Time has come to start putting the barebones of theGame Overview
Welcome to Those Left Behind’s Game Design Document. In here I will be laying the groundwork for the game’s themes, characters and story as well as outlining the resources and audiovisual elements that I think would suit it best. If you are tasked with making this game feel free to edit the paragraphs and make this document resemble your vision of the game.
Core Concept
“Those Left Behind” is a post-apocalyptic, management game in which you delegate by resolving narrative conflicts and choosing narrative decisions that will shape your future. You will become a Chief Scientist of the Off World Project who was left to die on a desolate planet – Earth – after completing the project. You will be faced with taking responsibility for your family and the survivors you choose to take in and deciding the fate of the group in a setting, where morality and human needs stand in opposition.
Genre
Management simulator with narrative choices
Target Audience
Young adults and Adults. Mature themes. Violence.
Platform(s)
Mainly aimed at PC users. Big screen resolution. Stationary gaming situation. Perfect for reading and immersing yourself in the world of the game.
Look and Feel
Games aesthetic will use mixed media to communicate the high-tech elements and the poor situation of the survivors. Collage of digital photos, edited photography and drawn art. The goal is to portray the temporariness and futuristic realism.
Gameplay
Narrative choices make up most of the gameplay with additional delegating and matching your survivors with tasks to procure resources. The player decides and then tries to handle the results of their decisions.
Unique Selling Points
Those Left Behind offers a grind-free, high-level experience of a management game with a gripping and morally ambiguous narrative that questions our ideals and makes us compromise. It asks questions of leadership and means to an end where everything comes own to survival. (management game with humans at heart)
Game Pillars
Portraying the human experience: weighing survival and human life where all choices are suboptimal, the game creates an experience of paying the price for player’s goals
Family dynamics: distinct voices of player’s close circles influencing and informing their decisions
Storytelling heavy: captivating writing creates long lasting emotional impact on the player and makes them question themselves
Game world
Post apocalyptic world where rich people have escaped onto an orbit and are preparing to colonize other plantes while the remnants of the society are fighting the long-term effects of environmental change and pollution.
The Otherworld is Earth, just in the near, possible, unwanted future. It has all of the Earth problems, with its high constrast of wealth and poverty, privilige and discrimination. It is the world abandoned by the best, the brightest and the richest. It is the world collapsed, world that has ended.
Setting
Abandoned OffWorld Project launch pad, where the player’s character has worked with their family and where they were eventually abandoned. The launch pad was designed to house the engineers and has a security fence. It can be useful, but it’s too big to be safe for five people – as big as you start.
Story
It will follow a very straightforward path of main events that can be deterred by the side events or storylines. The main storyline will be external of the family storylines but they can share similar themes and dilemmas.
Characters
Patricia Patty Perrwinkle – grandma Herbalist, the Heart, the Wise
She is the last Perrwinkle to see the “old, good world, when all people would still ride the same wagon more or less”. She is a sassy, know-it-all with a lot of love towards people she cares about. She is old but not frail. She has a doctorate in biology, several years of experience in cataloguing and reviewing at risk flora. She is highly motivated to know more about how the environment changes. A former advocate of fighting climate change, now she thinks that the catastrophe can be a new beginning.
Arnold Perrwinkle – uncle Guardian, the Strong Guy, the Protector
He was always a gun enthusiast and a doomsday prepper. He is the person to talk to about weapons, modern and ancient warfare. He can shoot, fight and scout. He was always saying that climate change is an inevitability and prepared for it. He always has a protein bar in his pocket, nibbling on it instead of eating food from the mushroom farms. He loves Earth. He is prepared to fight anyone who threatens his family and friends. He believes that the rich ones should have used the money to save Earth and they can still. They just need to come back and put their forces to keep out the scavengers and purge the infested lands, build new cities, restore order. His favourite pastime is walking the perimeter. He is a little old but agile and nimble for his age. He is a history nerd as well, mostly military history though.
Lily Perrwinkle – young adult Scavenger, the Lancer, the Rebel
She was brought up in the last years of human civilization. She does not remember cities and schools. She is in a constant state of restlessness, she dreams of travelling the outback and finding the remnants of civilization. She loves the world and shows that even in its desolate state it still holds some beauty. She finds amazement and curiosity to be her main weapon, but she is quite a skilled fighter too. She adores her family but needs to develop her own self too. She is especially moody and stubborn when it comes to player’s (parent’s) interactions with her.
Ingrid Perrwinkle – aunt technician, the Smart Guy, the Supporter
Ingrid has been living with the machines ever since her partner died. The environmental changes left her alone in the world and she has moved out to live with you. She is a calm and collected person, totally in love with her craft. Her interests are wide. She can assemble a modern rocket engine and repair a 100-year-old radio emitter. She does not often speak, but when she does everyone listens. She believes that people are more important than machines but that machines can solve most of the problems. She sees them as tools, nothing more. She hates the notion of AI. She is not tied to Earth; she would rather leave it behind for something new. This planet only reminds her of what she has lost.
Plot Summary
- The beginning of the camp – what will our base look like, deciding the focuses of the first week.
- What to do – what is our main goal here, how can we survive, how everyone will contribute
- First problem – the declining state of the abandoned launchpad is making us decide if we should stay or move
- Newcomers – we encounter first people who want to participate in our camp, survive together, will we be open for such people in the future?
- Reduce/Enlarge – should we focus on making our camp small and highly useful or should we expand and make room even for the ill and old
- Sustain – how can we sustain our decision (throw away people we do not need/find food sources and divide work for everyone)
- The goal – what is our ultimate goal, should we build a rocket of our own, should we try to make technology and science revitalise our surrounding or should we find a biological balance in the world and ourselves
- Adversaries – our growth and success attracts bandits and people willing to just take someone else’s hard work
- The defectors – our goal are not fit for everyone, some of the people abandon the camp threatening the balance of our work
- The last stretch- converging dilemmas and problems grow more and more dire as we need to focus on achieving our goal
- Finale – we have achieved our goal but was it worth it, was it what we expected it to be?
Art direction
For the game I imagine a mixed media approach and photo collage. The use of industrial blueprints and schematics with graph paper as deep background.
UI
The writing and information as well as the window for narrative choices would be a satellite computer style, with a crude and big frame and the screen with 2000s operating system.
Game art
The game art would use photorealism with character portraits and landscapes of the Otherworld. The secondary information and screens can use archives and Top-secret folder aesthetic.
Music
For the music I would suggest a lot of desert and desert camp ambience. A naturally occurring sound would be good to add to photorealism. Some odd variations on them can be used but rarely. The main score should be using blowing instruments and gentle wind-catcheresque music.
Main mechanics
Delegating tasks for every in-game week.
Reacting to events triggered by delegated tasks.
Choosing a path in a narrative event that outlines the story for the week. GGD together.