PRE-RELEASE DESIGN DOC

[mdgunn]

004(Forth) - Game Design Document-v0.0.1-PRE-RELEASE-DRAFT-WILL-CHANGE.pdf

First EARLY INCOMPLETE VERSION.

A few notes of warning:

This doc is not yet complete(!!!)

1. I'm releasing it now so that there may be some feedback before the weekend (and because I said I would try to).
2. BUT - I may also choose to avoid reading any feedback until I have completed the document. so that I do not get derailed in where I was heading.  I'd rather get to the end, then throw stuff away than get de-railled and get confused before getting to the end.  Things are more sci-fi than might have been the case before but in order to get something consistent I'm trying to join up the dots and those dots are coming out more sci-fi-coloured....than fantasy-coloured.....in my head anyway.
3. Many things are merely suggestions.  Rather than keep saying 'possibly this' and 'possibly that' I'm just saying it though it may be something that I feel extremely unlikely or a poor choice for us to actually try and do in any first solid try at the game.
4. Comments are welcomed but any comments that are offered may be superseded by whatever I end up doing to the final doc and may need incorporating in the next version.
5. I'm still working through detailed versions of the levels so they are in a state of flux right now and not supposed to be concrete suggestions of 'we MUST have this level'  
6. I've neglected gameplay mechanics a bit still. I tried to go through the forum but I couldn't easily find somethings I thought I'd seen. I think I've missed a number of interesting things that were said so people will probably need to point me to them or suggest them again.
7. I've started toying with the idea of the number '004' being a possible minor detail in the game. It's not really meant to be a name change or anything though I'm still confused as to how Fourth seemed to become Forth so I thought it funny that there's now a third variation of '004'.
8. Some parts of the doc may be inconsistent with each other as I may be still rewriting sections over old ones.
9. I have other ideas that are not added in yet.  I may yet add them in may just keep the doc more cut down to just a single 'first chapter'.

Remember...I may totally avoid reading any comments till I've finished my ongoing pass through the doc but please feel free to comment and then I may step on to incorporating any comments in after I've finished my first pass for the next published version.

The document is getting pretty long but it's been fun thinking it through so far so I'm not too concerned if it ends up not being that useful or off-track for what we do.

Might have the more complete version by the end of tomorrow, or certainly some time over the weekend.

 

 

[mdgunn]

I'm  aware that if we tried to do what is in this doc we would almost certainly not get it done by Christmas and would probably take maybe 3 months after that to do things very well.  Currently I assume we're still just aiming for a rough prototype of 3 or 4 cut down sections of anything in this doc, or what others add in the later revisions and then we see where we go from there. 

 

[aiaf]

Good stuff there.

We just need one player model , to not complicate things other humans should not be running around, be just in the story or static dead people.

Also if we can do in some way to not have tutorial would be great , just tell player by reading some documentation left on ground or something, or listen to some voice.

And yeah agree is kind of hard to keep the fantasy setting also , maybe by adding some kind of demon enemies.

Have more comments but i let you finish first draft.

 

[mdgunn]

OK thanks for the initial comment.  Yeah....no tutorial at all to be started initially and perhaps nothing much at all ever (just screen text or whatever).  Some things in the doc are just added so we can reject (or reject initially).  That would be the right thing to do.  I see this as the main purpose of the doc really.  If people reject things from the doc in favour of something else then I'd consider that a success. 

I think most of the stuff in the doc could be flipped over to some sort of fantasy medieval equivalent if that was everyone's wish.  

There seem to be about 4 people appearing with regularity in the forums so if we have a good set of level ideas weapons and mechanics then I think we should be in a good position to pick things (or choose our own) to implement for 3-4 initial prototype sub-level areas as a next main step. 

Had a night off from the doc.  Will likely finish it up tonight.
 

[aiaf]

I wanna start with the first room as soon as we can.

You still need time for the design document draft ?

 

Lets try do the initial room with csg.

At moment just me mdgunn and Thirsty Panter are active so will be fast with voting.

Im creating a post Initial Room to talk.

 

 

[mdgunn]

I'd done a bit more work on the doc but it wouldn't stop you starting something.  

I will upload what I have in a few minutes (as soon as I can) whether there were a few bits undone or not...

The doc is actually on Google Docs so editable if people had wanted to through I'm not sure how things get resolved if 2 people work on a doc at once.

Will post back here in few mins.