Project name "Embrace"

Single Player Platform: PC Genre: Interactive storytelling Target Audience: 30 Gameplay Time: 1h Core Mechanics

Hunt Collect Discover

Key selling Points

Intuitive controls, 2 buttons lead the way Experiment with cause & effect Interact with a dynamic world Express yourself

CONTROLS
Right mouse: Embrace Left mouse: Garble, contort, twine, extort...SHUN Right mouse priority check: Drop Boar, Hang fish, Give berries & mushrooms, Pick Up Spear, Pick up Boar, Pick up Berries, Pick up Mushrooms, Hug, Throw berries & mushrooms, Left mouse priority check: Throw Spear, Kick Move with W,A,S,D or Arrow keys. Special controls: Press and hold left mouse to throw spear further and more accurate. Building a game in 6weeks A very conservative way of thinking is to kill your darlings. Of course we do concor it is just that in this game we dont kill anything we just add. The first day we came to the conclusion that if we were to make a hole game and not just a verticle slice of some, already made boring tripple A genre type of game in 6weeks we needed to build it from the middle, making the circle around the core bigger for every week. The core game is there from start and all we do is to build on to the experience, enhancing it for every week. We have our only two action buttons, embrace and shun and an open experience with a village in the middle surounded by woods. The first week we nailed the woods and core mechanics and have ever since just kept on building the game. Following our conceptual mindmap over the world.

PHILOSOPHY

With only 2 action buttons explore the world and use your imagination to see what is possible. You are not required to play in any specific way. The game is built without any visible goal. The more you play the more you learn the controls to be ready for a twist at the end of the game. The 2 buttons are named Embrace and Shun, this is also the only input we give the player before the experience kicks of. We want to intrude on the gamers thoughts about the game as little as possible before it starts and also we want to give them the only controls in a easy manner to spare the player from trying to find more. Embrace your own experience. Not to empathize more or less on any of the 2 buttons we choose to display one name in the top right and one to the bottom left just as flash text in the movies when you have 2 names that are equal important for example when 2 producers made a movie together or when 2 big actors both play the main role in the picture. Not knowing and wanting to find out is what drives you to play Embrace, games today almost exclusively tell you exactly who you are and what to do. To not hold the players hand through out the experience we don't want any dialog, text or intractable items exaggerated with stuff like glow making it pop out from the world. We want you to feel insecure and small in the wild and that everything fits in and is a real part of this world. The pacing should be slow to give you time to reflect and imbibe. We don't want boars to be everywhere because the excitement of finding one will be lost and it is not easy to hunt them either. We are truly challenging today's quick information flow and trying to bring back more of an old school hardcore way of gaming in a new style. Almost all games today are about powerful devices and upgrading it, may it be a gun or spells. As you can see in the real world nowadays too, you have your IPhone or what not and upgrading it equals satisfaction. Todays games are all about acquiring and executing power. I don't say this is not good, it is indeed a very interesting and powerful tool but what it does is that it distracts us from paying attention to the wonders of the world. Which is of utmost importance to this interactive story and this is why we choose to do the contrary. We have a invisible XP system to tell the game when the player is ready for the end scene. We don't want to force any feelings or ways to play this game so we leave as much as possible unsaid. The game doesn't have a name, only the two action buttons do have a name, and that is all you get before you get thrown into the world of of this little child. Another conscious decision is to skip GUI and HUD, it is not needed, we don't want to stupefy our audience and we want them to embrace their own fantasy and intuition. Do you want to hug trees or hunt? Maybe you do both, are you helpful to your villagers or not, or again both, it is all up to you to feel and interpret the game. It is like a painting, the artists feeling when he is painting doesnt have to be the same you have as an observer. You build your own narrative and expectations.

Day & Night Cycle

During the day nothing is extraordinary at all, the boars are mostly scared of you. The occasional boar might attack you. During night time the world gets a subtle tone of fantasy. The

boars are more in number and more aggressive with red eyes and the world comes to life with light particles and glowing vegetation. All this is adds to the experience and immersion. All we want is for the player to feel the world and wanting to be a part of it without no real goal. MOOD BOARD

Story
You start in the forest, you see a smoke pillar touch the sky, this is the only thing you have to go after and when you reach the smoke you find your own small little village with tents and NPC's.

Arriving in the village the first time it is vibrant and in full motion, a boar is on the grill, dry fish is hanging of hooks so that you see part of the core straight away without writing it on your for head. So the next time you arrive at the village the grill is empty and likewise are the hooks to give you an idea that the food stock of the village is all out and that you might be able to help fill the food stock back up some how. Here you can hug or kick NPC's and also pick up a spear which you can bring with you into the forest and hunt with. In the forest you can hunt wild boars, pick berries &mushrooms, hug trees and fish. You can throw berries & mushrooms to attract boars. They more you throw in the same area the further away it attracts. If you carry a wild boar to the village they will grill and eat it. You can give berries & mushrooms to NPC's. If your spear gets stuck high in a tree you can hug it to get your spear back. If you hug a tree with out a spear stuck in it leaves will fall slowly to the ground. This is to give the player emotional feedback in every possible action. When you kick a NPC it will get sad and if you hug her she will get happy, the same happens if you give them berries & mushrooms. You can fish in a river or small lakes. You can bring the fish home and dry it on the fish line. The Village will eat it and when it is empty you can collect more fish for the village to eat, the same goes for the boar.

The Twist (story) When you've reached the acquired XP the game takes an unexpected turn. Remember that the XP is invisible for the player because we don't want to interrupt the players immersion and give "the twist" even bigger impact.

Now, next time night falls, when you look around you see a new navigation point in the sky, it is not another smoke pillar but a ray of light touching the sky. When you get their you find a cave on a hill which is closed during the game. An ale of trees lead to the cave entrance, the trees are now dead, if you stumble over them during the game they are alive, but the entrance is sealed. The light comes from the cave entrance that is some kind of portal that now is visible and lit. When you walk in you find a empty cave with strange cave paintings that resemble your village. When you go back out you find that the smoke pillar (that you by know have learned to always look for to find your way home) is much thinner to give the player a feeling that something is wrong. When you reach back home you find it dark, empty and the fire that always is burning is barely glowing. A part of the games philosfy fits in here. Through out the game you build up some sort of connection to the village and suddenly it is gone. Confused you walk back to the cave. In the cave you find a "monster" that is keeping your people captive. As before the wall is covered with cave paintings matching the village. Is the monster just lonely or a crazy murderer, the speculations are up to the player as it is with everything else in the game. How ever, the monster is protecting the people so you can't reach them. He will take the form or project your only known fright and threat, a boar, and attack you. If you don't kill it with your spear you will die and the game is over. If you kill it the monster will start weeping. You can now choose to either kill him with your spear or give him a hug. Either way this is the end. Nothing more nothing less, the rest is up to your imagination. If you dont kill it or kick it instead it will wake up from its sobbing, startled and surprised at first then it will attack you again and again untill you hug, kill it or it finishes you. One last thing is to have statistics to show how people play this game. It might tell us a bit about how people think and act through cause and effect.

Boss Fight
Everything you learn during the game will help you defeat the boss. The cave does not only have a replica of the village but also dead trees, each with a spear in them. The reason to all

this is that the boss himself has collected all of this because he is studying the people and wanting to create a nice atmosphere for the people to live in after he has in prisoned them. Leveldesign The cave starts of with a narrow corridor with a low ceiling to create tensity. The path turns so that you cant see the people and boss until you round the corner. Now the cave opens up into a big round arena type of room with a high ceiling shaped as a sphere. On the other side of the room the people are in a hole in the cave and the boss is protecting them. When you step into the room, the boss seals of the people and exit with a circle of black fire in circle around the room. This will be the boss arena. Now the boss transforms into your only known fear, a boar, and attacks you. Now you must use the trees to take cover and dodge the attacks. Gameplay The spear gets pulverised if you hit the arena walls or the boss. If you hit the boar it disappears and the boss weeps for 7 seconds. If you hug him the game is over, likewise if you hug a tree, grab the spear that falls of the tree and kill the boss. If 7 seconds pass the boss transforms into a new boar and you must do it all over again. The ring around the fight is so that you cant just leave and also so that you cant shot the spear at the people. Also we don't want you to be able to throw the spear to far away and not find it so the boss and arena ring destroys the spear so that you need to hug a tree to get a new one. In the boss fight you basically need to use everything the game thought you. With that said the game might not teach one player exactly the same mind set as another but the core mechanics will be understood. Boss weep=7sec Dead trees=5 Spears=

Trailer, Intro & End Scene

The little bit of text in the game should look like it does in an old silent movie. Likewise the trailer theme.

Experience system:

Gain experience simply by playing. You can not loose XP. You can gain XP in different amounts depending on your actions. Gain XP over time: 1XP/min Gain XP by exploring: find hut 20XP find view over ocean 10XP find Aley to cave 10XP Gain XP through actions: Kick NPC 1XP Hug NPC 2XP Give NPC berries & mushrooms 1*amount you have picked XP Boar eats berries & mushrooms you throw 5XP Pick berries & mushrooms 1XP(or no XP at all) Fish 2XP Hang Fish 5*amount you have picked XP(max25XP) Kill Boar 1XP Cook Boar 30XP Hug trees 3XP Reach 300 XP to proceed to the next LEVEL!!!!

Boar behavior: If scared from spear and running towards player it should get scared again and dodge. If scared 4 times in a row the boar should get tired and stand still Scared pig runs from between 5-30m Boars can not be in the village