRPGs
• item-driven environment puzzles Day of the Tentacle
• stealth/avoidance Alien Isolation, Resident Evil series
  • most early RE game would have you avoid the enemies. Not very fun, but great for creating an oppressive atmosphere
  • the Alien in AI is unkillable. Most section with the alien are mostly just about figuring out how to navigate while activating environmental buttons. Works best for cinematic/atmospheric gameplay.

Introduction

Starts off with the main character hanging around their apartment. multiple bedrooms suggesting other people, but no one else is seen. A couple of quick flash forwards(4 months elapse) establish the character has not left their apartment in some time.

• First flashfoward is hte longest. Main character keeps an updated blog on the current events in their city. Nuclear strike is eminent. Lots of comments
• Flash forward. Flash forward. Flash forward.
• 4 months after first entry. “Cleaned up around apartment. Making a routine. Daily activities. All essential to a healthy mindset. Went through last can of …”
  • power shorts out. “Shit, I didn’t upload my dinner pics.”
  • “MOM! Power’s out! Mo- …oh, right. Not back. Not back yet. I’ll tell her later.”
  • “Water stopped working. Been that way for a while, actually. Mom was still… a really long time ago”
  • “… sigh …”
  • hand over control to player at this point. Player can be the catalyst for change in the main character’s life.

Locations

The game takes place across a city with two major downtown cores. Both cores are separated by an excavated tunnel through a mountain. The tunnel is long, so long that going through it is a death trap. Kaiju will easily catch up and overtake you.

Travelling within a center’s core is relatively safe because of hiding spots and access to the tram system. Between the center cores it’s a death trap because of a lack of hiding places.

• Kaiju Burrowing Tunnels. Large kaiju sized tunnels that leads to some sort of secret zone.
  • Kaiju rests here when required?
• Mountain excavated tunnel. One of the most dangerous places, because it’s big enough for kaiju to crawl through.
  • To prevent cars from driving through it, random rubble is generated as you move through it.
  • access door to a secret military base inside mountain
• Mountain (the one that has a tunnel going through it).
  • partly excavated on the side for a military base.
  • the very top has been cratered by a meteor strike in the semi-near past.
• Sewers
  • access holes connect it to various locations
• Downtown/City Center
  • offices
  • car parks
• Subway/Tram
  • several underground lines that provide safe routes for travel
  • become activated when you (restore power, clear obstacles)
  • some limitations like you can’t travel a full line because the tunnel has partly collapsed or other train cars are blocking access
• Outer city
  • suburbs/large estates (backyard swimming pools). Very dangerous. not many hiding spots. Very exposed. No sewer access or underground trams. Houses are easily smashed by Kaiju. Several homes may already have ripped off roofs.
  • military outpost (helipad)
  • access to Kaiju burrow
• Airbases
  • contain helicopters that open access to inpenetrable locations (due ot collapsed building, fortified walls)
• Signs of fight against Kaiju
  • exploded city buildings
  • holes from missile strikes
• Hospital. Contains helipad
• TV towers
  • to help sell the height of the regular city buildings, there should be some extremely large TV towers
• back alleys
  • sometime hear kaiju stomping through the main streets
  • connects buildings (like through the fire escape)
  • entrance on streets

Map Zones

One important concept in this world is that travel is dangerous. Just making travel itself dangerous would be extremely annoying because it removes player agency. Like in Resident Evil 2 sure you can’t kill all the zombies, but you don’t feel overly restricted because they are reasonably dodgable without affecting pacing too much.

I’m leaning towards an idea to segment the overworld. There are multiple green zones where you can travel cautiously but have multiple escape routes should you need them. Green zones are separated by environments that make escaping from the Kaiju impossible because of a lack of hiding places. For example, the mountain tunnel is just too long to travel without attracting the attention of the kaiju. The suburbs suffers from lack of underground hiding spots and the homes are easily busted by the kaiju preventing them from being used as hiding spots.

Ex. of Green Zones

• city cores

Ex. of Red Zones

• mountain tunnel
• empty space (park, desert)
• suburbs
• military base (concrete fence prevents travel effectively blocking access)

Hub Network (Trams, Sewers)

I like hub-based level designs where an early linear starter zone delivers you to a hub that connects to most future locations. The hub can act as either the central access point for multiple locations (Castle in N64) or a branching point for multiple paths that are beatable in any order.

A tram network would serve this purpose well. Most parts of it are located underground and safe. It could efficiently transport you to distant locations without seeming artificial. It would go well with an idea to make outdoor locations impossible to navigate safely - early game - when the Kaiju is nearby.

Too make sure things aren’t too boring, the tram system could connect to sewage access tunnels and even old, abandoned tunnels from early in the city’s history.

Both city cores are accessible by tram, but not initially. One of the initial goals is to get access to the second city by taking a risk and exploring a suburb that holds a waste water station. The waste water station can lead to the coast which gets you to the second city. Once in the second city the tram back to the other city can be set up.

Fast Travel

Might be interesting to create a sort of “dimensional pocket” effect in the underground. A tram station could be setup with multiple exits that seem side by side underground but are actually dozens of screens apart when travelling above ground. Something like below where each red rectangle at the bottom is equal to a screen width.