Verb
Those Left Behind is a game where the player needs to do only one thing – choose. The game is based on making choices, either by clicking the button that sums what the player wants to do about a certain issue or by draging and dropping the elements to a proper box – assigning survivor to a certain task.
The verb is highly connected to the experience of the game. The player is the leader and it is up to them to amke the nesseccary choices. They are the person who delegates tasks and chooses the desired path to take. The survivors do not decide for themselves. Even the family members – the most crucial survivors, do not choose for themselves, they can be consulted by the player, to see the possible stances on the issues the player is facing. But ultimately, it is the player who chooses everything and decides on everything.
Rules of the game – the mechanical explanation of key elements
The player – is not an entity in the game. The player has no avatar. They control the management screen that is the game world.
The game world – there is no rendition of the game world in which the narrative takes place. It is conveyed only through events illustrations using photorealistic works.
The UI – it is all of the game screens and elements that contribute to the game experience and game mechanics (diagetic UI). It is described differently from the “menu” (nondiagetic UI) – the outside-of-game UI that takes care of the options and game strating/ending
The resources – in the game there are several resources: scraps, food, tech, security and survivors. They are measured in numbers and are differently characterised currencies that can be spent to resolve events in ceratin way. The Events will sometimes require the player to HAVE certain amount of the resources and sometimes to SPEND certain amount. As the events are resolved different resources will be deducted and differnt will be added.
The survivors – a special resource that is the only way to earn more of resources. Every in-game “week” the player will take every survivor they have and assign them to a team – a scavenging team, a food team, a teach team and a security team. There can be a fifth team if the narrative events requires it, for example a team to build a rocket or a team to go to war with bandits. Every team will give an amount of their attached resource based on how many people it had. It will also randomly drop from two to four events concerning the teams adventures throught the “week”. The events will result in some resources being lost or some being recieved – also can be applied to survivors! When the week is summarised, the remaining survivors will be gathered again to be redistributed. All survivors have a name, a characterisation narrative one-sentance description and a designation that they are good at and one they are terrible at.
The family – a special group of survivors that cannot die (can only leave in late game narrative events). The family members are survivors to all other intents and purposes. They can be “consulted” about the decision on the events, but cannot make decisions on their own. Family members require a way of keeping track the player choices that they agree and disagree with as it will serve as a basis for them leaving or not.
Events – the events are the core of the game play. It is a narratively presented dilemma that has two or three ways out of it. Every way – choice – is connected to some costs or thresholds. Cost is something the player needs to PAY and threshold is something the players needs to HAVE. Every choice has some public costs, thresholds and/or gains but also can have secret cost or, less frequently, gain. Events are divided into several categories – random events are events that are not tied to the main storyline, they have emergent meaning and do not need to be presented in a certain order (some can be ordered between themselves, creating a smaller side story with its own branching events). They are tied thematically to the teams the player is creating at the start of the game “week” – food team, security team, scavenging team and technological team. The fifth team is only used to satisfy the requirements of a narrative event. Narrative events are the events that have a connection to the overall story in the game and to the ending the player has decided to persue. They act like any other event with an eception of a strict order that governs them and that they need a certain amount of survivors to be assigned to the fifth team to be triggered.
Economy of the game
Scraps – the core currency of the Otherworld. The basic building element, basic merchandise and money. It is gathered by the scavenging team. Important for events that require building, upgrading and trading.
Food – the resource that keeps the survivors alive. Every week a portion of it is deducted, based on the amount of people the player has in their camp. If there is too little food, the survivors abandon the camp at the end of the week. Family members never abandon the camp but if they can’t be fed the game ends. Made by the food team.
Tech – High-tech resource which is crucial in making more complex and automated processes. It is invaluable in the events concerning the development of either a rocket, food processing, filtration system or even better secuirty and weapons. Must be made out of scraps via events’ results. If there is no scraps available, there is no income of tech resource at the end of the week.
Security – the security resource is not gathered but it is calculated. After assigning the survivors to it, it will use a multiplier (that can be raised by narrative and security events) and the number of assigned survivors to make the secuirty value for the week. This value is important for beating the difficulty of the probable events that can pop out. Some events will describe the attempt on invading the camp by a band of hostile survivors. It can either be beated by high enoygh security or the camp will suffer losses or even the end of the game would be triggered.
Survivors – Every survivor needs to have a ceratin amount of food at the end of the week.
End state – The player is going to lead a group of survivors. The decisions will influence amounts of resources that the camp has to its disposal. The player will loose the game in two ways – when the food runs out and is insufficient to sustain the player and his family. Lack of food for the other survivors will result in them leaving the camp. The other way of loosing is having to small security to withstand an attack. If a hostile group decides to attack the camp, its security will be tested against the difficulty set by the event. In the case of too small security rank, the game will end with the player being captured and/or killed by the attackers.
Win state – the player is going to lead a group of survivors to a ceratin goal. One of three goals needs to be achieved before an end state occurs for the game to end in a positive way. The end goal will be chosen before the 1/3 of the game passes and then reaffirmed or changed in the late game, after 3/4. The player can choose to either try to win by escaping the Earth via building a rocket, gaining old seeds and plants and purging the land to recreate the old Earth’s ecosystem or adapting to the new ecosystem with research and experimentation.
There are no rigid numbers in the chapter of the GDD precisely because it all depends on what scope of the project the creators choose to commit to.
In here I am explaining how I have designed the mechanics and how one could make a diagram out of it: