APPENDIX C
Game Design Document
Bedlam Games, located in Toronto, Canada, and makers of the Dungeons & Dragons games, work routinely with Game Design Documents. The following is an excerpt from their GDD for the game Red Harvest. The excerpt was prepared by their creative director, Zando Chan.
Notice that the GDD contains references to audio, scripted dialogue, lore, level design (map and metrics, which are the dimensions of the space), concept art for the characters, description of the actions, and information about the interfaces including the importance of a timer.
Keep in mind that what you are reading is part of an actual GDD that many different artists, programmers, animators, etc. worked from to build the game. As you read, imagine what role you might adopt for such a project. Pay special attention to the information provided for whatever role you might take on, and determine then, how you have complete instructions on what to create, but plenty of room to develop your part of the project based on the skills and experience you would bring to the team.
Red Harvest Overview
Your bus has crashed in the town of Crestwood and you are the only survivor. Red Harvest is a third-person true survival-horror game with innovative new mechanics that redefine the genre to heart-pounding effect. With demonic enemies attacking from every direction, you must make your way through the town in order to survive. Use fortification to buy precious time for your escape. Discover weapon improvisation using everyday objects found throughout the town and do whatever it takes to outlast your enemies. This unique blend of action and horror creates a new player experience that induces primal fear and tension in players, simultaneously empowering them with tools to confront challenges in a close, visceral way. Red Harvest is a world of nightmares and terror that will test your limits in order to survive.
Player Characters
There are two playable characters in the game. Player one plays as Sam Wells, a blues musician, and player two plays as Job, an electrician.
Over the course of the game story, each of the protagonists faces nightmarish creatures and their own dark secrets.
Sam Wells (Player Character 1)
Height: 6′
Weight: 181 lbs
Age: 44
Complexion: Caucasian
Hair: Silver, long
Build: Tall, thin, and wiry
Nationality: U.S.A.
Background:
Sam Wells is a 46-year-old blues master. He has been playing the blues guitar from the day his mother bought him a cherry-red Stratocaster for his sixth birthday. He's average height, scruffy-haired, flecks of grey blending with a permanent stubble. Never caught without his leather boots and guitar, he has lived most of his life as an enigma, a wandering traveler with no family and no connections. Finding session gigs wherever he can, he travels by bus to wherever he feels like going. He is revealed to be suffering from signs of schizophrenia, as a coping mechanism for the horrors he witnesses during Red Harvest.
Job Waters (Player Character 2)
Height: 6′
Weight: 170 lbs
Age: 32
Complexion: Caucasian
Hair: Black
Build: Thin
Nationality: U.S.A.
Background:
Job is an electrician of average height, clean-shaven, with jet-black hair and fairly athletic. Job is an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist suffering schizophrenia who has been in and out of hospitals since he was a child. He developed night tremors and imaginary personas that dissipated once he was on the proper medication. Ultimately, Job is a figment of Sam's imagination, a result of Sam's schizophrenia.
Narrative
The Story of Red Harvest
Red Harvest is a story of panic and survival.
Sam Wells, a 46-year-old blues musician, boards a bus on an otherwise average mid-afternoon. He settles into his seat, falls asleep, and sets out on what appears to be an uneventful journey.
Sam awakes to find the bus has pulled over to the side of the road with its hazards blinking. Every passenger has vanished, save one: Job Waters, an electrician who seems to know less about what has happened to them than Sam does.
The two stranded passengers set out for a journey into the town of Crestwood, only to discover it is overrun with an endless array of disturbing creatures who wish nothing more than to add Sam and Job to the long list of missing townspeople. There is little choice but to run and attempt to fortify within any space available and with whatever dilapidated pieces of scrap are left for them. Weapons are scarce, food nonexistent, and each moment of life becomes more precious by the second. A breakneck tension takes an uncompromising hold on the events and refuses to let go. An uneasy feeling permeates the minds of the two survivors; there seems to be more to this forsaken spot of the earth than previously thought.
Their journey takes them through the various overrun hallmarks of the town: a farmhouse, a church, a warehouse and finally, the Crestwood police station, located on the downtown strip. Here they discover a seething nest, steadily spawning creatures to attack the town. Sam and Job take it upon themselves to raze the downtown core and thus, the nest, by lighting fortifications on fire. Successful, they escape to the bus station, steal a bus and leave the town hoping their nightmare is over. Sam, exhausted, collapses into a bus seat and falls asleep. He wakes only to discover he is in the exact same situation as he was when he arrived in Crestwood. The bus is pulled over, the hazards are blinking, and Job is nowhere to be seen. Unsure of whether Job was real or imagined, Sam breaks down under the pressure as a horde of new creatures descends upon the bus.
Red Harvest Matinees
The Red Harvest matinees are comprised of motion comics that will serve as narrative devices used in the game. They include an introduction establishing the setting and characters, interstitials between the levels, and a conclusion to end the story.
Opening intro (loads into Level 1, Farm)
- Sam Wells is at a busy bus terminal in the city. The afternoon sun is bright and the city is loud: other cars, passengers, all make a bustling combination of noise fighting for attention. There are several mechanics working on one bus. Sam sees a billboard that reads, “Learn a Trade, Find a Job” with an electrician posing beside it.
- Sam lines up to put his luggage away and rudely reminds the porter to be careful with his guitar.
- Sam boards the bus and looks around at the other passengers (this is where we show that Job is not on the bus). Disgusted by the noise and confusion, he puts his hat over his head and falls asleep, his eyes closing to black.
- Sam jolts up only to find that the bus is empty. It is pitch black outside and the only sound that can be heard is the ticking of the hazard lights of the bus. Looking outside, Sam can see the road to one side and a dense forest on the other.
- Sam starts to get up and walk off the bus and finds another passenger sleeping. He wakes the man up, an electrician named Job, who is equally confused, and the two get off the bus together.
- Coming quickly to the conclusion that not much can be done at the bus, the two start walking to a farmhouse up the road in search of help and answers.
Script
EXT. BUS STATION-DAY We open to a billboard with a tagline that reads, “LEARN A TRADE, FIND A JOB” with an older, mid-50s bald man wearing a welder's mask underneath. It stands above a crowded bus station, mid-afternoon. The sun is shining and the sky is clear. There are several buses, each with their own exclusive lines of people waiting to board. SFX: Noise pollution: traffic, murmurs of conversation, city rumble. SAM WELLS, 46, a scruffy blues guitar master, stands in line beside his bus, guitar case at his feet. Sam watches the bus next to him. The bus is broken down with several mechanics examining it. They wear
coveralls and are looking into the steaming, open engine. The potential passengers are already frustrated with the service. A scrawny porter, no older than 20, grabs Sam's guitar to load it into the cargo carrier. Wells suddenly GRABS the kid's arm. SAM That guitar is worth more than your weight in gold, kid. Sam lets go of the stunned porter and boards the bus. CUT TO: INT. BUS Sam gives his ticket to the driver and we follow his gaze as he scans the seats. The average mixture of stu- dents, new parents, lost fathers, all bundled together for the next 8 hours. Sam finds his seat and sits down. The bus pulls away. Sam's eyes close as he speaks, fading us to pulses of black. CUT TO: INT. BUS—NIGHT Sam startles himself awake. The bus has stopped; the sun is gone, replaced by a cool night blue interrupted by the flash of the bus's hazard lights. SFX: Hazards clicking (prominent), night country noises, i.e., crickets, ambience. Sam is confused; he checks his surroundings, the bus looks completely empty. He gets up and walks to the front exit. He sees a young man dressed in coveralls sleeping with his head leaning against the window. Sam wakes the man, who is startled and confused. SAM Hey, you, what's going on? JOB (Startled, as if daydreaming, calm) Oh, I'm not—I have no idea. Where…where is everyone?
Sam gives him a puzzled look. Sam isn't sure what to make of this kid. SAM Well, don't you think we should find out what the hell is goin' on? JOB Yeah, yes. Yes, we should. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY Sam and Job step off the bus. It is pulled over to the side of the road, hazards still blinking. On one side of the road is dense forest, on the other, a farmhouse in the distance. SAM So I doze off, and everyone's gone. No driver, no note, no nothing. Did you see where they went? JOB No, I don't know. SAM Were you asleep? JOB I think so. SAM You think so? How can you think so? JOB There's a farm up that hill, maybe they went there. Sam stares at the silhouette of the lonely farmhouse ahead. SAM Let's get going then. JOB Yeah, sure, okay. Let's get going. Sam gives Job an annoyed look as they walk towards the farmhouse.
Levels
While chapters are sequential and linear, the challenges the protagonists have to face (and survive) in each chapter are not always linear, and can often be approached in any order. In this way, each chapter acts like a hub, with the players having to work together in order to survive and progress in any way they can.
Time management is a key to the players' survival. Distancing themselves from enemies and fortifying or barricading entryways will give them more time to solve gating devices. Levels are designed around balancing the resources of time, health, and weaponry. For instance, scenarios are presented in which the player can sacrifice some of his physical health in order to preserve time.
Interior environments will contain fortification points at doors, door frames, and windows. Fortifying these points prevents groups of enemies from entering a room through multiple entry points all at once. The player can shut and lock doors and windows, use found items to create a fortification, and move objects in front of doorways to form barricades.
The target playpath for the game is 90 minutes of gameplay spread out across multiple levels and gameplay modes. Each level will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Level Design Metrics
Level 1—Farm
Farm Walkthrough
- Player wanders through a deserted farm field with a lone light source illuminating the barn next to the heavily damaged farmhouse.
- Objective conveyed to player on HUD—Find help.
- Basic traversal tutorial conveyed to player on HUD.
- Player voice-over reacts to sight of smashed farmhouse.
- Enemy Intro Matinee—A drone enemy jumps out of house and charges at the player.
- Run and Evasion Combat tutorials conveyed to player on HUD.
- While player evades multiple enemies around the farmhouse and goes to a shed, objective to find refuge in the shed is conveyed to player on HUD.
- Player enters the shed behind the farmhouse and is presented with Fortification Tutorial via HUD. Player finds multiple resource piles in shed and fortifies the entrance, shaking the pursuit of the enemy creatures.
- Player enters farm working area. He is presented with a new objective via the HUD—escape the farm.
- He sees a few barn-like buildings and a key on the wall of a shed protected by an electric fence. Player must retrieve the key from behind the fence, but in order to do so must shut off the power to the farm at the electrical box across the yard. Touching the fence while it is electrified will deliver damage to the player character.
- Once power to the fence is shut down, player retrieves the key and is ambushed by a large number of enemy creatures.
- Player must retreat into the barn and begin to fortify the exits and entrances.
- Inside the barn, player finds a melee weapon pickup. He is presented with the Weapon Combat Tutorial via the HUD.
- Player must fight at multiple entry points to slow the decay of the fortifications and replenish when possible. At this point, near the back of the barn, an action QTM Event occurs in which an enemy lieutenant reaches through the window and attempts to grasp the player.
- Player must use the weapon to break a fortification point blocking his path to the back of the barn. Player leaves barn and enters stable. Player reinforces fortification point and a Drone Enemy sticks its head through a gap in the fortification. Player is presented with the Fortification Defense Tutorial via the HUD.
- Player must fight off limited horde numbers and escape through the back of the stable into a blood-soaked cornfield.
Interface—HUD
HUD design
This section describes the appearance, layout, and functionality of the in-game HUD for Red Harvest.
Overview
The HUD for Red Harvest keeps the screen traffic to a minimum, keeping most of the screen real estate free to show the action.
- The player's primary status cluster is visible at all times.
- Additional information, such as timers, ammo counts, and context-sensitive messaging, are only displayed at times in which they are relevant.
