Game Concept Document

27^th August 2020

Endless Night is a 2D shooter game where the player will fight hard to survive waves and waves of zombie attack with the help of a variety of weapons and gadgets.

The game will be a 2D top-down view shooter targeted at casual players who is looking for a game to kill time. This genre is chosen as learning curve is relatively low when compared to 3D first-person or third-person shooters. Also, a round based shooter does not necessarily need a story associated with the game, which is convenient to gamers as they will not be tied to the game by a storyline and be able to have fun even with a very short gaming session. Games targeting casual players can be successful without a story, mobile titles Flappy Bird and Tap Titan are successful games with arbitrary game world. Considering there is a market for time killing games and there are only a few shooters in this particular market, it is expected this game will be popular amongst a broad audience who look for a different type casual game.

Concept Creation Process and Influences

The main influence of this game idea is from a zombie mode in Call of Duty – World at War. In this game mode, the player will fight against zombie in waves, collects point through dealing damage to and killing zombies, the player can then purchase weapon to stand a better chance against zombies, pickup and perks will also be available to help the player. These will be the core gameplay feature of Endless Night. However, some changes will have to be made as CoD Zombies will get more difficult when the game progress, on higher levels, even hitting headshots on every kill does not instantly kill the zombie. Any stationary strategies will not work at this stage as the sheer number of zombies will breach every kind of defence. In order to survive, the player will need to roam around the map, hoard up zombies and kill them one by one. The gameplay will slow down significantly, a round may require 20 minutes to complete. This pace is too slow for a casual game, therefore, some other ideas from other shooter games are taken to speed up the gameplay in endless night.

 Some gadgets will be implemented to speed up the late game pace. These inspirations come from another zombie shooter title World War Z and competitive FPS games Rainbow Six: Siege. In World War Z, when the player reaches a checkpoint where they have to face a large number of zombies, the player will have 90 seconds to prepare the area to defend, this includes equipping electrified grid, auto turret and mortar. For Rainbow Six: Siege, before each round starts, a 40 seconds preparation period will be provided to the defending team reinforce the bomb site. Some defenders are equipped with gadgets designed to slow down the attack. These ideas for gadgets from both games could be implemented into Endless Night to help the player defend and speed up the killing time to achieve a faster pace gameplay, which is more suitable for a casual game.

 Graphics wise, Endless Night will use pixelated graphics similar to Minecraft and Terraria. Since the typical zombie game graphics may be too bloody for a casual game. Pixel graphics with a more vibrant tone will be less scary more appealing to more people, widening the game’s audience.

Game Treatment

Game Mechanics

The player spawns into the game with a pistol, in early rounds, this weapon will be sufficient for the player to defend himself. The player will collect points when he deals damage or kills a zombie. When the game progresses, zombies will become stronger, including having more health and speed. The player can use the accumulated points to buy stronger weapons, unlock new areas of the map, buy perks and defensive gadgets. As normal gameplay goes, the game as a sole objective of surviving as long as possible, though an alternative easter egg ending can be implemented later in the development stage.

Weapon System

The player will obtain different weapon when the game progresses. These weapons will have different behaviours to suit the player’s playstyle.

Power-Ups and Gadgets

In the original CoD Zombie mode, players in late game will have a lot of points, but there is nowhere to spend these points. Considering the gameplay will slow down for any round based game and it is not a good mechanics for casual, time killing game, some power-ups and gadgets can be added to the game to help the player to achieve a more consistent gameplay speed over a match, and create something for the player to spend their points on.

Once the player purchased their first weapon other than the pistol, they can consider buying power-ups. These perks will be benefiting a player who likes to roam around the map. Some power-up ideas that can be implemented will be an increase in player health, their speed (both movement and reload speed) and an extra life when they are downed by the zombies.

For players who prefer defending a spot, gadgets can be purchased to slow down the attack from zombies. These gadgets are intended to be placed in bottlenecks in the map, so when the zombies try to pass through, they will be slowed down or killed by the gadgets.

Concept Art

Pixel graphics will be used throughout the game including UI. Some examples will be displayed to showcase the game’s art styling.

Game World Graphics

The theme of the game world will be very similar to the first map in CoD Zombie, Nacht der Untoten, which is an abandoned stone building. But having a brighter and more saturated, vibrant colour.

Player Graphics

The player will look like an ordinary soldier in WW2, wearing black uniform and a military green helmet.

Graphics for Miscellaneous Objects