Game Design Document

Genre:

I will be developing a three-dimensional 'sword and shield' role-play game which adopts an top down isometric camera perspective for two-dimensional visual effects.

Setting:

The game will be set in a fictional kingdom which depicts a medieval environment. The characters are all humanoid and speak in the English language. The player will spend a vast majority of thier time exploring the rural landscape of this fictional land.

Gameplay:

Much like the majority of games of the 'RPG' genre the player will split it's time between going on quests and slaying enemies. The combat will be turned based with the attacker dealing damage first followed by the defender damaging second. The quests can range from simply locating an item to having to defeat a foe. The player can level their character by training in a specified skill which will directly impact the players combat stats. The player will be able to buy and sell items to aid in combat or acquire better items.

Target Platform:

I am developing this game for the desktop and as such will be targeted at Windows PC players. I intend for the game to be playable across all desktop resolutions however I will be developing the game for 720p "1280 x 720" resolution display. The games graphics will be able to scale to the users preferred native resolution.

Influences:

There're many games I draw influence from for the design of my game. I look towards 'Runescape' and 'Diablo' as benchmarks for the look and feel of my projects game play with special emphasis towards their isometric camera perspective and the way 'Runescape' implements turn based combat. When designing the UI elements I draw influence from the 'Dark Souls' series. I love how easy and user-friendly navigating it's menus feels and hope to replicate this in my project.

Software:

The majority of my project will be developed inside the Unity game engine. Unity is a free and easy to use software which is easily the best 3D game engine I have encountered. To create my 3D assets I will be using Blender3D; a free-to-use 3D modelling tool which works seamlessly with Unity3D for importing assets and animations. I will be using GIMP 2.0 to create my UI element textures as I have extensive experience with it and find it much more accessible than Adobe Photoshop. Sound software TBD.

Story:

TBD...