Design Influences
Game Design Influences (Examples from other games, movies, books that could be used)
A groundbreaking 3D adventure thriller, set in an AI-driven future. Subvert the world, hack the system and solve dark conspiracies to uncover the devastating truth. You play as Robert Foster as he arrives in Union City hoping to rescue a missing child who was kidnapped by a big machine that was seen heading towards the city walls. Robert has a colourful past that lead him to trusting Union City to an AI over 10 years ago and giving it the directive to make the citizens happy. Upon returning to the city, Robert discovers a rich utopian paradise where every citizen's needs and wants are catered to but there's something sinister going on behind the scenes that resulted in the kidnapping of the child. Overall, the story is quite intriguing and it all ends in a satisfying climax.
Beyond a steel sky is a classic point and click game, objectives appear on the way as the player roams around on the map. This leads him to discovering a a lot of secrets about who's actually operating the Steel skies.
- Point and click games are simple to build
- Increases the amount of story part and decreases the effort to make every spirit move in a specific way.
- Objectives are shown in a hints box
- Simple controls ease the building process
- Much higher emphasis required on design
Screenshots:
StarCraft is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance among four species—the adaptable and mobile Terrans, the ever-evolving insectoid Zerg, the powerful and enigmatic Protoss, and the godlike Xel'Naga creator race—in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector.
The central objective of StarCraft is to defeat oponents by overpowering them, usually by destroying all of their buildings. Buildings are destroyed by units; units are trained in and spawn from buildings and thus zero buildings results in a loss: no buildings => no units. Buildings also need resources (minerals, Vespene gas) to be built and run, these resources can be collected from the surrounding area by units or by dedicated mining equipment.
The game used a controlling system (on Computer) very similar to many modern RTS games;
- menu and UI elements navigated with mouse;
- units selected with mouse;
- movement direction determined with mouse;
- unit actions determined with keyboard.
- high-detail pixel textures
- simple selection/movement controls
- tutorial mission
- changeable difficulty
- map is largest UI element
- movement controls are usable on screen window or through UI map
- menu UI element is labelled
- menu is easy to navigate
- UI is very simple and can be difficult to navigate on first playthrough
- window resolution is low for modern screen resolutions
- no labels on important UI elements
Main Menu:
Game Start Menu:
Mission Start Menu:
Game UI:
- mission map is located bottom-left
- currently selected units are located bottom-centre
- action UI elements are located bottom-right
- current unit health, current crystal count, and vespene gas level
Unit Selection:
- units are selected by holding the left-mouse-button and selecting
Unit Movement:
- movement direction is selected by clicking the right-mouse-button
